A LIBERAL GUIDE TO CONSERVATISM

The terms by which we are recognized as human are socially articulated and changeable. And sometimes the very terms that confer humanness on some individuals are those that deprive certain other individuals of the possibility of achieving that status, producing a differential between the human and the less human- Judith Butler, Undoing Gender (p,2)

During my Cambridge Alevels programme, my Sociology tutor once compared the society to a ball with variously coloured sides. The crux of the analogy was that if he held it up to face the class, it would in fact be facing him too and our descriptions of the ball would depend on what side we were looking at it from. Society is shaped like this figurative ball with different sides that stand for our realities in life. Therefore, everything we consider as ‘normal’, the dos and don’ts, actions, and inactions we take all depend on where, how, and who raised us.

Ironically, this truth stared me in the face in the course of writing this article. I realized that by trying to write an article on society. I would most likely speak from my myopic traditional Christian, cisgender and middle-class point of view and this would create the fundamental problem that comes with describing the society as Butler pointed out cause how would the liberals, atheists, homosexuals, etc. fit into my description of the society and where they don’t, they are less human in a world where my point of view is the authority- conservatism.

Against this backdrop, to describe the society which is ever-evolving and diverse, our different world views are as Butler stated:

Socially articulated

There is a school of thought that argues that traditional ideas or the things we deem as normal are merely social constructs and inherently arbitrary. From John Locke’s theory that every human mind starts as a blank slate, it can be inferred that our idea of good and evil; right and left are not naturally embedded but factors of our interactions with others in the society, from the family to social media.

“Not only do we construct our own society but we also accept it as it is because others have created it before us. Society is in fact, a matter of fact” -(Berger and Luckmann 1966)

Let me walk you through this idea through something we are all familiar with. If you approach an ATM gallery, the odds are that you will queue where other people are lined up. Even where there are other free ATMs, your decision on where to queue would not be based on your actual knowledge of which machine is dispensing but simply the one people have accepted. In the same vein, most of the ideas we have normalized are based on the preponderance of support they get, it doesn’t matter whether they make sense or not. Case in point, people believed the earth was flat. Every child born into human society idealized it and carried on that totally false knowledge. Until the emergence of Pythagoras and Aristotle among others, like that bold guy who walks to the free ATM to try his luck, the socially constructed truth was that the earth is flat.

In essence, the argument that our definition of society and everything therein is socially articulated holds water. This fact over the years of human existence has morphed into a set of accepted norms and practices- conservatism.

Changeable

Unfortunately, conservatism despite its strong traditional and religious institutions is very fragile and inevitably subject to change. This raises the question of if social change is a perversion of social order or a response to man’s natural excesses which are inevitable. It would be more accurate to go with the latter as man is naturally libertine and will break out from these norms. If man was naturally good and religious, you would not have to preach fire and brimstone for him to conform, he would just be, you know, pious. If women were naturally submissive, there would be no need to quote Holy books or invoke cultural rules for her to submit, she would just submit.

“Man’s defiance of the status quo is a feature, not a bug.”

This change has been the basis of multidimensional conflicts in our modern society. The struggle for hegemony between conservatism and liberalism pervades every aspect of society. Pro-life/ pro-choice debates; feminism against traditional masculinity; God argument among many other divides is based on this conflict between well-established ‘truths’ and individual choice.

This is why we are all tools of social engineering but we just do not realize it. From the arguments on silhouette challenge and basically every comment section on social media to one Mrs. Ogedengbe telling Linda her skirt is too short, there is an underlying agreement that there are things we see as normal and when people go against them, we subconsciously try to engineer them to what is the default, or ‘good’ in our terms.

The middle ground

The idea of conservatism feels safer in its way. Everything we know follows a particular order. A strand of conservatism is growing up a cishet male, going to school, marrying a submissive wife, providing for the family, and coming back home to freshly cooked meals by your wife who is also nursing the child. The fixed nature of conservatism does not expose us to the paradox of choice where the more choices, you have, the more problems it creates. Everything is settled and you just live according to the template set for you. However, as Butler said, this ordered pattern to what society should be creates a fundamental problem- exclusion. Exclusion deprives others of being full humans. In a society where the above scenario is the only one that plays out, other forms of masculinity, homosexuality, and anything less of femininity would not fit in. Thus, outright conservatism, or as it’s politically called- extreme rightism, cannot stand.

Liberalism on the other hand can also not be left to run on its course. Liberalism is a slippery slope because it is based on individual choice which revolves around wants and human wants are insatiable, where do we stop? Individual choice is also chaotic. What is even more chaotic is the coming together of several choices. How do you accept one choice and reject the other? What moral high ground do you have to accept homosexuality but say in the same breath that transgender women are not women when they are both based on the individual choice to embrace such lifestyles. Again, where do you draw the line?

The liberal guide to conservatism

The compromise is that these two divides as opposing as they can be can also complement each other. We live in a world of realists and dreamers. Dreamers are needed to think outside the box and take society to imaginable heights, but realists are also needed to make sure that like Icarus, the dreamers do not fly too close to the sun. maybe, just maybe we can not afford to live in a society of absolute conservatism, not liberalism. One is needed to check the other.

First, if liberalism is left to run its course and we grant everyone a free pass for every ‘want’. A 50-year-old man can claim he is age fluid, feels like a 12-year-old, and feel entitled to mingling with minors. It is his individual choice and who are you to say it is pedophilia. Secondly, there can be no absolutes. We cannot polarize ourselves into liberals and conservatives in a watertight manner. Every day, we navigate life with a touch of both sides. Conservatives try to juxtapose their beliefs with their conscience and liberals will have to see the choices they fight for in light of how they affect others. To put this in a better perspective. You are a feminist, who believes women should be able to do whatever they want with their bodies but draw the line at abortion because it causes harm to infants. You are a Christian but you accept homosexuality because, at the end of the day, they are two consenting adults not harming anyone, “live and let live”. This creates a situation where we are too left for the right and too right for the left and that, is the liberal guide to conservatism.

Conclusion

I want you to cast your mind back to the first quote in this article. Take your time. Now, that you can remember, it is obvious that I cannot give a conclusion to this article. This is not due to my inability to do so but caution not to because by providing a particular definition of what the society should be, I would be circling back to the same problem Butler identified, which is creating another social construct and that would alienate some set of people, no matter how inclusive I try to be, because I would be speaking from my side of the ball. However, remember in your own little space in life, there is always a liberal approach to conservatism and you cannot live in the extremes.