Conservatism and Progressivism by David Hamilton

By David Hamilton

First published at Traditional Britain Group

We must understand the difference between a patriotic way of thinking and that of “Progressives” and “Internationalists.” Their ideological view is often based on a book and people are expected to refer to it and divergence from orthodoxy leads to being denounced or given correctional training. This happened in the Soviet Union, Mao’s China, Cambodia under Pol Pot and in the West now under Political Correctness. This is a Marxist strain but it came in with the New Left under the guise of a new Liberalism. Even now well-meaning liberals promote PC without understanding its totalitarian nature.

This debate is contemporary Metaphysics, the branch of philosophy that examines the nature of reality. It includes the relationship between mind and matter, essence and attribute and fact and value. Metaphysics is the philosophical study of being and knowing. What is real, what is illusion; what is actually happening and what are political myths.

Progressivism encompasses Liberalism through to Marxism: the “isms” that grew out of the French Enlightenment. They believe in abstract universals, we believe in concrete “particulars.” These type of Universals are abstract terms like humanity whereas a specific people is a particular. Abstract universalist thinking leads to intervention in the internal policies of other sovereign states. We concrete particularists are concerned with our own nation. We do believe in substantial universals which I will come to later.

Progressives erect a set of idealisations – what we are becoming, what we should think and how we should behave. Our human nature is fixed in the sense that we inherit genes, which give us our essence, but how we act it out or think is given form by our cultures and communities which themselves grew out of our collective psyches. We can not step outside what we are and where we belong. We are part of it and it is what makes us social beings.

The great Daily Telegraph satirist Michael Wharton aka Peter Simple used fictional figures to satirise this trait in his column. Dr. Heinz Kiosk embodied guilt: ”We are all guilty; Dr Spacely-Trellis “go-ahead” Bishop of Bevindon in the Stretchford Conurbation, progressive’s; Dorothy Dutt-Pauker “the Hampstead thinker,” who lived at Marxmount, embodied Bourgoise Socialism.

Wharton used to enjoy going for a drink in an ordinary pub which is “being” as opposed to “becoming.” It is contentment in one’s culture and community not a constant striving to adopt a role created for us by progressives. We are social beings and it is the everyday pleasures in our communities in which we belong, that give us happiness. This respect for our everyday life leads to our duty to our families and responsibility for them, not to outsiders like the elites.

The word Progressive encapsulates the intellectual movement from the Enlightenment that led to the orthodoxy of the current elite. It has some common dogmas – like change being better than conservation and the belief that we are progressing to a utopian future – The Brotherhood of Man, a classless society etc It originated with the Enlightenment idea of Progress which is related to the classical liberal belief in the “perfectibility of man” and a supposed God-like ability to transcend nature including their own human nature.

We are not evolving to a pre-ordained end, but a wholesome culture does improve people and thus the community whereas contemporary art and popular culture is destroying our higher artistic traditions and is a part of our contemporary descent into decadence. This regression will be made worse with the peak oil crisis which Progressives view this as just a potential hiccup in inevitable progress or “historicism.”

Evolution is not continual progress, it is adaptation, but progressives conflate the two. In fact, what evolutionary pressure there is on humanity is not inevitably leading to the androgenous world of the feminists; the classless society of Marxists or the raceless world of the multi-racialists – all types of progressive teleology which try to try to ignore substance: the material world and the differences in human bodies.

The personal benefit is that the dogma enables progressives to avoid facing reality. Progressives see people coming together in places of disorder and rebellion, and a mural of Israeli tanks in Gaza they see as street art, not a British Muslim threat of war against Jews. They take a superficial view of reality. It is a defence because if they looked deeper they would be frightened and have to face the future. In fact, they like to drive to immigrant areas to sample the way of life with an exotic dance performance or curry. That is like tourism and they are spectators of exotic life until they drive back home! It is a shallow view of what is going on around us

Once luxuriant African states fall into crime and poverty, once prosperous, economically successful Detroit descends in to crime and poverty, even hunger is there now; but progressives pretend we are progressing. Not even New Orleans penetrated their bubbles. They go on holiday to Jamaica where safe areas are sectioned off for tourists, but do not connect that reality with our inner cities which are no-go areas for Whites. Even when Muslims blow up trains and there are almost weekly terror trials going on, they dream that we are all coming together.

In Reality the world is overpopulated and in most places the primary trait for reproductive success is the ability to organize violence, or some sublimation of it, and a determination to produce as many children as possible. Our cities are being colonized by people with grudges against us for humiliating their ancestors with the Empire and a perverse version of the slavery. There are no spontaneous colonies of nice liberal progressives springing up in Nairobi and Beijing. In the future, the advantages are likely to diminish, as six billion people compete for the resources of a planet that can support one billion and we wring our hands while other ethnic groups reach for their guns and come here to plunder us. All kept quiet by the Western media.

Progress, from Latin progressus, “an advance”, is the idea that the world can become better in science, technology, modernization, liberty, democracy, quality of life, etc. Progress is usually associated with the Western notion of monotonic change in a straight, linear fashion, alternative conceptions exist, such as the cyclic theory of eternal return, or the “spiral-shaped” dialectic progress of Hegel, Marx, et al.

We need to eschew this idealistic thinking and face reality. This requires Practical Reason which is to reflect on how life works and how people actually behave and what they are capable of doing to each other. Bertrand Russell regarded practical thinking as philistinism, but that is not what I mean. To bring millions of disparate people together is impractical and unrealistic and the silly metaphor of a melting pot shows how facile the plan is. To think practically about this would be to reflect on what is really happening from examples and, not propagandise people into thinking that wish would happen is happening. It is to consider the consequences of actions and not socially engineer people for a future utopia; it is not to pretend human nature is a social construct, but by accurate assessment of how people really behave to make wise judgements of others. It is a belief in wisdom which comes from living life, rather than learning ideology by rote and mindlessly repeating the right things.

Learning history is a significant part of understanding how people behave from previous examples and of understanding ourselves by knowing our origins. The interpretations vary but the basic facts are consistent. We need to apply the lessons of history to our present circumstances. When aliens are invited in they start to take territory: it is human nature. There are historical precedents to guide us such as when the Anglo Saxons were invited in and then the Normans.

Free Will and Determinism is applied in a biased way. We think we make rational choices based on our own thoughts and feelings but we are largely determined by our genes and community or, political propaganda. Different ethnic groups are treated differently by the progressive elites: they speak of us in the active voice while ethnics are spoken of in the passive voice which avoids naming the responsible parties. “Youths,” did it; but we are active and responsible- “racists”. The classic example is Steven Lawrence; another is the Michelle Gribbons TV propaganda about Black crime. (2) The orthodox view is that ethnic groups can’t help themselves when they riot or mug White people because they are determined by outside forces – our racism or the unhistorical version of the slave trade; conversely, we have free will, and are culpable. This shows the underlying prejudice against us of the elites and their favouritism to ethnic minorities even though they preach equality.

Ideological use of language. Thinking is like a conversation with oneself or an absent other and is done in words. Language is how we convey our thoughts or facts about the shared world to ourselves and others.

There is a deeper difficulty: take those beset by the pathology of schizophrenia or the Schizoid personality. This involves a division between emotion and thinking. A suppression of feeling occurs with alcoholics or drug addicts. They may like or dislike someone but do not realise it because they can not think about it and it is the arranging of feelings into thoughts that brings the feelings into consciousness. The more rational and articulate, the more feelings are understood. The contemporary totalitarian elites are actively suppressing natural feelings and risking a mass break out of negative emotion.

It is possible to feel or be moved by instinct without language, but not understand consciously what one is feeling. It is not possible to explain your thoughts or feelings without language, and reducing vocabulary reduces thought so if the state controls thought and language we are controlled in our ability to think as was demonstrated by the descriptions of Newspeak in Orwell’s 1984. They make use of linguistic connotations like “racism” which only applies to “White” or “British”.

The study of language has been important in modern philosophy. Wittgenstein talked about the “bewitchment” of language. This is customary in public relations and advertising but in political propaganda it is manipulation not bewitchment. An example of how the elites try to change our thinking by changing our vocabulary was in The Sun online on January 14th. It reported that the government had published guidelines for the media suggesting some words and stories about non-white crime be dropped. Words to be suppressed: “immigrant,” “illegal immigrant,” “illegal asylum seeker,” “bogus asylum seeker,” “non-white,” “non-Christian,” “mixed race,” “half-caste,” “mulatto.” There is the substitution of euphemistic terms for those that reflect reality as in the official designation of “Anti-Islamic activity” for Muslim terrorists.

The use of Political Correctness is a way of training people to think of and to perceive reality in the way the cultural elites want them to. It is imbued almost unconsciously, conditioned by the use of words and negative bogey figures: ”If you think differently you are a Nazi!”

Ideological change of meaning passes for common usage as people innocently adopt them: Bigot and tolerance are prominent examples. Bigot means one who refuses to listen to the opinions of others but is misused as a connative word that only applies to “right-wingers”. A classic example of this Doublespeak was during the general election campaign when Gordon Brown described a woman who asked him about imported labour as a bigot; but he was the one being bigoted because he refused to listen to her opinions! Tolerance meant to tolerate an action or to put up with something one did not like but is now misused to make indigenous people passive and accept being replaced by immigrants.

Then what are we?

I speak from England but the principle applies to all ethnic groups: this is a substantial universal: Our Englishness is our essence as it is carried in our genes which created our culture which in turn moulds our descendants. Attributes emanate from the essence: Our towns and villages are attributes as they were created by us over generations. British passports, the flag are attributes expressing our essence, what we are. The essence is inherited in our genes – it is substance not form . Attributes can be artificial in that they are separated from the source as when others adopting some like Chris Eubank does by adopting the form of an English gentleman. If it emanates from the essence it is felt as well as being cultural. We are having our identity erased by the elites who falsely claim immigrants share our attributes – “They are as English as you!”

In law we are responsible for our actions. If one has a car the owner is responsible for it and has a duty to it. We have to say to ourselves we have inherited this nation and culture and have a responsibility for it and a duty to it. Immigrants are sojourners. They do not have the same relation to our land. In 1914, people went to war because they thought the country was under threat and it was their duty to defend it. Progressives think we can transcend these deep and strong emotional bonds with our own kin and territory. They can not understand it because in their minds they have separated the two. Progressives think you can train and coerce people into giving up emotional bonding with their nation, community and their land.

Appearance and Reality.

Reality is proved by the appearance. A foreigner does not need to look in the mirror he knows what he is and as his kind try to take our territory off us their children are brought up in their own culture and start to form rival communities to ours. The tradition is the content : events take place in history like Trafalgar or Ombdurman and we respect them and keep them going in celebrations and it becomes the content: it adds to the existing tradition giving us a scaffold as it were to structure our lives and culture. We keep them alive in our minds and they give us strength and confidence. We depend on the appearance to perceive the reality. The idealist notion that reality lies behind the appearance is not accessible to empirical investigation.

A split in the contemporary understanding of appearance and reality is pretending that different types of people are really the same. To keep the illusion going they violate the immigrants attributes as having no essence and being transforming them into natives just like us – “He’s as English as you or me!” But most empirical evidence shows how false this assumption is. Firstly, we did not become like them in their countries and second very few of them have adapted to our ways as anyone can see by going to immigrant areas.

Progressives believe in universal principles and think immigrants will imbibe them and conform to them, but their appearance betokens a different ancestry and they bring their own principles, history and culture with them. Those who hold appearance is an illusion view it is as merely different skin colour.

What is the basis of knowledge?

Bertrand Russell, in The Problems of Philosophy, queried how we know that objects around us exist. His example was a table but in the common sense world we know it exists because if we rise and bump our knee on it hurts; further, it keeps us suspended above the ground and, if removed, we fall down. We know this because experience has taught us this natural law in similar situations and it is therefore predictable.

There is a universal we can accept: Substantial Universals like the basic human nature which is born into all humans - varying degrees of inherited qualities like instinct, intuition, insight, love, hate, jealousy, loyalty etc. A capacity for understanding the world around us and taking in new information. We are not born with wholly formed a priori knowledge but certain qualities that lead us in a direction as we learn. One will like making things, another drawing. We are born into a ready-formed natural world that contains our historical and cultural worlds and this develops us as our ancestors created it to our varying capacities. This human nature is constant otherwise the characters in The Bible and the Classics would be strange to us, but they are not. Their cultures are different but they are recognisably men and women like us. Our common human nature is fulfilled in communities and this is universal as it applies to all racial groups. It is that that causes racial conflict: each group has loyalties and pieties to their own and defines itself in opposition to the other group. This is because the structure of the human mind is similar, but the contents of the minds of these respective groups, those above mentioned qualities, are directed towards their own people.

Mind and Body

The contemporary understanding exemplifies the “Cartesian Duality” between mind and body: the difference between mind and body is exemplified in the contemporary Feminist notion that although our bodies are different in being male or female the minds are the same. This implies a split between mind and body but in fact the two interact as we get to know ourselves we learn that our thoughts and experiences are bound up with our knowledge of our bodies. This is why men and women have different natures. The mind is linked to body or the physical structure of mind, else it could float around and attach itself respectively to other bodies and minds and interact. People of different sizes and disabilities feel differently about the world and act accordingly. The difference between male and female bodies has a similar effect. We treat people by their size or members of the opposite sex differently.

The contemporary western ethos is rooted in the mind-body split and the disregard of the material world. We know it exists because it can hurt as in the case of the table and the misery caused by a tragedy is no illusion. This is the basis of the Western delusion that the material world like people is a social construct but it really exists and is the source of out tragedies and pleasures as it acts on our bodies and our bodies interact with it. Was it a social construct that killed Michael Foucault? It was the consequence of his use of his substantial body, in the substantial material world of homosexual bath houses.

In fact the spurious notion of Equality is based on this and the idea that everyone be treated equally is unjust as we should try to treat people by their characters and merits. In most healthy cases the mind and body are interactive and influence each other. It is unjust that talented people are held back in schools and colleges to make the less able equal. The difference in male and female bodies has a similar effect.

Ethics is thinking about how we should live

It is a system of moral principles that affect how people make decisions and lead their lives. Ethics is concerned with what is good for individuals and society and is also described as moral philosophy. The term is derived from the Greek word ethos which can mean custom, habit, character or disposition. Ethics covers the following dilemmas: how to live a good life; our rights and responsibilities, what is right and wrong, what is good and bad?

It is looking for an answer to a question based on our notion of right or wrong. A common approach is for one to pursue self-interest but rationalise it as businessmen do who want freedom to make more money while those at the bottom call for equality. Philosophers disallow this and say there is a moral question. Free-willed acts are a certain sort of moral choice with a moral base. But is it a moral base? If we are determined it is because you are made that way like a dog choosing a bone.

We need no intellectual reasons or underpinnings to justify our allegiance to or emotional bonding with our own kind any more than we have to justify favouring our children over someone else’s. Parents who want other people’s children to do better than their own are perverse and unnatural.

Look at data from the Office of National Statistics (which doesn’t take into account the births to mothers born here) then look at your sons and daughters and ask, ”Am I betraying my own children? Where will they live and work?”

To give favourable treatment to aliens over what the fifth Marquess of Salisbury called “our kith and kin,” is morally evil. We have natural bonds with our families, a responsibility for them and a duty to them. We have a duty to pass on what we have inherited from our forebears to our children, as they, in turn, will have a duty to their children. We owe a debt to our ancestors who bequeathed to us our nation and culture, and we must honour that.

It is morally wrong to share the inheritance of our descendants with foreigners as the rulers are doing for their own short-term gains through cheap labour. In our everyday lives Ethics are what we do, how we act.

The present Conservative government plans drastic financial cuts for us, but increases in overseas aid! It is immoral to cut our pensioners benefits and community centres while we give overseas aid to other countries. This perverse attitude grew from the Victorian middle class influenced by evangelical Christianity, which believed it was a duty to ‘save’ unchristian natives. It became a preference over the British working class which endures today. Characteristic of this is Mrs Jellyby in Dickens’s Bleak House, whose eyes ‘had a curious habit of seeming to look a long way off, as if they could see nothing nearer than Africa’. Like the elites she neglected those around her, including notoriously her own children. Her thoughts were directed instead towards the fictitious African possession of Borrioboola Gha and her idealistic plans for its development.

The material world like our bodies is really there and we know this by sensing it and its impact on us when we get hurt or, with bodies, when we enjoy each others bodies in love. That is interactive: the chemicals cause the mental and emotional feelings of love and the body interacts with these and acts out the feelings. Our contest with the progressive orthodoxy is reality: what is actually happening, what are the real consequences of their unrealistic philosophy and ideas. We have seen through the contemporary wish-fulfilment imitation of reality, now we have to study what is really going on through collating incidents and news reports to derive a more accurate version of reality, to develop our patriotic view of reality.