Thread by @ChrisPolPsych

A related comment: there's something to the argument that conservatism is more of a temperament than an abstract ideology. But how does temperament get fleshed out in practical terms? (1/n)

https://twitter.com/laseptiemewilay/status/1387603421738545154

The notion of conservatism as cautious, limit-seeking temperament is certainly consistent with at least one stream of research on personality and politics, e.g., (2/n) annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.114…

...a characterization that is nevertheless subject to various social and historical contingencies, as Ariel Malka and I show here, e.g., (3/n) onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.11…

But politics --especially at the elite level -- requires more than temperament; it requires an agenda for confronting major social challenges. Ideologies, as the above reviews suggest, differ in how pro-actively they confront those challenges. (4/n)

But even an ideological disposition that characterizes itself in terms of modesty of sociohistorical ambition has to do *something* -- especially when existing institutional solutions to major challenges break down. We're probably at one of those points now. (5/n)

So, even conservatives needs to find a practical program. Often, this program is borrowed. The question is from where? (6/n)

A lot of this turns on what practical solutions elites who are predisposed to seek order, structure, and stability borrow. Burke, for example, seemed to borrow classical-liberal economic ideas. (7/n)

Modern American conservatives do this as well, albeit with a weird, much-more utopian zeal about markets, economic individualism, and so on. (8/n)

But we now find ourselves at a point where the second era of laissez faire (ushered in by Reagan & Thatcher) is exhausted and unable to solve basic problems of social organization in a broadly satisfying way, to the extent that it was ever able to do so. (9/n)

Even to many temperamentally-conservative people, this model no longer seems like it is able to guarantee stability and order. (10/n)

So, what fills the void? In the US, ethnonationalism and religious nationalism seem to be doing this -- unrealistic, destructive fantasies of cultural uniformity are increasingly being recruited as a psychological bulwark against uncertainty and insecurity. (11/n)

But in a diverse society, this kind of authoritarianism just produces antagonistic parochialism and a counter-reaction to that parochialism, both of which have the overall effect of *increasing* social discord. (12/n)

To the extent that the resulting parochialism disproportionately favors the interests of historically-dominant racial, ethnic, or religious groups, it cannot even gain the allegiance of the relatively-large numbers of temperamental conservatives among minority groups. (13/n)

This again limits its ability to produce social cohesion at the national level -- or even cohesion within a sufficiently large conservative political coalition. (14/n)

So, again we are back at the question of what programmatic elements temperamentally-conservative elites flesh out their practical politics. The US version of conservatism is at an inflection point where it needs to settle on something. (15/n)

Dead laissez-faire dreams and destructive nationalism will not cut it. I am not conservative (though there are *elements* of conservatism that are admirable), and I have no idea what fills the gap. (16/n)

My best guess is that center-right elites might more effectively find a realistic outlet for temperamental conservatism by borrowing from political traditions that have sought to contain the market, capitalistic excess, and runaway inequality. (17/n)

European conservatives that borrowed practical ideas from moderate democratic socialism, social democracy, or even Catholic social doctrine's criticisms of free-market capitalism have almost certainly governed better than market zealots or ethnonationalists. (18/n)

Indeed, outside the limited context of WEIRD societies, we have good evidence that temperamental conservatism (in the Schwartz values sense) fits together fairly well with a desire to curb the market and market-driven inequality, e.g., (18/n) cambridge.org/core/journals/…

Of course, we see stirrings of this now in US politics, but so far the efforts are lackluster and heavily subordinated to the dominant culture-war faction's political entrepreneurs (Trump, Hawley). As such, my guess is that the road to adjustment will be long and rough. (19/19)

POSTSCRIPT: The point is that temperamentally-conservative motives can be combined with varied content. Perhaps a combination of moderately tighter social norms + more-solidaristic economics is better than cannibal capitalism and nationalist zealotry for successful governance.