A few weeks ago, ETSU’s student Conservative Coalition elected its new officers in preparation for a busy academic year. As a member of the coalition myself, I want to encourage our new board members, the coalition and conservatives campus-wide to be consistent with conservative principles and defend causes with the right reasons and in the right ways.
A popular impulse in the conservative movement is to aim at conserving traditional values. While many values we treasure are worth preserving, it is the wrong mindset to preserve them on this basis alone. We may think there is value in preserving something grounded in history and provably efficacious as opposed to new ideologies that might appear unproductive to us, but upon reflection, this sort of thinking surfaces as little more than the fallacy of chronological snobbery. However, not only is historicity unequal to validity, but even the basis for deeming our stance as historical and conservative is tied to our counterpart – progressivism.
The aptly-named progressive movement continues marching further left, becoming more liberal with each victory it attains. To illustrate this, consider democratic-socialist candidate Bernie Sanders. Fifty years ago, no one would have dreamed a socialist could attain the presidency. Also consider the left’s progress in recognizing more genders now than ever before, and that Bill Clinton’s views when elected in 1992 would have landed him as a moderate Republican today.
But while the progressive movement has been shifting through the decades, it hasn’t been alone. Conservatism has been defining its traditional values in relation to the liberal position, and thus its definition of those values has been shifting as well. Broadly speaking, we no longer care as much about our beliefs about abortion or the definition of marriage, taxation or the role of the federal government, albeit the Washington Post says, “Trump has redefined what it means to be Republican” and suggests Trump’s presidency may be reversing the shift.
In general, conservatism has been so tied to progressivism, that conservatism is content to complain about the newest liberal issue for a while before accepting it itself. When conservatism’s glory consists in functioning as a check to the left – a reactionary force merely restraining its advance – the movement is slowly and steadfastly dragged behind it leftward-bound. Formerly progressive ideas are now more accepted. Thus instead of the label “conservative,” one might as well use the descriptor “less progressive.” As progressivism becomes more liberal, we assume we are doing nobly to defend the views deemed traditional in relation to its progress.
Therefore, in contrast to defining ourselves by a shifting view of tradition, conservatives need to stand on consistent, immutable moral principles. Political issues are moral issues, and when we stand on firm, moral foundations, there is no room for fluctuation. To ensure our moral compass is never altered, our morality should not be defined by the fallible opinion of the government or the populous, but it can only be defined objectively by a higher power.
Religion – and I would add the Christian religion – provides absolute morality, as a godless worldview cannot consistently offer it and indeed leads to arbitrary political convictions. Although many if not most conservatives are religious, we’ve been waiting until now to consistently apply our religion to politics that root the movement in objective morality, resulting in steady and just governance as well as a fair mindset among voters – a good example of which would include a refusal to defend executive action by President Trump after upbraiding parallel actions by Obama.
I encourage Chairman Holdon Guy, the other coalition officers and all campus conservatives to remember what we are conserving. We are not contending for traditional values that go out of vogue when we stop seeing the significance we’ve arbitrarily assigned them. The moral principles we believe do not change, and by standing on them, we are guaranteed objectivity and stability. When these are practiced faithfully, political governance will achieve justice as the framework for morality rests unshaken.
