Does Conservatism Pave the Way for Progressivism ?

The Conservative Movement and its consequences have been a disaster for Western civilization. Anyone who has spent any time pursuing so-called ‘far-right’ ideas is sure to have come across the almost cliché question; what has conservatism ever managed to conserve? 

The answer, I am sure you will be surprised to hear is … nothing, absolutely nothing. 

Conservatism, if its goal is to ‘conserve’ traditional social institutions, has objectively failed in this regard time and time again since the French Revolution. As if this fact was not horrific enough, conservatism, in my estimation, has actually benefited progressivism in its goals of destruction, not only by being so ineffective in its conservation attempts but, in its failure, to act on its own outside of a progressive framework, while in the meantime, evolving its principles over time to be more in line with progressives, essentially becoming no different. 

As Julius Evola put it, to be ‘of the Right’ one must not merely be ‘counter leftist’ but should develop their own independent form of action. Furthermore, one of the Right should establish a correct relationship with modernist ideas: revolution, democracy, equality, and scientism — and should also seek to embrace and understand traditional ideas: spirituality, Christianity, hierarchy, and monarchy. 

It is only by embracing tradition and rejecting modernism can the Right prosper once again to create a functioning society, one which upholds those views and principles, that, before the French Revolution, every well-born person considered sane and normal.

If we examine the etymology of the word conserve from which the word conservatism comes, then we see that conservatism, from the outset, is doomed to fail as a political ideology. The word conserve has a few definitions: to keep in a safe or sound state, or to avoid wasteful or destructive use of. 

This implies that there is some outside force or danger to that which one is trying to conserve. Conservatism, at least originally, attempted to preserve traditional Christian European society against the onslaught of progressive leftists, whose ideas originated during the ‘Renaissance’ and blossomed during the corrosive ‘French Revolution’. 

This restricts conservatism to being a ‘counter-leftist’ ideology, relying on some encroachment of the progressives in order for it to act in opposition to this movement, yet to never actively fight back. This immediately places conservatism on the backfoot. Imagine a boxer, whose strategy is simply to stand still and block and dodge their opponents’ punches, until they tire, and then allows their opponent to move back and rest before continuing the assault. 

This is the political strategy of conservatives and has been since its inception as an ideology, can anyone seriously trust this plan of action to produce good results? 

‘In Defence of Conservatism’ is the title of a piece already published by the Burkean, which highlights the mental decay of a mind infected with the pernicious, debilitating, mind-virus of conservatism. There are many eyebrow raising statements written that leaves a thoughtful reader wondering if the author was sincere, extremely naïve, or if this was some elaborate troll against ‘muh ebil right wingers’ by some subversive leftist. 

The author seems delighted by the fact that conservatism is so vague and that anything can be conservative, allowing homosexuals the chance to larp as a married couple in legal documents only, is somehow a conservative belief according to this author. 

Quoting directly, he says “The vagueness of conservatism, far from being a drawback, is actually a strength.” I struggle to find any possible reason how someone could sincerely believe this. How can any group expect to be victorious in something if they are not even sure what their aims are? In this sense, I suppose, the author believes conservatism is an ever-winning ideology because he can just make up the conditions for winning after-the-fact and claim to have won.

 While it is certainly true that conservatism is vague in its dimensions, this analysis leaves more to be desired. Arguably the most pathetic action of conservatism and its followers is the adoption of what they once fought against. This habit of conservatives was excellently acknowledged and critiqued by Robert Lewis Dabney in 1897 when he said: 

It may be inferred again that the present movement for women’s rights will certainly prevail from the history of its only opponent: Northern conservatism. This is a party which never conserves anything. Its history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation. What was the resisted novelty of yesterday is today one of the accepted principles of conservatism; it is now conservative only in affecting to resist the next innovation, which will tomorrow be forced upon its timidity and will be succeeded by some third revolution; to be denounced and then adopted in its turn. American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward towards perdition. It remains behind it, but never retards it, and always advances near its leader … Its impotency is not hard, indeed, to explain. It is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It intends to risk nothing serious for the sake of the truth, and has no idea of being guilty of the folly of martyrdom … The only practical purpose which it now serves in American politics is to give enough exercise to Radicalism to keep it “in wind,” and to prevent its becoming pursy and lazy, from having nothing to whip. No doubt, after a few years, when women’s suffrage shall have become an accomplished fact, conservatism will tacitly admit it into its creed

These words are quite prophetic when one considers now how often we hear conservatives say that they are ‘the true feminist’. 

Herein lies the real problem with conservatives, they originally show their teeth against progressives without any real threat of a bite, then roll over hoping for a belly rub for being a good boy and being on ‘the right side of history’ by accepting these new principles. Usually, this action takes a couple of years to finish. Interestingly, the speed at which progressives successfully normalise and mainstream their ideas is increasing by an order of magnitude each time. 

If one considers that it took roughly 100 years for feminism to be accepted, and then 10 years for homosexuality, and now only a year of sincere effort for transgenderism to be essentially accepted within society, one wonders how quickly transhumanism may be accepted by society. This increase in speed indicates that something has changed, otherwise how would progressives win quicker and quicker with each advance. While it is certainly true that feminism has totally corrupted the Occident, and has allowed for other antinatural, dangerous ideas to be accepted more quickly, conservatives are also to blame for their inability to fight back against any serious push from progressives. 

What then is conservatism? With its acceptance of new progressive presuppositions, it would seem as though conservatism only exists in order to protect the status quo of the recent past; a past, which is already entirely built on a progressive, liberal and egalitarian foundation. Now that conservatives have readily accepted ideas such as materialism, equality, democracy, feminism, and homosexuality how are they supposed to argue against future incursions of progressives which are only logical continuations of these beliefs? With what framework and presuppositions can a conservative argue against transgenderism when they have already accepted that women and men are essentially no different and that everyone is equal. This encroachment of progressive left-wing ideas onto the Right has left little space for genuine right-wing thought, with conservatives now being the first to maliciously attack and ridicule the ideas of those to the right of them, while at the same time proclaiming themselves to be the ‘real Right’. 

It is interesting to ponder how long it takes for a conservative to accept the newest socially acceptable ideas pushed by progressives. While no exact method exists for determining the precise amount of time that needs to pass in order for this to occur, there does exist a simple rule to follow: “A conservative will reject a progressives ‘radical agenda’, until these progressives contradict themselves, in which case a conservative will adopt their false premises to use against the progressives and proclaim themselves to be the true form of whichever cause progressives claim to strive for.” 

You can rest assured knowing this act will play itself out time and again with conservatives. Take abortion for example, many of the arguments made from ‘pro-life conservatives’ were not made using Rightist presuppositions or any appeals to a higher authority. The arguments were that abortions are bad for and harm women, therefore, “because I don’t want to harm women, I am a true feminist and if you support abortion you are not a real feminist.” The problem with this line of argumentation is that it is already divergent from original Rightist or conservative thought, and in its stead relies upon the progressive idea of feminism. Here, the progressive virtue of feminism is glorified as a conservative virtue, which is then used to argue against abortions. The problem with this, is the conservative has now adopted feminism as a conservative principle, when in the not too distant past, conservatives argued against feminism, yet now, with the chance of pointing out progressive hypocrisy, the conservative adopts it whole-heartedly into his creed. 

A more recent example of conservatives adopting progressive false premises was the ‘super-straight meme’. According to know your meme “Super Straight or SuperStraight is a term coined by TikToker kyleroyce to describe a type of heterosexual person that only dates cisgender members of the opposite sex”. While many found this meme to be funny because of the backlash it caused on social media, it is, in truth, extremely detrimental to a Rightist cause. Inherent within the joke is the acknowledgement that, a mentally ill person, who decides to mutilate their genitals, in the delusional belief that by doing so they will become a member of the opposite sex actually becomes a member of the opposite sex. In essence, a man who chops off his genitals becomes a ‘transwoman’ who is also a ‘real’ woman, just not a ‘cisgender’ woman, and a term must exist to delineate between someone who only dates ciswomen as opposed to someone who dates any ‘kind’ of woman. This type of thinking is completely disgusting and only furthers the progressive cause by acknowledging the falsehood that a transwoman is in fact a woman, despite the obvious differences that separate the two.

Anyone, who still calls themselves a conservative today, should be viewed as a tragic figure similar to Edgar in Shakespeare’s King Lear, who is described by his Machiavellian brother Edmund as someone “Whose nature is so far from doing harms/ That he suspects none: on whose foolish honesty/ My practises ride easy!” In my estimation, conservatives are incredibly naïve in their worldview, they believe that progressives are playing by the same set of rules as they are, that is to say, being intellectually consistent and honest, while also wanting the best for society. Unfortunately, none of these apply to progressives. In terms of intellectual consistency and honesty, progressives constantly contradict themselves and use different sets of rules and values for each position they attempt to push. When it was time for abortion to be pushed the motto was “my body my choice”, however, now it is the progressives who are most adamant about mandatory vaccinations and this right to bodily autonomy is simply rejected as no longer an acceptable argument. 

On the idea that progressives want the best for society, only a dullard could believe such a ridiculous notion. Progressivism can be thought of as entropy, with progressivism being the political label attributed to social decay. No one can deny the fact that Occidental societies are more disordered and self-destructive now than at any time in the past. This is due to the social change pushed by intelligence agencies and hostile nomadic elites upon the unthinking masses of the Occident, through their control of the cultural outputs, mainstream media, and academia. All of which are used to mainstream degeneracy, self-loathing, and guilt, among other pernicious ideas on our societies in order to subvert them. This hardly seems to be beneficial for our societies. Will conservatives dare argue that transgender children or replacement level mass immigration, are actually not good for our societies and that anyone who thinks so is, in fact, a liar? Of course not, yet these are some of the goals progressives wish to implement or are in the process of implementing, whether they are aware of this or not.  

With all of this in mind, what then is the real Right, if it is not conservatism? The real Right should be defined in the absence of a progressive or leftist frame, defined by itself according to tradition and universal Truth. It is my belief that this universal Truth can only be defined in reference to a higher power, God, more specifically through Christianity. 

Christianity holds its place at the centre of a true European, Rightist worldview by the fact that it is the foundation that Western civilisation was built upon, and if we wish to prolong its existence, then we ought to uphold a traditional Christian worldview. A worldview wherein we would uphold important ideas such as the patriarchy, monarchy, order, morality, and Truth. These values exist outside of a progressive framework, and as such, are independent and eternal, ideals to strive for in a chaotic world. 

Those of the Right, should seek to become men of action, leave the conservatives to their ‘talk-shop’ of abstract discussion and debate, with no political consequences. It is time that the Right pushes for change, not for the sake of change, but for ourselves, our families, our people, our society, and our future. It is time to change the part of the anvil for that of the hammer, to actively push for policies and parties which we feel would better bring about our worldview, to actively go against recent progressive incursions such as ‘no-fault’ divorce, abortion, and open homosexuality, to name a few. 

It is clear that conservatism cannot be relied upon to deliver the results we wish to see politically and socially. The time has come to no longer simply play defence and hope to hold our position in the trench for as long as possible, but rather, we should pull ourselves out of the trench and charge through no man’s land toward the enemy line, in the hope to push them back and begin an advance of our own. 

There is great cause for optimism in the Occident, with the rise of many forward-thinking reactionary movements, who wish to retrace our steps out of the dark night, so that we may march forward, together, towards a bright future.