CULTURAL conservatism is doomed. ‘Doomed, I tell you!’ as Dad’s Army’s Private Frazer was wont to say. Meaning that all its worthwhile integral components will wither and perish along with it. Including such ways-of-living-your-life as patriotism, the family, small government, self-restraint and stoicism. Why? Not because of their intrinsic worth. And still less because they lack foundation in invincible reality. But simply because cultural conservatives (note the imperative small ‘c’, given the Conservative Party’s awful example) have conceded the battlefield of language.
Whereby and wherefore all opinions contrary to current ‘elite values’ find themselves exiled beyond the pale as not being progressive, and not inclusive, not committed to equality — and therefore somewhere on the continuum of unacceptable speech ranging from offensive to hatespeak, attracting sanctions on a scale from ostracism to prosecution.
So who can reasonably complain about that? What decent person can possibly not be pro-progress/equality/diversity and all those other sequestered terms? Any more than they are likely to boast at parties of their hobby being kitten-drowning, or of making money by selling napalm to the North Koreans. Or, in the American context, slander ‘mom and apple pie’. It just isn’t done, is it?
Except that it is going to have to be done. Otherwise, any manifestation of cultural conservatism, or anything deviating an inch from, say, the BBC’s 24/7 live-broadcast from Polly Toynbee’s dinner parties, or the fibre-optic-cable narrow range of guardianista-speak, will be dismissible with a regal wave of an elitist hand and curl of an entitled lip. Dripping with condescension at the sheer ghastliness, darling, of having to address such impudent Hobbit values.
You surely know the tone, but just in case not, imagine Virginia Woolf inadvertently wandering into a scaffolders’ pub for ‘luncheon’ . . .
Which is why in present conditions expounding TCW’s kind of values is akin to walking up a one-in-four slope with a howling gale in your face. With much of that howling (down) done by entities supposedly on your side, including both ‘our’ Government, and its opposition, each of which writhe about before the altar of Woke and GBH the English language if called upon to consider immigration, patriotism and the-never-an-issue till today: ‘What’s a Woman?’
Because, just to take the last example, pretty much the entire political class and their symbiotic client ‘Blob’ have boarded the current ‘50 shades of gender’ passing bandwagon, as was, I don’t doubt, avidly ‘demanded’ (as the current rude lingo goes) by at least 99.9 per cent recurring of their party’s rank and file.
In reality (albeit harsh reality) the prospect is not actually all ‘doom’ and nihilism. Individuals may well have the strength to continue that aforementioned horrible uphill-abseil in inclement weather. They may consider it to be essential for the well-being of the nation or even salvation of their soul. But one thing is as sure as death, taxation and dear, dear, Stephen Fry having the BBC as his unpaid agent, it is never going to be:
Easy
Energy-efficient
Pleasant.
And in all likelihood, in mirror image to the Scousers’ song, you will always walk alone. The commentariat will surge (best case scenario) not to join you, and so inflict, that charming German coining Todschweigen: ‘death-by-silence’. At worst, you’ll be threatened with a cancelling pile-on, career death and death threats.
This most probably derives, I think, from people being hardwired to prefer the warm and dry and safeness of herd conformity, rather than any actual ideological commitment or wickedness. Because it seems equally unlikely to me that many humans could feel genuine zeal for the stirred-embers of zombie-Stalinism that is ‘Woke’.
Accordingly, any counter-cultural conservative Gramscian ‘long march through the institutions’ would probably take longer than those same institutions or the marchers will be around. Although I’ll concede that some, such as Home Office and FCO, are too termite-eaten to merit much marching in the first place.
However, to introduce a brighter note, and so see signs of better weather on the horizon, let me suggest it doesn’t have to be so. A battlefield lost is always recoverable should forces still exist to contest it and so long as the vanquished now realise the strategic importance of that battlefield. And freshly appreciate how if it continues lost then very likely all else is lost too. Akin to relinquishing the centre squares on a chessboard and somehow expecting to win anyway. In those circumstances you might gain a game or two, once in a blue moon, against novice or careless opposition; but the enemies of cultural conservatism are neither of those things.
Thus and therefore, onwards to the counter-attack!
It is futile, it is not reasonable, to expect the cultural left to be fair or reasonable just because you point out their inconsistencies to them. Viz: the repeated feeble and fruitless protests that ‘You would never say that about Islam . . .’ and so on. Nor — and this is important, as Idi Amin always used to say prior to dispensing his pearls of wisdom — can you fight a foe that has no name?
Therefore, with all due deference, I would counsel:
1. That you cease to be reasonable. It has brought you to this present pass (see above, passim);
2. That you ‘christen’ the enemy. For they already have myriad names for you on the continuum between ‘anti-progressive’ and ‘fascist scum’.
And that you do so by adopting the term ‘patraphobia’, this being a Frankensteinian hybrid-splicing from patria/patriotism and unreasoning dislike. And a borrowing (though I’d prefer ‘liberating’) from the other side’s armoury of homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia et al. Where patraphobia is defined as: Instinctive and automatic opposition to one’s own nominal nation/race/religion/culture or simply ‘side’. Or, more colloquially, knee-jerk fear and loathing of your own culture, country and civilisation.
Such that, to construct an example, in some near future should the hordes of a neo-Attila descend on Eastbourne Public Library and horribly slaughter all within, ‘patraphobic’ commentators — step forward the BBC and Guardian — might instead focus on the allegedly racist nature of East Sussex County Council’s subsequent ‘stiff’ letter requesting that the incident not be repeated, please.
You see the principle? PATRA-PHOBIA…
Which is so much more self-explanatory and less of a mouthful than the well-meaning late Roger Scruton’s attempted neologisms of ‘oikophobe’ and ‘oikophobia’. Those don’t seem to have taken off and stand in need of explanation and/or a laminated card each time they’re employed. And so are never going to evolve into popular parlance.
Some may reasonably object to deploying a psychiatric label like ‘phobia’. But they should re-consult my Point 1 above re reasonableness. You cannot confront any neo-Attila, let alone Hamas, by appealing to their better nature or sweet reason. Also, it is the leftist tradition and Soviet legacy that first has a shameful track record to answer for re misuse of psychiatry to illegitimise and punish dissent. Cultural conservatives are merely taking up a weapon the other side has chosen to fight with. It is not ignoble to set down your cricket bat and take up a sword when attacked with a sword.
Accordingly, the next time Britain or tradition or faith or anything else dear to you is traduced, or a terrorist atrocity explained away by saying Islamism is actually ‘all our own fault’, do not turn the other cheek (it’s already black-and-blue). Simply stand your ground and say: ‘That’s patraphobia! You’re being patraphobic, you patraphobe! Go away and take your vile patraphobiac opinions with you!’
Because you’re never going to be able to reason with these people. So why not give them a taste of their own yukky psychobabble medicine?
