Patrick O’Brian and Conservative Respect for "Tradition"
One of the central historical tenets of conservative thought is a respect for “tradition.” Russell Kirk said that conservatives believe that “[c]ustom, convention, and old prescription are checks upon man’s anarchic impulse and upon the innovator’s lust for power.” But Kirk also said that “[s]ociety must alter, for prudent change is the means of social preservation.” Edmund Burke put it this way: “Change is inevitable, . . . [b]ut let change come as the consequence of a need generally felt, not inspired of fine-spun abstractions.”
Liberals portray conservatives as pure reactionaries who wish to put society into reverse. Nothing demonstrates this pernicious liberal tendency than the false “conservative war on women.” Conservatives strongly believe the country has gone way too far in inhibiting markets and allowing overweening bureaucratic regulation to clog the economic system (the EPA’s meddling regulation of carbon dioxide is a good example). Other conservatives believe that abortion-on-demand for the past 39 years has been a national tragedy and that the current efforts to redefine marriage will, if successful, knock another prop from beneath a tottering culture.
Yet I don’t know a single conservative who isn’t glad to have modern sanitation, hot water on demand, or antibiotics. But, in a variety of ways, we are leery of the “innovator’s lust for power”—particularly when the innovator is in the form of a government-run command and control society; we see it in grand utopian schemes like Obamacare. Ironically, conservatives aren’t afraid to change entitlements (it’s the liberals who are reactionary on that issue) or to make market-based changes that will improve American health care; but we oppose wild-eyed schemes that will bankrupt the nation or that are based on the premise that human nature is perfectible.
Love for tradition is central to my beliefs. I agree with Edmund Burke’s belief that it is essential that we link the generations together by paying fealty to the great traditions of the past (those that reflect the first principles of our culture), and by leaving a civilized, strong society as an inheritance to our children:
“By this unprincipled facility of changing the state often, and as much, and in as many ways, as there is floating fancies or fashions, the whole chain and continuity of commonwealth would be broken. No one generation could link with another. Men would become little better than the flies of the summer.”
With that as background, let me point out a wonderful passage written by Patrick O’Brian. I noted in a post a few days ago that Peter Robinson has inspired me to re-read O’Brian’s Master and Commander novels featuring Jack Aubrey, the captain, and Stephen Maturin, the philosophical surgeon. I just finished the third novel, H.M.S. Surprise.
In that volume, O’Brian presents a wonderful scene that illustrates the conservative respect for tradition. Tom Pullings, a young naval officer and protégé of Jack Aubrey, is teaching a young midshipman the weights of different ships by pointing out and describing a group of India merchant ships then passing by their ship. Pullings calls them “twelve hundred ton ships” even as he says that some are as much as fifteen hundred tons. When the midshipman suggests that it would be simpler to call the fifteen hundred ton ships “fifteen hundred ton ships,” Pullings is aghast. Instead, he reaffirms the tradition of the British navy and its fight against unnecessary innovation:
“Simpler, maybe: but it would never do. You don’t want to be upsetting the old ways. Oh dear me, no. God’s my life, if the Captain was to hear you carrying on in that reckless Jacobin, democratical line, why, I dare say he would turn you adrift on a three-inch plank, with both your ears nailed down to it, to learn you bashfulness. . . . No, no: you don’t want to go arsing around with the old ways: the French did so, and look at the scrape it has gotten them into.”
Isn’t that a beautifully-written passage? But, more importantly, it teaches us why we can continue to live with “miles” and “yards” instead of “kilometers” and “meters,” and why British currency is charming because it eschews the metric system. [Note: I’m not a complete troglodyte—I understand why science uses the decimal system].
The old ways aren’t always the best, but they should never be replaced just because they are old and tried. The old ways are often best because they reflect a moral order and the wisdom of the ages. Yes, change is necessary, but history shows that to be effective, it must always be thoughtful and almost always incremental.
Respect for tradition and the rejection of revolutionary change and “transformational leaders” remain central to the conservative view of life. Your thoughts?
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Comments:
May '10
Re: Patrick O’Brian and Conservative Respect for "Tradition"
Amy Schley
Trust me, the average person encounters Watts far more often than horses. Now, imagining my car as the equivalent of 12 million lightbulbs isn't terribly helpful, but imagining my car being pulled by 170 pit ponies isn't exactly helpful either. (I actually grew up riding a pony of the type that would have been used in mines ... not exactly an inspiring sight.) · 30 minutes ago
I'm not saying there's anything more technically correct about horsepower. Just that it's traditional in our culture, and has been relevant within living memory. It made a lot of sense to compare the power output of a tractor engine to the power output of beasts of burden when the two were in competition with each other.
Anyway, my whole point is that the metric system is overrated, not that the English system is superior.
Jun '10
Re: Patrick O’Brian and Conservative Respect for "Tradition"
St. Salieri:
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You should read the Hornblower/Forrester books, I cut my teeth on them when a boy. Great adventures, not nearly as detailed or as original as O'Brian's books, which were supposed to be a continuation of Forrester's work. They are lighter fare, but well written in a deft style, the sort that looks easy, but isn't.
For some real rarities of the Victorian age there are actually a few novels by Bulwer-Lytton worth your time - especially if you like comedies of manners, I recommend Pelham (stick with the 2nd ed. only) and My Novel. And yes, it is that Bulwer-Lytton; but both books are exceptionally well written and entertaining without the pretentiousness of his "serious" novels. Though The Last Days of Pompeii, for all it's flaws, is worth the read at least once in a life time. · 13 hours ago
I have read all the Hornblower novels and I agree with you they are grand.
And don't forget Alexander Kent's Bolitho novels.
Thanks for the Bulwer-Lytton suggestion. I just downloaded Pelham for my Kindle and I will get back to you when I read it.
Jun '10
Re: Patrick O’Brian and Conservative Respect for "Tradition"
Mama Toad:
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Anyone who likes Jane Austen's stories on screen should see this movie, Persuasion with Ciaran Hinds and Amanda Root. The opening scene is at sea, and the British navy figures almost as another character throughout. · 13 hours ago
OH -- I so agree with you on this particular movie version of "Persuasion." It is sublime and so incredibly moving. What a simply wonderful story and to have the great Ciaran Hinds work so perfectly with Amanda Root is beyond compare.
Don't you just love all the other characters in the movie, too? So nuanced and perfectly brought from the pages of the novel.
This is one of my top 10 movies.
Jul '10
Re: Patrick O’Brian and Conservative Respect for "Tradition"
I was fortunate enough to discover POB in the mid-80', correspond with him(I have the letters in his elegant hand framed), and have read the series three times, going back to it like to visit with an old friend. Tradition in the martial sense is so important in an Aristotelian sense. We become virtuous by doing virtuous things; the RN became good by practicing right things and extolling its heroes; our military and the Brits do the same. The other countries may have some of the hardware, but we have the best operating system ever devised, and that's the difference. That's the wisdom of VDHanson.
As for other traditions, this group is composed of mostly Burkeans, as am I. My one major caveat to 'Your Grandmother Knows Best" is the fact that for millennia the world practiced chattel slavery and the West, for several centuries, enslaved black Africans. We also kept women in some of the same circumstances we deride in Islam now. One must know when change is necessary, and most conservatives came too late to the civil rights and women's rights movement, though we're better than the other side now
Jul '10
Re: Patrick O’Brian and Conservative Respect for "Tradition"
C. Northcote Parkinson, of "Parkinson's Law fame, has written 5 or 6 novels in the Hornblower style about one Steven DeLancey, which are very good. Then there are lots of others who have written more or less successfully, but none that come close to the kind of literature that O'Brian has written.
Feb '11
Re: Patrick O’Brian and Conservative Respect for "Tradition"
Larry Koler
Mama Toad:
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Anyone who likes Jane Austen's stories on screen should see this movie, Persuasion with Ciaran Hinds and Amanda Root. The opening scene is at sea, and the British navy figures almost as another character throughout. · 13 hours ago
OH -- I so agree with you on this particular movie version of "Persuasion." It is sublime and so incredibly moving. What a simply wonderful story and to have the great Ciaran Hinds work so perfectly with Amanda Root is beyond compare.
Don't you just love all the other characters in the movie, too? So nuanced and perfectly brought from the pages of the novel.
This is one of my top 10 movies. · 6 hours ago
Absolutely, Larry! We don't own it, but we've borrowed it from the library so many times I've lost track. The music is perfect. The casting is perfect. The costumes are perfect. The cinematography is perfect. Stunning.
Side note -- My tadpoles were all delighted to see Mrs. Croft appearing in the Harry Potter movies as Mrs. Dursley, even though they didn't much like that character!