Left Wing Conservatism

Jesse Hirsh -

A big problem with contemporary North American politics is the imposition of binary thinking onto a society that is increasingly diverse. It’s impossible to divide everyone into either a Liberal or a Conservative, especially when these terms are already disconnected from their original meaning.

In this context, adding a second modifier may be minor, but could have major impact, towards further expanding political discourse.

Enter the concept of the left wing conservative:

In practice, this nascent ideology looks to revive civil society, cares about ecology and culture of place, desires robust local and regional economies, is broadly anti-war, and rejects the ongoing bureaucratisation and commodification of all the most sacred aspects of life. This milieu of thinking doesn’t belong to a set political tradition — hence the contradiction in terms — but, above all, Left Conservatism centres the local, the particular and the human-scaled.

Ashley Colby

One of the biggest problems with Liberalism is the emphasis on the individual, often at the expense of the community. There needs to be a greater balance, especially in response to climate change.

The benefit of combining conservative values with left wing politics is the renewed emphasis on local autonomy and community action.

Those hovering around these ideas — localism, civic orientation, care for local ecologies — are seeking to move beyond the gridlock of over-scaled politics as currently constituted. They see the future clear-eyed, and know that more partisan appeals to solutions of the global market or governance will just provide us more of the same. The “Left” part of Left Conservatism is recognition of the need to protect ourselves from the exploitative forces of the market — the desire to commodify and sell off every last sacred thing. The “conservative” part is the desire to protect the sacred from the flattening authority of bureaucracy. Despite superficial political differences of individuals, working at the local scale as neighbours can start to draw out the shared sense of the sacred: a clean environment, a safe community, a thriving home.

Ashley Colby

When we feel overwhelmed by the global scale of injustice and the sense of powerlessness in the face of climate change, we can remember that meaning and change both happen via communities.