What is Order?
Order is about things being in their rightful place, because Conservatives believe that everything legitimate has a rightful place. And that just as things have a rightful place they also have a wrongful place. In this context things mean, ideas, objects and people.
Order means that everyone has a rightful place, a place they belong, a place where they are valued. It also means that a hierarchy exists and that things are always unequal. That some things are more important than others, that there is a Natural Order that can only be denied for so long before it restores itself.
It is this that makes Order the great heresy of our time. For our time teaches insistently that there should be no Order. In fact nearly every drama on TV or at the Cinema you see will be at it's core about defying Order, the working class lad who beat the odds, the women who beat the Patriarchy, the Ethnic who beat Whitey. It's the same story over and over again, historical dramas are very good at this story. And Liberals love to tell this story because it reaffirms what they believe. But to Conservatives it shows a different story, that Order will always reassert itself. That Order is the real nature of the universe.
That the universe is a place where God and man are separate and not to be confused. Where man and animals, plants and minerals are separate and not to be confused. Where amongst man there are separate Races and Ethnities, two different sexes and different social classes. Non of them are equal but all have their rightful place, a place where they are valued. How can things be of value if they are unequal?
Men and women are not equal because they are different and things that are different cannot be equal. But try creating a baby without one of them. They now both have value, because their differences, the thing that makes them unequal gives them value. They have different strengths and weaknesses, each has a Natural Order, a rightful place. It is when we try to deny this Natural Order that things go wrong, not because Order is perfect but because it is the closest that we can come in our imperfect universe. Another word for Order is reality, the closer we are to reality the better things run, the more we try to distort reality the worse things run.
For those who are not Conservatives much of this would seem unreal, like I am talking about a supernatural force. But Order is not supernatural, it is natural, it is as real as the wind, you cannot see it, you cannot taste it or touch it but you can feel it and it can be very powerful. Order is reality and reality is a very stubborn beast indeed.
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It also means that a hierarchy exists
ReplyDeleteThe essence of hierarchy is responsibility. Those higher up the hierarchy have privileges but also responsibilities. Responsibilities flow both upwards and downwards.
Having a hierarchy is the complete opposite of the every-man-for-himself law-of-the-jungle approach.
Dear Mr. Moncrieff,
ReplyDeleteThank you for putting into words, what I have instinctively believed to be true and right for most of my life.
Kind regards,
Christine
The natural order was violated by gay men on a prolific basis and the result was a dreaded disease that spread in some instances to the rest of the population.
ReplyDelete