Rhetoric in defence of Conservatism

The new spirit of our age, Political Correctness, is but a manifestation of Liberalism in extremis. Its dominance can be attributed to the proletarianisation and vulgarisation of Western culture, female emancipation and indiscriminate universal suffrage, which pander to all that is mawkish, sentimental and irrational in the human breast.

It is not surprising therefore that we are in the mess we are in, when most people are culturally and socially encouraged to glorify emotion and despise prudence and reason.

Notes on a lecture I once attended on the nature and purpose of Rhetoric records that it should, ideally, be (1) corrective (2) suggestive (3) instructive and (4) defensive (as well as being of course persuasive). This is precisely what is required to defend boring old Conservatism against any ideology that promises us Utopia and Heaven on Earth, such as Communism, Socialism, Fascism etc. However, hardly anyone studies the Classics these days and our political classes these days cannot boast of even one Classicist. The last one was Enoch Powell, who was racially discriminated against by the English because he was Welsh.

With its attendant censoriousness and mania to legislate against free speech, it seems we have now entered the New Dark Age of Political Censorship, where nothing can be said without penalty against state-protected groups of people: the lame, the halt, the unproductive, the illegitimate, the coloured and anyone who can successfully claim the now coveted and honoured status of Whingeing Victimhood.

It may be some time before we emerge again ...