Lately I have been such a fan-boy of Michael Oakeshott (1901-1990) here that I have been tempted to write a ‘why I am not a conservative’ piece just to figure out where we disagree. I won’t do that (now), but what follows may give a sense of my admiration and ambivalence about his work.
I’m also on an Oakeshott kick at the moment. He supplies a useful corrective to mindless worship of “change”. And he serves as the exception that proves (tests) Corey Robin’s rule that “conservative” political thought and action is nothing more than violent reaction from those faced with the loss of privilege. That’s present in Oakeshott, but not the whole story, By contrast, for most conservative thinkers (William F Buckley for example, and today’s “national conservatives”), it is the whole story
I’m also on an Oakeshott kick at the moment. He supplies a useful corrective to mindless worship of “change”. And he serves as the exception that proves (tests) Corey Robin’s rule that “conservative” political thought and action is nothing more than violent reaction from those faced with the loss of privilege. That’s present in Oakeshott, but not the whole story, By contrast, for most conservative thinkers (William F Buckley for example, and today’s “national conservatives”), it is the whole story