Red Toryism

Once again, Peter the conservative commenter brings up a point that I've decided is worth addressing as a post by itself: what is a Red Tory?  Well, it's hard to perfectly pin down any kind of very specific delimiters for these ideological positions, but here's my take on it:

A Red Tory, to me (and I have family who count very much as Red Tories), are classical conservatives who have a sense of noblesse oblige.  The Red Tory thinks that the lord of the manor has the obligation to make sure that his subjects/servants live fulfilling lives and that their children have a future, and that this obligation should be enshrined in custom and law.  BUT the Red Tory also believes that the lord of the manor ought to be the lord of the manor; he/she is less interested in breaking down class barriers.  If, say, J. R. R. Tolkien had been a Canadian politician, he'd have been a Red Tory: his books are full of this concept (Frodo and Sam, for instance, and this is visible in the movies too).  The Red Tory believes in the value of wealth redistribution, but not sufficiently enough to seriously reduce inequality, as he/she measures well-being in absolute terms. 

The Red Tory tends to be socially conservative, but insufficiently so to demand that the government fully regulate this.  Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the Red Tory is especially interested in defending the institutions that presently exist and have been demonstrated to function, even if they don't necessarily function as well as he/she would like.  The Red Tory is therefore rather hostile to classical/neoliberalism, at least as hostile the Red Tory would be to socialism.  The Red Tory is interested in maintaining institutions as they are, and are more or less aligned with the state as it presently is. 

The Red Tory is rather unlikely to support such notions as Western/Alberta Alienation.  Alberta Aliens are tend to be estranged from existing institutions and often have quite radical ideas on how to distance themselves from such things.  Alberta Aliens are quite concerned about class, as they often quite paradoxically see redistributors of wealth as belonging to some strange Ottawa "elite" class---the Red Tory will hardly object to the wise mandarin elites, as long as the wise mandarin elites leave other elites alone, except to encourage them to fulfill their noble obligations.  The Red Tory is likely to be a nationalist aligned with the present State and an internationalist aligned with all the institutions as they presently stand, from the UN to the IMF.

Well, this is my take on the rather nebulous phenomenon as Red Toryism.  Your Mileage May Vary.

Comments

[FurGaia]

This is an interesting Ron Dart's article on the subject: Stephen Leacock: High Tory

[Ian Welsh]

Fiscally conservative, institutionally conservative, believes in nobless oblige. I don't think most Tories are all that socially conservative in a political sense - they tend to believe that one should live properly but not legislate private morality.

In a lot of respects I'm a red tory - which is why I was a member of the old Conservative party and am not a member of the new one - because they aren't fiscally conservative, they want to radically change Canadian political institutions, they think their private trogdolyte morality should be shoved down other people's throats and they think the rich should get richer and to hell with the poor and middle class.

[Peter]

Whoa, thanks for the insight Ian. We're irresponsible troglodytes who want to fuck over the lower and middle classes (you know, because every Conservative voter in the country is upper class).

Dumbass.

[Mandos]

The remainder suffer from false consciousness.

[Peter]

Please. Quoting Marx went out so long ago.

[Mandos]

*shrug* You should have expected that sort of answer.