The Fourth Principle of Conservatism, from the Orthodox Conservative website.
4. That the family is the initial foundation of all society. (In the family we first learn of rules, obligations, belonging and harmony.)
4. That the family is the initial foundation of all society
We emerge into this world (for the most part) as members of a family – even if we are the first-born child, by definition we are creating the family into which we emerge; we would find it strange, for instance, to call a couple without children a family in itself. The family is, with the State, the only association that is not essentially optional; indeed, it precedes that very entity that the State is built on, which is society itself, and has existed for time immemorial.
Families are, by virtue of their necessity, the key institution through which an individual learns of who he is and his place in this world, relying on the beneficent love and stewardship of his parents for his very existence, both in the first instance through birth, and every moment after that until he is mature enough to exercise his own autonomy and independence. To this end, parents are bound by a duty of obligation to protect their child from the dangers he has no knowledge of, and provide the stable and safe environment for the cultivation of his identity necessary for the exercise of liberty (as in principle one).
Through this sacrificial tie, and unconditional love, the individual learns the importance of deference to authority; by recognising that parents know more (even if they do not always know what is best), the child learns that all authority that precedes him is built on a vast foundation of experience and knowledge (as in principle three) that, rather than binding him and ‘destroying’ his liberty, is a deep well from which to draw in the pursuit of that liberty. Legitimate authority exists, not to control us, but to keep us safe.
When the conservative defends the family, he does not defend the family in a particular form, such as the ‘nuclear family’; though there is research that shows the nuclear family has existed as far back as the 13th century, due largely to the fact that English couples married much later than their continental counterparts, by which time they were expected to find a new home and start their family proper, society changes and shifts, and to try to prevent or reverse changes that organically occur would be to capitulate to the social engineering impulse of socialism that conservatives so stridently reject.
The conservative, then, defends family, not in any prescribed format, but as a truth of learning those boundaries so important for the recognition of liberty (as in principle one), educating us on the significance of deference to authority, and what obligation to each other and ourselves means in its real terms. To this end, family is a place of stability, and love, and its particular substance is not important to the overall form it takes in the provision of this key element.
Families are, by virtue of their necessity, the key institution through which an individual learns of who he is and his place in this world, relying on the beneficent love and stewardship of his parents for his very existence, both in the first instance through birth, and every moment after that until he is mature enough to exercise his own autonomy and independence. To this end, parents are bound by a duty of obligation to protect their child from the dangers he has no knowledge of, and provide the stable and safe environment for the cultivation of his identity necessary for the exercise of liberty (as in principle one).
Through this sacrificial tie, and unconditional love, the individual learns the importance of deference to authority; by recognising that parents know more (even if they do not always know what is best), the child learns that all authority that precedes him is built on a vast foundation of experience and knowledge (as in principle three) that, rather than binding him and ‘destroying’ his liberty, is a deep well from which to draw in the pursuit of that liberty. Legitimate authority exists, not to control us, but to keep us safe.
When the conservative defends the family, he does not defend the family in a particular form, such as the ‘nuclear family’; though there is research that shows the nuclear family has existed as far back as the 13th century, due largely to the fact that English couples married much later than their continental counterparts, by which time they were expected to find a new home and start their family proper, society changes and shifts, and to try to prevent or reverse changes that organically occur would be to capitulate to the social engineering impulse of socialism that conservatives so stridently reject.
The conservative, then, defends family, not in any prescribed format, but as a truth of learning those boundaries so important for the recognition of liberty (as in principle one), educating us on the significance of deference to authority, and what obligation to each other and ourselves means in its real terms. To this end, family is a place of stability, and love, and its particular substance is not important to the overall form it takes in the provision of this key element.
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