BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN
Banzai Conservatism has conservatism at its heart. Combining a disposition to preserve with an ability to improve (Burke), conservatives are people who love something actual and want to retain it (Scruton), but from time to time they also need to defend that something actual. In other words, often in their battle of a generation, they should be moved to fight to defend what they love.
Conservatism always faces at least one of 3 scenarios, Perfect, Creeping or Guerrilla:
- Perfect is where one’s society or land has become so peaceful and prosperous that government can be small and the administration just requires a progressive (using the Marxists’ stolen meaning) tweak here and there.
- Creeping is where Progressives are in charge, but they follow a relatively mild progressive brand, such as Blair’s New Labour in its early years or Bill Clinton in the US.
- Guerrilla means ‘action stations’ for conservatives. When the progressive element is Hard Left socialist or communist revolutionary or theocratic absolutist and is threatening or destroying precisely what needs to be conserved. This is a time where the revolutionaries have either significant momentum or rule the society (culture) or land.
Banzai Conservatism comes into play only in the latter scenario, although it can be used in the creeping scenario also – neither all of Blair’s policies nor Clinton’s interventions turned out to be benign.
Banzai Conservatism’s characteristics are:
- Intrusive. Getting in and among the threatening cadres undercover and dividing them from within. Shining a light on Truth.
- Popular. Changing the opposition to them from a top-down, hierarchical, typical opposition party, to a grassroots movement which wins popular support by its noble and chivalrous actions, from which a conservatism-respecting government in waiting can be engineered. Emphasis must be on serving rather than on power, on servants rather than superintendents.
- Cultural. Winning the propaganda war – the culture war – using the conservative’s ability to perceive Truth and argue for Justice. Using guerrilla methods (I write using the gentlemanly aspect of ‘guerrilla’ – cunning and wit) to virally spread messages, combat propaganda and make the people belly laugh at the progressive or theocratic opponent, who will be susceptible because of his reliance on the idée fixe, whether Marxist, extremist, religious or a mix.
- Non-violent. In democracies there shall never be a need for violence from Banzai conservatives, as their principles and ideas, when deducted honestly, are sound or based on logical trade-offs, so they always trump whatever is thrown at them, eventually. The French Resistance in the Second World War combating Nazi oppressors achieved more by existing en esprit than by what it physically achieved on the ground using violence. Of course, should some autocrat or theocrat take over or invade, war fought with external combatants could be vital and ought to be engaged.
Conservatives in the West today tend to be too comfortable; too reactive and not sufficiently proactive. Are conservatives content to just write articles, publish books and speak to thousands of (mostly) young men in echo chambers on the intellectual dark web? Or are they willing to be more positive and actually reform where necessary and conserve?
A scenario today shows the stark need for Banzai Conservatism in Britain in 2018. As Corbyn’s Hard Left entities wipe away the mild progressive element of the British Labour Party using an effective and persuasive grassroots movement, the Banzai Conservative button should be justifiedly pressed. Corbyn and Momentum can be ripped apart from the inside by turning hard left factions against themselves, all the while winning the hearts and minds of those prone to a year zero mentality around Socialism: using viral videos, factoids and imaginative guerrilla targeting of publicity campaigning. A Chart lighting up Labour’s worst cadres and connections will expose and inevitably isolate the Corbyn menace, sparking internal backbiting and paranoia inside the Labour Party, giving them a yearning for a more electable leadership and decisive internal reform. In the instance of Corbynism, antisemitism is rife amongst its ranks, so conservatives should engineer the rolling out of mainstream rabbis to warn the British Public as a whole that Jews genuinely feel unsafe in Britain – in the land that helped conquer those who brought the Holocaust.
Another live example is Venezuela. The opposition in Venezuela faces a communist dictatorship in its final, bloody years – one that has converted itself into a perverse, narco-plutocracy. As a country, Venezuela requires imaginative, guerrilla conservatism to overthrow her murderous regime, followed by installation of a pragmatic, non-violent democratic government which can be popular – based on sound principles with conservatism (the foundation for rebuilding) at its heart.
Technology – social media, fake news and deep fakes – has made Banzai Conservatism even more necessary, as both the Hard Left, animal rights extremists, critical theorists, conspiracists and theocrats abuse technology to appear greater and more powerful than they really are, while happily faking evidential discourse using video and audio to a point of brainwashing of large numbers of the populus in a short period. This is a phenomenon with an effect that would have required many years’ shaping and hard work in the past. AI, notably AGI, poses a grave danger to humankind and should be winged and countered where necessary.
The answer for today and now is that the simple architecture of Banzai Conservatism is the medicine for the current malaise – a malaise where conservatives sit back smugly, while MPs, allegedly of a conservative mindset, are too often sedentary, self-preserving and louche.
Four-wheel drive conservatism with both a concise, intelligible proselytising message and a clear definition is lacking. Banzai Conservatism can fill the void – it’s needed across many parts of the world right now and shall be required well into the future as extinctionists, autocrats, trillionaires, technologists, AI communists and AGI threaten stability in our world. As Planet Earth switches from government by humans to more automated forms of administration by AI, nudging and modelling, Banzai Conservatism should be built into the plumbing of our societies, alongside Burke, Friedman and Von Hayek. Its watchwords should be prescription and hope.