The unconscious Indianization of ‘Western’ conservatism – is Indian conservatism a universal model?

Abstract

According to Max Horkheimer, the core dilemma of capitalist ideology is that it promotes egoism and contempt for egoism at the same time. This basic contradiction translates into belief in an organically structured society consisting of needs satisfying individuals and groups. This can be made out as a principle that prevails across all conservative schools and psychological differences. Conservative parties in the ‘West’ have started to adopt an unprecedented openness to the diversity of contemporary pluralistic societies. In doing so, they do what conservatives always did – they conform to actual social conditions. Conservatism is far from being anti-diversity, as long as the core belief remains untouched. The transformation of ‘Western’ conservatism we witness today is moulding conservatism into a form that has since long been established in India, where plurality and multiculturality have never been absent. This new development brings to the fore the key elements of a universal conservatism independent of cultural contexts.

Keywords:

• ambiguity
• BJP
• conservatism
• critical theory
• diversity
• Horkheimer
• India
• IUML
• psychology
• Tamil Nadu
• tolerance

Notes

1. ‘West’ will be put into quotation marks because without it would suggest that ‘the West’ is a social, political and psychological fact. The facticity of an entity called ‘West’ is more than doubtful, and its continuous use is just a continuation of a certain partisan perspective on humanity I try to avoid.

2. Sangh Parivar, the family of organizations, is the umbrella term for the Hindu nationalist organizations. It was introduced by RSS members and contains today several bigger and smaller organizations, including the BJP.

3. ‘Ideology’ and ‘ideological’ in quotation marks stands for a world view or a school of thought, while these terms without quotation marks refer to the Marxian and critical theory use of it.

4. By ‘Indian genius thesis’, I understand the notion of India as a superior cultural entity in some of the admiring ‘non-Indian’ receptions of spiritual authorities like for example Swami Vivekananda or Sri Aurobindo. The thesis romanticizes India as the good ‘other’ compared to the ‘West’.

5. Pledge made by BJP aspirants when joining the party:

I believe in Integral Humanism which is the basic philosophy of Bharatiya Janata Party.

I am committed to Nationalism and National Integration, Democracy, Gandhian Socialism, Positive Secularism (Sarva Dharma Samabhava) and value-based politics.

I subscribe to the concept of a Secular State and Nation not based on religion.

I firmly believe that this task can be achieved by peaceful means alone.

I do not observe or recognize untouchability in any shape or form.

I am not a member of any other political party.

I undertake to abide by the Constitution, Rules and Discipline of the Party. (Elst 1997)

6. In Horkheimer’s argument, reverberations of Sigmund Freud’s understanding shows through that society and culture necessarily require the suppression of the individual pleasure-seeking drives for its very constitution (Freud 2010). Besides one’s attitude on psychoanalysis or if someone ‘believes’ in psycho-dynamics below the surface of political thought or not, I would like to invite the reader to accept Horkheimer’s description of the (ideological) core contradiction in capitalism for a while to develop my argument.

7. John Gray turned from a liberal conservative to a supporter of Blair’s New Labour because he saw the latter to be better equipped to meet his (conservative) convictions while facing the challenges of contemporary ‘Western’ societies (Burns 1999). A couple of years later, his conservatism prevailed in his leaning to ideas from deep ecology and an anti-mystic reading of Taoist classics. As we will see later, Gray’s conservatism is of the psychological kind described by Karen Stenner with tremendous openness for traditions not derived from an in-group narrative, even an open contempt for the ‘millennialist’ ‘West’ (Gray 2007). For an illustration of my argument, he represents a conservative who similar to Indian conservatives embraces diversity and tolerance of ambiguity.

8. In his argument, he ignores that some of the most rigid anti-drug laws exist in religious Buddhist and Muslim countries, and also that the United States (which he presents next to China as a major example for a rationalistic drug oppressor country) are comparatively religious, especially when compared to East Asia.

9. Dallago and Roccato (2010) have experimentally shown that Big Five personality factors play a role in the triangle relationship of perceived social threat authoritarianism and Big Five.

10. Marcus, Russell Neuman, and Mackuen (2000) affective intelligence model can also provide counterevidence to Stenner’s theory because it claims that change perceived as risk makes people stop acting and thinking as if on autopilot and start a re-evaluation of formerly held opinions to cope with the new situation. If conservatives were free in such a situation to decide, they could turn out to behave less authoritarian as well. The concept of authoritarianism on the other hand sees the rational options bound by a psychological bias.

11. Tamil names only consist of a given name and initials in front of it.

12. The lowest possible score is 20, the highest possible score 180 and midpoint is 100. Altemeyer (2006, 14) assumes an average of 90 for the average adult population in the United States. L. Ganesan (BJP) scored 133 and Kader Mohideen (IUML) 138. Both made several statements indicating that they did have problems with the questions asked, because they had the impression that they reflected a cultural (Christian) bias. So the risk of distortion due to an unintended interpretation of questions is quite high and the explanatory power of the results a little dubious. Nevertheless, I can agree that many opinions expressed in the interviews support a strong authoritarian tendency.

13. Gray itself is a radical example. He goes so far as to transcend humanity and gives most importance to ‘values’ shared with our animal ancestors (Gray 2002). Further research might focus on anti-humanist tendencies in conservatism. While the conservative-turned Nazi Carl Schmitt expressed the old-style anti-humanism of conservatism by famously stating ‘who says humanity cheats’ in order to put national interests first, the conservative-turned vulgar Taoist Gray sees in the cult of humanity an unjustified and baseless belief derived from the Christian belief in redemption that he considers a harmful intervention into nature.