Higinio Marín: “The past is debt and the future is duty”

On the 20th and 21st of October we held the conference “Conservatism today: Preserving Freedoms, Traditions and Culture”, which ended with the conference of Higinio Marín, Professor of Philosophical Anthropology and Rector of the CEU Cardenal Herrera University.

During his talk, Professor Marín addressed the challenges and proposals of conservatism today and assured that for conservatives “the past is debt and the future is duty“. In this sense, he claimed for a conservative proposal where “thinking about the state without stateism, the nation without nationalism, the social without socialism, the past without fetishising nostalgia, and the future without utopianism”. Furthermore, he explained that “the habits of the heart define the conservative and this has an origin and a position of existence which is gratitude. A grateful man is a subject who cannot cancel the past because he has taken pleasure in it”, he added.

The Congress began with the welcome words of the President of the San Pablo CEU University Foundation and the Catholic Association of Propagandists, Alfonso Bullón de Mendoza, who pointed out the need to vindicate freedom and the right to be faithful to our traditions. He also stressed the need to coordinate the defence of this conservative thinking.

The opening speech “History and tradition of Spanish conservatism” was given by the philosopher, educator and writer, Gregorio Luri, who during his speech listed 15 features of the “conservative creed” and gave a historical overview of conservative thought in Spain, highlighting figures such as Jovellanos, Balmes, Arenal, Cánovas, Maura and Canalejas. In addition, Luri defended conservatism as a movement that “has much more to do with the everyday thinking of the common man than with the ideology of the powerful”.

The challenge of the media

Afterwards, we held a round table discussion entitled “Conservatism in the face of the progressive hegemony of the mass media”, in which the director of The European Conservative, Alvino-Mario Fantini, took part. He was critical of the mass media, dominated by large multinational corporations, disconnected from values and traditions, and stressed the need to counterattack the left by converting data and information into “weapons”.

For his part, the academic director of ISSEP Madrid, Miguel Ángel Quintana Paz, described the reality of the Spanish media “sold out to progressive thought” and stated that “the state and the media have destroyed the principles that constitute us as a civilisation”.

Finally, the editor-in-chief of the Visegrád Post for the Waclaw Felczak Institute, Ferenc Almássy, stressed the idea put forward during the round table and appealed to common sense as the tool we conservatives have to confront the woke movement: “Common sense is the best weapon we conservatives have to confront the Woke movement that wants to impose its narrative”, said Almássy.

A cultural proposal in the face of the monopoly of the Left

Conservative thought in culture also had its space for reflection during the Congress. The professor, writer and columnist, Enrique García-Máiquez, claimed the need for “the conservative intellectual to contribute to sustaining and defending the intrinsic value of cultural works in the face of critical relativism, political nihilism and social subjectivism”. And in this sense, he said that “the conservative has to bear in mind a double duty: to preserve what is valuable from the past and to create things that are worth preserving in the future”.

The analyst of The European Conservative, Harrison Pitt, pointed out the capacity of left-wing parties to reformulate culture once they come to power and said that we have to use “our capacities to confront this reality by using political power” to fight for our institutions, protect our children and pay attention to the demographic models that condition our culture.

For his part, the editor of IM-1776, Mark Granza, highlighted the great variety of the conservative movement: “in each country when it comes to creating culture, there are different values, traditions and principles to preserve”. In this sense, he said, “when we produce something that is culturally valuable, that can elevate the human spirit, it has to be something that ignores the specific culture of the place of origin”.

An economic proposal

Carlos Rodríguez Braun, Professor of History of Economic Thought at the Complutense University of Madrid, and the international editor of Steve Bannon’s War Room, Ben Harnwell, addressed the debate on “A Conservative Economic Proposal in a Capitalist World”.
Professor Rodríguez Braun stated that “liberalism has to be conservative and conservatism has to be liberal, and the economy is the field where these forces have to unite”. In addition, during his speech, he discussed the thinking of two economists: Friedrich Hayek and James Buchanan. For his part, Harnwell advocated the responsibility of citizens to ensure their own prosperity and set out his conservative economic proposal: “take the hands of the state out of people’s lives and let people make their own decisions within the limits of legality”, affirmed the international editor of War Room.

Conservatism in Spain

The director of CEU-CEFAS, Elio A. Gallego, addressed the current state of conservatism in Spain. During his speech, he pointed to the era of the French Revolution as the beginning of political categories and assured that “we are currently living under the sign of the French Revolution; it is an era that is not closed”. In addition, the director of CEU-CEFAS vindicated the figure of the philosopher and theologian Jaime Balmes and pointed out that “the challenge of conservatism today in Spain is to capture good willing people who are healthily conservative so that they can come out of that sort of tripartite world in which they are enclosed”.

For his part, Ricardo Calleja, Professor of Ethics at the IESE Business School, stressed the importance of personal relationships as opposed to any political strategy as a way of “creating conservatives”. He also stressed the need for conservative creativity: “the conservative conserves something good and the good is cultivated, shared and celebrated” and added that “we must move on from defending rights to sharing goods and celebrating goods with joy, with beauty”.

Finally, Guillermo Graiño, associate researcher at the Fundación Disenso, pointed to the woke culture as the main problem of conservative thought and affirmed that the challenges facing conservatism in Spain today are very similar to those in the West.

Country vs. city

Saturday’s session began with a round table dedicated to the relationship between the countryside and the city, and with the title “The countryside and the city: two realities at odds?” the writer and columnist Ana Iris Simón, defended the countryside as a place where people live in contrast to the dehumanisation experienced in the city. She also pointed out that the city is currently being promoted as “the place where you have to go to have a complete vision of the world”. With respect to this last idea, the writer critically shared her experience when she lived in the neighbourhood of Malasaña in Madrid, where a single way of thinking was becoming more and more established: “I began to associate with people who had a vision of the world very similar to mine and with tastes similar to mine”.

Juan Andrés Oria de Rueda, professor of Mycology and Forest Botany at the University of Valladolid, also insisted on life in the countryside and the need to promote traditional uses for the care of nature: “many traditional uses are important for the preservation of nature”, said Oria de Rueda.

In this sense, the analyst at The European Conservative, Sebastian Morello, pointed out the transformation that the countryside has undergone in our minds, from reality to virtual reality: “the countryside has become a mere resource instead of a common home”. In this sense, he said that “it is being promoted that man’s place is only in the city and that nature is just something that is out there with which we have no connection”.

Europe and conservatism

Europe also took centre stage during the Congress with the round table discussion “The different currents and strategies of European conservatism”. The director of the Centre for European Studies at the Mathias Corvinus Collegium, Rodrigo Ballester, pointed out some of the problems Europe is currently facing: immigration, demographics, etc., and stressed the need to “adopt a culture of subsidiarity and for Brussels to say: -this is not my job-“.

For his part, Domingo González, professor at the University of Murcia, said that “a phenomenon is occurring in which people who come from left-wing thinking are beginning to have conservative ideas”, and in view of this new context, he stressed the need to reinterpret it: “the new era demands a balance of the new alliances on the part of the conservative movement”, the professor stated.

Finally, the philosopher and writer, Michal Semín, said that “the greatest dangers today come from the liberal progressivism born in the West, which is trying to modify our beliefs”. In this sense, he pointed out the need for “an authentic awakening” that comes from below and called on Christians to lead this change.