In my last diary I quoted from F.A. Hayek's essay, "Why I'm not a Conservative". Conservatives love to quote Hayek. Mark Levin does it all the time. So does Dick Armey.But that's not unusual.In his essay, Hayek pointed out that, "So unproductive has conservatism been in producing a general conception of how a social order is maintained that its modern advocates, in trying to construct a theoretical foundation, invariably find themselves appealing almost exclusively to authors who regarded themselves as liberal".
Today’s modern conservative will be quick to tell you that today’s modern liberal is not a liberal by their standards. But Liberalism doesn’t care about their standards. It never has. Liberalism doesn’t stay in one place. And the Liberalism of our founders was always meant to evolve.
The conservative may not like what it has evolved into by their conservative standards, but that’s to be expected. Again, it isn’t liberalisms intention to meet conservative standards. Liberals have their own, and those standards continue to evolve as new challenges are confronted. It is still true that the American liberal believes that society can and should be improved, and that the way to improve it is to apply human intelligence to social and economic problems.
The conservative, on the other hand, opposes efforts at purposeful change — especially when they threaten the existing distribution of power and wealth — because he believes that things are about as good as they can be reasonably expected to be, and that any change is more likely than not to be for the worse.
One thing we have learned from the writers and spokesmen of the conservative movement is their love of tradition.
As Kirk said, "Conservatives are champions of custom, convention, and continuity because they prefer the devil they know to the devil they don’t know. Order and justice and freedom, they believe, are the artificial products of a long social experience, the result of centuries of trial and reflection and sacrifice. Thus the body social is a kind of spiritual corporation, comparable to the church; it may even be called a community of souls. Human society is no machine, to be treated mechanically. The continuity, the life-blood, of a society must not be interrupted". With this in mind, it’s hard to imagine a conservative going along with a radical revolution in 1776 that was certain to upset the custom, convention and continuity of the devil they knew, in order to replace it with the devil they didn’t know. It goes completely against the ideals of conservatism as stated by the guy that defines conservatism. Their DNA would reject it. I can only speculate, but I have little doubt in my mind as to who’s side the conservative would have been on. I believe they were called Tory’s.
The founding principles of this country are rooted in the rejection of the concept of the Divine Right of Kings. It’s a rejection of the aristocracy, the embrace of self rule, and freedom from authoritarian dictatorship whether it be a monarchy or any other form of supreme authority. The freedom of speech is not a conservative concept. It’s a liberal concept. The freedom of religion is not conservative. It’s liberal. Freedom itself is liberal. It’s the liberation from those things that would restrict its freedom to think and act according to one’s own conscience. The American revolution took place during the late 18th century during the height of the Enlightenment.
Looking back at Kirk’s claims, one can examine the statements that "A divine intent, as well as personal conscience, rules society", and " Civilized society requires orders and classes."
A divine intent pre-supposes not only that a divinity is at hand, but that its intent can be determined. Since nobody has proven that such a divine entity exists, that statement can't be demonstrated as true. Kirk' statement is guilty of "begging the question". He provides what he considers a conclusive fact, based on a premise (divine intent) that hasn't been proven as true. A personal conscience is, of course, a matter of subjectivity. A religious view appears to be essential to conservative thought. According to Professor Gerhard Rempel of Western New England College, "to understand the Enlightenment and the foundations of
democracy is to know that doctrinal substance was less important than overall philosophy." It wasn’t as much Descartes’ reason as it was Newton’s Laws. Not abstraction and definition, but rather observation and experience.
The real power of reason lay not in the possession, but in the
aquisition of truth. The ideal for knowledge was a further development of 17th century logic and science with an emphasis on:
- The particular rather than the general;
- Observable facts rather than principles;
- Experience rather than rational speculation.
Liberalism is more easily recognized for what it is not, than for what it is. Since it doesn’t subscribe to a rigid theory of rationality it doesn’t employ a positive or assertive methodology in determining truth. A liberal critical rationalist would recognize that there simply is no "positive" method whereby we can obtain the truth. Not only this, liberalism suggests that attemping to hold to such a "positive" method might narrow our viewpoint such that the quest for truth is made more difficult. In an attempt to get our decision about the truth to fit with some narrow view of what the method of truth "should" be, we will be restricting ourselves in a way that is unnecessary. After all, there is no one method that is the end-all-be-all of obtaining truth. Unless
of course you are a conservative. Rush Limbaugh and certainly Mark Levin would tell you otherwise.
A liberal will argue against "positive" methods for obtaining the truth, which overly restrict our viewpoints.
Matt Dioguardi, a critical rationalist, pointed this out in an essay:
"An important thing to note is that conservatism (traditional rationalism) leads to irrationalism. Imagine you have a theory of rationality. How did you decide about this theory? As this is your
meta-theory, used to decide on a theory of rationality, it cannot judge itself in terms of rationality. Any "positive" argument in regards to rationality cannot judge itself without creating a circular argument."
For example:
A: Why are you rational?
B: Because I listen to God.
A: How do you know that listening to God is rational.
B: Because God told me.
That’s circular.
"By asserting there is a theory of rationality, this leads you to the next move, which is why is the theory of rationality, in and of itself, rational? Here you can only assert it was an irrational choice and all such first choices are by necessity irrational. As such you open the door to whole scale irrationality. If you allow one choice, then why not many. A critical rationalist avoids having to make this capitulation to irrationality by NOT offering any "positive" theory of rationality."
"The only possible benefit you can possibly receive from having a "positive" theory of rationality is it can give you a sense of moral superiority when dealing with others. That is, if you think your theory of rationality is correct, you could be "sure" you were right and whoever
disagrees with you is wrong. Or at least you could argue that way. However, your opponent could merely point out your theory of rationality itself was also irrational. At this point the argument ends. You both take your irrational stand and the only way to resolve the conflict is to
engage in violence."
"People with theories of rationality take stands, critical rationalists keep arguing. They keep trying to shift through the ideas to try and figure-out where the disagreement lays and what might resolve it. This is an endless process. It might not be resolved until some new ideas come along. But even then, this will probably only lead to new disagreements. All the better."
Liberalism could almost be viewed as the complete absence of holding of any traditional theory of rationality. Of course this is the very thing that irritates the conservative who is steeped in traditional thinking.
In an interview with Sean Hannity, Levin states that conservatives are the beneficiaries of thousands of years of human experience. He then refers to Obama and others as relying on philosophies a couple of hundred years old. That’s interesting considering that aside from the Ancient Greeks, Democracy as we know it is only as old as this country itself...approximately 218 years old. Those philosophies that preceded it were aristocratic, authoritarian, or theocratic.They were not democratic. They were exactly the philosophies that our founders rejected.
Essentially, Conservatism is the domination of society by an aristocracy. Conservatism is incompatible with democracy, prosperity, and civilization in general. It is a destructive system of inequality and prejudice that is founded on deception and has no place in the modern world, which is exactly why it’s floundering today. Going back to Kirk, we see that In Kirks Fifth principle he states, "conservatives pay attention to the principle of variety". In this principle he claims that "For the preservation of a healthy diversity in any civilization, there must survive orders and classes, differences in material condition, and many sorts of inequality. The only true forms of equality are equality at the Last Judgment and equality before a just court of law; all other attempts at leveling must lead, at best, to social stagnation. Society requires honest and able leadership; and if natural and institutional differences are destroyed, presently some tyrant or host of squalid oligarchs will create new forms of inequality". What we have here is a justification for a hierarchal society. Otherwise known as an aristocracy. We also see a
justification for prejudice and bigotry as being a good and necessary part of the conservative concept of society.
Levin re-iterates that "our principles are tried and true. They’ve been tried for centuries". Yet again, Democracy as we know it only began at the time of the ratification of the constitution. So what philosophy is he talking about that preceded democracy? Certainly it wasn’t something that our founders sought to replicate. Levin hits the main problem with conservatism. He states that we can’t salute a philosophy that is antithetical to our history (that’s a subjective view and could be debated forever) or to our BELIEF SYSTEM. And that is where the problem lies.
Conservatism is by Levin’s own admission, a belief system. But being so it can never demonstrate itself as being true. It’s an ideology actually formalized by Russell Kirk who provided 6 canons that conservatives follow. Canons? Conservatism today has taken on the mantle of a religious cult. It has a doctrine that must be followed religiously or you risk
excommunication. It is a Theory of Rationality that cannot justify itself through any authority other then itself. It’s a circular argument and irrational. A theory cannot use itself to justify itself.
The problem with ideological thinking like this is that it assumes its own infallibility. That it is flawless. Yet it was created by fallible men. Is it even remotely possible that it could be wrong?
Can an idea created by fallible men be infallible? The question is can it even demonstrate how it’s true. If it can, then maybe Levin could provide the methodology that he uses to prove it. He writes a book that is the Conservative Manifesto, defining conservatism. By defining it, he is
unconsciously limiting the reach of its own effectiveness. Once he defines it then it’s not possible to be something beyond that definition. Its potential for greatness is limited to what he’s described. That is self limiting and completely contrary to free-thought and democracy. If, in a democracy those ideas are rejected, then perhaps he might reevaluate his ideas. But no! That isn’t possible because the ideology can’t be wrong. He can’t demonstrate how it’s true, but it can’t be wrong. But if something cannot possibly be wrong, then how can it be right. In order for something to be right it must contain the possibility of being wrong. For something to be true, it must contain the possibility of being false otherwise you’re merely preaching a belief, rather than something that can be proven right or wrong empirically. You would have nothing to compare that truth to. In the world of Mark Levin, conservatism cannot be wrong.
The tactics of conservatism vary widely by place and time. But the most central feature of conservatism is deference: a psychologically internalized attitude on the part of the common people that the aristocracy are better people than they are. Mark Levin has no interest in
democracy. His only interest is a return to an aristocratic society of Lords and serfs.
I was asked to tell why I thought conservatism is a "twisted ideology". I was expected by Poster X to define conservatism. That isn’t my job. That’s the job of conservatives. They present themselves and say," this is me". They don’t present themselves and expect me to define them to
satisfy my preconceptions. But these very people will attempt to define a liberal in a monolithic sense as if all liberals are this, or all liberals are that. Liberals want to kill your granny. Liberals want to take your money. Liberals want to eat your kids.
Sweeping generalizations that are simply stunning in their stupidity. It would be like me trying to define what a muslim is. Not being a muslim, how could I possible know what it means? A Muslim can define his religion far better and more accurately then I ever could. So the complaint that I’ve used the definition of conservatism as provided by conservatives themselves, is empty headed and shows enormous ignorance of how the process of critique is done.
In the future, I’d suggest that any conservative interested in a debate, get real or get lost.
What I need to point out is that this was a response to a thread (topic) put up by a conservative poster on a forum, that insisted on defining liberals on his terms. That becomes a child’s game of name calling. Accusations and denials. Liberals are this. Liberals are that. Liberals hate God. Liberals hate America. That isn’t a debate. It’s a stupid game, that I’m not interested in playing.
The challenge he put forth as the title of his thread was, "Why are Liberals Afraid to Debate". I responded that they aren’t. And asked what made him think that was the case? He said, ok pick a subject. I told him that I found that conservatism was a twisted ideology and he asked me why. I gave him a much shorter answer which he immediately complained about because he assumed that I would define conservatism in my own words, when what I did was define conservatism according to the words of conservatives, such as Kirk, Reagan, Buckley, and others that have
been recognized as prominent conservatives within the movement. His complaint was that I was using the words of others, instead of my own, and expected me to define conservatism so that he could of course deny that I knew what conservatism was. The problem for him now was that he
couldn’t reject the definitions that I presented since they were the definitions according to the most well known conservatives and in fact the ones that gave the "Conservative Movement" it’s name. They were the people recognized by the Heritage Foundation itself. It’s hard to reject
those credentials when it comes to the definition of conservatism. These are the very conservatives that mapped out what conservatism is. He was used to defining Liberals and what they were to other Liberals and thought that was how the game would be played. I told him that was a stupid approach.
That is the game that the conservative plays. I’m not a conservative. I don’t play that game. What I can do, however is take their definition of themselves and critique it to see where falls apart. What are its shortcomings. It’s not up to me to define somebody else. It’s up to them to define themselves. Then that definition is open to criticism. This upset his game plan and after several heated exchanges and arrogant accusations and assumptions, I presented this critique of conservatism that is now part of a book. The debate ended after this posting. His conservative friends avoided the subject like it was the plague and refused to go to his defense. His thread disappeared shortly after that as did the poster himself. He came back later but was decidedly less arrogant. He asked me why I thought conservatism was a twisted ideology and this was my response.
In any debate on a political forum, you aren’t going to change anybody’s mind. At least not the hard core conservative. But, you must know that others are reading the thread, and they will gauge for themselves the quality of the argument. So you might with a moderate. If you can present a logical and rational case. Again, never try to prove your theory is true. You can’t. The object is to show how their theory is false.