Conservatism

Bo Winegard’s definition of conservatism:

What is conservatism and why am I a conservative.

In my view, a conservative is a person who believes (1) in original sin; (2) there are no solutions, only trade offs; and (3) the challenge of order is the greatest, most pressing social challenge.

Original sin

What is original sin? Original sin is not necessarily a religious doctrine, but a belief about the frailness and fallibility of humans. We are flawed. But relative to what? Relative to our imagination. We can imagine all kinds of peaceful, cooperative, utopian societies.

But in the real world human nature painfully intrudes. So, in a sense original sin is about the shadow that falls between the ideal and the real, the painful gap between imaginary excellence and fleshy failure. This has crucial consequences for one’s political philosophy.

According to the conservative, philosophies such as communism and radical progressivism that are premised on the notion that human nature is almost infinitely malleable and that humans are largely good are doomed to failure. Reject original sin and one rejects reality.

Humans are tribal and competitive. Any ideology that posits a world free from competition is fanciful and quite possibly dangerous, because it will attempt to create its beautiful future by disfiguring the present, justifying current pain with future bliss.

No solutions, only trade offs

Why are there no solutions? Solution suggests a problem is solved without trade offs. When one puts a puzzle piece into place to complete a puzzle, there were no alternative options and there are no costs. But in the social world, there are always alternative and costs.

A political philosophy that denies trade offs is more propagandistic than it is realistic. It is snake oil. Honest thinkers should admit that there is no perfect world, no perfect solution, no perfect course of action. There are often only bad and slightly worse options.

The challenge of order is the greatest, most pressing social challenge

Order. The foundation of society is order. Without order, nothing is secure and all of the blessings of civilization are imperiled. Hobbes put this as pointedly as anybody, calling life in such a state “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

When disorder reigns, people will gravitate to authority; they will trade freedom for safety. And society will descend into a dictatorship. The conservative fears this as much as anything. Civilization is as precious as it is precarious. Preservation requires order.

That all sounds very abstract. Let’s consider a concrete case. Policing and protesting/rioting. The conservative starts from original sin. Humans can be cruel and exploitative. And some more than others. Education, social work, et cetera, will never eradicate crime.

Crime is not caused by poverty; nor is it largely the product of noble people trying to pay their bills. Thus, society will always require some kind of system of laws, enforcement, and punishment. They are necessary for order. Abolish the police is fanciful and dangerous.

But the conservative must be honest about this. Police are not a perfect solution. There are trade offs. More policing means more coercion. It means more chances for unjustified arrests, brutality, and even deaths. And that is a real cost of supporting a robust police force.

Furthermore, incarceration has real consequences. It costs money; it stunts people’s development; it takes fathers from children. This means that the conservative has to balance the costs of enforcement with the costs of crime. It’s not an easy balance.

The same holds for protests and riots. Protests are an important part of a free society. But riots…riots breed chaos and undermine trust. Furthermore, protests that are propelled by naive beliefs and idealism can easily lead to riots.

People who believe that a kind of cooperative utopia is possible *see* the status quo as the enemy because it is the force that is thwarting a much better, much more harmonious society. Therefore, they feel more justified looting and rioting than those who are more skeptical.

Rioting and signs of chaos and disorder should be ended as quickly as possible. And we should educated people about human nature and the limitations of social progress. People should understand that the status quo is not an intolerable enemy, but an imperfect friend.

I am not sure this is actually conservatism, but then again, it does sound a lot like it. Anyway, whatever he is describing sound true to me. Especially the part about trade offs, which I highlight because so many people seem to forget it.

It is interesting to see the concept of Original Sin pop up again and again. For instance, read this article by James Lindsay and Peter Borghossian, “Privilege: The Left’s Original Sin” where they discuss how the radical left has created their own mirror image of Original Sin in Privilege:

There is, however, one troubling difference between privilege and sin. While we can love the sinner but hate the sin, we seem poorly equipped to love the privileged, unless merely as mascots and objects of envy. Sinners have been born into a struggle against a fatal flaw; the privileged are just born flawed – unwholesomely lucky and blithely ungrateful. The sinner is born flawed and thus writes his own undoing. The sinner, then, in being unable to help it, is a wretch, and behind all contempt for him there is pity. Not so with the privileged. The very word privileged almost makes you find its target contemptible. The privileged don’t hinder themselves; they hinder you. A sinner can be redeemed; the privileged must be taken down a notch.