thehappycon
I’ve been getting a lot of flak recently for a post in which I argue for conservatism using tradition. People just hate that I apply to such a despicable thing as tradition in arguing for my values. Honestly, can’t you come up with anything better?
Differences between hardcore liberals and hardcore conservatives boil down to individual beliefs about two fundamental points:
- There is an existing moral order.
- Humans are imperfect and imperfectable.
Disagreement with the first is usually a case of an overwhelming desire to stifle your own conscience. I can’t help you with that, apparently it’s just the result of neuron pathways in your brain firing off randomly. Sounds like a personal problem.
Disagreement with the second is generally the result of overwhelming desire to ignore ten thousand years of evidence. It’s amazing, after all, that after so many years of evolution, we still stab, shoot, rape, poison, lie, cheat, and steal. You’d think that years and years of psychoanalysis and Ritalin would solve this problem. But maybe we’re just still waiting for the Judeo-Christian conservative oppression to finally lift, so we can all be kind and loving to each other.
These posts are designed to help liberals who agree with the above statements, or at least with the first. If you don’t agree with the first statement, you aren’t going to like my views. Ever. And I’m not going to convince you. I won’t even try.
Naturally, this doesn’t bother me. Because people who disagree with the above statements are usually
- unwilling to listen to reason or evidence anyway, and
- an unbelievably small portion of the population who are busy waiting for the rise of the proletariat, and
- really bitter, unhappy people.
So, if you’re a liberal who happens to believe in the above statements, please keep reading. If you’re a liberal who worships at the altar of moral relativism and at the same time argues for using the government to “fix” people, don’t come after me for appealing to tradition and history. Keep reading though. And link here to tell everyone you know what a nutcase I am.
Don’t fret, the workers will unite any minute now.
Filed under: Happiness, conservative | Tagged: conservative, first principles, freedom, Happiness, liberal, marx
If you were refering to me, you should know that I am not a liberal at all (let alone a hardcore liberal).
If conservatives can only defend your beliefs by appealing to tradition, then they share the blame for the moral relativism in the culture.
Can’t you defend your ideas on the grounds of reason? Can’t you say why your ideas are right?
Let’s say I have a retarded child. The child cannot clean itself, feed itself, or communicate with the outside world. In fact, the child is in a permanent vegetative state in a hospital. If I continue to support the child, I will divert resources that could be used for others.
Where does reason leave us here? Appeals to reason give no answer to this question, or they leave us with a completely unsatisfactory solution. Reason is an effective tool, but without first principles reason is a hammer without an anvil. Even mathematics requires set theory, which itself relies on first principles. All proofs rely on set theory. Do you expect me to succeed where even mathematicians have failed?
Let us instead say that I have discovered something new. I have discovered that people evolved from monkeys. I can’t say exactly why people evolved from monkeys, but the evidence is incontrivertible. Moreover, people are as people are. Efforts to improve people by forcing them to adhere to a greater standard are called eugenics, and are generally considered beyond the pale. Indeed, evolution has give us people as they are, and efforts to improve on that design are generally the product of Nazis and Communists.
This is a factually true paragraph. Replace the word “people” with the word “traditions” and the paragraph’s meaning is the same.
The argument for tradition follows from the above first principles. Do you accept those?
I am not sure what your first principles are. Do you mean:
Traditions are right because they have evolved over long periods.
If so, you are ignoring how traditions evolve in the first place. Tradititions would not evolve if no one attempted to improve them. Traditions don’t evolve by some form of Darwinian evolution (random chance and higher probability of better ones succeeding). Traditions evolve by the free will of the individuals involved.
For a start on first principles, read the original post.
Countries with strong traditions and social norms survive. That’s why we’re having this conversation in English and not Prussian or Souix. This is precisely the argument made in favor of evolution writ large. Social norms that promote health and production outlive those that are less efficient or successful.
The Spartans were a society who happened to be really good at war. Unfortunately, they happened to be terrible at producing children and increasing the standards of living of their people.
Of course, you may speak Spartan, in which case I will be chastened before your idea free choice of social norms.
I’m studying for an economic systems final right now; this is probably a bad time to have this conversation with me. Of course, if you’d like to know why free will of individuals failed so miserably in the Soviet Union, Italy, or Peru I’d be happy to tell you all about it.
Of course good traditions produce good results. But how do those good traditions originate? The American “tradition” of capitalism originated in a revolution. How did that come about?
I forgot to mention that there is no hurry to continue the conversation. You can respond at your leisure.
Free markets came from the Brits, not the Americans, and they came from the division of labor made possible by technology. But that’s really kind of beside the point anyway.
A little better critique would be: “How do make conservatism jive with economics? Economics loves innovation, and conservatism in general is wary of it.”
This is a legitimate critique, and you can stop me later if you think I’m stacking the deck here.
Economics loves innovation and evolution. Competition works. I believe this wholeheartedly - it’s the best way to increase welfare overall.
But why don’t I apply that thinking to life? Why do I cling to traditional ways instead of welcoming all comers and watching who wins?
I think (though I reserve the right to change my mind later) that it’s because some things are simply to important to experiment on. Economics experiments can end in bankruptcy, or they can end in a few million people dead. (http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/)
But other things are costly as well. Your idea of what is and what is not too costly to experiment on determines whether you are a liberal or conservative.
Like I said, however, I reserve the right to change my mind if I decide I’m wrong. I’m just trying to make my internal incentives jive with what I see in the outside world.
Would you call Mao’s or Lenin’s or Hitler’s policies experiments? Are you saying that they could have succeeded? Are you saying that it was not possible to say with certainty that their policies were evil before their consequences were known?
Questions of ethics and politics are not questions that need to be answered by experiment.
Take ethics. How can you even interpret consequences of “economic experiments” without an ethical framework? Can you claim that Mao’s policies were evil if you did not hold every man’s right to his life and his property as an absolute?
Ben, your incredible ability to make bad arguments amazes me still.
Naturally, I welcome your correction and guidance at any time. Feel free to address any “bad” arguments you feel necessary.
Awesome work, thehappycon. Keep it up.