Considerations of such contingencies as cultural traditions, widely distributed emotional dispositions, institutional arrangements, and habits, prescription, precedent, and prejudice, are conspicuously absent from the libertarian's vision.
Upon discovering that I, a regular contributor to a website devoted to exploring "conservative and libertarian" politics, endorse Arizona's latest effort — the passage into law of SB 1070 — to address the many problems that illegal immigration has visited upon her, a reader expressed puzzlement: Isn't it the case, he asked, that libertarians, being the champions of "the free market" that they are, oppose all attempts to restrict immigration, both legal and illegal? To establish that his suspicion was more than just a hunch, he provided a statement of the platform of the Libertarian Party, which, indeed, expressly rejects any and every policy designed to regulate immigration. Furthermore, he queried, isn't it true that Ronald Reagan, the alleged American conservative par excellence, identified "the essence" of conservatism in terms of "libertarianism?"
"Libertarianism" and "conservatism" aren't unlike any of the other terms constitutive of our political vocabulary in that usage in a variety of contexts over a span of generations has loaded them with a multiplicity of meanings, some of which may or may seem to be in tension with the others. In spite of the regularity with which we trade in such terms, then, the fact of the matter is that they are ridden with an ambiguity that, though susceptible to being considerably reduced by reflection of a philosophical and historical sort, nevertheless promises to remain in part intractable. Still, since the clarity that is within our grasp is of an importance that shouldn't be understated, it is a goal to the achievement of which we must aspire.
The first thing that we must take note of is that every political tradition, like any other sort of tradition, acquires its identity over time, that is to say, throughout its history. Since its history comprises nothing but both the responses that those who have (sometimes in retrospect) come to be associated with it have made to the contingent circumstances ("the issues") with which they were confronted as well as the manners in which they made them, a fully adequate recognition of any political tradition must encompass both the general substance of the positions that its proponents characteristically endorse on those issues that characteristically engage them and the formal presuppositions underlying those positions. To put it simply, both form and substance constitute the identity of a political tradition.
Ever since the advent of the modern epoch, there has existed within the Western mind an impulse to reduce the bewildering complexity of reality to a set of readily apprehensible set of "principles" and/or "laws." Not only is this penchant in itself unobjectionable, to a certain point it is laudable, and it is certainly inescapable. Yet the enterprise to which we are attending moves far beyond the juncture of employing "principles" and the like as expedient devices by which to attain a moderately manageable, but always provisional, understanding of a phenomenon whose complexity is such as to insure its permanent elusiveness; the "principles" by which its participants treat of their subject matter they take to be, or at least treat as if they were, self-subsistent, timeless verities accessible to all rational beings that, if not exhaustive of morality, encompass its most important part. Because the disposition to which I refer has often been called "Rationalism," I will follow this common usage.
Although the Rationalist's project, understood as a theoretical endeavor, could be said to have reached its zenith during the nineteenth century, that it continues to retain not only its influence in the fields of moral and political philosophy, but a virtual monopoly over the practice of our contemporary politics, is easily gathered by just a moment's consideration of the dominant thrust of the academic and popular literature within these disciplines, as well as the idiom and tone in which commentators from across the political spectrum engage one another. In other words, while there aren't any longer many who would confess to being Rationalist by design, virtually the whole of the current generation remains Rationalist in effect: whether Republicans or Democrats, "conservatives" or "liberals," the language of our politics is always the language of "principles" and "ideals": "Capitalism," "Democracy," "Freedom," "Equality," "Individualism," "Traditionalism," "Human Rights," etc. And those on the Right no less than those on the Left repeatedly reference "the principles" upon which America was supposedly "founded." Even when self-identified "conservatives" invoke "tradition," it is hard to escape the impression that the conception that they have in mind, when it isn't just a piece of rhetoric or a misty generality, is as rationalistic as any of these others, a doctrine or set of doctrines articulated by one age to the next.
The extent to which familiarity with the Rationalist's creed can assist us in discerning the difference between "libertarianism" and genuine conservatism cannot be overstated, for what is commonly known as "libertarianism" — previously referred to as "classical liberalism" — is a manifestation of Rationalism. It isn't the libertarian's customary idiom of "principles" and "ideals" that establishes its relationship to Rationalism, however, but its exclusive reference to these: considerations of such contingencies as cultural traditions, widely distributed emotional dispositions, institutional arrangements, and habits, prescription, precedent, and prejudice, are conspicuously absent from the libertarian's vision.
There is nothing particularly rationalistic about seeking an understanding of a tradition — especially a tradition of a moral or political character — in terms of the principles and/or ideals that can be elicited from it; in fact, any fully adequate understanding must rely (partially) upon such aids. And neither the libertarian's ideals of "Liberty" and "Individualism," nor his commitment to free markets that they entail, are to be despised. But the point that must not be lost upon is this: libertarianism in its standard form(s) is an abstraction. Whatever elegance and plausibility it can be said to possess as a theory derives from the distance that lies between it and the messy world in which we find ourselves, a world constituted by circumstances many of which resist reconciliation with the few and simple principles of the libertarian creed.
But besides this, just insofar as it is a version of Rationalism, it stands opposed to conservatism in its classical or traditional sense. Traditional or classical conservatives — those inspired by the vision articulated by Burke during the eighteenth century — have always insisted that the abstract metaphysics of morals promoted by Rationalists of all stripes, detached, as they are, from the flow of contingencies and relativities characteristic of the real world, are unsuitable grounds on which to make decisions, either for individuals or societies. Rather, tradition — a customary manner of attending to institutional arrangements — is the only guide upon which we can rely.
The very existence of any legal society inescapably and crucially depends upon a condition of order, and there is no legal society more in need of order than that of a state. Indeed, a state is an instance of order. And while formal (written) laws, enforced by government, contribute to this order, it is the fruit, ultimately, of the tradition — the habits and affections — of the residents of the state. What this in turn implies is that unless the inhabitants of any given society are either familiar with its tradition or willing to become so — that is, unless they "assimilate" — the tradition and, by extension, the very identity of the society, is imperiled, for disorder promises to set in.
Contrary to what the rhetoric of Rationalists — neoconservative, libertarian, and leftist — would have us believe, America was not "founded" de novo on a set of supra-historical "principles"; it is no different from any other society that has ever existed in having been birthed via "the accidents" of history: only after an extensive and bloody war of secession did its "founders" — all of whom were of north western European descent, the same language, the same religion (Protestant Christianity), in short, the same cultural heritage — succeed in acquiring independence for the land in which they had been living all of their lives. Or, to put it differently, America was indeed "founded," but it was founded, not on "self-evident," "eternal" principles, but on the rich, and richly diverse, battery of resources of a specific culture.
In addition to "the white guilt" that began corrupting the rationality of the American mind a half of a century or so ago, it is the myth that the United States is "unique" in the history of the planet in having been erected upon "principles" and "ideals" that accounts for the ludicrous notion that America can remain essentially the same place irrespective of the cultural and/or national origins of those we permit to immigrate here. After all, if "a good American" is neither more nor less than one who both grasps and affirms a few simple abstract "principles," then there is no person on the planet who can't be as fervently devoted to America as was, say, George Washington, and, because these "principles" are "self-evident" and, thus, accessible to all peoples in all places and at all times, whether people choose to "apply" them or not, everyone, at some level, does in fact grasp them.
That this unabashedly rationalistic perspective is endorsed by your average libertarian no less than his neoconservative and leftist liberal counterparts, and that it has no home in the soul of the classical conservative, can be gathered without much difficulty by examining their respective positions on any number of issues. But the issue of "nation building" may quite possibly bring these similarities and contrasts into focus more clearly, and more easily, than any other.
Neoconservatives and leftists (of all sorts) are of the rationalist faith that governments can impose massive, sweeping, revolutionary change(s) upon whole societies. Whether the society that is the object of their interest is their own or another's, its institutions on this view are to be regarded as tools that, like others that human beings have deliberately designed, are either no less portable than those of a carpenter or no less susceptible to the fate of obsolescence than are all such specimens of their kind. Libertarians oppose all projects of a "social engineering" type, it is true, yet it is equally true that they tend to accept the premise — what, because it is usually unspoken, is called an "enthymeme" — concerning the character of social institutions upon which such projects depend: libertarians invariably reject "nation building" on the grounds that such activities as it essentially involve inescapably demand that the timeless "rights" to "liberty" and "private property" be undermined. The libertarian indicates but the slightest awareness of neither the fact that government-inspired pursuits aimed at affecting "fundamental transformations" of whole populations are inevitably doomed to fail nor the fact that their failure is indebted to the fundamental misconception of the nature of social institutions and, thus, the nature of social life, underlying them.
And herein lies the most basic of differences between the libertarian and the classical conservative. The latter too opposes "nation building" or "social engineering," but his opposition is motivated, not by the libertarian's belief that there are "inalienable Rights" that such projects threaten, but, rather, the conservative's recognition that, at bottom, the basic institutions of any society, far from being mechanical — like contraptions that, modeled on blue prints, as it were, can be uprooted and redesigned at will, are, in fact, nothing more than the habits and affections, the beliefs and values, of countless numbers of people that have accumulated over the span of centuries and even millennia. The conservative isn't necessarily averse to conceding the truth of the libertarian's judgment that the enterprise of "nation building" is immoral, but, in contrast to the latter for whom this immorality derives from violations of "rights," the conservative holds that the immorality of this enterprise lies in its folly, in the gross imprudence of which it consists.
Prudence has always been treated as a cardinal virtue for the conservative, for he is painfully aware that in a world of intractable limitations, the Rationalist's belief in "solutions" arises from confusing dreams with reality: the choices that we make, the conservative knows, can never constitute "solutions," for every decision involves the loss of something of value. Those who speak otherwise are delusional.
So, contrary to the conventional wisdom, differences between standard libertarianism and conservatism are not located in the substance of the positions to which they subscribe on what we may call issues of policy. A conservative, no less than a libertarian, can favor the legalization of recreational drugs, gambling, and prostitution, say, but in contrast to the libertarian, he will oppose criminalizing these activities not because of an alleged "Human Right" to engage in any and all practices that are consonant with a so-called "Harm Principle" (the doctrine first famously articulated by John S. Mill and subsequently adopted by generations of "liberals" which asserts that it is permissible for adults to engage in any type of self-regarding conduct, whether wise or foolish, rational or irrational, healthy or destructive, as long as it harms no one else), but because, to paraphrase Thomas Aquinas, he may think that the criminalization of these activities has produced evils greater than those inherent in the activities themselves. To put it another way, the conservative is concerned first and foremost with conserving and strengthening the pre-political resources, the cultural "pre-requisites," of society — that is, its traditions. Since order consists in the maintenance of the integrity of these traditions, the conservative will favor those policies that are likely to be conducive to this end, and dread those that are likely to be productive of their ruination.
One final note: while the conservative can, in principle, be of like mind with the libertarian in supporting the aforementioned activities, he must part company with the latter on the issue of illegal immigration. Illegal immigration, particularly of the sort with which we are currently dealing, being the decisive threat to the distinctive constellation of culturally-specific conditions constitutive of our society, imperils our society as we know it.
Perhaps if all that we had to worry about are immigrants mastering a few "fundamental principles" that are as accessible to the Aztecs as to members of the Libertarian Party, I could justly be accused of hysteria. Yet as I have tried to show, the conservative is convinced that the libertarian has been overcome by the same Rationalist illusion that has taken hold of his neoconservative and leftist peers.
I always believed that moderate Nationalsim is the way for the Republican party to go. Yes, mass immigration can actually bring down the Republic especially when Whites see themselves surrounded by ethnic communities that are gaining in numbers and influence but still with deep historic grudges. They will have to worry about their physical safety.
Reply to Dr. Kerwick:
I think it is always useful to be aware of the truth that the terms of ours, or anyone else’s, political vocabulary have multiple, and often overlapping, or even seemingly inconsistent meanings. While all ideological traditions have their would-be keepers of doctrinal purity and semantic consistency, in point of fact the terminological inmates of any ideological zoo are difficult to manage. Some philosophers like to use the notion of “essential contestability,” originally developed by English historian W.B. Gallie, to identify concepts about which complete agreement is unlikely or perhaps impossible. Consider the vast differences between what conservatives and liberals mean when they use a concept like ‘equality,’ for example.
However, as you rightly point out, clarity remains a desirable goal, and I think it is undeniable that every political tradition acquires its identity throughout its history. I go further: the full content of an ideological tradition is the sum total of its history. If we wish to think and say something about, e.g., conservatism in the 1950s or liberalism in the 1970s, we necessarily abstract a specific identity from this history, and make that the subject of our inquiry. However, you are also correct, I think, in noticing that an adequate understanding requires attention to both the substantive positions that belong to the ideology and the presuppositions that underlie it.
In teaching, I sometimes use the following schema for explaining a piece of ideological writing to students. This schema can also be applied, though perhaps less easily, to an ideological tradition. (And all ideologies are, in this sense, ideological traditions.).
1. Presuppositions: What is taken for granted? What does the political/social/economic world seem like for believers in x? I ask students to reflect on whatever their own political views might be—silently, in class, and then ask themselves: what beliefs seem absolutely self-evident to you? If you can focus on what you regard as self-evident, as ‘obvious,’ as requiring no proof, evidence, etc.– you are probably close to whatever your presuppositions might be.
2. Intentions: What is the intended result of the work in question? Or, what conditions are sought by supporters of a specific ideology? What counts as a good result of political action? Also: who gets to make this determination?
3. ‘Arguments.’: How are the ideological claims advocated/supported/justified? Note that within any ideological tradition, there will develop cadres of more or less professional ideologues or political intellectuals who specialize in this activity.
4. Implications: What are the unforeseen consequences of the doctrines, arguments, and actions of followers of a specific ideology?
Your use of ‘Rationalism’ is, of course, familiar to conservatives who know their Michael Oakeshott. Oakeshott found this style of thought across the ideological spectrum—it was one of the reasons he was never simply an endorser of the political doctrines derived from Austrian economics. That is, the fact that these were doctrines made them problematic from his standpoint. However, as you yourself recognize, it is “inescapable” that we try, in thought at least, to reduce complexity to manageable proportions. For me Oakeshott’s way of explaining this in his “On Human Conduct” is very useful. Of necessity we formulate what he calls an “identity,” something to understand, by abstracting it from the flux of complexity by means of thinking that itself must employ some regular, coherent features. As he explains in the first part of his book, we transform what was intelligible in some less clear, less specific manner to what is intelligible under some intellectual heading or another, from what he calls a ‘conditional platform of understanding.’ As he shows in the second and third parts of his book, it is perfectly possible to analyze various ‘principles’ that belong to a vast range of phenomena drawn (in his case) from the intellectual and political history of Western Europe. What he does not do in his book is address ‘rationalism’ in the sense in which it figures in his classic “Rationalism in Politics.”
However, you seem to want to distinguish as cleanly as you can between ‘conservatism’ and any version of Rationalism, and I’m not sure you can pull this off.
First, Oakeshott’s aid, if you seek it, fades from view if you consider his own conception of ‘conservatism’ as a ‘disposition.’ It is very difficult to pin a ‘disposition’ down and make it do political work. The problem with Oakeshott’s ‘disposition’ is that, as he shows so clearly, everyone is, in one way or another, ‘conservative’ in this sense. The most radical leftist intellectual is ‘conservative’ in the sense that he will draw on sets of ideas and ideological writings long familiar to him, or even expect the royalties on his latest book to flow to him as his publisher’s contract says they will. The most visionary astrophysicist will make sure that his new model for the large-scale structure of the physical universe is intelligibly related to previous models, and his own unique take on this will be presented in a ‘conservative’ way that allows other competent scientists to understand and evaluate his theory. So, who is not a ‘conservative’ by ‘disposition’?
I disagree with you on the following point. You write: ” There is nothing particularly rationalistic about seeking an understanding of a tradition — especially a tradition of a moral or political character — in terms of the principles and/or ideals that can be elicited from it; in fact, any fully adequate understanding must rely (partially) upon such aids.” I say, this is precisely where ‘rationalism’ in a sense must enter the picture.
What Oakeshott was really after in his critique of ‘rationalism’ was the notion that ‘reason’ is sufficient to initiate important human activities, such as politics. What he never did, as a scholar, however, was to set out to criticize systematically the tradition of modern political philosophy stemming from Kant (and ultimately from Rousseau) that did in fact attempt to derive concepts relevant to politics from moral principles. Rawls, of course, was the principal American liberal continuator of this enterprise. Oakeshott had the intellectual apparatus available to take this task on, but for some reason never chose to do so.
You then repeat the familiar arguments of Burke and other traditional conservatives, concluding at one point: “Rather, tradition — a customary manner of attending to institutional arrangements — is the only guide upon which we can rely.” However, tradition cannot simply be relied upon mutely, as my Pekingese relies on her instinct for food. The moment you—or, for that matter, Burke—tries to explain why ‘tradition’ is our only sure guide, you find yourself employing one abstract idea after another. After all, it is a choice—and you will probably contend it is a ‘rational’ choice—to employ our ‘customary manner of attending to institutional arrangements.’ How will you explain or defend this in the face of the critic? Ultimately, you’ll wind up like Wittgenstein, who, when pressed to explain his explanations reached a limit, saying, almost in so many words, ‘this is what I do.’ If traditional conservatism existed in a world with no rivals, no alternatives, commanding unmixed, universal support, perhaps this would suffice. It would be like ancient Egypt as imagined by Plato—an order so ancient no other could be conceived—and the condition Plato wanted to create artificially for the society in his final work, Laws. Note that in this work, Plato had to expend enormous effort having his spokesman, the Athenian Stranger, give all sorts of reasons for the baroque intricacy of his highly legalistic regime. Today’s conservative has to do the same, and so must be a rationalist malgré lui.
Note as well, what conservative traditionalism commits the conservative to do: defend any and all conditions and practices that can be considered ‘traditional.’ Surely, your liberal critic says, you traditional conservatives don’t really mean this—but my question is: why don’t you mean it? If you don’t mean to defend all of tradition, or all of any nation’s actual tradition, have you not reached the limit of tradition and thus the limit of traditional conservatism?
I’ll turn to your political aim in your contribution. You want to undercut, as traditional conservatives generally do, the liberal and libertarian view of the United States as what some scholars call a ‘creedal’ nation, founded on universal, abstract principles, alleged to be accessible to all rational men. You write: “America was indeed “founded,” but it was founded, not on “self-evident,” “eternal” principles, but on the rich, and richly diverse, battery of resources of a specific culture.” I completely agree. I include a large section on colonial American history in my American government course where I bring precisely this point to the attention of students, telling them that the United States was not just a ‘bright idea’ that came to the minds of the Founders; no, there is a vastly important pre-history to know. I point out how the Constitution eventually comes to bear the legacy of this history, for both good and evil, and how the lengthy history of practical self-government (at both the colonial and the local levels of government) shaped all subsequent American political history.
Of course your critical furies will doubtless arise at the mention of the word ‘evil’ in my previous sentence. The Constitution’s inclusion of slavery is what I have in mind, although I agree with those conservatives who point out that ending slavery was not politically possible when the Constitution was written, ratified, and put in place. Perhaps from your standpoint, slavery was not an evil, but, as part of American tradition,as part of the traditional order, an evident good. This brings me back to my question: should a traditional conservative endorse all that is traditional, and, if not, why not?
We agree that libertarians are rationalists. It was only from a marriage of convenience against Communism that libertarians and conservatives could ever play nicely together. The alliance is ultimately vaporous. I sometimes like to call libertarians ‘right-wing liberals,’ and certainly always distinguish them from conservatives.
I’ll conclude by returning to Oakeshott. As you probably recall, Oakeshott explained what it is to be conservative as follows: “To be conservative…..is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss.” So far, so good, but recall his comment on the sheer flux of human affairs. :“In political activity men sail a boundless and bottomless sea; there is neither harbor for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting point nor appointed destination.” One might say, to be brief, that traditional conservatism seeks a floor for anchorage and the left seeks an appointed destination. This looks to me like a contradiction, or at least a tension, that Oakeshott never resolves. His understanding of politics as ‘the pursuit of intimations’ also pulls against conservatism. Who gets to determine what is intimated? And how do we decide how to pursue an intimation? Oakeshott used this notion to account for giving women the right to vote, attempting to argue that there were no reasons why men should be allowed to vote that could not be coherently extended to women. Now this is actually an argument from J.S. Mill (in “The Subjection of Women”)but Oakeshott didn’t attribute it. Some such strategy is needed, I think, by conservatives who may not want to be compelled to defend tradition across the board because otherwise they must defend the indefensible.
I think you’ve pretty accurately nailed down the distinction. Libertarianism is a strictly political philosophy that posits universal individual rights and derives its moral foundation from them. Objectivism is probably the most succinct theory of libertarian morality and ethics even though Objectivists and main line libertarians frequently savage each other over the supposed distinctions in their ideologies.
Conservatism, on the other hand, is, as you say, as much a cultural ideology as it is a political one. Because of the co-mingling of political and cultural ideologies, conservatism has a tendency to run into self-contradictions as the culture to be conserved evolves and changes over time. “Conservative” must be relative to some standard – a person considered to be extremely radical 100 years ago might be considered very conservative by today’s standard, because today’s standard is determined by yesterday’s history. Hence the quotation: “The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution“. The “traditions” and “values” that inform today’s “conservative”, for instance, include concepts like democratic representation in government, private property, and a quasi-capitalist marketplace. All of those concepts were once – really not so very long ago – radical and extremist concepts. Monarchy, feudalism and mercantilism were long-entrenched “traditional” institutions when they were supplanted by those concepts. Conservatism inherits its values, assumptions, morals and ethics from the floating standard of “tradition” rather than a set of, for lack of a better word, doctrine.
Although I do find some aspects of libertarian political policy within the context of the modern political structure of the United States impracticable or self-destructive, I see it as a strength rather than a weakness that the philosophy is theory-derived rather than dependent on a relativistic standard such as “tradition”. “Conservatism” as so defined is really a meaningless term politically in a long-term context. Libertarianism’s strength is that it is able to achieve a level of consistency because of its adherence to a simplified political structure based on the objective concepts of individual rights and the non-aggression principle that is lacking in both the sort of “conservative” ideology you describe as well as modern social liberalism (more properly defined as collectivism or socialism).
You also make the incorrect assumption that libertarians are men without a culture or respect for certain traditions and values. That is simply not true – no person could be said to exist in a cultural vacuum, and you would be hard pressed to find a person who identifies as “libertarian” who would claim to. Libertarians simply believe that cultural values and traditions should be practiced on an individual basis with a consensus taking place within a marketplace of public debate, and ideas, and perception (the concept of a “marketplace” is often extended beyond the customary financial understanding in libertarian thinking). Or stated differently, libertarians don’t believe that a person must confrom to a single standard of behavior or belief in order to participate in society, but at the same time, cultural conditions must exist that are at least amenable to libertarian governance in order for a libertarian society to exist. So you would most likely never hear a libertarian advocate a white, Christian nation founded on Biblical principles, but you would never hear a libertarian object to huge, majority swaths of the nation practicing Christianity, or having white skin, or making individual decisions based on either of those conditions so long as they are not hostile to libertarian governance. The same could be said of any set of cultural/ethnic/religious characteristics.
The chief conservative criticism of modern social liberalism is that it is a “feel good” and relativistic ideology. But if conservatism is defined as nothing more or less than adherence to tradition, could it not be described the exact same way?
reply to Patrick Mulligan:
One problem traditional conservatives have with libertarianism is made evident in your opening sentence, where you write that libertarianism “posits universal individual rights.” A “posit” is an invention—we liberals would call it a construction—and is thus at bottom no more than a product of the will; it is simply a wish upon which the libertarian chooses to base his position. Why should one man’s wish or will be more acceptable than another’s? If the libertarian is to have what he claims he seeks—some sort of firm foundation for a belief in “universal individual rights,” then he must turn to something like modern natural rights theory, perhaps of the sort Locke presents. The philosophical problem doesn’t go away, however, since the libertarian must then try to do what is so very difficult—to show rationally how some fact or set of facts about human nature gives rise to rights of any sort at all. Dr. Kerwick, I’m sure, is well aware of this problem as a perennial issue for natural rights theories. This problem is why a traditional Catholic conservative like Alasdair MacIntyre rejects natural rights out of hand, dismissing them as no more plausible than unicorns.
You are, of course, right on the money when it comes to the problems of traditional conservatism. Exactly where should the conservative draw his line in the sand between historical changes that were once reviled but are now (for some reason) acceptable, and those which are not. Literally all of the specific positions of either classical liberalism or libertarianism were, at various times, opposed by conservatives. Conservatism arose as more than just a reaction against the French Revolution; conservatives set themselves against all the doctrine of the Enlightenment, including the very idea of universal individual rights. And of course such traditional conservative icons as Richard Weaver, Eric Voegelin, T.S. Eliot, and Leo Strauss opposed the whole of the modern age—its politics, philosophy, culture, ethics, and much, much more.
Traditional conservatism does understand a human society as something in which individuals are woven together into a common social fabric, which libertarians either don’t truly grasp or prefer to minimize. Recall that one of Edmund Burke’s main arguments against the French Revolutionaries was that they placed far too much weight on the supposed power of individual human reason to answer questions about how society and government should be organized and run. The combined ‘wisdom’ of tradition was supposed to be superior to the personal (and necessarily subjective) judgment of each individual. From the traditional conservative standpoint, libertarians simply continue to make what seem to be wildly exaggerated claims about the powers of human reason.
In my own criticisms of traditional conservatism, I try to argue that the traditional conservative, precisely to the extent that he venerates the past and traditional social institutions, has no principled basis on which to oppose things such as slavery. Slavery was indeed a traditional, and strongly defended institution in this country, and the finest conservative minds in 19th century America defended it with arguments that still have force for conservatives today, such as the appeal to tradition itself and the belief in fundamental human inequality. Thus, the conservative may oppose slavery because today many people don’t like it, or because he has imbibed the koolade we liberals dish out, but he can’t truly oppose it on principle without giving up the foundation of his ideology.
The standard conservative response to such criticisms is to distinguish between core principles and peripheral principles, but once again the relativistic issue surfaces. Who gets to decide which principle is which?
Although you appear to be trying to bridge a gap between traditional conservatives and libertarians by asserting that libertarians can indeed recognize a common culture and shared values. However, you spoil your message by going back to the libertarian play book when you write that libertarians “don’t believe that a person must conform to a single standard of behavior or belief in order to participate in society.”
For a real conservative this is a very bad thing. The whole concept of society, as the traditionalist views it, requires a ‘single standard of behavior or belief,’ one which is both traditional and grounded in religion. Religion, in other words, is expected to supply the ‘objective,’ non-relativistic foundation, absence of which you were criticizing earlier.
Here is an easy way to separate out these points of doctrine. For traditional conservatives “society” is something like a big, traditional, close-knit community, where the vast majority of people have the same beliefs, values, and social practices. For libertarians “society” is something like a loose aggregate of individuals, loosely connected by some rules of behavior and interaction to which they freely, voluntarily, and revocably subscribe. They may opt out at any time. For the traditional conservative, governing is about maintaining the conditions of this close-knit ‘community,’ while for the libertarian governing is, at most, about maintaining those rules of behavior and interaction, with at least the theoretical possibility of eliminating the need for governing, since all rational individuals will, it is believe, abide by rules even if no enforcement mechanisms exist.
Finally, a comment on your comment on modern liberalism: Like most conservatives or libertarians, you mistakenly believe that modern liberalism is relativistic. What you evidently don’t grasp is the, for modern liberals, there is nothing at all relativistic in the idea that individuals should not have their lives, including their free choices, hampered by the biases of others. Most modern liberals contend that a society in which gays are able to enter into any relationships that can be entered into by straights is better—objectively better—than one in which the reverse is true. A modern liberal rejects the idea that anyone has a ‘right’ to impose some disadvantage or burden on another—as would be the case if a business owner had a ‘right’ to refuse service on the basis of race or sexual orientation or disability. One may have a ‘right’ to think whatever bigoted thoughts he wishes, about any group of people he wishes, but he has no ‘right’ to act publicly on his particular obsessions. Modern liberals are seldom moral relativists; they believe that the social order as they think it should be is morally better than the one sought by conservatives. And as for the ‘feel good’ charge, which is made by the Right but never really defended, I’ll simply say that the traditional conservative or the libertarian is every bit as inclined to regard ‘feelings’ (i.e., his own) as an important consideration. How much of conservatism’s hostility to gays is, at bottom, a matter of feelings of disgust or loathing for homosexual acts? Plenty. And watch a libertarian’s blood pressure climb if someone attacks his faith—and it is faith, whatever else it may be—in the rightness of the free market.
A “posit” is an invention—we liberals would call it a construction—and is thus at bottom no more than a product of the will; it is simply a wish upon which the libertarian chooses to base his position.
This is true of any concept of rights, including the concept of positive, group-rights that “you liberals” base your entire world view upon, and the “traditional” rights (currently understood by most conservatives as negative, individual rights) that conservatives base their entire world view upon. Even if it is theorized that rights are “natural” or self-evident, the theory itself is a construction that may not be “natural” or self-evident. If that is your basis for rejecting libertarian political concepts of rights then you are obligated to disregard all concepts of rights. It is impossible to formulate and discuss theories of rights without certain basic assumptions being made.
Why should one man’s wish or will be more acceptable than another’s? If the libertarian is to have what he claims he seeks—some sort of firm foundation for a belief in “universal individual rights,” then he must turn to something like modern natural rights theory, perhaps of the sort Locke presents. The philosophical problem doesn’t go away, however, since the libertarian must then try to do what is so very difficult—to show rationally how some fact or set of facts about human nature gives rise to rights of any sort at all.
A theory of where rights come from is nothing more or less than an academic exercise, and every system of rights or the lack thereof has invented some philosophical basis to support it. So again, you’re talking about a philosophical “problem” that is not at all unique to libertarianism.
The non-aggression principle forms the moral basis of libertarianism – the idea that it is immoral to initiate force (force used in a broad sense to include fraud and coercion as well as physical violence) against another individual. One could easily use a historical basis for this premise since every system of law since the foundation of human civilization has employed the principle to one extent or another, but in orthodox libertarianism it is purely rationalistic.
There are also consequentialist libertarians, essentially utilitarians, who believe that individual rights should be protected and maximized solely because they provide the best outcomes.
The libertarian isn’t in quite the quandary you describe. The above paragraph is its moral justification – take it or leave it.
In my own criticisms of traditional conservatism, I try to argue that the traditional conservative, precisely to the extent that he venerates the past and traditional social institutions, has no principled basis on which to oppose things such as slavery.
That was basically the point I was making earlier, but I left out any reference to slavery due to the incendiary nature of the topic. If conservatism, as Dr. Kerwick argues, is as much cultural as it is political then it is – at least in a long-term context – relative. As I said before, a conservative circa 1650 would be unrecognizable from a conservative circa 1890, which would be unrecognizable from a conservative circa 2005. I would repeat myself in saying: “Libertarianism’s strength is that it is able to achieve a level of consistency because of its adherence to a simplified political structure based on the objective concepts of individual rights and the non-aggression principle“. I would further point out that this consistency is achieved precisely because libertarianism is a strictly political philosophy that divorces itself from culture and tradition.
Although you appear to be trying to bridge a gap between traditional conservatives and libertarians by asserting that libertarians can indeed recognize a common culture and shared values. However, you spoil your message by going back to the libertarian play book when you write that libertarians “don’t believe that a person must conform to a single standard of behavior or belief in order to participate in society.”
My intent wasn’t to bridge a gap between conservatism and libertarianism, but simply to clarify something which Dr. Kerwick, in my opinion, misrepresented. It is not that individuals who practice libertarianism do not appreciate or engage in tradition and culture – they do. They just do not integrate tradition and culture into their political philosophy. Libertarianism is a purely secular concept of how best to organize a state – its scope is limited by design. It does not expound upon how best to live your life, or what kind of choices you should make, or what values you should instill in your children, etc.
for the libertarian governing is, at most, about maintaining those rules of behavior and interaction, with at least the theoretical possibility of eliminating the need for governing, since all rational individuals will, it is believe, abide by rules even if no enforcement mechanisms exist.
That’s where you’re wrong. What you’re describing is anarchy, or anarcho-capitalism. Libertarianism pretty universally advocates for a minarchist government designed to protect individual rights from being aggressed and uphold private transactions. Anarcho-capitalism advocates for the abolition of the state and the use of private courts and law enforcement to provide those functions. This type of system was advocated by Murray Rothbard, who contributed significantly to libertarian thought, but anarcho-capitalism cannot properly be described as libertarianism.
What you evidently don’t grasp is the, for modern liberals, there is nothing at all relativistic in the idea that individuals should not have their lives, including their free choices, hampered by the biases of others.
That is not an idea of modern liberalism at all – quite the contrary, modern social liberals believe that everyone who does not conform to their standard of behavior SHOULD have their free choices hampered, abridged, or taken away entirely. For instance, if I refuse to serve certain people in my private establishment, social liberalism believes my freedom to engage in commerce should be stripped from me. If I refuse to purchase automobile insurance, my freedom to operate a vehicle should be stripped from me. If I refuse to purchase health insurance, my property – my money – should be withheld from me. What you’re describing is a libertarian concept of rights. We have had this discussion ad neaseum, I really do wish you’d refrain from doing this.
Modern liberals are seldom moral relativists; they believe that the social order as they think it should be is morally better than the one sought by conservatives.
So let me understand: modern liberals are not relativists because they are convinced of the rightness of their positions? Is there any political ideology that does NOT earnestly believe the exact same thing? If strength of convictions is the sole standard by which “relativism” is determined, then there is not a single relativistic ideology – political, religious, philosophical, or otherwise – that can possibly exist.
the traditional conservative or the libertarian is every bit as inclined to regard ‘feelings’ (i.e., his own) as an important consideration… watch a libertarian’s blood pressure climb if someone attacks his faith—and it is faith, whatever else it may be—in the rightness of the free market.
The “rightness” of the free market in the libertarian mind is not borne of faith, nor of warm feelings for it. It is borne of the moral foundation of the entire philosophy – the non-aggression principle. A free market just happens to be the only possible form of economy compatible with that moral premise.
But in terms of emphasizing “feelings”, “you liberals” have no rival. This is patently obvious by simply watching cable news for a few hours. Liberals make a very public spectacle of emoting and tend to justify and rationalize their positions in public policy debates almost entirely on that basis. Case in point: Teddy Kennedy raving, red-faced (and probably drunk) on the Senate floor about young girls forced into “back alley abortions”, Harry Reid comparing opposition to national health care to support for slavery and telling us a concocted story about poor Jorge the laborer whose daughter was killed by greedy insurance companies, Nancy Pelosi trying to squeeze some tears through the botox while describing opposition to national health care as reminiscent of the violence in the 1970′s in San Fransico (forgetting, I guess, that the student radicals who perpetrated it were the liberals who put her in office), Barack Obama’s sole criteria for Supreme Court justices being “empathy, understanding and identifying with people’s hopes and struggles”. And perhaps a quotation from right here at this website would be instructive:
“While I’m sure that some conservatives will do all they can to insure that their accession to power is peaceful, the vehemence with which the Right expresses its hatred of liberals and liberalism leave open the strong possibility that the transition to a conservative regime will be accompanied by violence… No Social Security, no Medicare, no federal meat inspection, no FDIC, no SEC, no NIH, no federal funding for scientific research, no environmental regulation, prayer in public schools, abortion made illegal, full federal support for religious institutions, revocation of all civil rights legislation, judicial overturning of all federal court civil rights decisions, no federal funding for infrastructure maintenance…It will indeed be a brave new world, and you folks will have made it so.“
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