THE FAITH OF THE FALLEN :

Steven den Beste replies to an inane and rather hateful post by Eric Raymond, listing ten reasons he's not liberal and ten reasons he's not conservative, but Mr. den Beste seems a tad confused about the fairly simple matter of what defines Conservatism.

Mr. den Beste says that : "[T]he terms 'Liberal' and 'Conservative' are nearly useless now. There isn't any consensus as to what they really mean, or rather the consensus for each has been created by their opponents as ugly caricatures. I gave up on both words a long time ago..." He chooses instead to call himself an Engineerist (we might call him a Pragmatist Libertarian) : "Engineerists are socially liberal, economically conservative and politically libertarian. " The Pragmatism is evident here : "We Engineerists are intensely pragmatic. We don't try to come up with overriding philosophies ("wealth is evil", "Government regulation is evil", "America is evil") and then judge everything based on it. Individual cases are taken as they come, and the only criterion for any given proposal is practical: will it work better than the alternatives?" The Libertarianism is evident here : "Social liberalism to me means tolerance of differences, a general attitude of leaving other people alone and not judging them just because they act in ways I would not. Social liberalism embraces the idea that left to themselves people will follow different paths, and this is a Good Thing."

He differentiates himself from Conservatives in one, all important, way : "I suspect that the majority of people would classify me as being more Conservative than Liberal, and that's part of the problem. There seems to be more than one kind of Conservative. In particular, there is a strain of Conservatism which is based on fundamentalist protestant Christianity, and as an atheist I find its policies intensely distasteful. A lot of the Eric's anti-knowledge, anti-liberty, anti-free-speech comes out of that lot, and I want nothing to do with them."

Now that's all well and good so far as eking out a personal political philosophy goes, but it reflects a serious failure to grasp the most fundamental tenet of Conservatism : all of Conservatism flows from the core belief that left to his own devices Man is sinful, acquisitive, and violent. Mr. den Beste refers to a strain of conservatism that is based on Christianity. This is far too parsimonious a claim. In fact, all of conservatism is based on the Judeo-Christian story of the Creation and of Man's Fall and the corresponding belief that Man, though he derives a certain dignity from his creation by and likeness to God, has a fatal flaw, a great predilection for evil.

To many people this makes conservatives seem overly pessimistic or anti-human. But what Mr. den Beste refers to as an "ugly caricature" of Conservatism is probably not a construct of its opponents at all, but is what Conservatives really believe. The glowering visage of Robert Bork proclaiming to people that we're on the road to Hell may seem deranged to non-conservatives, but for us it's Mother's milk.

It can come as no surprise then that most people prefer the Left's more comforting and flattering view of Man, expressed most ably in the writings of Rousseau and Marx, as having once lived in communal peace and harmony in the State of Nature and as capable of returning to such a blissful state if only the artificial structures of the capitalist economy--with its inherently unequal distribution of wealth--are removed. Libertarians too believe in Man as essentially "good", though they believe that it is the institutions of the State that have corrupted us--remove the State and return to paradise. The appeal of these philosophies is obvious, with their far more charitable views of mankind and their far more optimistic views of the future.

Mr. den Beste's belief that if people were left alone, to "follow different paths", it would be a "Good Thing", expresses just such a Utopian worldview. It is also utterly incompatible with conservatism in any of its various forms. In addition, it goes nearly without saying that an atheist can not be a Conservative, since atheism offers no basis for the human dignity and morality that inform conservatism. Those who would consider Mr. den Beste a Conservative do both him and Conservatism a disservice. Engineerism is not Conservatism. Mr. den Beste is not a Conservative. Why the confusion?

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 13, 2002 9:53 AM