EVIL, BUT SMART :

...for them that honour me I will honour...
1 Samuel 2 : 30

There's a scene in the movie Chariots of Fire where the devout Eric Liddell is explaining to his concerned sister why he's willing to leave aside missionary work, even if only for brief stretches, in order to continue his running. He tells her that : "God made me fast, and when I run, I feel His pleasure." That is, when he runs he feels like he is glorifying God just as surely as when he preaches the Word. It's an exceptionally good moment in a generally fine film. No one, I think, will begrudge Mr. Liddell this feeling, nor his pursuit of what turned out to be a remarkable career, including several Olympic medals and World Records. It may well have pleased God to watch him run. Other gifts though, we may wish that folks would leave under a bushel.

In particular, those who are blessed with greater than average intelligence seem to have an enormous capacity for causing mankind trouble. This is especially the case when they decide that it would be unfair to humanity to keep their intelligence to themselves. Then they tend, with the best intentions I'm sure, to want to tackle many of the problems that have plagued men for years. The results are, without exception, disastrous. A few examples may suffice to illustrate the point. Charles Darwin, Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud were undoubtedly smarter than most of their contemporaries. Between them they tackled the intractable questions of where we came from, where we're headed, and why we act the way we do. Each wove a metaphor that was so lovely and so compelling that we lesser mortals were mesmerized and bought them wholesale. But today, a bloody century later, Darwinism, Marxism, or Freudianism are understood to have been tragic mistakes. Each was used by adherents, if not by the founders, to deny the existence of God and of free will and to portray human existence as wholly determined. Taken together they minimized the value of human life, excused immorality, and convinced Man that they understood far more of the world than he truly did, leading to wars, revolutions, genocide, social experimentation, and a near extinguishing of freedom in the Western world. Thus did the gifts of these men become a nightmare for the rest of us.

Here in America the effects were somewhat contained, largely because of the skepticism of a God-fearing populace. The Scopes Trial, the Red Scares, the Blacklist, and the like represented the healthy contempt of the average American for these newfangled theories and the intellectual elites who sought to impose them. But even here, it must come as little surprise that the New Deal was dreamed up by the Brains Trust or that our most meddlesome presidents have been the smartest ones--Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover, Richard Nixon--or those who surrounded themselves with the smartest people, like FDR. Perhaps we might say that like Eric Liddell such intellects simply feel compelled to share their gifts with us. And in their cases that means trying to solve our problems for us. At any rate, it can hardly escape our notice that these men, our best and brightest, were uniformly liberals.

This is why we must take exception to Charles Krauthammer's column in the Washington Post today : No-Respect Politics (Charles Krauthammer, July 26, 2002, washingtonpost.com). Therein he states :

To understand the workings of American politics, you have to understand this fundamental law: Conservatives think liberals are stupid. Liberals think conservatives are evil.

Though he rallies later in the essay, Mr. Krauthammer is quite wrong here. There's a famous story, more than likely apocryphal, about a Republican intern who was giving a tour of the Capitol to a group of foreign dignitaries. As the tour progressed they asked him questions about American government. One of the notions that bewildered them was that we are not bedeviled by the chaos of a multiparty system. The intern assured them : "Here in America we have just two parties; my party, the Republicans are the stupid party; the Democrats are the evil party." This is what conservatives really believe. We recognize that Democrats are smarter than we are. We recognize our own limitations and know that we can't solve your problems for you. They, on the other hand, know that they are smart and, therefore, think they can heal all ills. That's precisely what makes them dangerous; that's why they're evil.

Of course, it's not just that they think they're smart enough to run all our lives that makes them evil. Equally important is that they deny the very existence of evil. Liberalism flows from a deeply flawed utopian understanding of human nature. As Mr. Krauthammer puts it once he gets back on track :

Liberals tend to be nice, and they believe -- here is where they go stupid -- that most everybody else is nice too. Deep down, that is. Sure, you've got your multiple felon and your occasional war criminal, but they're undoubtedly depraved 'cause they're deprived. If only we could get social conditions right -- eliminate poverty, teach anger management, restore the ozone, arrest John Ashcroft -- everyone would be holding hands smiley-faced, rocking back and forth to "We Shall Overcome."

Liberals believe that human nature is fundamentally good. The fact that this is contradicted by, oh, 4,000 years of human history simply tells them how urgent is the need for their next seven-point program for the social reform of everything.

Liberals suffer incurably from naivete, the stupidity of the good heart. Who else but that oracle of American liberalism, the New York Times, could run the puzzled headline: "Crime Keeps On Falling, but Prisons Keep On Filling." But? How about this wild theory: If you lock up the criminals, crime declines.

Mr. Krauthammer is correct that liberals are utterly wrong here, but that does not make them stupid. Their problem is not stupidity but that their entire worldview is based on an error. Now, admittedly, it's a huge error, but an erroneous belief is very different from actual stupidity.

Nor is it readily apparent that liberals should be blamed inordinately for this error. The belief in Man's innate goodness is after all an error that is shared by most non-Judeo-Christian cultures, by libertarians, and even by most of Mr. Krauthammer's fellow neo-conservatives (it's what the "neo" really stands for, the lack of adherence to that social conservatism which proceeds from a Biblical worldview). Indeed, we might rather say that the contrary belief in Man as a Fallen and flawed creature represents the peculiar genius of conservatism and of Judeo-Christianity. Perhaps conservatives need not be terribly bright because in their stubborn dullness they cling to a belief system that flows from that one fortuitous assumption, that Man is naturally sinful.

At any rate, it is useless to deny that conservatism is based on a recognition by its believers that they are none too smart. It is in fact quite explicitly premised on the assumption that our ancestors were smarter than we are. Here's how Russell Kirk--whose wisdom in these matters I think no Conservative will gainsay--defined conservatism :

Any informed conservative is reluctant to condense profound and intricate intellectual systems to a few portentous phrases; he prefers to leave that technique to the enthusiasm of radicals. Conservatism is not a fixed and immutable body of dogma, and conservatives inherit from Burke a talent for re-expressing their convictions to fit the time. As a working premise, nevertheless, one can observe here that the essence of social conservatism is preservation of the ancient moral traditions. Conservatives respect the wisdom of their ancestors...; they are dubious of wholesale alteration. They think society is a spiritual reality, possessing an eternal life but a delicate constitution: it cannot be scrapped and recast as if it were a machine. [...]

I think there are six canons of conservative thought--

(1) Belief that a divine intent rules society as well as conscience, forging an eternal chain of right and duty which links great and obscure, living and dead. Political problems, at bottom, are religious and moral problems. [...]

(2) Affection for the proliferating variety and mystery of traditional life, as distinguished from the narrowing uniformity, egalitarianism, and utilitarian aims of most radical systems. [...]

(3) Conviction that civilized society requires orders and classes. The only true equality is moral equality; all other attempts at levelling lead to despair, if enforced by positive legislation. [...]

(4) Persuasion that property and freedom are inseparably connected, and that economic levelling is not economic progress. Separate property from private possess Posted by Orrin Judd at July 28, 2002 9:55 AM