November 21, 2003
THE PARTY OF THE TORTOISE:
What it Means To Be Conservative (Owen Harries, Winter 2003, Policy)
If the complexity of the object of change-society, the political order-was one reason why Burke feared radical and rapid change, a second and just as powerful reason was his reservation about the proposed engine of change; that is, the role of reason in human affairs. Burke rejected the Enlightenment view of man as a predominantly rational, calculating, logical being. His rational side exists, but it is a small part of his total make-up. 'We are afraid', said Burke, 'to put men to live and trade each on his own private stock of reason, because we suspect that this stock in each man is small'. Habit, instinct, custom, faith, reverence, prejudice-the accumulated practical knowledge acquired consciously and unconsciously through experience-all this was more important than abstract reasoning. Collectively, and for better or worse, it constituted man's nature, his human nature.Burke was not alone in expressing these views. The great Scottish philosopher, David Hume, had insisted on the importance of habit and custom in the human make-up a generation earlier. And a year or two before Burke wrote, across the Atlantic the shapers of the American Constitution and authors of The Federalist Papers-Alexander Hamilton and James Madison-were insisting that in constructing a political order, the aggressive, selfish, acquisitive aspects of man's nature must be taken fully into account. 'A man must be far gone in Utopian speculation', thought Hamilton, 'to forget that men are ambitious, vindictive and rapacious.' [...]
They were all arguing against the prevailing intellectual tide of the times, the Age of Enlightenment, which insisted on the primacy of reason and which saw customs and habits and prejudice as impediments that should, and could, be swept aside to restore the human mind to its pristine state as a clean slate-the famous tabula rasa-on which reason could then write its message. At the same time as Burke was responding to the Revolution, his radical-anarchist contemporary, William Godwin-now forgotten but a very influential and representative intellectual figure in his time-was writing of children as 'a sort of raw material put into our hands', their minds 'like a sheet of white paper'. Dealing with adults, the task was to erase what, over time, had disfigured the white sheet. It was in that act of restoration that the revolutionaries in France saw themselves engaged. For them, what passed for human nature was not something to be taken into account as a given, and either accommodated or curbed, as the authors of The Federalist Papers believed, but to be altered. [...]
When, in what circumstances, do conservative ideas become relevant and attractive? The obvious and usual answer to that question is given by Michael Oakeshott: when there is much to be enjoyed, and when that enjoyment is combined with a sense that what is enjoyed is in danger of being lost. It is the combination of enjoyment and fear that stimulates conservatism.
That seems convincing until one considers: if one is living in and enjoying, say, a liberal or a social democratic or a capitalist society; and if that society suddenly comes under threat, why can't one defend it with liberal arguments, or social democratic or capitalist arguments? Why does one need conservative arguments?
An interesting answer to that question was advanced by a young Samuel Huntington, about 40 years before he wrote The Clash of Civilizations, the book that made him famous beyond academic circles. In an article on 'Conservatism as an Ideology', published in 1957 in The American Political Science Review, Huntington observes that unlike nearly every other ideology, conservatism offers no vision of an ideal society. There is no conservative Utopia. Indeed, conservatism has no substantive institutional content. It can be, and has been, used to defend all sorts of different institutional arrangements, from traditional to feudal to liberal to capitalist to social democratic ones. That is because it is concerned not with content but with process: with change and stability, particularly as they affect political institutions. Its true opposite is not, as is often said, liberalism but radicalism-which is also about change. Conservatism advances arguments that stress the difficulty and danger of rapid change, and the importance of stability and continuity and prudence; radicalism expresses enthusiasm and optimism concerning innovation, and boldness in embracing change.
So when does conservatism become an appropriate ideology? It is, maintains Huntington, the product of intense ideological and social conflict, when consensus breaks down, and when an existing institutional order can no longer be defended in its own terms. 'When the challengers fundamentally disagree with the ideology of the existing society and affirm a basically different set of values, the common framework of discussion is destroyed.' When, say, it is precisely liberal values and institutions that are being rejected, there is no point in appealing to those values to defend them. It is then that conservative arguments become indispensable: arguments which defend the established institutions precisely because they are established, which warn against the destructive affects, the unanticipated consequences of overturning them. When radicalism prevails, conservative arguments must be resorted to in order to counter it.
What could be more radical than the assault on the central social institution of human history: marriage. Posted by Orrin Judd at November 21, 2003 7:28 AM
Orrin:
Interesting that you did not note a central thrust of Harries' cogent argument. For example: "The belief that democratic institutions, behaviour and ways of thought can be exported and transplanted to societies that have no experience or traditions of them-and that this can be done in a few years-is a profoundly unconservative, indeed a radical, belief."
Also the final Burke quotation:
Among precautions against ambition, it may not be amiss to take precaution against our own. I must fairly say, I dread our own power and our own ambition: I dread our being too much dreaded. . . We may say that we shall not abuse this astonishing and hitherto unheard of power. But every other nation will think we shall abuse it. It is impossible but that, sooner or later, this state of things must produce a combination against us which may end in our ruin.
Of course I agree with your main point that subverting the instiution of marriage is a act of appalling radicalism (Burke said the same thing in his Letters on a Regicide Peace), and the arguments for undertaking it are evidence of a despotic judicial temper, but Harries is in part making another salient and controversial point, which hardly comports well with your endorsement of the "conquer and democratize" ideals.
Posted by: Paul Cella at November 21, 2003 9:12 AMA conservative must be a preserver at home, but may well need to be a radical abroad. Otherwise the aborigines would still be living alone in squalid ignorance in our country and his.
Posted by: oj at November 21, 2003 9:43 AMOrrin:
Squalid ignorance? No, no. Living in harmony with nature, promoting matriarchical culture and practicing forest management.
Posted by: Peter B at November 21, 2003 10:17 AMPresuming, of course, it is actually an assault.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at November 21, 2003 12:53 PMJeff:
Of course it isn't. You are just extending a helping, compassionate hand to the hysterical bigots? You and the Mass Supreme Court. Just a form of collective therapy.
Posted by: Peter B at November 21, 2003 2:07 PMWell, given the inability to demonstrate any damage to the currently married by adding to the population of those eligible for civil marriage, it seems the conclusion such a move constitutes an assault to be a bit overwrought.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at November 21, 2003 3:02 PMGeez, Jeff, it's not enough that you and a few lawyers tell us who gets to marry? You decide how we are supposed to feel about it too?
Posted by: Peter B at November 21, 2003 5:22 PMPeter:
Am I not allowed to observe that the whole brou ha ha seems much ado about nothing?
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at November 21, 2003 9:00 PMFar from being an assault on the central social institution of human history, it is in fact an assault on modern interpretations of that institution.
If we want to go back to the days when being married merely defined the parameters of companionship and obligation, then gays will stop wanting some gravy.
Peter B:
Rather, the Courts are deciding that the gov't CAN'T tell us who gets to marry. You've turned the current reality upside down.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at November 22, 2003 4:52 AMMichael:
That is the theory, but I'll wait until you win your battle for polygamy before I accept that that is the reality.
Posted by: Peter B at November 22, 2003 6:18 AMMichael:
Marriage isn't a private institution, but a public one.
Posted by: oj at November 22, 2003 7:46 AMOJ:
You could say precisely the same of virtually any contract.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at November 22, 2003 11:07 AMoj:
Rubbish.
It has public ramifications, and the public is best served by a high incidence of marriage, but it's a private institution, and always has been.
Regardless of the reasons for marrying, whether for love, to transfer responsibility for a female from father to spouse, or to cement an allience, it primarily serves the needs of individuals.
Peter B:
Hold that thought for another twenty years, and then prepare to accept reality.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at November 23, 2003 6:31 AMMichael:
If it were fundamentally private gays wouldn't be demanding it. They went the public imprimatur.
Posted by: oj at November 23, 2003 8:01 AMPeter, as a lawyer, will surely enligten me, but:
I thought contracts are a public institution, since they rely on civil means for enforcement. And they are also frequently private since they are agreements between non-governmental entities.
Gays want marriage for several reasons. First, symbolism is just as important to them as to you. Second, there are significant material and non-material benefits that accrue to civil marriage. Third, civil marriage protects the property interests of a dependent spouse.
What is so evil about that?
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at November 23, 2003 10:41 AMIt is truly amazing to this poor, imperfect and less than all-knowing individual how quickly some are willing to disregard and even jettison the accumulated wisdom and tradition of generation upon generation for the sake of nothing but an idealization of reality they would prefer rather than what is. The arrogance and hubris of man, particularly if he believes he has reason on his side, is almost unlimited. A bit of humility regarding thousands of years of human tradition and the social institutions developed over that time would be in order rather than the belief that our reason overrides the wisdom of those generations. At least consider the possibility that a more cautious approach might be the way to go.
Posted by: Tom C., Stamford,Ct. at November 23, 2003 11:27 AMJeff:
Let's get real here. In a gay marriage, how would dependency arise--dependency of the sort that the state should enforce by alimony. Are you asserting that if Paul stays home to cook and works partime making crafty things, society has a collective interest in ensuring high-flying Peter supports him?
Posted by: Peter B at November 23, 2003 11:29 AMJeff:
There's nothing to stop them from drawing up a simple contract--it could even be codified as a civil institution. That would preserve marriage and take care of homosexuals legal requirements.
Posted by: oj at November 23, 2003 12:27 PMWhy not just call it what it is, civil marriage?
I can't believe you think marriage is so fragile that a simple matter of nomenclature will save it.
You would be on firmer ground if you were to to call civil marriage something else altogether, and confine the term marriage to religiously sanctified relationships.
Which still leaves the problem of, say, Unitarians hijacking the term when sanctifying a same-sex relationship. But then the problem exists anyway.
Peter:
In a heterosexual marriage, how does dependency arise? Typically, but not exclusively, with children. But it can just as easily arise in an infertile couple because the primary wage earning spouse gets transferred so often that the other spouse is unable to establish anything like the sort of career absent the moving. Or it might happen because some couples might elect to have one person be a homemaker even in the absence of children.
So I am saying that if Chris stays home to take care of the house while high-flying Chris provides financial support, than civil marriage is important to ensuring the former Chris's financial and property rights.
It is up to you to decide which, if any, Chris is male. And, also, what possible difference your decision should make.
Tom:
So, what is so evil about my assertions? Never mind your argument would have been just as effective, and was almost certainly used, in defending the divine right of kings.
Jeff:
Words mean things. Gay people, by definition, can't marry.
Posted by: oj at November 23, 2003 2:32 PMTom:
Divine Right of Kings? How did you get off so easily? The rest of us are direct heirs of Torquemada.
Posted by: Peter B at November 23, 2003 3:20 PMOJ:
By whose definition? What function of civil marriage are gays unable to fulfill?
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at November 23, 2003 8:44 PMEvery States'.
Posted by: oj at November 23, 2003 8:49 PMWhat function, not what definition.
Just before I joined the Air Force, women where not allowed to be pilots.
By definition, not by function.
There is a difference.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at November 23, 2003 9:24 PMNot generally.
Posted by: oj at November 23, 2003 10:46 PMJeff:
You have reduced marriage to a couple of Chris' living together and dividing tasks unequally. I repeat, what interest does the state have, or should it have, in regulating their relationship? Why can't your average couple of Chris' work this out themselves? Can you answer this one directly?
Your view of marriage rights seems to approximate that of a Hollywood gold digger looking for a sugar daddy.
Posted by: Peter B at November 24, 2003 5:57 AMYou know Jeff, Reflections on the Revolution in France was held in the same esteem by the more romantic politicos and rationalists of the time in much the same way you characterize those who would take a more traditionalist or cautious approach to the wholsale changes to marriage as an institution that you advocate in the name of "progress". The critics of Burke were wrong for tha same reasons that you are wrong. The traditional, organic and practical ways of doing things are sometimes worth preserving for their own sake. The burden of proof is on the advocates for such fundamental change, rather than on those who wish to proceed with care.
Posted by: Tom C., Stamford,Ct. at November 24, 2003 8:51 PMTom:
No one is asking to change your marriage, or any other existing marriage, or change in one iota any future heterosexual marriage. Further, you put advocates in a square corner: you bar them from obtaining the burden of proof you require to allow them to proceed. Further, you assert that traditional ways of doing things are sometimes worth preserving for their own sake.
Not always, just sometimes. Which times? How do you know?
Like it or not, civil marriage is not a religious institution. Should you choose to invoke religious precepts upon it, then you have utterly no room to deny religiously proclaimed polygamy.
Peter:
I don't know. You tell me, you are the lawyer. The fact is that the state takes an interest in enforcing marital property rights--which is different from regulating the relationship. I'll bet the original reason for that was to protect the welfare of the mother and children.
But not anymore.
The motivation--gold digger--of someone seeking marriage has nothing to do with marriage rights.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at November 24, 2003 10:28 PM