ALL COMEDY IS CONSERVATIVE:
Why conservatives Should Prize Eccentricity (SEAN WALSH, 7/27/24, Country Squire)
Oakeshott was, arguably, the most influential defender of the conservative worldview to write in the 20th century. His writings urge rightful scepticism concerning what we might call “Utopian experimentalism”: those philosophies of both right and left which hold that the role of politics is to “impose a universal plan of life” on society. Such a template will often assume some version of historicism, the contention that there is an arc of history towards which society must bend, either by destiny or human coercion. Further, they will tend to be naively (but dangerously) optimistic about the perfectibility of the human soul.
But to the mind of the conservative philosopher, if there is such an arc, then its curvature is beyond the discernment of the human intellect, and it is conceited to assume otherwise; and the fact of human imperfectability is the primary lesson of the earlier chapters of the book of Genesis. We are Fallen and it is beyond the abilities of a Marx or a Sartre to raise us again.
To be a conservative, Oakeshott suggested, is to cultivate habits of thought, emotion and action which prefer “the convenient to the perfect; present laughter to Utopian bliss”.
It’s the Anglospheric difference and how we avoided thdisastrous e Reason of the Continent.