The "first principle of conservatism" is a flaming sack of harmful BS

Russell Kirk and the conning of America

Photo by Vince Veras on Unsplash

In my previous post I presented an overview of Russell Kirk’s “Ten Principles of Conservatism.” We saw that, even on initial inspection, these “principles” really didn’t make much sense.

Today we begin to examine each of the “principles” in detail. Obviously, this will take ten posts. At the end, it will be clear that “conservatism” is just a jumble of prejudices appealing to the worst elements in human nature. As such, it needs to be expunged from politics as much as possible in order to allow the best elements in human nature to flourish.

So let’s start with Kirk’s first “principle.” Here it is. (You can read the whole list of ten HERE.)

[T]he conservative believes that there exists an enduring moral order. That order is made for man, and man is made for it: human nature is a constant, and moral truths are permanent.

This word ‘order’ signifies harmony. There are two aspects or types of order: the inner order of the soul, and the outer order of the commonwealth. Twenty-five centuries ago, Plato taught this doctrine, but even the educated nowadays find it difficult to understand. The problem of order has been a principal concern of conservatives ever since conservative became a term of politics.

Our twentieth-century world has experienced the hideous consequences of the collapse of belief in a moral order. Like the atrocities and disasters of Greece in the fifth century before Christ, the ruin of great nations in our century shows us the pit into which fall societies that mistake clever self-interest, or ingenious social controls, for pleasing alternatives to an oldfangled moral order.

It has been said by liberal intellectuals that the conservative believes all social questions, at heart, to be questions of private morality. Properly understood, this statement is quite true. A society in which men and women are governed by belief in an enduring moral order, by a strong sense of right and wrong, by personal convictions about justice and honor, will be a good society—whatever political machinery it may utilize; while a society in which men and women are morally adrift, ignorant of norms, and intent chiefly upon gratification of appetites, will be a bad society—no matter how many people vote and no matter how liberal its formal constitution may be.

Consider the initial statement. It makes four claims; 1. there is a moral order; 2. the moral order is fitted to human beings perfectly; 3. human nature is constant; and 4. moral truths are permanent.

This is a lot for one “principle,” and this statement reflects Kirk’s characteristic prolixity. It is his way of trying to show his readers that’s he is super-smart. Logically, its a mess.

Let’s try to put the four claims into a more concise form. What is Kirk trying to get across? I’d say it’s something like this: There is an eternal moral order perfectly coordinated with an unchanging human nature.

This is a highly questionable assertion. Let’s ask the questions and see where they lead.

Is there really an eternal moral order?

That is hardly a settled question. You would think that “conservatives,” who claim to be so rooted in the past, would know that Herodotus, whom the ancient world called “the father of history,” decided just the opposite. After traveling the known world, he decided famously, quoting Pindar, that “custom is king of all” (nomos ho pantōn basileus). By this he meant that there is no universal moral order, that, for instance, other cultures may think it the height of devotion to cannibalize the bodies of their elders, whereas the Greeks would find that reprehensible. In other words, morality is relative, not absolute.

There is no evidence for an absolute moral order. It is true, of course, that almost all cultures share some moral opinions. One would be hard pressed to find a culture that did not prohibit murder or theft. But this is a far cry from a universal moral order. At best, it would provide evidence for a “principle” like Most cultures share some common values.

Let us drop the annoying demand that an assertion be backed up by some evidence. Let us accede, for the moment, to the notion that a permanent moral order exists. Even in that case, how do “conservatives” know that they have access to it?

After all, there have been innumerable conflicting claims about permanent moral beliefs down through the centuries. Which of these claims are correct, which erroneous? Is Stoicism more correct than Epicureanism? Plato more correct than Aristotle? Judaism more correct than Christianity?

Even if one plumps for Christianity, as “conservatives” tend to, which version of Christianity? Is Aquinas more correct that Luther? Calvin more correct than Wesley? Unitarians more correct than Baptists?

So even if there is an eternal moral order, human beings do not seem to know what it is. And that is practically the same as there not being such an order.

The assertion that there is an eternal moral order, even if true, is without actual influence on the world in which we live, since we do not know what that order is, if it exists. And if it doesn’t, claiming that it does exist is just fatuous—not to mention wrong.

Is human nature unchanging?

“Conservatives” point to certain aspects of human behavior as evidence that human nature is unchanging. For instance, all human communities have some sense of morality, and tend to value family and community. There are also apparently persistent negative characteristics, like the selfishness that makes individuals transgress morality, and disvalue family and community,

So let us grant that there may be some stable aspects of human nature. Indeed, it would be strange if there weren’t. There has to be some kernel of permanence to all things even to identify them as what they are.

But humans also have the ability to change. We can apply our intellect to the situations in which we find ourselves, discover their causes, and change our behavior to better adapt to the world around us.

Does this ability to change reach as far as the apparently persistent aspects of humanity? Because if it does, that would mean that those aspects are not unchangeable. It is just that they haven’t been changed yet.

Is it possible, for instance, that the apparently persistent selfishness of humans could disappear? Some individuals seem to have transcended this vice. Is it thinkable that all of us could do so someday? If so, then it would be wrong to maintain that human nature is unchangeable.

There is some evidence that such an evolutionary development is not entirely impossible, at least to the extent that it affects morality. For the past three centuries or so, human morality has been evolving toward the abolition of slavery, which was once regarded as a fact of life and justified on many different grounds. Today, no one will defend slavery in public. There are still some, of course, who will enslave other people. But even they will not mount a defense of slavery as an institution. They simply take advantage of their power to harm others in the absence of effective punishment. That is the persistence of human selfishness rearing its ugly head.

Now let’s consider this evolution. Is contemporary humanity right to have tried to abolish slavery? If so, then for all of history before this movement began, humans were wrong to practice and support slavery. A change has occurred in morality, and perhaps also in human nature, as we began to understand that none of us wants to be used by another as an animated tool.

On the other hand, contemporary humanity might be wrong about abolishing slavery. If so, then slavery is actually right, and its justness remains a moral absolute that humanity has started to ignore. If that is the case, why do “conservatives” not champion that unchangeable moral absolute? If it is because they fear the majority who no longer will tolerate slavery, then their commitment to unchangeability is not worth anything, since they refuse to act as though it governs their choices.

More likely, though, most “conservatives” probably think that slavery is not justifiable. They just don’t know enough about history or about human nature to realize that the shift from widespread defense of slavery to widespread condemnation of it represents evidence that morality and human nature is not in fact unchangeable.

Is the eternal moral order perfectly coordinated with unchanging human nature?

We have raised enough doubts about the unchangeability of human nature and morality to make this question almost moot.

If it is dubious that human nature and morality are unchanging, then it is impossible that there could be some perfect fit between them. If one changes even slightly while the other remains fixed, the fit gets misaligned. And if both of them change, the fit gets even more misaligned, unless they both change in such a way as to coordinate with the other. But in that unlikely case, the “conservative” belief in unchangeability is still wrong, and unless they can come up with a reason why changes would always be coordinated, there will eventually be a misfit between human nature and morality.

Disposing of Kirk’s supporting commentary about the first “principle”

Now let’s descend to the portentous paragraphs intended to support the first “principle.”

On “the problem of order”

The paragraph beginning with “This word ‘order’ signifies harmony” repeats the claim of the main assertion, namely, that there is an eternal inner order of morality that matches an unchanging human nature. It adds a new element, however, that moves into politics—the notion that morality and human nature is mirrored externally by the state.

Kirk is being defensive here. In political philosophy, “the problem of order” refers to the attempt to create a just and stable society. For centuries before Kirk’s time, it was liberals who contributed most to solving this problem. Rousseau developed the social contract theory. Liberal democrats came up with progressive solutions. Socialism was another leftist attempt at solving the problem.

Kirk is trying to give the impression that “conservatives” have been more concerned with the problem for longer than liberals. By mentioning Plato, he hopes to give his notions the imprimatur of antiquity. But this is an illusion. We can see this if we examine the passage from Plato to which Kirk alludes.

The Plato reference is to The Republic, in which Socrates concocts a story about how governments degenerate as the souls of the people in them degenerate. In this story, people of the highest internal calibre, people whose reason governs their spirit and their appetites, live in a society that mirrors that internal state—an aristocracy in the best sense, ruled by the best people in the state. In this way, the governance of the state mirrors that of the soul: reason rules as the best part of the soul and aristocrats rule as the best people in the state.

The children of the aristocrats, however, being spoiled by the ease of life under perfect government, try to distinguish themselves by vying for honors. This moves the ruling element in their souls from reason to spirit, and the government mirrors that by becoming a timocracy, in which awards and honors are valued more highly than rational government. (The Greek word timē means honor.)

The children of the timocrats then become more attracted to the external signs of honor than to its internal satisfactions, coming to value wealth and power. This corrupts their spirit, which now seeks to amass and maintain wealth and power even at the expense of others. The government mirrors this decline by becoming an oligarchy, in which a few hold most of the wealth and power.

The children of the oligarchs, having been raised to satisfy their desires for wealth and power, become accustomed to indulging all their desires. This moves the ruling element of their souls from spirit to appetite, and the government mirrors this decline by becoming a democracy, in which the desires of the people compete for the upper hand.

Finally, the children of the democrats, exhausted by the constant competition of different desires, seek out someone to stabilize the turmoil. Since they are ruled by their appetites, they look for someone who shares that trait but always succeeds at fulfilling his desires in a way that they cannot. They seek out, find, and elevate a tyrannical soul who has no compunctions about attaining his desires. The government mirrors this final degeneration by becoming a tyranny.

Kirk’s pointing at this passage is somehow supposed to show how deep the roots of “conservatism” go into philosophy and history.

But in fact, Socrates’s story is just an elaboration of common sense. Think about your own life. Of course the way you lead your life reflects your inner state of being. How could it not? If you believe that people are rotten and are out to get you, are you going to behave in daily life like people are generous and trying to help you at every turn? Of course not. Similarly, will a group of people who generally feel that their desires ought to be fulfilled or at least taken into account in their society set up and maintain a government that takes no account of their desires, a tyranny perhaps? Of course not.

There is certainly some connection between our inner lives and the political structures we set up. There is no special profundity to the observation that inner and outer align, even if Plato is the one calling attention to it. The connection is obvious, and Kirk’s pointing it out is a truism.

What remains highly dubious, however, is whether the inner life or the political structures or the connections between them are unchanging.

Indeed, returning to the example of slavery mentioned above, it seems that the inner life and politics work mutually upon one another. A new moral insight prompts individuals to change their government, then the change in government works a change on other individuals who have not yet had the insight. Finally, the stragglers must be forced, perhaps by war, to drop their adherence to the immoral ways of the past. Inner and outer life are connected, but they are not unchanging. Quite the contrary, their connections foster change in both the inner and outer worlds.

So there is nothing especially profound about citing Plato. Nor is there anything especially “conservative” about Socrates’s story. Nor does anything Kirk or Plato or Socrates says justify the belief in unchanging morality and human nature. Kirk tries desperately to wrap his nonsense in the cloak of authority in order to flatter himself and his like-minded audience that they are more profound than liberals. But he is mostly concerned with giving the impression of seriousness to what in fact a heap of self-serving catchphrases.

On moral disasters

The paragraph beginning, “Our twentieth-century world” makes the claim that the horrors of the twentieth century—let us say, World War I and World War II—resulted from attempts to change the “oldfangled moral order.” Perhaps he is thinking of things like the expansion of the voting franchise or workers’ strikes or democratic and socialist revolutions.

As we have seen, however, the existence of an oldfangled moral order is dubious at best. Even Kirk does not try to identify it. In government, does he mean Platonic aristocracy or Christian aristocracy or British aristo-democracy or American democracy? In morality, does he mean ancient virtue morality or general religious morality or Christian morality in particular or even some subset of Christian morality?

In fact, this paragraph is just an “irritable mental gesture” dressed up to sound erudite. It boils down to this: “Harumph. Kids these days. Stick to the old ways, I say.”

In other words, it’s worthless carping.

On superior people and their governments

The paragraph beginning, “It has been said by liberal intellectuals” makes the claim that any society of morally superior persons will be well governed, while any society of morally inferior persons will be poorly governed.

Duh.

The triteness of this observation perfectly matches Kirk’s intent in stating it. He wants to make “conservatives” feel good about themselves. By hewing to the “oldfangled moral order” (whatever that may be) “conservatives” can think of themselves as morally superior. In their minds, their superior societal desires constitute good governance.

But the superiority felt by “conservatives” is extraordinarily delusional given the facts we have been discussing. Judging just from what has been said above, “conservatives” are extremely inferior, both intellectually and morally, to average people who try to live decently without attempting to pass themselves off as paragons. Let’s sum up the many facets of “conservative” inferiority.

1. They insist that there is an unchangeable moral order. This belief is highly dubious, so “conservatives” are ignorant or intellectually dishonest or both. In any case, this is an inferior condition.

2. They insist that there is an unchangeable human nature. This belief too is highly dubious, and the same inferiority follows.

3. They insist that there is perfect coordination between the moral order and human nature. The addition of a third nearly impossible belief to two highly dubious ones does not improve the combination. Inferiority follows.

4. They pride themselves on being deep political thinkers, owners of the “problem of order” for instance, though their observations are ordinary, trite, and even self-contradictory. Pride is Lucifer’s sin. It makes him, and “conservatives” inferior.

5. They imagine that their obsession with hewing to the old ways—conveniently undefined and vague to allow for individual differences in vanity—exempts them from responsibility for dealing with the very real problems of contemporary times, the problems that liberals and progressives are always trying to mitigate. To imagine that taking refuge in an undefined past amounts to rising above the defined present is both arrogant and ignorant. And inferior.

6. They imagine that they are “governed by belief in an enduring moral order, by a strong sense of right and wrong, by personal convictions about justice and honor" while others—especially liberals—are not. This is extraordinarily delusional given the inferiorities described in 1-5 above. In fact, their beliefs, senses, and convictions are all chimeras, figments arising from dubious premises combined in erratic ways and varnished over with heavy applications of self-satisfaction. This is very, very inferior.

Conclusion: Conservatism’s nonsense, falsehoods, and delusions do untold amounts of damage

In sum, then, Kirk’s “first principle of conservatism,” the assertion of an enduring moral order perfectly suited to an unchanging human nature that is reflected in a paradigmatic societal order, is a hodgepodge of nonsense meant to appeal to a certain kind of person. That kind of person fears change, fears those who want to make change no matter how righteous their cause, and fears to acknowledge the manifest historical evidence that humanity has changed, indeed, has improved with the passage of time.

On top of pandering to the fearful, Kirk mounds up heaps of flattery, telling his fellow “conservatives” that they are not only right but also superior, when they are in fact wrong and inferior. In the end, Kirk not only lies to the suckers but also inveigles them to accept the falsehood as the truth—and to feel good about it. Delusion stacked upon delusion, all in one “principle.”

In The Republic, Plato talks about the “true lie,” which he defines as receiving an untruth into one’s soul and keeping it there under the misapprehension that it is true. The damage that such a cherished falsehood can do is unlimited. Those who believe such falsehoods cannot perceive reality correctly, cannot respond to events properly, cannot live well, for the falsehood keeps them making mistakes, like a warped gear in a precision mechanism. And the presence of such damaged people in society inflicts suffering on their innocent fellows as they inflict their mistaken judgments on everyone else.

This is the soul of the “conservative”—warped terribly by the cherished falsehoods of Kirk’s first “principle” and warped even more severely by the “principles” that follow.

Stay tuned to my upcoming posts to see just how bad it gets!