I ran across a very concise article at The Federalist that addresses a question that’s central to our current crisis right here at home in America. What should a true conservatism look like? Does Libertarianism—what I have termed the default, even if largely unwitting, position of both Right and Left in America—offer a way forward for conservatives? Or …
Stimulating Post Mark! Thank you for bringing this topic forward. At the risk of fuddy-duddy redundancy, I'll just make 2 points tonight: 1st & Foundational -in the Declaration of Independence, our Rights begin as Unalienable, endowed *From God*. There will always be non-believers of Judeau-Christian fundamentals and therefore morality/rules/commandments/laws from this Godly principled background will be subject to challenge, disputed or assigned alternate applications. Washington makes clear (as do other reasoned writers from his times through todays) the truth of this quote from Mark's posting: "… And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."
Hey KNT, hope you're well and that you and your loved ones enjoy a great Thanksgiving!
To help me understand your question, I did review Wikipedia to be on the same page of it. First, I'd note my reference was rather generic, rather than specific on a definition. I suppose a short explanation would be the 'Term' for me represents Godly Values as best I might define them from a Biblical perspective. More specific, altho' not intended specifically, might be I would be from a frame-of-reference of a Post WWII ethical perspective. Reviewing the Wiki definition(s) opened my eyes a bit to the 'Term' having a history - not all particularly good. So I'll deflect and go back to a Biblical God reference. If I were to be honest, I'd be prejudiced in dividing Sharia-Abrahamian descendance from Jewish. Poor but really my best explanation is sharing an old-testament history with God's Chosen people through Christ Jesus is simplest for me expressed Judeo-Christian with none of the various Wiki specifics intended beyond that.
I do hope no offense was inferred! If so it is by my misunderstanding and I do apologize. My best regards! (Wrh)
Now, in a way that may seem paradoxical to monotheists of various stripes, the notion that there is one God is as anthropomorphic as were the archaic pantheons of gods, for the idea of "one" God leads naturally to the idea of a God who has a limited nature in the same way that every finite created being (which is thus "one") also has a limited nature. Such monotheisms, which we find in Judaism and Islam, have a tendency to move in one of two (or both) directions: either reverting toward the idea of one tutelary warrior god (Zionism, Jihadist Islam), which leads away from a universalist conception of human nature, or moving toward a Pythagorean-Neoplatonist influenced type of mysticism (Kabbalah, Sufism), which leads away from the idea of creation. Greek thought, too, had moved in the direction of a single (one) principle (Plato's Form of the Good, Aristotle's Unmoved Mover, etc.), a development which Jews such as Philo, as well as many early Christians who were familiar with Greek thought, believed was equivalent to a monotheism of one creator God. Thus, as Cochrane notes, in their theologies it seemed quite natural for Clement and Origen to start with "the conventional opposition of the 'One' and the 'Many,'" just as the Platonists (with their seemingly more developed "philosophical" form of thought) did. But while that opposition of the One and the Many may have been conventional for thought that derived from the archaic ontology of archetypes, its whole tendency was to collapse the Creator God back into a Neoplatonist system of "emanations," generating an eternal cycle of being and becoming that originated in a principle (the One, see below) that was devoid of the Love that characterized the Father of Jesus.
Thus the Christian revelation—the revelation of God's identity in Jesus—leads definitively to the vision of a universal God and a universal humanity, struggling to attain to meaning in history. From the universalist Christian perspective of revelation as quintessentially the person and life of Jesus, there emerges the insight that all human history is a prelude to that revelation. There is, of course, a reason (a Spirit guided reason) that Jesus was born into Israel, but the early Christians—as early as Paul's letter to the Romans--were not slow to recognize not merely the limitations of Greek thought but also the very real value that it held as, in its own way, also a preparation for the good news of Jesus. So, while the link of Christianity to Israel is organic and significant there is, in light of revelation, no reason to expect a complete agreement of Christian with Israelite thought any more than with Greek thought or the thought of any other society within the scope of the archaic ontology that Christianity replaces. This universal perspective was sadly lost as one of the results of the Protestant Revolt. Sadly, Christian thought has yet to come to terms with the implications of that insight, wallowing instead in a sterile "traditionalism" or losing its bearings entirely in Neo-Gnostic speculation fueled by the post-Kantian German ideologies.
The entire point of Trinity is that Oneness as an attribute applied to God is an anthropomorphism, based on human and finite experience. Trinity means that God as infinite transcends those categories of Oneness that lead Judaism and Islam down the rabbit hole of anthropomorphism.
The Catholic doctrine relies on the Thomist idea of the Analogy of Being. All that is attributed to God is attributed analogically, which--Aquinas explains--is a form of equivocation.
Wasn’t it Machiavelli that discussed the politics of power? I guess we have always lived under a system of raw power of some or one ruling over the masses. But previously at least here in America, there at least seemed to be a moderating force and overriding belief in the value of a moderating force over the execution and responsibility of such power over others. No more, now it has been unleashed in full in our face abuse. The age of gangsta government. And almost daring us, “don’t lie it? Whatta ya gonna do about it? Huh?” That may be what is so disorienting about our times.
First off I'm not much of a religious thinker, although I certainly agree that the "foundation of liberty, as Washington saw, lies in the Christian vision of human nature rooted in reasonable belief." I will also admit that I have flirted with libertarian thinking, as there is a (superficial) appeal in 'free markets' and 'individual rights'. I rejected it some time ago in the belief, as echoed here, that it leads to a kind of social anarchy. A good example of individual rights taken to the extreme is the example of the Tragedy of the Commons. The theory, when applied to land use for example, is that when a number of people enjoy unfettered access to a finite, valuable resource such as a pasture, they will tend to over-use it, and may end up destroying its value altogether. This is also true of the unfettered exercise of many individual 'rights'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
So I absolutely agree with you, Mark, that "leaving power to the lowest common denominator, without societal, institutional guidance, is a recipe for disaster—precisely where we are headed."
I would like to add one additional tool to the discussion, and that is the concept of "negative externalities". All of us, when we reach a certain age, tend to repeat ourselves (sometimes to an extreme) and I may be repeating myself here.
A negative externality can be defined as a cost that is suffered by a third party as a consequence of an economic transaction. In a transaction, the producer and consumer are the first and second parties, and third parties include any individual, organization, property owner, or resource that is indirectly affected. Externalities are also referred to as spillover effects, and a negative externality is also referred to as an ‘external cost’.
So it is with pollution —the traditional example of a negative externality—a polluter makes decisions based only on the direct cost of and profit opportunity from production and does not consider the indirect costs to those harmed by the pollution. The indirect costs include decreased quality of life, say in the case of a home owner near a smokestack; higher health care costs; and forgone production opportunities, for example, when pollution harms activities such as tourism. Since the indirect costs are not borne by the producer, and therefore not passed on to the end user of the goods produced by the polluter, the social or total costs of production are larger than the private costs.
So, for example, from Mark's post: "Lavishly funded “diversity, equity, and inclusion” consultants infiltrated corporate boardrooms to inject racial identity politics into the workplace. Then the left came for your children..." Well, certainly there is a place for discussion of concepts of diversity, equity and inclusion at the right time and place in the workplace and classroom, but when a government pushes concepts which violate "rational human nature", they create a "negative externality", a cost which is imposed on society at large. When the external cost becomes too large, whether it be too much pollution or too much DEI, somebody else has to pay the price. I think that's where we are today.
Is there a reason why we more or less take it for granted that the 1st and 2nd parties will act without regard to negative externalities, even though they may be perfectly well aware of them? The result according to the way we live now is that the only remedy is government action. But government action is often a very imperfect instrument--outcomes, action v. non-action, may depend upon campaign contributions, relative popularity of the parties involved in the broader electorate, PR campaigns, etc. Would it be different in a society in which there were social institutions that could be trusted to uphold established, known, principles of virtuous conduct? Not in the sense of exercising police powers, necessarily, but in the sense of imposing meaningful social sanctions on offending parties. I believe that in the past there may have been such societal means for keeping people in line. Nowadays, the libertarian narrative that we can each get away with inventing our own "sweet mystery of life" frees us from such considerations. There is no longer a public morality. Virtue in our sloppy type of libertarian society is now enforced only by the criminal law--incentives and disincentives. If it ain't a felony, ain't no deal. So there is pressure for more and more legal restrictions on conduct. Libertarianism has all sorts of such perverse consequences that lead to exactly the kind of society libertarians claim to deplore. = Philosophy for dummies.
Well...I think a Pigouvian economist would say that the imperfect action of the government (by definition imperfect, right?) internalizes certain costs but externalizes other costs, creating additional (and perhaps even more costly) negative externalities. The same economist might conclude that upholding "established, known, principles of virtuous conduct" reduces negative externalities. At the end of the day the better all the costs of a policy are understood and allocated, the 'fairer' the result.
There is no way, for example, that abortion on demand, funded by taxpayer dollars, covers all of the costs to society of widespread abortion.
I would add morality to the mixed. I talk to people using sir and madam. I treat everyone the same until they disrespect me. I don't use disrespect; I just stay away from that individual. Civility as stated.
Helps me understand how my "White pride" Supremacist views have now been interpreted since the day I was born. Physical, mental, emotional, behavioral, the whole 9 yards. And all along I thought I was only born with original sin. Shame on me.
I've read countless articles like this over the years from works like the Federalist, and frankly, they irritate the heck out of me. Why are we still pontificating about "the nature of conservatism"? The Left is destroying the West and we waste our time in rarefied debates like this. We all know what virtue and morality are. We don't need high-faluting definitions from egg-heads like Victor Davis Hanson. G K Chesterton's statement that "Moral issues are always terribly complex for someone without principles" is all the intellectual input I need at this stage. What we have to do know is actually go out and LIVE those morals and virtues. We can all start by using that wonderful word "No".
"Moral issues are always terribly complex for someone without principles"
There you go, principals! I keep saying values are meaningless without principals and the left has neither. We must emphasize principals. great quote by Chesterton and I wholeheartedly agree.
True, but enough people do to make a difference - especially the ones who see what is so deeply wrong with out society. They have their explicit moral map. Now it's time for less talk and a bit more explicit moral action.
Knowledge of morals is worthless without training = virtue. Character building. Because acting upon moral knowledge often requires courage = Fortitude, one of the four cardinal virtues. Knowledge is needed, but practice makes perfect. Fortitude becomes very difficult without religious belief. This is where so many of our societal problems arise.
All very true. Meanwhile millions pour across the US border. Inculcating our children with these values, and setting up systems that can teach them to society are good and essential. But the millions of people who already have those values need to start using them now.
I have seen (not read) reports of pro-Palestinian mobs surrounding and/or attacking DNC headquarters over on Tom Luongo's Slack. The comments were of the flavor of some sort of directed warfare by some nefarious party or another. That's not how I see it at all.
What I see is that human nature can not be domesticated. You can turn a wolf into a dog; but generations of oppression do not result in fundamentally changed people. In this instance: if the Left does not treat their Subjects with respect, sooner or later they will rise up. In other words, we are all made in the image of our Creator and are entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. You take any of those things away, and sooner or later folks will rise up. That's what it means to be made in the image of our Creator. He is not subject to anyone.
Getting back to your essay: if people on the left are waking up, that is wonderful. They will need to be a part of rebuilding society. Finding ways to extend a hand across the divide, to invite them to meet us in our communities, in the middle, is important. But there needs to be a retraining in virtue (somehow) for it to work.
"Getting back to your essay: if people on the left are waking up, that is wonderful...Finding ways to extend a hand across the divide, to invite them to meet us in our communities, in the middle, is important. "
I agree w Steg. I see mostly extremely arrogant people on the Left, esp the leadership. They don't want to discuss issues w the likes of me or you or meet me or you anywhere, much less in the "middle". I am especially referring to our Elites. They already know better.
Have you ever had a discussion with any one of them about the reality of Trump, for example, that lasted more than 30 seconds?
Yes, I know many people on the left. The key is looking for common ground and not focusing on what defines us. There are many who value strong communities and have more conservative values than they realize or understand.
Are people on the Left really waking up? I see no signs of it. On the contrary. And the Left don't do building. They destroy. Unfortunately, Humpty Dumpty cannot be put back together again. There will have to be some new arrangements.
It's not possible to work with them, Jeff. There might a significant number of them who will peel off from the insanity when the upcoming juggernaut of reality hits them, but there will always be 30% or so who will double down.
1. The fact that WoN and the Constitution were written within ten years does not establish any relationship of influence. Madison and Jefferson were familiar with Smith's book but there is NO evidence that Smith's thinking influenced the structure of our government.
2. Checks and balances are exactly that--structural mechanisms. They are NOT incentives.
3. Mark Twain was a great writer. He was not a founding father.
4. The influence of libertarian thinking has increased with the decline of classic Christian teaching on virtue. The skepticism that undergirds libertarian thought--that is exactly what the "hidden hand" is about, a hidden mechanism to dispense with virtue precisely because human nature is unknown, according to post-nominalist thought--is what empowers the Left, which also buys into the modern skepticism that is behind libertarianism.
5. Incentives/disincentives will never work without an explicit doctrine of virtue based on a real knowledge of human nature and the structure of reality--which is what libertarianism denies in principle, cf. "sweet mystery of life". Without that, there is no theoretical basis for any system of crime and punishment, i.e., incentives/disincentives.
6. The basis for society is NOT the individual--it is the family.
7. Directed behavior--directed by threat of reward/punishment--is not virtuous behavior. It is just another name for behavior modification. That's exactly what our Ruling Class is using against us.
Addendum: By far the biggest influence on our Constitution was not libertarian ideas but rather the classic Christian doctrine of a "mixed regime" that was rooted in the political thought of Thomas Aquinas but was also elaborated by Catholic philosophers and theologians of the Counter Reformation, Robert Bellarmine and Francisco Suarez. Their thought was mediated to England by Grotius but was also known directly by the chief founding fathers.
The idea of checks and balances is inherent in a "mixed regime". It has nothing to do with a hidden hand or incentives. The incentive is to lead a fully human life, which means living in a society that encourages virtuous living, beginning with a strong family--not a collection of atomized individuals.
I don't run this substack to provide a forum for stupid people to rant at me.
I have read that book. In fact the evil get on top in a libertarian system as well, as we see. Which is the point of the article I cited. Go back and read it. Relentless pursuit of self interest also leads to great social evil--the most selfish win out.
Having a powerful government (Hayek) and imposing virtue--as defined by government bureaucrats--go hand in hand. That's why we need intermediate institutions in society to establish and reinforce norms.
"You misunderstand my point" No I don't. You stated that the individual is the basis of society. That is the false social contract theory. Solidarity is the basis of a healthy society and it starts in the family. Individualism leads to ruthlessness.
"You contradict yourself " No I don't. Incentives/disincentives don't work as a basis for virtue, they are merely coercive rather than educative.
You quote Madison as if he were a libertarian. He wasn't. Setting up a government of divided powers is not utilizing self interest. It's establishing separate power bases for what amounts to interest groups.
"Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place."
Isn't this an important element of the current conflict in America? The interests of the man (in this case, the Elites) are dominating the interests of the place -- in this case millions of Americans (so-called 'conservatives') who object or sense that something is terribly wrong but are struggling to find a constitutional way -- to exercise their constitutional rights -- to express their right to counteract the ambition of the Elites? But...
Voting isn't working. The ambition of the Elites is to harvest ballots and dispense with voter ID.
Protest isn't working. The ambition of the Elites is to lock up protestors (Jan 6) without a trial.
Debate isn't working. The ambition of the Elites is to suppress free speech and cancel you.
The Legislature (Article I) isn't working. The ambition of the Elites is to fund the campaigns of Congressmen to vote against the expressed will of their constituents.
Stimulating Post Mark! Thank you for bringing this topic forward. At the risk of fuddy-duddy redundancy, I'll just make 2 points tonight: 1st & Foundational -in the Declaration of Independence, our Rights begin as Unalienable, endowed *From God*. There will always be non-believers of Judeau-Christian fundamentals and therefore morality/rules/commandments/laws from this Godly principled background will be subject to challenge, disputed or assigned alternate applications. Washington makes clear (as do other reasoned writers from his times through todays) the truth of this quote from Mark's posting: "… And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."
2nd (mercifully just 2!) is a link to William Schryver's post that came out this evening. It's a related 2013 speech & rather of intense interest to me in light of the 2023 USA's "World Savior Mentality" that seems to drive our World Geo-politics these days: https://imetatronink.substack.com/p/arch-enemy?utm_campaign=email-half-post&r=rastf&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email . The Key is the signatory. It's worth the couple minutes to read.
Thanks to Mark for providing this forum - and to all of you who suffer me my participation here. I am blessed by both aspects at MIH! (WrH)
Hey KNT, hope you're well and that you and your loved ones enjoy a great Thanksgiving!
To help me understand your question, I did review Wikipedia to be on the same page of it. First, I'd note my reference was rather generic, rather than specific on a definition. I suppose a short explanation would be the 'Term' for me represents Godly Values as best I might define them from a Biblical perspective. More specific, altho' not intended specifically, might be I would be from a frame-of-reference of a Post WWII ethical perspective. Reviewing the Wiki definition(s) opened my eyes a bit to the 'Term' having a history - not all particularly good. So I'll deflect and go back to a Biblical God reference. If I were to be honest, I'd be prejudiced in dividing Sharia-Abrahamian descendance from Jewish. Poor but really my best explanation is sharing an old-testament history with God's Chosen people through Christ Jesus is simplest for me expressed Judeo-Christian with none of the various Wiki specifics intended beyond that.
I do hope no offense was inferred! If so it is by my misunderstanding and I do apologize. My best regards! (Wrh)
To both of you and all who read these comments, let me recommend my years ago posts re God as Trinity:
https://meaninginhistory.blogspot.com/2011/01/identity-of-god-trinity.html#more
Now, in a way that may seem paradoxical to monotheists of various stripes, the notion that there is one God is as anthropomorphic as were the archaic pantheons of gods, for the idea of "one" God leads naturally to the idea of a God who has a limited nature in the same way that every finite created being (which is thus "one") also has a limited nature. Such monotheisms, which we find in Judaism and Islam, have a tendency to move in one of two (or both) directions: either reverting toward the idea of one tutelary warrior god (Zionism, Jihadist Islam), which leads away from a universalist conception of human nature, or moving toward a Pythagorean-Neoplatonist influenced type of mysticism (Kabbalah, Sufism), which leads away from the idea of creation. Greek thought, too, had moved in the direction of a single (one) principle (Plato's Form of the Good, Aristotle's Unmoved Mover, etc.), a development which Jews such as Philo, as well as many early Christians who were familiar with Greek thought, believed was equivalent to a monotheism of one creator God. Thus, as Cochrane notes, in their theologies it seemed quite natural for Clement and Origen to start with "the conventional opposition of the 'One' and the 'Many,'" just as the Platonists (with their seemingly more developed "philosophical" form of thought) did. But while that opposition of the One and the Many may have been conventional for thought that derived from the archaic ontology of archetypes, its whole tendency was to collapse the Creator God back into a Neoplatonist system of "emanations," generating an eternal cycle of being and becoming that originated in a principle (the One, see below) that was devoid of the Love that characterized the Father of Jesus.
https://meaninginhistory.blogspot.com/2011/02/trinity-and-revelation.html
Thus the Christian revelation—the revelation of God's identity in Jesus—leads definitively to the vision of a universal God and a universal humanity, struggling to attain to meaning in history. From the universalist Christian perspective of revelation as quintessentially the person and life of Jesus, there emerges the insight that all human history is a prelude to that revelation. There is, of course, a reason (a Spirit guided reason) that Jesus was born into Israel, but the early Christians—as early as Paul's letter to the Romans--were not slow to recognize not merely the limitations of Greek thought but also the very real value that it held as, in its own way, also a preparation for the good news of Jesus. So, while the link of Christianity to Israel is organic and significant there is, in light of revelation, no reason to expect a complete agreement of Christian with Israelite thought any more than with Greek thought or the thought of any other society within the scope of the archaic ontology that Christianity replaces. This universal perspective was sadly lost as one of the results of the Protestant Revolt. Sadly, Christian thought has yet to come to terms with the implications of that insight, wallowing instead in a sterile "traditionalism" or losing its bearings entirely in Neo-Gnostic speculation fueled by the post-Kantian German ideologies.
The entire point of Trinity is that Oneness as an attribute applied to God is an anthropomorphism, based on human and finite experience. Trinity means that God as infinite transcends those categories of Oneness that lead Judaism and Islam down the rabbit hole of anthropomorphism.
The Catholic doctrine relies on the Thomist idea of the Analogy of Being. All that is attributed to God is attributed analogically, which--Aquinas explains--is a form of equivocation.
Wasn’t it Machiavelli that discussed the politics of power? I guess we have always lived under a system of raw power of some or one ruling over the masses. But previously at least here in America, there at least seemed to be a moderating force and overriding belief in the value of a moderating force over the execution and responsibility of such power over others. No more, now it has been unleashed in full in our face abuse. The age of gangsta government. And almost daring us, “don’t lie it? Whatta ya gonna do about it? Huh?” That may be what is so disorienting about our times.
First off I'm not much of a religious thinker, although I certainly agree that the "foundation of liberty, as Washington saw, lies in the Christian vision of human nature rooted in reasonable belief." I will also admit that I have flirted with libertarian thinking, as there is a (superficial) appeal in 'free markets' and 'individual rights'. I rejected it some time ago in the belief, as echoed here, that it leads to a kind of social anarchy. A good example of individual rights taken to the extreme is the example of the Tragedy of the Commons. The theory, when applied to land use for example, is that when a number of people enjoy unfettered access to a finite, valuable resource such as a pasture, they will tend to over-use it, and may end up destroying its value altogether. This is also true of the unfettered exercise of many individual 'rights'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
So I absolutely agree with you, Mark, that "leaving power to the lowest common denominator, without societal, institutional guidance, is a recipe for disaster—precisely where we are headed."
I would like to add one additional tool to the discussion, and that is the concept of "negative externalities". All of us, when we reach a certain age, tend to repeat ourselves (sometimes to an extreme) and I may be repeating myself here.
A negative externality can be defined as a cost that is suffered by a third party as a consequence of an economic transaction. In a transaction, the producer and consumer are the first and second parties, and third parties include any individual, organization, property owner, or resource that is indirectly affected. Externalities are also referred to as spillover effects, and a negative externality is also referred to as an ‘external cost’.
So it is with pollution —the traditional example of a negative externality—a polluter makes decisions based only on the direct cost of and profit opportunity from production and does not consider the indirect costs to those harmed by the pollution. The indirect costs include decreased quality of life, say in the case of a home owner near a smokestack; higher health care costs; and forgone production opportunities, for example, when pollution harms activities such as tourism. Since the indirect costs are not borne by the producer, and therefore not passed on to the end user of the goods produced by the polluter, the social or total costs of production are larger than the private costs.
So, for example, from Mark's post: "Lavishly funded “diversity, equity, and inclusion” consultants infiltrated corporate boardrooms to inject racial identity politics into the workplace. Then the left came for your children..." Well, certainly there is a place for discussion of concepts of diversity, equity and inclusion at the right time and place in the workplace and classroom, but when a government pushes concepts which violate "rational human nature", they create a "negative externality", a cost which is imposed on society at large. When the external cost becomes too large, whether it be too much pollution or too much DEI, somebody else has to pay the price. I think that's where we are today.
For anyone interested:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality#Negative
https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/Series/Back-to-Basics/Externalities
All well and good. Next step in the analysis ...
Is there a reason why we more or less take it for granted that the 1st and 2nd parties will act without regard to negative externalities, even though they may be perfectly well aware of them? The result according to the way we live now is that the only remedy is government action. But government action is often a very imperfect instrument--outcomes, action v. non-action, may depend upon campaign contributions, relative popularity of the parties involved in the broader electorate, PR campaigns, etc. Would it be different in a society in which there were social institutions that could be trusted to uphold established, known, principles of virtuous conduct? Not in the sense of exercising police powers, necessarily, but in the sense of imposing meaningful social sanctions on offending parties. I believe that in the past there may have been such societal means for keeping people in line. Nowadays, the libertarian narrative that we can each get away with inventing our own "sweet mystery of life" frees us from such considerations. There is no longer a public morality. Virtue in our sloppy type of libertarian society is now enforced only by the criminal law--incentives and disincentives. If it ain't a felony, ain't no deal. So there is pressure for more and more legal restrictions on conduct. Libertarianism has all sorts of such perverse consequences that lead to exactly the kind of society libertarians claim to deplore. = Philosophy for dummies.
Well...I think a Pigouvian economist would say that the imperfect action of the government (by definition imperfect, right?) internalizes certain costs but externalizes other costs, creating additional (and perhaps even more costly) negative externalities. The same economist might conclude that upholding "established, known, principles of virtuous conduct" reduces negative externalities. At the end of the day the better all the costs of a policy are understood and allocated, the 'fairer' the result.
There is no way, for example, that abortion on demand, funded by taxpayer dollars, covers all of the costs to society of widespread abortion.
An example of institutional rot - the Chinese lab in California is getting even more terrifying…
https://hiddencomplexity.substack.com/p/report-on-the-clandestine-californian
I guess the algorithm monitored social credit system will be the leftist version of religious morality….AI Shariah or Halakha.
I would add morality to the mixed. I talk to people using sir and madam. I treat everyone the same until they disrespect me. I don't use disrespect; I just stay away from that individual. Civility as stated.
Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”—John Adams
Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought.—JPII
Full disclosure: My wife gave me those two quotes together.
Helps me understand how my "White pride" Supremacist views have now been interpreted since the day I was born. Physical, mental, emotional, behavioral, the whole 9 yards. And all along I thought I was only born with original sin. Shame on me.
I've read countless articles like this over the years from works like the Federalist, and frankly, they irritate the heck out of me. Why are we still pontificating about "the nature of conservatism"? The Left is destroying the West and we waste our time in rarefied debates like this. We all know what virtue and morality are. We don't need high-faluting definitions from egg-heads like Victor Davis Hanson. G K Chesterton's statement that "Moral issues are always terribly complex for someone without principles" is all the intellectual input I need at this stage. What we have to do know is actually go out and LIVE those morals and virtues. We can all start by using that wonderful word "No".
"Moral issues are always terribly complex for someone without principles"
There you go, principals! I keep saying values are meaningless without principals and the left has neither. We must emphasize principals. great quote by Chesterton and I wholeheartedly agree.
Well said, Steg!
No, we don't ALL know what right and wrong are. And without and explicit moral map we lose our way forward.
True, but enough people do to make a difference - especially the ones who see what is so deeply wrong with out society. They have their explicit moral map. Now it's time for less talk and a bit more explicit moral action.
Knowledge of morals is worthless without training = virtue. Character building. Because acting upon moral knowledge often requires courage = Fortitude, one of the four cardinal virtues. Knowledge is needed, but practice makes perfect. Fortitude becomes very difficult without religious belief. This is where so many of our societal problems arise.
All very true. Meanwhile millions pour across the US border. Inculcating our children with these values, and setting up systems that can teach them to society are good and essential. But the millions of people who already have those values need to start using them now.
I have seen (not read) reports of pro-Palestinian mobs surrounding and/or attacking DNC headquarters over on Tom Luongo's Slack. The comments were of the flavor of some sort of directed warfare by some nefarious party or another. That's not how I see it at all.
What I see is that human nature can not be domesticated. You can turn a wolf into a dog; but generations of oppression do not result in fundamentally changed people. In this instance: if the Left does not treat their Subjects with respect, sooner or later they will rise up. In other words, we are all made in the image of our Creator and are entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. You take any of those things away, and sooner or later folks will rise up. That's what it means to be made in the image of our Creator. He is not subject to anyone.
Getting back to your essay: if people on the left are waking up, that is wonderful. They will need to be a part of rebuilding society. Finding ways to extend a hand across the divide, to invite them to meet us in our communities, in the middle, is important. But there needs to be a retraining in virtue (somehow) for it to work.
"Getting back to your essay: if people on the left are waking up, that is wonderful...Finding ways to extend a hand across the divide, to invite them to meet us in our communities, in the middle, is important. "
I agree w Steg. I see mostly extremely arrogant people on the Left, esp the leadership. They don't want to discuss issues w the likes of me or you or meet me or you anywhere, much less in the "middle". I am especially referring to our Elites. They already know better.
Have you ever had a discussion with any one of them about the reality of Trump, for example, that lasted more than 30 seconds?
Yes, I know many people on the left. The key is looking for common ground and not focusing on what defines us. There are many who value strong communities and have more conservative values than they realize or understand.
Are people on the Left really waking up? I see no signs of it. On the contrary. And the Left don't do building. They destroy. Unfortunately, Humpty Dumpty cannot be put back together again. There will have to be some new arrangements.
Like it or not, that is half of our countrymen. If we can't work with them, we cannot rebuild.
It's not possible to work with them, Jeff. There might a significant number of them who will peel off from the insanity when the upcoming juggernaut of reality hits them, but there will always be 30% or so who will double down.
We don't need them all, just the ones interested in surviving.
You may enjoy Aaron Renn's fisking of David Brook's lament in The Atlantic on the loss of social virtues,
https://open.substack.com/pub/aaronrenn/p/david-brooks-moral-formation-without-morals?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&comments=true
1. The fact that WoN and the Constitution were written within ten years does not establish any relationship of influence. Madison and Jefferson were familiar with Smith's book but there is NO evidence that Smith's thinking influenced the structure of our government.
2. Checks and balances are exactly that--structural mechanisms. They are NOT incentives.
3. Mark Twain was a great writer. He was not a founding father.
4. The influence of libertarian thinking has increased with the decline of classic Christian teaching on virtue. The skepticism that undergirds libertarian thought--that is exactly what the "hidden hand" is about, a hidden mechanism to dispense with virtue precisely because human nature is unknown, according to post-nominalist thought--is what empowers the Left, which also buys into the modern skepticism that is behind libertarianism.
5. Incentives/disincentives will never work without an explicit doctrine of virtue based on a real knowledge of human nature and the structure of reality--which is what libertarianism denies in principle, cf. "sweet mystery of life". Without that, there is no theoretical basis for any system of crime and punishment, i.e., incentives/disincentives.
6. The basis for society is NOT the individual--it is the family.
7. Directed behavior--directed by threat of reward/punishment--is not virtuous behavior. It is just another name for behavior modification. That's exactly what our Ruling Class is using against us.
8. Libertarianism = Philosophy for Dummies.
Addendum: By far the biggest influence on our Constitution was not libertarian ideas but rather the classic Christian doctrine of a "mixed regime" that was rooted in the political thought of Thomas Aquinas but was also elaborated by Catholic philosophers and theologians of the Counter Reformation, Robert Bellarmine and Francisco Suarez. Their thought was mediated to England by Grotius but was also known directly by the chief founding fathers.
The idea of checks and balances is inherent in a "mixed regime". It has nothing to do with a hidden hand or incentives. The incentive is to lead a fully human life, which means living in a society that encourages virtuous living, beginning with a strong family--not a collection of atomized individuals.
Idiocy free zone.
Libertarianism = Philosophy for Dummies.
I don't run this substack to provide a forum for stupid people to rant at me.
I have read that book. In fact the evil get on top in a libertarian system as well, as we see. Which is the point of the article I cited. Go back and read it. Relentless pursuit of self interest also leads to great social evil--the most selfish win out.
Having a powerful government (Hayek) and imposing virtue--as defined by government bureaucrats--go hand in hand. That's why we need intermediate institutions in society to establish and reinforce norms.
"You misunderstand my point" No I don't. You stated that the individual is the basis of society. That is the false social contract theory. Solidarity is the basis of a healthy society and it starts in the family. Individualism leads to ruthlessness.
"You contradict yourself " No I don't. Incentives/disincentives don't work as a basis for virtue, they are merely coercive rather than educative.
You quote Madison as if he were a libertarian. He wasn't. Setting up a government of divided powers is not utilizing self interest. It's establishing separate power bases for what amounts to interest groups.
@TD
Thank you. Very thoughtful and interesting post.
"Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place."
Isn't this an important element of the current conflict in America? The interests of the man (in this case, the Elites) are dominating the interests of the place -- in this case millions of Americans (so-called 'conservatives') who object or sense that something is terribly wrong but are struggling to find a constitutional way -- to exercise their constitutional rights -- to express their right to counteract the ambition of the Elites? But...
Voting isn't working. The ambition of the Elites is to harvest ballots and dispense with voter ID.
Protest isn't working. The ambition of the Elites is to lock up protestors (Jan 6) without a trial.
Debate isn't working. The ambition of the Elites is to suppress free speech and cancel you.
The Legislature (Article I) isn't working. The ambition of the Elites is to fund the campaigns of Congressmen to vote against the expressed will of their constituents.
And on and on.
I disagree.