That's a question inspired by a discussion in Gene Callahan's blog.
I am hoping to be proven wrong - my assertion is that neither conservatives (in the Tory British sense) nor old Liberals have never engaged in the same level of social engineering as progressives or social democrats. I am now wondering - may be they have?
So far, the discussion looks like this.
Gene Callahan: Here is the great progressive thinker H.G. Wells on the future of humanity: And for the rest, those swarms of black and brown, and dirty-white, and yellow people, who do not come into the new needs of efficiency? Well, the world is a world, not a charitable institution, and I take it they will have to go... It is their portion to die out and disappear.
LK: H.G. Wells was a eugenicist and was influenced by Social Darwinism. It is no surprise that he had odious and hateful opinions like this. There were numerous conservative supporters of eugenics and social Darwinism too. I note that the progressive William Jenning Bryan was a harsh critic of Social Darwinism.
Me: we discussed this in your blog, I believe. It was an interesting discussion.I remarked that although not all and not even most progressives are necessarilly such harsh social engineers, it is a somewhat consistent result of somebody who wants to make "society better".In the end, such a Greater Good thinker sees the miserable and oppressed as a problem to be removed, if they can not be solved. My reasoning was that such ideas were the reasons that we see eugenics programs in 1950s Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Iceland, or in 1970s social democratic India, and yet never in Britain.You, on other hand, equivocated, and said there was also a long tradition of equally abhorrent thinking among non-progressives in Britain and America, citing Herbert Spencer. Thus, both sides have had minorities guilty of wanting to eliminate the unfit in society.Be that as it may, I feel one finds that in terms of actual policy and deliberate activism, only progressives and social democrats have managed to implement eugenics policies. So far, no Spencerian ever managed to pass a legislation to make charity illegal, and such people only managed to have an abhorrent opinion, which was never translated into abhorrent action.
Gene Callahan: What Prateek said. Also, I think it is more accurate to classify Bryan as a populist than as a progressive.
So...are I and Professor Callahan wrong? Do progressives have equally as many dangerous social Darwinists in their ranks as non-progressives do? Or are we right, and that progressives have comprised some of the worst social engineers known, moreso than the rest?
Well social darwinism is something nearly everyone practiced during that time period. You can even find it in the mugwumps of the Anti-Imperialist League which many joined to prevent imperialism because they didn't wan other ethnicities to become American citizens.
'Men do not change, they unmask themselves' - Germaine de Stael
Conservative social engineering is almost a contradiction in terms. The meaning of "conservative" is in some sense that they are unwilling to participate in the social engineering projects that Progressives perceive as the only way to change society. (Progressives do not understand systemic order, therefore they equate anti social engineering with being anti change = pro maintaining the status quo = conservative.) The term "liberal" is thus often used on the left as denoting those who are pro changing society through social engineering.
Social Darwinism was a core progressive stance, that was re-defined "right-wing" later.
Yes, Emperor Nero, it is almost a contradiction. Almost.
Obviously, conservative might be used as an umbrella term to include both Burkean moderates and, say, the anti-immigration parties in Europe. And the former might not like being lumped with the latter.
Looking at some of the latter and ignoring the former, we know that groups like Front National in France are perhaps 30 years too late. If they really claim to have some solution, what do they intend to DO? How on earth are they going to change the fact that so many North Africans are already French citizens? Expel even second- and third- generation immigrants from Frnace? Any solution they may propose may be nothing less than a radical one, that is bound to cause mass riots for a very very long time.
Some Americans have been blunt in suggesting that first-violation deportations and exiles for Muslims in US after 9/11, because many non-integrated are supposedly potential jihadists.
The problem here is that while conservatism is presumably about preserving or restoring the old system or the old order, that is going to be all the more difficult when the old way of things has already been usurped. It WILL involve a radical solution.
Of course, I still come back to my own point. These people will do nothing and can do nothing. Only progressives can enjoy enough political power to actually implement their dangerous ideas. This is the very loose fence on which I stand. If someone has a very convincing argument, I might fall to that side of fence.
Social engineering is basically a cornerstone of civilization. It is not a bad thing or dishonest thing. It is merely any attempt to influence behavior or attitudes in a society. Anything from positive (money) to negative (prison/ostracism) conditioning can be considered as social engineering. As well as various types of propaganda: books, campaigns, art, movies, etc.
Conservatives are only conservative up to a point. Most conservatives in America, for instance, believe that humans should be a little more progressive than say the middle-east, Africa, or India. They are not advocates of a primitive man.
I think conservatives and progressives agree that not attempting such is basically suicide. Since if they do not do it, then the other will win out. In various cases, they are certain that the other has won out already. And that is reason enough to do what they do. But for the reason that what our culture has built up so far, there is a need to maintain social engineering.
It is not a matter of social engineering being right or wrong, when we're talking ethics. It is merely a matter of if what they are saying is correct. In that case, of course eugenics is unethical. Because murder and so fforth are unethical. Not because it is social engineering. As far as I know, eugenics has lost its appeal on both the left and right. So that is a moot point.
It is probably unethical, also, to say that a 'type' of social engineering is ethical. For instance, to say a religion is correct. Or that society has 'decided' something. Or that laws are natural. Or that some public service, like schooling, is indisputable.
In a way, any new philosophy is considered foremost a type of social engineering. But like many buzzwords, this one has a negative connotation. And is usually used by people wishing to silence a new philosophy. For instance, many could say that anarchism is a social engineering. Away from the institutions of the state. But who would say this, except people who don't want the possibility of people accepting anarchism.
"If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever."
- George Orwell
Regimentation. The regimentation of daily life. In fact, conservatives have been much more successful in their social engineering than the progressives have been. The progressives are latecomers to the whole game. The whole idea of social engineering for the benefit of everybody was considered absurd by our sharper and less naive forebears. Social engineering was practiced only by the Elites, for the Elites. The foremost form of social engineering is much more biological in nature and has to do with pure bloodlines, not sullying noble blood with common and all that jazz. It's considered quaint nowadays but then the masses have always been smugly unaware of their own ignorance. The next most important form of social engineering is also biological in nature and has to do with how power rewards loyalty... with offspring. Slaveholders have been breeding the strongest and most obedient slaves for generations. Check this, in case you need a hint at just how important breeding can be. Of course, to even acknowledge that the laws of biology are in operation at all times within the human population is today considered closet Nazism.
I have come to the conclusion that the entirety of modern culture is modeled on Boot Camp. We live and work in dull, cinder-block, cookie-cutter buildings that have all the artistic nuance of the morgue. We pursue an occupation not to achieve hedonic satisfaction in life but, rather, to avoid the soup-line and jail, the ever-ready companions of those who do not gleefully submit to grinding, workaday life. Our social leaders load us up with guilt, guilt and more guilt over common actions that everybody does. In Oregon, we have made it illegal for a parent to leave his or her children locked in the vehicle (even for just a minute) to run into a store... because some horrible person left their child in their car to die in the heat. We are like the boot camp platoon which is collectively punished for the misdeeds of one of its members, our drill sergeants walking up and down the line inspecting each and every belt buckle looking for the slightest piece of lint by which to berate us. Don't drive too fast. Don't cross the line. Don't make a rolling stop. Regimentation. Boot stamping a human face forever. This is the future. This is the most successful social engineering paradigm, ever.
Clayton -
That last paragraph from Clayton can serve as the official explanation for why I decided to quit school and try to concoct get rich schemes out of my parent's house rather than going to college/university, getting perfect grades and getting my face stamped for $50/h. Except, I would call it the present rather than the future.
And as far as "eliminating the unfit", it is just a descriptive matter of fact that is unavoidable as well...no matter how many ways you try to contextualize a form of shared objective factual reality, this term can always be used and in doing so will be a "law of logic".
If there is a difference in a rule of thumb overall approach to things:
Liberals have an objective "idealistic" outlook as to what good is, that by it's own ideal has to spread like cancer
Concervaives take a more "what is, is" approach, and than screw it up in the end.
This is why conservatives may be quicker to identify the mechanic of the issue at hand, but slower to realize that no one cares and isn't what people are "really talking about or interested in" anyway. Which is why they are an irrelevant group and pointless to think about.
A Nietzchean who tries to sound like a Nietzschean in a world where that language doesn't "pay the bills" - is a fool who misses the whole point, loses relevancy, and loses sight in sociology and the way things work.
I think you pretty much got it: libertarians are (or were) less likely to gravitate to such ideas -- and, when they do, they wouldn't embrace state cleansing.
But I also wonder if this isn't just a war of numbers. Weren't there many more times the amount of progressive authors as there were libertarian ones? Even if the fraction of eugenic followers was similar, progressive authors would standout.
Equality before the law and material equality are not only different but are in conflict with each other; and we can achieve either one or the other, but not both at the same time. -- F. A. Hayek in The Constitution of Liberty