False Realism and Utopianism

Conservatism is a defense of the existing order or past existing orders as "natural". Any potential alternative to the existing order or to the romantisized past order is immediately brushed aside as "unnatural" and "utopian" or "idealistic". In the conservative view, all existing inequalities are "natural" in a sort of deterministic sense. The conservative strongly emphasizes nature over nurture to explain and defend currently existing or past existing conditions. On the other hand, utopian left-wing ideologies such as Marxism strongly emphasize nurture over nature and hence attribute the vast majority if not all currently existing conditions and inequalities to political, economic and cultural influences in a deterministic sense. Nothing short of a significant transformation in human nature can possibly obtain the ultimate end sought of a purely egalitarian society, and the desirability and implications of such a purely egalitarian society is alarmingly questionable upon reasonable reflection.

The conservative errs in considering the existing order or past orders to be inevitable into the future or that they can possibly sustain themselves perpetually. They tend to ignore the extent to which inequalities are the effect of influences such as state intervention and bureaucracy. The conservative tends to defend the unequitable effects of state intervention as if they came about naturally on the free market, and therefore concludes that currently existing disparaties between various groups of people are both inevitable and justified. When anyone proposes or attempts to change such conditions or the existing order in general in a significant way, the status quo is defended by the conservative. The conservative has little to no concept of the dynamic nature of society over time and fails to see the potential changes that can be made and the advantages that can be reaped. Conservatism can be seen as a very pessemistic view in a sense, particularly pessemistic towards the future.  

The marxist engages in the opposite error. They blame all existing inequalities and negative conditions on the non-existant free market and then arbitrarily proclaim that it's just a phase of history that will inevitably be surpassed by a collectivistic utopia, if only all the workers magically take over the state and somehow voluntarily dissolve it. The marxist does not recognize the degree to which state intervention is the primary cause or enabler of the inequities that they have so much distain for. They put themselves foreward as being proponents of change in the right direction, but what they ultimately have to offer is more of the same: state intervention and centralization. The actual cause of the problems which they aim to solve is precisely what they propose as a solution, and therefore their "change" isn't a meaningful or beneficial one. They propose what in some ways amounts to an authoritarian heirarchy as the solution to authoritarian heirarchy or dictatorship as a solution to dictatorship.

The distinction between and reliance upon nature and nurture is often a false dichotomy. That which involves human influence is often characterized as "nurture", yet human beings are a part and product of "nature". The real question is a matter of which particular parts or aspects of "nature" are influencing other particular parts or aspects of "nature". There are some issues with the use of the term "natural" to begin with. In a certain sense, everything and whatever the current state of affairs happens to be is "natural". The only alternative to something being "natural" would be for it to not exist, unless of course one is proposing that there is some kind of supernatural realm which would still ultimately reduce to non-existance. That being said, it is definitely nonsensical to consider all present conditions and all present forms of organization to be inevitable and a permanent state of affairs. Stasis is not "natural". Organizations and organizational forms are never permanent in the grand scheme of things, so it would be more genuinely "realistic" to propose that the eventual dissolution of the existing order is "natural" and inevitable at some point.

While the conservative puts themselves foreward as a realist, they are truly nothing but a proponent of either stasis or "turning back the clock" to "the good old days", which becomes their own romantic utopia. The extent to which they see current affairs as moving in an "unnatural" direction causes them to become reactionaries, desparately trying to cling on to old traditions. On the other hand, the marxist sees the present as "unnatural" and proclaims an inevitable utopian future to be a "natural" progression. They've drawn erroneous conclusions from the basis of the hegelian dialectic, philosophy of history and social evolutionary theory. Both involve the bastardization and politicization of science as a handy rhetorical authority and a misguided appeal to either nature or nurture.

Comments

# wombatron said on 26 June, 2008 10:21 AM

Good points, especially the one about the use of the word "nature" (also applicable against enviros and luddites).

# Brainpolice said on 26 June, 2008 03:31 PM

Yes. Interestingly, primitivism can be interpreted as a rather conservative view in the sense that it romantisizes the past as "natural" and advocates returning to the "natural".

# EvilSmurf said on 26 June, 2008 05:14 PM

If you're conservative/reactionary enough like these primitivist environmentalists, you're actually radical and therefore you don't associate with "conservatives." I think that talking about conservatives wanting to "turn the clock back" is quite a strawman actually, conservatism is really about preserving the status quo or advocating just small and slow changes. I very rarely hear conservatives talking about going back to monarchy, theocracy and the dark ages.

# Brainpolice said on 26 June, 2008 06:35 PM

It could be either preserving the status quo or trying to revert back to older forms. In the context of European conservatism throughout history, it was typically on the side of monarchy and theocracy that the conservatives stood. You can see the conservative's romantisization of the past manifest itself with respect to 1950's America, colonial America and fuedal Europe.

# Nitroadict said on 28 June, 2008 01:16 AM

It's not a strawmen at all when you consider that conservatism is ultimately futile* & is contradictory with regards to evolution, which would obviously favor a dynamism, rather than stasis.  

(*Although, this point is mute if in fact, one does not believe in evolution, so for the many conservatives that are religious enough, it's easy to see why they may not see conservatism as "futile" at all.)

"Turning The Clock Back" can also mean turning it ahead 5 minutes, then turning it back 10 minutes, which is essentially (metaphoricaly, albeit) what I think conservatives tend to do: display an air of progress by trying to revert things, which ties into their romantic involvement with the past itself, while standing for the status quo.  

Pull a lever, any lever!  As long as the levers are being pulled, and people still believe in the levers themselves, all will be fine!  

I would attribute neo-feudalism (wage slavery, credit, etc.) & continued rule by oligarchies (whether it's by representative democracy, or other form of governance which ultimately is just oligarchical rule in different clothes) as possible manifestations of "dressing the past in new clothes", and marketing it to the present as something new.

It's worth noting however, that before the Internet, it was fairly hard to quantify the amount of people who were tired of the same old "marketing of the past", aside from the assorted mailing lists and possible few friends you knew in actual life that shared  similar views.  Since the Internet's inception however, the communication of ideas has exceeded anyone's imagination.  

Even only considering this, it's becoming increasingly obvious & apparent that less & less people are not falling for the same old game anymore, or are at least learning the 'games' rules & making moves that the 'game masters' never previously envisioned them making.

(I'm using way too many metaphors... :grumbles: )

In this view, the Internet is probably a much more radical attempt at change (and a push for dynamism), then the establishment of this country ever was, despite the overtly classical liberal nature of the 1st century or so (following the revolutionary war), due to the fact that this country was still founded utilizing a Statist-like archetype for governance, just vastly limited compared to where are today.

Another difference was that the Internet was not intentionally created to be a grand experiment and/or test with regards to the traditional means and/or systems of governence typicall utilized by humans.  

However, The United States of America was intentionally started for more or less that purpose (among other important reasons), and it was done so using variations on previous systems (variations on the systems of a republic, democracy, oligarchy, aristocracy which yielded more obvious influences of plutocracy, corporate rule, etc.).

# EvilSmurf said on 28 June, 2008 08:17 AM

What sucks about conservatism that it totally fails at  both appealing to emotion and appealing to reason. Keeping things as they are and opposing changes hardly inspirises any enthuasism, especially among young people. At the same time it worships all kind of irrational crap like religion and blind commitment to tradition. Ayn Rand, for example, was very frustated with the arguments by which conservatives defended capitalism; it made it look like that the only reason to  advocate free markets was passivity,  irrationality, cowardice and backward-looking personality.

# Brainpolice said on 29 June, 2008 05:27 PM

Good points from both of you.