Jerry Muller, the author of Conservatism, has given me permission to reprint an article of his that might be of interest to readers of this website, “Dilemmas of Conservatism,” The Public Interest Number 139, Spring, 2000.
Conservatism and orthodoxy
What commonly goes by the name “conservatism” in the contemporary United States is an alliance of those who hold two sorts of worldviews which are quite distinct, and which inevitably come into tension from time to time. When conservatism is defined (as it was by Russell Kirk) by the assumption “that there exists a transcendent moral order, to which we ought to try to conform the ways of society,” the conceptual waters are muddied in a way that may be politically expedient but is intellectually obfuscating. For the notion that human institutions should reflect some transcendent order is shared by a variety of non-conservative religious ideologies, and was contested by some of the most significant and influential conservative thinkers, beginning with David Hume. Kirk’s definition might better be termed “orthodox” — a term which reflects its self-understanding as keeper of the true faith. Peter Berger once distinguished “conservatives by faith” from skeptical “conservatives by lack of faith,” which corresponds to the distinction between orthodoxy and conservatism suggested here.
The orthodox theoretician defends existing institutions and practices because they are metaphysically true: the truth proclaimed may be based on particular revelation or on natural laws purportedly accessible to all rational men. The conservative theoretician defends existing institutions above all because they are thought to have worked rather well and been conducive to human happiness. For the conservative, the historical survival of an institution or practice —be it marriage, monarchy, or the market—creates a prima facie case that it has served some human need. For conservatives, the very existence of institutions and traditions creates a presumption that they have served some useful function. In addition, conservatives tend to be acutely sensitive to the costs of radical change. Elimination or radical reconstruction of existing institutions may lead to harmful, unintended consequences, conservatives argue, because social practices are interlinked, such that eliminating one will have unanticipated negative effects on others….
Thus, although orthodox and conservative thinkers may sometimes reach common conclusions, they reach those conclusions by different intellectual routes.
Yet the distinction between conservatism and orthodoxy is often elided in conservative self-representations, at times because conservative thinkers may regard it as useful for most people to believe that existing institutions correspond closely to some ultimate, unchanging or transcendent truth. The recurrent conservative temptation is to declare preferred policies “self-evident” or a product of “natural law,” deviation from which can only be explained by a debased understanding. That, for example, divorce was self-evidently at odds with natural law for Catholics but not for Protestants, or that artificial contraception was self-evidently abhorrent to Anglicans in 1850 but not in 1950, might call the assured certainty of such judgments into question. That is precisely why advocates of each position strive to banish the alternative from the mental horizons of their adherents, to maintain what Peter Berger has called the “plausibility structure” of their assumptions, to reinforce the taken-for-granted quality of their beliefs. But it also creates the potential for tension between conservative analysts, who are aware of the partial contingency of moral norms — their dependence upon institutional structure which vary over time and space — and the religiously orthodox, for whom the admission of such contingency may seem tantamount to nihilism, if not heresy.
There is no necessary link between conservatism and religious belief. Devout Christians or Jews have embraced a variety of political viewpoints, including liberalism, socialism, and nationalism, while many of the most distinguished conservative theorists have been agnostics or atheists. Conservatism arose in good part out of the need to defend existing institutions from the threat posed by “enthusiasm,” that is religious inspiration which seeks to overturn the social order. At the cradle of conservatism, then, lies the recognition that the religiously self-assured can be dangerous. The critique of religious enthusiasm, which was central to Hume’s conservatism, was later extended, first by Hume himself and more emphatically by Burke, into a critique of political radicalism. When, during the twentieth century, conservative thinkers chastised communism and fascism as forms of political millenarianism, they took for granted that political millenarianism of a more religious sort was a potentially dangerous force.
Yet if some conservatives have questioned the veracity of religion, most have tended to affirm its social utility. They have made several arguments for the utility of religion: that it legitimates the state; that the hope of future reward offers men solace for the trials of their earthly existence and thus helps to diffuse current discontent which might disrupt the social order; and above all that belief in ultimate reward and punishment leads men to act morally by giving them an incentive to do so (a proposition long shared by liberals, such as John Locke or Adam Smith).
Recognition of the social utility of religion is no reflection its truth or falsity. It is quite possible to believe that religion is false but useful: in such cases, conservatives may approach the claims of orthodoxy with strategies which may be termed tact, prudence, esotericism, or noble lying. But it is also possible to believe that religion is both useful and true, as Aquinas or Maimonides maintained (though in the latter case, much of what his coreligionists regarded as true was regarded by Maimonides as superstition or idolatry). Or one may believe that religion is “true” in a more rational and universalistic sense than in its particular, historical embodiments, but that those particular embodiments are necessary to make religion accessible to the mass of citizens in a way which is less rationalist and abstract than more intellectual and intelligent versions of the faith. As Burke put it, “Superstition is the religion of feeble minds; and they must be tolerated in an intermixture of it, in some trifling or some enthusiastic shape or other, else you will deprive weak minds of a resource found necessary to the strongest.”
There are, nevertheless, intrinsic tensions in the alliance between orthodoxy and conservatism, tensions which may remain latent or become manifest depending on the political constellation. In the eyes of conservatives, the orthodox lack intellectual sophistication: Their self-assurance about the answers comes from not having thought hard enough about the questions, from not comprehending the partial or problematic sources of their views. In the eyes of the orthodox, conservatives appear as cynical, as lacking in real conviction, which they believe can only come from acknowledging the absolute source of values….
There are inevitable tensions on both sides. At some point, the orthodox tire of assurances that their program is useful: They want universal acknowledgment that it is true, and the stronger their power relative to other conservative forces, the more this will be the case. (The perceived electoral power of the Christian Right in Republican primaries, for example, made the confession of the born-again experience of Jesus Christ de rigeur among Republican presidential aspirants.) Calls of the orthodox for civil disobedience or revolution in the face of laws that they consider to be violations of morality are unlikely to find the same resonance among conservatives, as the controversy provoked by some of the contributions to First Things’ 1996 symposium on “The End of Democracy?” demonstrates. At some point, conservatives may buck at the level of implausible beliefs they are asked to affirm or abide, say “creation science” or the dangers posed by bar codes bearing the Mark of the Beast, or the repeated assurances that praying along with Pat Robertson during his television show will cure one or another physical ailment.
“conservative analysts, who are aware of the partial contingency of moral norms — their dependence upon institutional structure which vary over time and space — and the religiously orthodox, for whom the admission of such contingency may seem tantamount to nihilism, if not heresy.”
“At the cradle of conservatism, then, lies the recognition that the religiously self-assured can be dangerous.”
Hume: I’d be interested to hear you expore your position (discussed on your personal blog) of relgion as an amplifier of normal cognitive functioning as it relates to the above snippets of this fascinating post.
My sense is that the orthodox conservatives would be more prone to throw the baby out with the bathwater in their pusuit of the realization of “god’s will” or the “divine plane” than would non-religious conservatives. Their impluse to preserve extant institutions stems not so much from the recognition that such institutions have proved useful, or have come to express a social equalibrium of some kind, but rather that they embody “what should be”. Thus, as the vagaries of chance come to subtly alter this equlibrium, the orthodox are more apt to behave in a kind of reactionry fashion.
Or is this sort of reading unfair to the orthdox? (I.e., does the religion-as-cognitive-amplification you’ve spoken of itself sometimes serve a useful purpose in providing the energy needed to resist political millenialism?)
Kirk certainly believed that conservatism should have a mysterious, religious component, but I think also that the non-religious could come to agree with some of his conservative sentiments, most notably that conservatism is anti-ideology and anti-utopian (on earth, that is – Kirk had contempt for Wilsonian adventurism).
First off- forgive me for not having the rigorous intellectual and rhetorical background that Jerry, A-Bax and jonathan seem to have. That being said:
Although I am a religious person, I do not take my religion as an argument for the correctness of political conservatism. Political conservatism needs no prop-up from religion- it is what it is because it works.
I would argue that those policies which have been shown to work in the recent past (say, the last 300 years) form the basis of conervatism. That they are interrelated as well as highly functional is no coincidence.
And although I am socially conservative to some great extent, I believe that we are a nation founded in individual liberty under God. The prime mover is God, but the divine providence God has granted to us is an understanding of the ideal of liberty.
As such, any idea of dogmatic interruption of liberty founded on religion must only be given as much weight as any other idea. No more, no less. If that idea is able to stand by itself without using religion as a basis from which to argue, then it should be incorporated- but not otherwise.
Thankfully, our First Amendment still guarantees our God-given freedom to worship and lead our lives as our religion should dictate.
As with ideas borne of religious dogma (and here I use the term in a value-neutral sense), so it is with any idea, especially the socially and economically dangerous arguments from the left. If a leftist idea can stand the scrutiny of reasonable people acting prudently, then it should be considered.
I submit though, that if such an idea actually existed, it would certainly be a conservative idea in disguise.
Best Regards
Hume: I’d be interested to hear you expore your position (discussed on your personal blog) of relgion as an amplifier of normal cognitive functioning as it relates to the above snippets of this fascinating post.
It’s complicated? 🙂 To be short I think religion as a psychological phenomenon, assertions and intuitions about the supernatural, has little necessary connection to mass politics. But religion broadly construed as a set of institutional frameworks into which supernatural ideas are slotted in has a close relationship to man the political animal, and can serve various purposes. As can “political religion”.
My sense is that the orthodox conservatives would be more prone to throw the baby out with the bathwater in their pusuit of the realization of “god’s will” or the “divine plane” than would non-religious conservatives. Their impluse to preserve extant institutions stems not so much from the recognition that such institutions have proved useful, or have come to express a social equalibrium of some kind, but rather that they embody “what should be”.
*nod* The problem is Antimonianism.
I will extend this somewhat cryptic truncated response in a post in the future….
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This is an interesting thread to me, because it raises an issue that I think is at the core of this site’s existence. I may be off-base, but it seems to me this site exists because other sites spend too much time wrapping religious arguments into political arguments. In other words, the irreligious are feeling cramped.
That raises the fundamental question for “conservatives” at this time. What does it mean to be conservative?
For most of my life, conservative has been defined as not-liberal. Pat Buchanan is easily tossed into the same bucket as Steve Forbes or George Bush. Yet, other than being hated by the left, the similarities between these examples is limited.
The danger I see in this site is it may drift into simply being a place for the non-religious to make claims on the word conservative at the exclusion of religious faith. That one stop over from Reason Magazine.
It seems to me the any useful definition of conservative (I mean useful in terms of exerting political influence) will have to allow for both the religious and irreligious to agree upon certain broad principles. That means the irreligious will have to resist the temptation to make war on the religious on the grounds of religion.
Further, as Derb points out from time to time, faith is very well a hard wired part of the human animal. It is an evolutionarily useful trait that is integral to the human animal.
Rationality, therefore, suggests this fact has to be accepted and accounted for when crafting a political philosophy.
Anyway, I look forward to watching the debate.
@The Zman
Zman:
Taking this a step further – in political arguments between liberals and conservatives, a standard “straw man” attack is that a conservative position is supported by the orthodox, orthodoxy relies on religion, religion = “superstition”, and therefore the conservative position must be false. For a totally unreligious conservative such as myself, this is annoying on two levels: 1) I can’t stand dealing with straw man arguments; 2) I prefer to engage in religious criticism separately from political criticism. Both of these levels obscure the issue and make it nearly impossible to have a meaningful debate.
I’ve just seen on Rasmussen:
“Seventy-seven percent (77%) of U.S. voters say school children should say the Pledge of Allegiance every morning at school, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.”
As a Canadian, may I say I have always felt that this rote recitation of loyalty to the Fatherland always struck me as belonging more to a Soviet or Nazi type of state rather than what is billed as the land of the free. I was not surprised to learn that it was written by a socialist. Christian conservatives seem to have adopted the pledge of alliance ritual, and consider it to be as American as apple pie. I wonder, do secular conservatives agree?
Well, that’s not going to change even if the whole world declares in favor of atheism. You see, liberalism is a religion of sorts. It has a whole bunch of rules that makes no sense, but people accept them on faith.
Just as you will have no fun arguing evolution with a creationist, you will never have much luck reasoning with a liberal.
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