A Thinking Reed

"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed" – Blaise Pascal

How I (sort of) joined the vast left-wing conspiracy: confessions of a pessimistic liberal

In the wake of talk of a new conservative-libertarian fusionism on the right, these remarks from political theorist Jacob T. Levy make for interesting reading. I used to consider myself a libertarian, and even voted Republican in the late 90s and early oughts, but was soon driven away from the GOP for reasons to familiar to re-hash. (Hint: it rhymes with Schmorge Schmush.) Since then I have definitely moved to the Left on a number of issues (primarily economic and environmental), but still retain some vestigial libertarian tendencies (a Millian anti-paternalism still looms large in my political make-up). Moreover, though, I feel no sense of identification with the contemporary American Right (especially the newly-“Palinized” right), however much I admire some of the writing and thinking going on among the smart, young “reformist” conservative set clustered around publications like Culture 11 and the American Scene. For better or worse, I am now–de facto at least–on the Left.

And yet–I’m not completely comfortable with progressive cultural or social positions. (I’m pro-gay marriage, for example, but opposed to embryonic stem cell research, in addition to being a squish on abortion.) And, though it’s often overstated by conservatives, there is a strain of anti-religious hostility among liberals and a drive to enshrine a completely secular worldview. Meanwhile, my small-l liberalism is rooted in a more conservative (philosophically speaking) and religious worldview that emphasizes both the dignity and the fallenness of human beings. So I can’t work up quite the same zeal for marching into the brave new future that some “progressives” seem able to muster. (This sensibility also makes me uncomfortable with the earnestness and certitude of parts of the religious Left; possibly it’s just a character flaw on my part.)

Indeed, I sometimes toy with calling myself an “anti-progressive” liberal, though I suspect that would breed too much confusion. More apt, perhaps, would be “pessimistic liberal.” I think liberal (“negative”) freedom is necessary for a tolerable society, but also leads to bad consequences. And I think government action is necessary–more necessary than libertarians will admit–to ameliorate those consequences (like vast inequalities or environmental destruction). But I don’t think we’ll ever reach a progressive promised land (or return to a conservative golden age); at best, we’ll muddle through, hopefully making incremental improvements to our lot and that of our neighbors.

This is all, of course, subject to revision. 😉

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5 responses to “How I (sort of) joined the vast left-wing conspiracy: confessions of a pessimistic liberal”

  1. Wilson

    These days, I tend to call myself a “Burkean liberal.” That makes perfect sense in my head, at least.

    Reply
  2. Lee

    Intriguing – I’d like to see an elaboration of that!

    Reply
  3. Wilson

    Well, here’s how I might begin a thumbnail sketch of a thumbnail sketch:

    First, Burke was hardly the most conservative member of Parliament in his age, however one defines conservatism. He was not blind to the need for reform in Britain. He argued for the expansion of parliamentary power vis-a-vis the king’s ministers, advocated negotiation with the American colonies, and spoke out forcefully against the depredations of the East India Company.

    He wrote in his “Thoughts on the Present Discontents”: “I am not one of those who think that the people are never in the wrong. They have been so, frequently and outrageously, both in other countries and in this. But I do say, that in all disputes between them and their rulers, the presumption is at least upon a par in favour of the people. Experience may perhaps justify me in going further. When popular discontents have been very prevalent; it may well be affirmed and supported, that there has been generally something found amiss in the constitution, or in the conduct of Government. The people have no interest in disorder.”

    And he was an historicist in his traditionalism: “Every age has its own manners, and its politicks dependent upon them; and the same attempts will not be made against a constitution fully formed and matured, that were used to destroy it in the cradle, or to resist its growth during its infancy. ”

    Similarly: “When any construction of law goes against the spirit of the privilege it was meant to support, it is a vicious construction. It is material to us to be represented really and bona fide, and not in forms, in types, and shadows, and fictions of law.”

    Even as a certain reactionary horror stirred in Burke during the French Revolution, he argued in the Reflections not for stasis but for evolution.

    For example, he held up 17th-century England as an example: “A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation. Without such means it might even risk the loss of that part of the constitution which it wished the most religiously to preserve. The two principles of conservation and correction operated strongly at the two critical periods of the Restoration and Revolution, when England found itself without a king. At both those periods the nation had lost the bond of union in their ancient edifice; they did not, however, dissolve the whole fabric. On the contrary, in both cases they regenerated the deficient part of the old constitution through the parts which were not impaired. They kept these old parts exactly as they were, that the part recovered might be suited to them.”

    To the extent that Burke was a profoundly conservative thinker with regard to the French Revolution, his was a conservatism of constitutions, not necessarily a conservatism of laws. Even in the case of constitutions, his dialectic required an element of “correction” as well as of “conservation.”

    His forceful advocacy of a religious establishment in the same text was based on an argument about social function. Yes, he wanted the Church to remain unquestioned, and he insisted that its authority was not a mere form to keep the citizens in line. Yet he portrayed the Church as a fundamental part of a divinely instituted social “contract” (a term he cautiously endorses), not as an independent authority. Through religious education, he writes, “we [English] attach our gentlemen to the church, and we liberalize the church by an intercourse with the leading characters of the country.” The Church, like the state, was caught in time.

    Finally: one of Burke’s most telling arguments against the French revolutionaries, as I see it, is his claim that their methods were incompatible with genuine reform. They could have achieved a remarkable regeneration in their state, he wrote; instead, they rushed headlong into overturning all institutions, including useful ones.

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  4. Wilson

    To sum up, I suppose: if your state is really “organic,” it ought to be growing, right?

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  5. Russell Arben Fox

    It’s an intriguing reading of Burke, Wilson. I don’t agree with it overall, but you make some very fine points, especially in regards to the difference between a conservatism of constitutions and a conservatism of laws. I did something vaguely similar A href=”http://inmedias.blogspot.com/2006/09/left-conservatism.html”>a long time ago, putting Burke and Rousseau together as thinkers who were both trying to think of what to conserve–and how to conserve it–in the face of the transformations of modernity.

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