Conservative & Liberalism

Excursis:  Mark Lilla has published a review article in the The New Review (January 12, 2012).  It is one of the best that I've read in some time.  He is reviewing Corey Robin's, The Reactionary Mind, and takes exception to its central thesis, which can be reduced to "conservatism is the theoretical voice of this animus against the agency of the subordinate classes" -- that is to say, it is about power, and the desire to maintain power.  I need to admit up front that I have not read Robin's book, and so cannot comment on the accuracy of Lilla's characterization, the degree to which it has been taken out of context.  I like the review for other reasons, that I will develop over the next several posts, particularly his recognition of the importance of taxonomy, clear categories.  He sets out a clear differentiation between conservatism and liberalism on two planes, the first being a reaction to notions about human nature, the second being a reaction to notions about history.  Each implies a different governing intentionality for the state, and consequently a differing set of actions instrumental to that governing intentionality.

On the first plane, Lilla traces the fundamental conservative stance to Burke, who, according to Lilla, believed that, since human being are born into a functioning world populated by others, society is -- to use a large word [Burke] wouldn't -- metaphysically prior to the individuals in it.  The unit of political life is society, not individuals, who need to be seen as instances of the societies they inhabit."  To use a jargon that Burke certainly wouldn't have used, within the socially constructed intentionality game, the game itself takes precedence over the individuals engaged in it.  Individuals are no more than (and perhaps no less than) their role in the game, which gives, priority to deontology, our moral and ethical obligations within the game, over individual ontology, the nature and effects of the game itself on those individuals who are caught up in it.  As Lilla put it, within Burke's and the conservatives schema, "we have obligations toward those who came before and to those who will come after, and these obligations take priority over our rights."  At the risk of a reducto ad absurdem, let me illustrate the basic stance with baseball.  Imagine, for example, one batter decides to run directly to third base instead of first.  From a conservative stance, there is a violation of the basic premise of the game, and the batter's action is, at best, incomprehensible, at worst mad.

There is nothing, however, in the structure of reality that prevents a runner from going clockwise instead of counterclockwise.  It is only in the structure of the rules of the game, and our fealty to those rules, that demands a progression from first to second and only then to third.  As Lilla suggests, "classical liberals like John Stuart Mill ... give individuals priority over society, on anthropological as well as moral grounds.  They assume that societies are genuinely constructs of human freedom, that whatever we inherit from them, they can always be unmade or remade through free human action."  Liberals, conversely, given precedence to individual ontology over deontology, and the appeals to ethics must come from a transcendent position, but one metaphysically subsequent to its ontogological implications for individuals.  As Lilla put it, "liberals, like conservatives, recognize the need for constraints, but believe they must come from principles that transcend particular societies and customs.  Principles are the only legitimate constrains on our freedom," and the intentionality game itself must be unmade and remade to conform to the greater principle, however that comes to be defined.  We see the liberal impulse occasionally on the little league diamond, when all are given an equal chance to play, an equal opportunity to bat and run the bases, an equal chance to field, and no score is kept.  It recasts the governing intentionality of the baseball game from 'winning' to something like 'justice for all,' and modifies the rules of the game to accommodate the new intentionality.  A conservative might argue that it is not baseball at all, and does little or nothing to toughen the young soul for the realities of competitive baseball, the real sting and disappointment of losing thereby placing fealty to the game before its adverse effects on some young players.  The liberal looks at the adverse effects of the game on the young players, and modifies the game to ameliorate them, thereby placing the individual players before fealty to the rules of the game.

(To be Continued)