There are two inveterate forces in human affairs -- the impulse to find accommodation in the world, and ignorance. Both are renewed as each new human is launched into existence.
Wisdom, on the other hand, is not at all inveterate, nor required for barbarian life, and is often simply neglected to death by the new generation of ignorance. This is why, millenia after its discovery, the first principle of humane society still finds itself routed every now and then.
In America the first principle of humane society has been suffering a rout for a good long time.
More than fifty years ago Russell Kirk observed sanguinely that the first principle of humane society -- which informs and harmonizes the other five tenets of social thought he called the Conservative Mind -- had already been all but banished from the realm of public discourse and respectability by the unwholesome radicalisms springing from the loins of the Enlightenment; and in consequence, "practical conservatism" had "degenerated into mere laudation of 'private enterprise,' economic policy almost wholly surrendered to special interests."
Kirk thought, however, that the monotonous aspect American life was taking on under the rulership of Industry, coupled with the internecine squabbles that were occurring within the ranks of the radicals, might provide dispossessed orthodox conservatism with an opportunity to rally -- though he wasn't sure whether such a rally could be mounted before eucatastrophe.
In the years that have come and gone since Kirk first gave his rallying cry the condition of "conservatism" hasn't changed much -- the troops still haven't found a redoubt from which to wage an effectual counter-attack against the forces of uniformity and surly prosperity.
Yes, yes, I know -- more folks identify themselves as "conservative" than ever. But the conservatism that passes most lips today still lacks the essential idea that could make it more than merely an "ally of sullen and predatory privilege," as Paul Elmer More put it.
Among the various "conservatisms" floating about today the "paleo-conservatism" of Pat Buchanan and Sam Francis is the only conservatism informed by the first principle of humane society. And even those wise men don't adequately emphasize this first principle as the basis of their philosophy. The body of policy, rather than the informing principle, is what they use most often to describe "paleo-conservatism." This is a great mistake.
For a policy that is wise today, may not be wise tomorrow -- policy is wise only in relation to circumstances. Thus, a body of policy cannot provide enduring coherence for a movement.
If you haven't read Kirk's profound book , you may be asking, "What is this Big Idea without which conservatism loses its moral footing?"
The Big Idea begins with this keen observation: There is an inward order (apparently of transcendent source), and an outward order that is congenial to it, that every living creature needs to maintain if it is to attain the fulfillment of all the goals its nature has in store for it and is propelling it to attain. This means that if a man is to make progress in his pursuit of happiness, there are myriad accommodations he needs the world to make for him of its own accord; there are myriad accommodations he must make in the world for himself; and, there are myriad accommodations he must make within himself.
This insight into this continuous need for mutual harmonious accommodation between and within the various natures that are acting on each other at any moment reveals the essential tenet of humane conduct -- namely, that an all-pervading and harmonizing charity is the duty of every man in his pursuit of happiness; a charity that is directed inwards as well as outwards, a charity that consists in both self-restraint and collaboration.
Achieving this charitable harmonization, then, has got to be the formal aim of the human function we call Reason, lest Reason be nothing but dry-as-dust logic in the service of a fragment of a man.
Thus, reason's job is to singe the wings of those desires that, if left to their natural wildness, would move a man to unnecessarily miss or maim his chances to fulfill any of the goals his nature has in store for him. And because attaining some of these goals requires the accommodating collaboration of other men, reason also requires a man to have profound charitable regard for all other men who affect or are affected by his pursuit of happiness, and to tame his desires so that he does not unnecessarily cause any good to be missed by them.
Furthermore, as a man fails the formidable test of reason if he caters to a fragment of himself merely, so too does a society fail the formidable test of reason if its workings uncharitably cater to a few aspects of a man's nature at the expense of the other goals and satisfactions his nature has in store for him. And as a man fails the formidable test of reason if he excessively caters to a fragment of himself at the unnecessary expense of other men on whom his happiness in part depends, so too does a society fail the test of reason if its workings uncharitably cater to the desires of some men at the unnecessary expense of the happiness of others.
But reasoning is an after-thought, a product of maturity and experience and imaginative reflection. And therein, as Kirk well understood, lies mankind's great difficulty in achieving and maintaining humane society.
For men learn by living. And if a man is left to acquire wisdom by experiencing everything first-hand, it is likely he will not live long enough to acquire the knowledge and self-knowledge that is a requisite to wisdom and the attainment of all the goals his nature has in store for him.
Blind impulse, while signifying the presence of a natural demand, is still blind. It does not see all the other natural demands with which it may potentially conflict. Expedience in fulfilling this blind impulse may be a good as far as the blind impulse is concerned, but it may well be an evil from the viewpoint of other natural demands -- one's own natural demands, or the natural demands of other men. If a man does not recognize the potential for enmity that his impulsive acts may arouse, that aroused enmity -- whether springing from the outside world, or from one of his own disregarded natural demands -- is likely to blindside him, perhaps lethally.
And so it is that adequate progress along the path from ignorance to wisdom depends in part on accommodation by those who can pass on knowledge gleaned from their experiences and the experiences of their predecessors. With luck, exposure to this storehouse of second-hand experience will enliven a man's imagination to the presence of the natural demands of all the other men on whose actions his happiness in part depends. And, equally important, with luck it will enliven his imagination to goals his nature has in store for him which his own limited fund of experience and maturity has not yet revealed to him.
As far as Kirk was concerned the vital significance of this charity-inspiring function of education cannot be overemphasized -- for if this function is not performed the pre-Rational and therefore inadequately charitable child may remain pre-Rational and inadequately charitable in manhood, unable to pass on wisdom to the rising generation. In consequence of such a failure, a mode of living made barely tolerable by the influence of a charitable tradition it had inherited could quickly become intolerable to a great portion of the society as that tradition was lost through lack of its communication.
Such a state of affairs -- nothing less than reversion to barbarism -- has often arisen in the world, and has often resulted in violent reaction that failed to destroy its proper target, but destroyed much else that was precious.
Kirk saw such a fate impending over America.
These insights led Kirk to conclude that if any vestige of humane society is to be preserved in America men of wisdom must find a way to re-invest the ethical structure of the "American way of living" with the first principle of humane society that it has all but lost.
How is this great task to be accomplished?
Kirk didn't lay out a tactical plan, leaving such things up to the judgment of men as they contended with the circumstances of their age. He did, however, suggest "the purgation of our system of education."
That is still a good suggestion. For John Dewey's poisonous and sad naturalism is undoubtedly incompatible with humane education.
But poisons are only actively noxious when we are exposed to them. And "our system" of compulsory government-controlled schooling is the surest way of exposing everyone to whatever poisonous ideas come into the world.
Moreover, the very concept of compulsory government-controlled schooling itself is based on one of the more poisonous ideas around -- the Aristocrat's Fallacy.
In a nutshell this fallacy consists in the absurd assumption some men make that whatever they have discovered to be good for themselves must likewise be good for everybody else. In men ambitious for power, the illusion that their chosen interests are the legitimate interests of all men often leads them to impose grotesquely simplified and uncharitable regimens.
The Bush administration's "no child left behind" is a nice example of these Procrustean regimens -- one that has a hard time recommending itself over Dewey's uncharitable regimen at the level of first principles. For staring blankly out from between those quotation marks is the imbecile notion that there is a single path of experience along which each person ought to travel, and travel at roughly the same time in his life, lest he be left behind in his life.
Sure, there are communication and calculation skills that everyone is better off for having. And there are, no doubt, other bits of knowledge -- the Big Idea for example -- that make happiness easier to come by. But these things can be learned by a man without his having to be subjected to a pre-established curricula according to a pre-established schedule under the supervision of a certified "educator." And the evils attending such systemization far outweigh any conceivable benefits attending it.
So, at this moment in history, purging education ought foremost to mean repealing the legal requirement that children be subjected to a government-controlled curriculum.
And to make it more economically feasible for folks to take their children out of the tax-financed system, the government schooling apparatus -- at all political levels -- ought to give parents who do remove their children from the system a yearly tax-credit equal to the amount of money it has exacted from them for their childrens' education in that system. This would leave in place enough money, for the present, to keep the government system going for those folks who have no better immediate practicable alternative for their childrens' education.
This is a better means of draining the poisonous humors from education than the triplicate horror of school vouchers. Vouchers concretize the notion that "schooling" is something properly made obligatory by the state. In consequence, they concretize curriculum-control by the state. And they concretize the tax burden imposed by the obligatory schooling apparatus.
With regard to our mode of economy, several policies advocated by so-called conservatives are equally misguided.
For example, so-called conservatives do America a great dis-service when they tout rugged individualism as the best course of action for employees and prospective employees in their dealings with corporations and partnerships and all the other forms of collective commercial proprietorship.
The absence of any unclaimed land freely available to the unpropertied in the U.S. means that much of the work unpropertied men must do to avoid beggary is distinctly servile and compulsory. And servile work at a disagreeable task is an instrumental activity merely, its good rests almost solely on ulterior benefits -- and this good has to be reckoned in relation to the inner charitable order of a man's desires on which his happiness depends.
Thus, men, who by virtue of American-style commercialism are compelled to work at servile and disagreeable work or be reduced to beggary, ought quite logically to seek to increase the compensation received for such work and reduce the amount of time spent at it -- so they will then have the security, time, and resource to successfully pursue the other goods that constitute happiness.
Embedded in American-style commercialism, then, is a tension between the employer (who wants to keep wages as low as practicable in order that his business be competitive with companies that keep wages as low as practicable) and the employee (who wants to keep his wages and other benefits as high as practicable).
In response to these competitive pressures many businessmen have concerted in some form of enterprise, and many have sought the aid of government -- some seeking advantage and security for their wealth within the legal fiction of limited liability incorporation, for example.
It is not abominable for employees to concert in reaction to this concerted action by employers. And the so-called conservative who counsels rugged individualism in these circumstances courts a danger he apparently cannot see.
Counseling rugged individualism in these circumstances is dangerous because many men who are forced by our mode of economy into servile and disagreeable work will be naturally susceptible to collective schemes that offer some promise of ameliorating their indecent treatment. By bullying folks out of the idea of collective bargaining through extra-political means, the so-called conservative channels these folks' desire for economic amelioration straight into the Provider State.
What is one to make of the rationality of such conservatives who, while decrying the expansion of government involvement in private affairs, support the intercession of the state on behalf of Ownership, and who then compound this error by trying to kill collective bargaining, thereby leaving laborers no functional ameliorative institutions short of the state?
The fact is that these so-called conservatives' profoundly foolish notions of "free enterprise" are at once deranging our mode economy, and debauching our politics.
Having said this, I concede that most of the dwindling number of labor unions are currently led by men whose vision is as myopic as that of the dessicated conservative. Under this myopic leadership too much attention is given to making the ulterior benefits of disagreeable laboring as great as possible, and too little attention is given to seeing to it that the tasks demanded of labor are re-thought so that they are more satisfying in themselves. Such myopic leadership increases the costs to society of the produce of enterprise, but does nothing to make occupation more liberal in the root sense of the word.
I also concede that collective bargaining may be an inadequate means of forcing Ownership to be a bit more charitable to society. But charitably guided collective bargaining is worth a try, for if such means fail, then uncharitable American-style commercialism will likely face a more severe reaction to its indecencies, one that is not so easily kept peaceable and reasonable.
Whatever happens, it is well to recall that the sanctity of private wealth does not rest on its role in satisfying material appetites merely. Private wealth is also sanctified because, and to the extent it allows a man to liberate some of the time of his life from burdensome toil -- for the purpose of spending that liberated time in the other pursuits a man's nature makes it satisfying to engage in. Private wealth that is sought at too high a price, or that goes unused, or that is used in ways that unnecessarily prevent its possessor or others from attaining all the other no less healthy and legitimate goals their natures have in store for them has no moral sanction whatsoever.
This is why the only sound moral justification for allowing men of ambition to acquire exclusionary control of raw resources for commercial purposes is that by so doing their ambition serves not only their happiness but the happiness of the folks in society who also depend on access to those resources. If the ambition of these men for control is not tempered by charity towards those over whose labor they will have control, and towards those whose happiness depends in part on obtaining some of the produce of their enterprise, then the moral justification for their commercial ownership evanesces.
Solidarity, however, has never been a popular political battle cry in America. And whether dispossessed orthodox conservatism can rally under its banner remains to be seen. If it cannot, then humane society will have to find another champion -- or fade further into the recesses of memory.