Friday, June 23, 2006
The Human Condition [Jonah Goldberg]
Perhaps I wasn't clear enough, but I think Kevin Drum misunderstands something about conservatism. He writes:
On the other hand, Jonah's contention that "the 'problems' of the human condition are permanent" — and therefore, presumably, barely worth trying to improve in any deep rooted way — is quite another thing. It's why I'm not a conservative, and it's why, in the end, conservatives rarely have any long term positive impact on politics. After all, if you don't really believe that the problems of the human condition are addressable in any meaningful way, what's the point?
Me: This is something of a classic distortion of the conservative position. Conservatives, generally speaking, don't believe that no problems are fixable. Rather, they simply believe that some problems are permanent. As Leo Strauss wrote, in a slightly different context, "Finite, relative problems can be solved; infinite, absolute problems cannot be solved. In other words, human beings will never create a society which is free from contradictions." (I wrote about conservative comfort with contradiction here ). Permanent problems of the human condition can be lumped under the rubric of "sin" or human nature and the like. But whatever you call them, I am at a loss as to what permanent problems of the human condition Drum thinks we've solved. Certainly not war or greed or envy or lust. Yes, we have better dental care and rising crust frozen pizzas — good stuff, to be sure — but they don't change the human equation very much. I don't think any conservative in the American tradition — or, at least, many of them — believes that the "problems of the the human condition" as Drum understands them can't be ameliorated. That certainly wasn't the vision of the founders and it's not mine. I really like air-conditioning.
Meanwhile, the history of the left is chock-a-block with people who thought that all problems are indeed solvable. And their record is nothing to brag about.
06/23 09:28 AM
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