Conservatism, Augustine, and Intellectual Irresponsibility

Posted on | June 17, 2009 | 9 Comments

The Skype debate between Conor Friedersdorf and Dan Riehl over the future of conservatism is still making waves in the conservative blogosphere. The debate itself developed into a no-holds-barred prize match between the old Reaganite conservatism and the emerging young conservatism (of the Brooks/Douthat/AmConMag wing). I only wish Friedersdorf had pushed back harder concerning the historical legitimacy of the emerging conservatism, which actually has a much better pedigree than Reaganism. Frankly, Riehl’s assertions about the universally-accepted tenets of conservatism were historically myopic. Conor could have pointed out the log in Riehl’s eye even while Riehl complained about the speck in Conor’s.

Follow up posts from Conor and RS McCain reminded me of just how confused contemporary conservatism is about its own roots. McCain, for one, invoked F.A. Hayek and von Mises, alleging that Conor and his ilk were ignorant of basic free market teaching (to which Conor responded by revealing his Austrian creds). But the truly ironic thing about all this is that Hayek and von Mises were not conservatives. They said so themselves in no uncertain terms.

Strangely enough, conservatism has been one of capitalism’s most uneasy co-belligerents, often working to slow down the “mechanistic” progress that Hayek promotes (perhaps conservatism has been more of a hand brake than an emergency brake, but still…). And while conservatism has been equally critical of socialism and communism, it has often employed the same critiques of absolute capitalism that were used by Marx and Christian socialists.

* * *

I continue to believe that historic conservatism falls within the Augustinian tradition, whatever its imperfections. Contemporary conservatism, on the other hand, is foundationally disordered, holding to the idea of freedom as the end of society. F.A. Hayek’s critique of conservatism is therefore also a critique of Augustine. The conservative, he argues, is not a true believer in freedom, because he cares more about the direction of freedom than for freedom itself.

That the conservative opposition to too much government control is not a matter of principle but is concerned with the particular aims of government is clearly shown in the economic sphere. Conservatives usually oppose collectivist and directivist measures in the industrial field, and here the liberals will often find allies in them. But at the same time conservatives are usually protectionists and have frequently supported socialist measures in agriculture. Indeed, though the restrictions which exist today in industry and commerce are mainly the result of socialist views, the equally important restrictions in agriculture were usually introduced by conservatives at an even earlier date. And in their efforts to discredit free enterprise many conservative leaders have vied with the socialists. [*]

Freedom is only free for the conservative if it is well-ordered toward love, as Kirk argued. Hayek disagrees and, in doing so, reveals just how un-conservative the contemporary conservative movement actually is. Today’s conservative is in reality a liberal, primarily influenced by the Lockean Enlightenment. And regardless of how one feels about reactionary anti-liberals like Burke, De Maistre, Eliot, Kirk, etc., it is intellectually irresponsible to group them with the modern right-wing of Palin, Limbaugh, The Weekly Standard, and so on. Even when the two groups share common political ground, they arrive at that ground by different paths. I’m by no means a patsy for Burke or the Continental reactionaries, but we still need to play fair with our historical definitions. Our confusion about what the “liberal” and “conservative” labels actually mean often grants a false legitimacy to the revolutionary right-wing of the 21st century.

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[*] For Hayek, the tenets of classical liberalism, contra conservatism, include:

belief in the beneficial power of progress (“I can have little patience with those who oppose, for instance, the theory of evolution or what are called ‘mechanistic’ explanations of the phenomena of life because of certain moral consequences which at first seem to follow from these theories, and still less with those who regard it as irrelevant or impious to ask certain questions at all.”);
preference toward globalism over regionalism (he regards the latter as a bridge to collectivism); he also inexplicably ties conservatism to imperialism, while citing only examples of British and American progressives, and ignoring the deep isolationist trends of Old Right conservatives in the midwest and the south.
an unwillingness to impose ethical or religious values on the rest of society, since for the liberal “spiritual and the temporal are different sphere[s] which ought not to be confused.”

Comments

9 Responses to “Conservatism, Augustine, and Intellectual Irresponsibility”

Iohannes
June 17th, 2009 @ 8:34 pm

I agree with your remarks on how Hayek differs from philosophers who envision the state as a means for securing particular ideals of human flourishing. Hayek draws a tight circle around politics, limiting the ambitions of government. In this respect he arguably parts ways not only with St Augustine but also with Plato, Aristotle, and the broader common good tradition.

On the other hand, Augustine is forever associated with a deepened appreciation for mankind’s fallen condition. This may lend a tinge of realism to politics, as reflected in Schlesinger Jr’s tribute to Niebuhr: “He persuaded me and many of my contemporaries that original sin provides a far stronger foundation for freedom and self-government than illusions about human perfectibility.”

A professor for whom I have great respect undertook recently to study Hayek’s relationship to Christianity. Hayek was baptized as a Roman Catholic and the sole adornment on his gravestone is a simple cross. Apart from these tokens, however, he was thoroughly secular, with no apparent personal attachment to Christ or the Church. Nonetheless, my professor observed about a parallel between Hayek’s sharp awareness of human limitation and the Christian doctrine of man. He speculated that Hayek, had he reflected more on religion, may have recognized an affinity between his own thought on human weakness and the doctrine of original sin, if only as far as empirical effects go.

So on that note, with all respect, I might qualify your representation of Hayek a wee bit.

For instance, a cosmopolitan outlook is not globalism per se. It involves nothing incompatible with a balanced and equally strong appreciation for local culture. This can be seen in Hayek’s plan for postwar Germany. He recommended a radically decentralized federal system that would exemplify the principle of subsidiarity.

More importantly, Hayek directed his criticism against what he considered a distinctly European conservatism. The American Old Right he thought was often enough populated by his ideological kinsmen. The tradition of the Founders he considered essentially at one with his own. Thus he held that many American conservatives were really liberals in his sense, inasmuch as they preserved the beliefs and institutions of the early republic.

Henry Regnery commented in his introduction to Kirk that Hayek’s ostensible repudiation of conservatism “probably convinced everyone who read it, except Professor Hayek himself, that he really was, at heart, a conservative.” Whether or not that is altogether accurate, I think it makes a significant point.

Hayek’s basic objection is that conservatism “cannot offer an alternative to the direction in which we are moving.” He sees conservatism as more a general attitude of caution than a body of definite, positive commitments. He therefore dismisses it as impotent by itself, perhaps able to slow the pace, but liable to confusion, and powerless to change the course.

This line is not unique to Hayek. Dabney in like manner roundly denounced the conservatism of his day. Eliot said as much coming from another angle. When he censured liberalism for sacrificing the permanent things, he also faulted conservatism as too often conserving the wrong things. Here, as before, the problem lies in finding principles to sift the good from the bad.

Hayek, whose happily called himself an Old Whig, saw in Burke an ally on this front. The notion of spontaneous order engendered in Hayek a profound, though not blind, respect for established customs. On this account he adamantly rejected the rationalism of which the continental liberals became enamored. Not unlike Kirk, he was skeptical of anyone who would tear down society just to rebuild it according to contrived, abstract principles. He admired the British tradition as more centered on practical reason; and among other things, he was fascinated by common law. In any event, since Burke personally was close with Adam Smith, it is not altogether far fetched for Hayek to identify with both men.

I am not sure that freedom quite counts for Hayek as itself the end of society. Freedom as he conceives it appears more like a prerequisite. It is a means whereby private persons are enabled to follow after the other ends they esteem. Conservative or not, Rousseau might himself say that freedom is only free if it is well-ordered toward love. I suppose Hayek would answer that that may be true, but that it is nonetheless wise to distinguish the ends of the state from those proper to other spheres of life. Man is too finite, too fickle to be trusted with the power to compel others to flourish. It is better to keep the use of the state’s coercive apparatus to the minimum necessary to restrain intolerable public wickedness. Men in other capacities may more safely and more properly be charged with the responsibility of cultivating love. So it is not to downplay virtue that the state forbears from exerting itself in this direction. It is, rather, that the state is a poor teacher of virtue, at least as apt by its powers to corrupt men as to make them righteous.

In the end, I think Hayek does have a blind spot here. Coercion as exercised even by a modest government still needs a justification. Law is not arbitrary and requires judgments of value in which the state cannot help but take a side. An ethically neutral politics is therefore impossible; some morality must operate in the public sphere. Human dignity, if it is to be upheld any length of time, must rest on a religious foundation. Thus the whole complex of political and economic arrangements ultimately needs validation from a higher realm.

Wilhelm Roepke saw this as clearly as anyone has. He seems to have approached insights like Hayek’s as necessary but not sufficient for a sound social order. At the opening of his Humane Economy he writes on his ambivalence about conservatism and liberalism. Neither really is adequate. However a man chooses to describe oneself, it is his orientation toward God that is decisive.

And so, FWIW, I am doubtful whether there is such a thing as an authentic conservatism. It seems hard for any one movement to make good on an exclusive claim to that -ism. Conservatism seems instead more like a disposition or praxis, consisting of certain characteristic patterns of thought and action, but somewhat pliable so far as positive aims go. The liberal tradition as Hayek took it appears, despite his protest, more or less compatible with conservatism so understood. A good case can be made that the basic principles of that liberalism are mostly (though not entirely) common with Christianity. For a Christian then to be a kind of conservative liberal is not unreasonable–in the sense Roepke sets forth. But conservatism and liberalism alike soon falter if they lose sight of God.
Will the Real Conservative(s) Please Stay Where You Are? | The League of Ordinary Gentlemen
June 17th, 2009 @ 10:24 pm

[...] Davey over at Theopolitical has a very sharp post up analyzing the epic (can I call it epic yet?) debate between Conor and Dan (well moderated by Br. Scott) here at the League over the nature and future of conservatism. [...]
Davey Henreckson
June 18th, 2009 @ 6:55 am

Thanks for the epic comment. Couple thoughts:

– Yes, some do wish to color Augustine as a realist (e.g. R.A. Markus and Niebuhr). But I think there are very serious flaws in that estimation, as argued by Elshtain, Mathewes, O’Donovan, von Heyking, and others.

– I think you’re dead right to associate Hayek with pessimistic realism. In the passage I quoted, his avowal of the separation of spheres is, I think, key to his distrust of planned society. Robert Nelson makes a similar argument about the “Protestant” economic leanings of Chicago School founder Frank Knight in Economics as Religion.

– Regarding Hayek’s later writings…

Progress still precedes social order. From my admittedly amateur understanding, Hayek argues that social order evolves into itself because of the inevitable improvements brought about by history (in contrast to deliberate “constructivism”). To over-simplify, capitalism works because it is unplanned; socialism fails because it is deliberate. As you mentioned, this position follows from a sort of radical political realism, which I sadly don’t have the time to delve into at present (so this amounts to just a cheap hit-and-run). But as Arthur Diamond has pointed out, Hayek creates categorical confusion with his foundational definitions of critical and constructivist rationalism.

And regarding his possible late rapproachement with conservatism: his argument for rejecting “absolute doubt” of “every single value of our society” seems to spring, not from an appreciation of established order itself, but from a pragmatic fear of undermining social order. I see no “permanent things” as such in later Hayek, but rather utilitarianism and social Darwinist inevitability.
Iohannes
June 18th, 2009 @ 10:56 am

Enjoyed your reply. Hayek I think carries forward the strengths and weaknesses of Hume. Your last paragraph captures this well by highlighting how Hayek falls back on what are, at bottom, utilitarian and pragmatic considerations. This may give him a place from which to analyze, but none really from which to build.

Hayek’s radical separation of spheres reminds me of Madison’s posture on religion. No longer are the kingdoms distinguished and related with care; they are entirely cut off from each other. Politically the Church becomes not a kingdom in its own right but just another faction. Factions have to be offset by rival factions, so a divided Church of competing sects becomes something helpful, desirable as a tool of policy.

I should confess, the reactionary impulse in me makes me worry that even Burke risks giving up the “permanent things” piecemeal through a willingness to acquiesce to change once it’s become a fait accompli. Maybe that fear is groundless, but it can be saved for another time. Anyhow, thanks for bearing with my meandering comment last night.
Davey Henreckson
June 18th, 2009 @ 11:00 am

I’ve nothing to add. Great comments.
The Scylding
June 18th, 2009 @ 12:42 pm

Similarly to Roepke, I have begun to abandon both terms (conservative & liberal), as these have become nigh-meaningless. I do like the term Ordoliberal, which is a descriptive term for Roepke’s economic philosophy, which in essence argues the same thing as Kirk does above.

And ever since the terms conservative and liberal have become associated with right and left, we need to acknowledge that in essence, in the current day and age, conservative and liberal have become two sides of the same Revolution.

I do think we need to seriously reconsider our attachement to Enlightenment categories of thinking. Hence my personal attachment ro Roepke or Schumacher and Chesterton – especially if one considers his political satires such as Tales of the Longbow, The Napoleon of Nottinghill and The Return of Don Quixote.
John Médaille
June 19th, 2009 @ 8:28 am

Spot on! Austrianism may be true or false, but cannot be conservative, and especially can’t be Christian, and on Mises’s own testimony. Mises held that if the axioms of action were true, than God could not exist. I agree with this conditional. He also held, correctly, that Christianity and capitalism were antithetical. And he had a peculiar hatred for Jesus Christ because of the latter’s warnings to the rich.

Mises considered himself a man of 1789, an heir of the enlightenment and of the French Revolution. Now, as just another modern ideology, just another ism, I don’t much care about Austrianism one way or the other. But when they try to pass themselves off as “Christian” or as in line with Catholic Social teaching, then I declare, “They shall not pass!”
Brad L.
June 20th, 2009 @ 5:46 pm

Davey,
Excellent post. You hit the nail on the head with the incompatibility of conservativism and Austrian capitalism. These incoherencies are exactly what I keep butting up against (and being befuddled by) in my correspondence with Wilson.
Your stating them so sharply was very helpful, as always, for my less-organized thoughts.
Sue
June 29th, 2009 @ 10:47 pm

I would argue that most of what is now called conservative, including right-wing religiosity, is a form of individual and collective psychosis, which if allowed to be in charge of the cultural narratives of the world will destroy everything. And in fact are already doing so.

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Theopolitical is the weblog of Davey Henreckson, a graduate student in theology at the University of Notre Dame. Topics of conversation are political and historical theology, with semi-frequent forays into literature, economics, localism, and the divine American sport -- baseball.