Thursday, February 16, 2017

Against Natural Rights Conservatism

Welcome friends!

Much has been made recently of the new sort of American “conservatism” exemplified by President Trump and many of his followers and how this sort of conservatism is really more along the lines of traditional European right wing populist nationalism than the traditional anti-democratic rich people loving Christianity touting conservatism we’ve all come to know and love or not as the case may be these past several decades here in the USA.  The relationship between these two species of “conservative” is not by any means clear and it’s an open question whether their shared hatred of liberalism and leftism will be enough to keep them together as a unified political force.  If you read the papers I’m sure you’ve noticed the many awkward collisions between these two groups in which a proponent of one or the other form of conservatism is stridently blowing his or her trumpet only to discover that either President Trump has argued just the opposite or the traditional conservative intellectual elite has argued just the opposite.  In the off chance they never manage to work things out and the non-populist traditional conservatives go the way of the dinosaur I thought I’d take this opportunity to express again my opposition to their agenda.  I assume I’ll have plenty of opportunity to explain my opposition to the new sort of right wing nationalist conservatism, which anyway seems much the simpler task of the two.

What got me thinking of writing something along these lines was a couple of little articles I ran across recently by George Will, a traditional old time political conservative if ever there was one, on natural law or natural rights based political conservatism one presumes for the benefit of the new breed of conservative who may not be entirely clear on the subject.  Liberals of course have heard it all before ad nauseam but anyway it’s always fun to go back to fundamentals and think about where liberals and conservatives really parted ways. 

I had some difficulty thinking how the type of conservatism Mr. Will represents relates to the types of conservatism I’m more familiar with myself.  If you read this blog at all you’ll know I’ve long divided traditional American conservatism into two basic categories corresponding to the two heads of the two headed monster of conservatism I mention so frequently: economic conservatism and social conservatism.  I’ve previously explained my belief that economic conservatives are all about the virtues of free markets and how unregulated markets can supposedly cure all our ills if only we don’t interfere with them, which in practice fits in quite nicely with the anti-democratic sensibilities of certain members of the upper classes because the interfering in question necessarily emanates from our democratic government and the people most likely to actually believe unfettered markets might solve all their problems tend to be rich people.  Social conservatives are generally all about religion or their particular religion anyway and how the rest of us clueless sinners can be brought under its dominion.  I remember in my youth people used the term conservatism to also refer to various other right wing types such as racists, nativists, nationalists, and so on but over time I must admit I began to feel they represented their own distinct category of craziness rather than mainstream conservatism but I guess that’s now an open question we’ll have to work out over time.  My immediate point is the sort of natural rights political conservatism Mr. Will laid out in the articles I read is something else yet again and something that upon reflection I’ve encountered often enough in the relatively more serious regions of conservative thought.  I suppose one could think of this as a third sort of conservatism, perhaps political conservatism, in which case I suppose my two headed monster of conservatism will have mutated into an even more fearsome three headed monster: economic, social, and political.  If one adds right wing nationalism, racism, nativism, and so on to the conservative category I guess the three heads would become four but as I said I’m not entirely sure about that yet.  Can’t decide if these people are faux conservatives as some claim or as genuinely and legitimately conservative in their own way as any other sort of conservative.  They do seem to have some affinities with one another don’t they?  And they’ve been around a long time and conventionally been called conservative.  Let’s just say four heads for now.  I suppose that would explain why we liberals have such a hard time disposing of the beast wouldn’t it?  We’re busy grappling with two heads only to find two other heads slithering through the grass to bite us in the rear.  Doing battle with conservatives in the USA is like playing Whack a Mole at the county fair.  They just keep popping up all over the place.

Of course I suspect some conservatives such as perhaps Mr. Will himself for example may want to argue the various branches of conservatism are all based in some way on the political conservatism he espoused in the articles in question.  Seems a rather dubious contention to me but having never had much interest in trying to connect the dots that way I suppose it may be feasible.  In that case I guess instead of four heads we’d have just one really big and really ugly head.  Hmm.  Maybe I’ll take up that possibility one day.  For now I’m seeing four distinct heads.  Anyway, this time out I’d like to take a whack at Mr. Will’s natural rights based political conservatism.  Big topic of course and hardly one I’ll be able to dispose of adequately in a funny little blog post but maybe I can give some preliminary thoughts on the subject.

To make sense of this idea of “natural rights” one must I think take up the concept of “natural law.”  Back in the days of powdered wigs, manor houses, and tobacco planting slaves when people took this sort of thing seriously it seems quite likely social thinkers of the day had in mind the sort of laws natural scientists were then first starting to identify in the physical world, gravity and so on, imagining similar natural laws at work in human society based on the essential properties and characteristics of the human animal.  Many of these gentlemen philosophers were steeped in what we would now consider the quaint and rather Panglossian tradition according to which the good lord created the world and the laws that govern it for the benefit of mankind so natural laws were considered at once immutable laws of nature but also laws that would be beneficial to follow even if they were not so immutable as all that.  This allowed the natural law tradition to continue even after it became rather obvious there were no immutable laws governing the structure of human societies of the same sort governing the physical world.  Natural laws remained laws only in the sense failing to follow them would surely lead society inevitably to fall to pieces.  From this followed the conviction one could identify the natural laws governing human society scientifically and empirically by investigating the characteristics of successful and unsuccessful societies.  The characteristics common to the former and lacking in the latter must comprise the natural laws in question.

The problem of course and the reason this sort of thing isn’t really taken very seriously by serious people now is it’s just very difficult to identify what these natural laws might be.  History has seen all kinds of human societies with all manner of different combinations of characteristics and one can imagine a great many more that might seem viable to one degree or another.  In addition, the question of what defines a successful society is by no means an easy one in part because it would seem to involve some thorny ethical issues.  We’ve seen human societies last hundreds or even thousands of years only to eventually fail.  Were they successful societies?  We’ve seen shorter lived societies in which people were arguably freer or happier or whatever than in some more long lived societies.  Does it matter how the people living in those societies fared or how they thought about their societies?  Were they successful or not?  It’s just not a very easy nut to crack.

Based on these types of considerations my first question for anyone espousing a natural law or natural rights outlook is to tell me which laws and rights he or she considers natural so I know what we’re talking about.  Leaving everything in the abstract just isn’t going to cut it for me.  If we’re ostensibly identifying these laws based on empirical evidence of successful societies we need to get specific so we can properly investigate them.  Similarly if the argument hinges on the characteristics of successful societies we need to discuss how we intend to define success.  The kind of so-called natural right I’m familiar with, such as the famous natural right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” one finds in the US Declaration of Independence, is just too vague to do much for me.  Life seems like it should be a sure bet but here in the USA at least we execute people if they’ve committed certain sorts of heinous crimes.  And we sometimes don’t follow through on policies we know will save lives.  We have poor people, hungry people, people without adequate medical care, people living in unsafe neighborhoods, people with guns, and so on.  Not exactly sure how we’re implementing the “natural right” to life although I suppose we don’t have government employees walking down the street shooting people at random so I suppose that should count for something.  Liberty and happiness sound pretty good as well but you know the funny thing about them is they don’t say anything about how to resolve the conflicts that arise when people want different things.  One person may be happy hitting another person on the head with a rock and may feel his or her natural right to liberty and happiness allows him or her to do that but of course his or her victim may feel happier when not being hit on the rock and may cherish his or her liberty to walk down the street unmolested by rock wielding miscreants.  Yes, I suppose I’m being a little facetious right now but I’m sure you get my point.  If we’re going to seriously entertain the suggestion there are certain laws or rights we must maintain because all successful societies follow those laws and express those rights then we need to get pretty specific about what the heck we’re talking about.

The basic idea of a natural right is it’s something so essential to human society it makes sense to remove it from the realm of normal democratic decision making and put it in a very special Do Not Touch Under Any Circumstances box.  This is a big deal because democratic decision making has certain advantages most notably its results are subject to rational consideration and re-evaluation and it ensures results approved by at least the majority of voters.  Taking issues out of that context and putting them in an inaccessible special box is a risky proposition under the most favorable of conditions and deciding natural laws and natural rights using the combined empirical and normative considerations I mentioned earlier does not sound to me like the most favorable conditions.  Who decides what’s in the box and what’s so special about those people?  If someone were to do some additional research and find for example a successful society that did not follow those laws or exhibit those rights how would we acknowledge that result and take things out of the box?  Who would judge the scientific case for certain issues being in or out of the box?  Who would be responsible for actually putting things in and taking things out?  What if someone wished to question the underlying definition of a successful society?  Would that be open for consideration?  If not who decided that and what makes those people so special?  It’s just not clear to me at all how this would work.

Unfortunately Mr. Will was hardly interested in getting into specifics on these issues at least in the articles I read.  He suggested the relevant natural rights are listed in the Declaration of Independence and opined we should consider anything not listed to also fall under the rubric of natural rights unless a compelling case could be made it be brought under democratic decision making.  He then went on to suggest that in order for the US courts to enforce these amorphous natural rights we should assign the Declaration of Independence the same legal standing as the US Constitution.  Really to me it all sounds such a load of rubbish I can barely stand it.  Saying everything is a natural right unless we have a compelling case to not enforce that right isn’t really saying much at all is it?  In addition to the vagueness and ambiguity inherent in the concept of natural rights we’re now adding the vagueness and ambiguity of the compelling needs that would justify circumventing them.  Who would decide that?  Is that a judicial issue?  Is he imaging the Supreme Court saying they don’t think properly enacted laws are legitimate because they go against “natural rights” and they don’t see a compelling need to allow those rights to be abridged in that particular case?  That’s just hogwash.  How much power do we want give the eight or nine judges for life anyway?  That’s not even really a democracy at that point.  Now the US Constitution I get.  We have various articles we can all read and discuss and we have a mechanism to change them if that’s what we have a mind to do.  It makes sense.  Trying to give the same status to the Declaration of Independence just doesn’t work.  It’s too vague.  And what’s the mechanism for changing the wording of the Declaration of Independence?

The US constitution is the document that lays out the basis of our American system of government.  The Declaration of Independence is a public relations exercise.  The fact of the matter is that back in colonial days the American colonies split from the basically democratic Great Britain because they thought they weren’t getting the attention and clout and favorable economic terms they deserved.  They had to say something.  They couldn’t just say you’re making decisions we don’t like so we’re leaving.  The way they choose to package their move to make it a little more presentable was to postulate natural laws and natural rights that were ostensibly being trampled upon by the British government.  Of course once we set up shop for ourselves our system of government turned out not so very different from the British system.  Weird isn’t it?  Not really.  There was nothing fundamentally wrong with the British system at that time.  We just didn’t find it to our advantage to remain under that system.  Things change.  I get it.  What bothers me is not that the old colonists got on their soapbox but that some modern conservatives would take everything they said so seriously and literally centuries later.

Of course conservatives are not the only people who like to talk about a higher law that ostensibly takes precedence over the flawed decision making of human governments.  Some religious people are famous for it.  It’s one reason one supposes the Middle East may never come to grips with democracy.  Pretty hard to see how it would work if everyone believes a higher law pervades and governs every aspect of their lives.  When they see democracy at work it just pisses them off.  How dare the hoi polloi challenge natural law?  The natural rights branch of American political conservatism is very much in the same place intellectually.  They also hate and fear democracy.  That’s why the closest analog in the USA to the religion based extremist violence and terrorism one finds in the Middle East is the political based extremist violence of certain fringe conservative groups.  They speak the same anti-social language of disrespect and disdain for democratic government and of being above the rule of law.  I suspect the main difference is while anti-democratic religious thought might be based on a conviction one has a moral duty to follow the dictates of supernatural entities in order to help all mankind anti-democratic conservative natural rights thought seems based on a rather more prosaic mix of greed and egotism.  I don’t need no stinking laws.  You can’t tell me what to do.  I’m not paying taxes.  Keep your hand off my stack Jack.  Again perhaps there is some way to relate such sentiments to helping all mankind via some obscure argument involving the various other strands of conservative thought but honestly it’s just not very clear to me how that would work at all.

Of course I understand the need to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority.  That’s why we have a constitution and a Supreme Court.  And I certainly agree we should all have some internal limits when it comes to accepting the legitimacy of democratic government.  If Congress were to pass a law that I shoot my neighbor and feast on his or her brains they’re going to have a fight on their hands because I just don’t think that’s really within their purview to demand.  The issue is where we draw the line.  As a liberal my tendency is to want to give democracy as much room to operate as I can tolerably and ethically endure.  If we’re at cross purposes I just feel it’s usually a lot better for us all to sit down and talk about it and vote on it and then talk some more and vote on it again and so on and so forth.  In contrast some conservatives seem intent on limiting democracy to the smallest scope possible.  Just about everything appears to them an unendurable encroachment on their personal liberty and an affront to their dignity as an individual.  They seem blind to the issues that inevitably arise if everyone thinks that way.  It’s what gives so much of conservative thought its weirdly egocentric and selfish quality.

We liberals need to fight conservatism in all its forms if we’re to continue to help the human race reach its full potential of reason and social justice.  And by fight I mean argue vociferously and incessantly against in a manner consistent with our traditional American values of democracy and free speech.  We must fight the traditional natural rights anti-democratic political conservatism of people like Mr. Will.  We must fight the nationalistic, nativist, and possibly racist conservatism of people like Mr. Trump.  We must fight the market worshipping elitist anti-democratic conservatism of economic conservatives.  We must fight the religion based anti-democratic conservatism of social conservatives.  We must fight all four heads of the four headed monster of modern conservatism.  Don’t be discouraged.  Our opponents are numerous and dangerous and wily to be sure but we have on our side the light of human reason, truth, and the relentless force of the human will to create a better society.  We may lose some battles to be sure but it’s hard to see how we could ever lose the war.

Thursday, February 2, 2017

Suck a Dick

Welcome friends!

Did you catch the Women’s March on Washington a couple of weeks ago now?  It was certainly gratifying to see some signs of life from liberals and leftists if only to balance out the seemingly endless attention lavished on our perpetually outraged conservative friends.  Speaking of the latter, they seem to be doing quite well just now in their quixotic attempt to turn back the clock on any number of issues but I sometimes suspect they may have forgotten what the past actually looked like.  Age does that to one sometimes you know.  Rose colored glasses and all that.  But I was there, for a bit of it anyway, and I remember the more relevant bits of the sixties and seventies well enough.  Lots of marches and demonstrations and rude behavior and so on.  I must admit I wasn’t really planning on doing it all again because I found it rather exhausting and annoying the first time around but I guess some people missed out so what the heck we can reinvent the wheel if that’s what people want to spend their time doing.  But I think we should at least have some fun doing it.  With that thought in mind I thought I’d take up the banner of sexual liberation this week and discuss the rather jarring moment in the pre-march entertainment when singer Louise Ciccone aka Madonna suggested Mr. Trump “suck a dick.” ... Sorry but only selected archived (previous year) posts are currently available full text on this website.  All posts including this one are available in my annual anthology ebook series available at the Amazon Kindle Bookstore for a nominal fee.  Hey, we all need to make a buck somehow, right?  If you find my timeless jewels of wisdom amusing or perhaps even amusingly irritating throw me a bone now and then.  Thank you my friends!