This post covers another chapter: Character and History, in The Lessons of History, by Will and Ariel Durant.
Society is founded not on the ideals but on the nature of man, and the constitution of man rewrites the constitution of states. But what is the nature of man? We may define human nature as the fundamental tendencies of mankind. Known history shows little alteration in the conduct of mankind. Means and instrumentalities change; motives and ends remain the same. The poor have the same impulses as the rich, with only less opportunity or skill to implement them. Nothing is clearer in history than the adoption by successful rebels of the methods they were accustomed to condemn in the forces they deposed.
There is something important I’ve noticed in some of the calls for “change” coming from the progressive left, and it is exactly what Durant notes in this last sentence: “Nothing is clearer in history than the adoption by successful rebels of the methods they were accustomed to condemn in the forces they deposed.”
The calls for change don’t really mean to make things better, not in any paradigm shifting sense. They mean to change WHO will be making the calls. But as I hear their language, I have no doubts that what they are calling for is that it’s now THEIR turn to rule. They don’t plan on abolishing privilege or oppression, they plan on being the privileged and oppressive, as opposed to the marginalized and oppressed. The superficial marketing pitch is to abolish injustice. The reality they believe is that SOMEONE has to be on top, and it might as well be them!
Evolution in man during recorded time has been social rather than biological: it has proceeded not by heritable variation in the species, but mostly by economic, political, intellectual, and moral innovation transmitted to individuals and generations by imitation, custom, or education.
New situations, however, do arise, requiring novel, un-stereotyped responses; hence development, in the higher organisms, requires a capacity for experiment and innovation.
This echoes something I’ve just finished reading in the Hunter Gatherer’s Guide to the 21st Century: Culture sits on top of the genes, as a type of software on top of hardware. This allows us to adapt much more rapidly than waiting for changes on the genetic level. It also integrates with the idea that conscious thought turns into an automated process once it proves effective, which then turns into culture when widespread enough. But in the face of novelty, conscious application is once again required.
Intellect is a vital force in history, but it can also be a dissolvent and destructive power. Out of every hundred new ideas, ninety-nine or more will probably be inferior to the traditional responses which they propose to replace. No one man, however brilliant or well-informed, can come in one lifetime to such fullness of understanding as to safely judge and dismiss the customs or institutions of his society, for these are the wisdom of generations after centuries of experiment in the laboratory of history.
It is good that new ideas should be heard, for the sake of the few that can be used; but it is also good that new ideas should be compelled to go through the mill of objection, opposition, and contumely; this is the trial heat which innovations must survive before being allowed to enter the human race. It is good that the old should resist the young, and that the young should prod the old; out of this tension, as out of the strife of the sexes and the classes, comes a creative tensile strength, a stimulated development, a secret and basic unity and movement of the whole.
This is probably the heart of the conservative worldview: conservatives aren’t against progress, but we tend to have a very skeptical view of things that are called progress, but are largely untested.
The thought here that no man, no matter how brilliant, can understand as much as the distributed wisdom of all the people working their specialized niches, calls to mind the folly of Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory. Sheldon is smart. Smarter than the others, at least as measured by IQ. In his mind, he doesn’t just have a higher IQ than his friends individually… he is smarter than all of them combined. Yet he regularly misses things and misreads situations. It’s the hubris of believing IQ can solve everything.
Durant’s point here, in my mind, argues persuasively enough that one ought to be concerned with changing institutions that have stood the test of time. The progressive mind tends to see the problems and be outraged; the conservative understands that tradeoffs are inherent in everything and whatever problems exists are best dealt with in a slow cautious manner. Novel solutions may work, but also end up being worse for society in aggregate.