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Part Two
Last week’s newsletter ran much longer than I anticipated and it only covered half of what I wanted to write about. I knew that if I tried to write the second half in last week’s newsletter that approximately no one would read until the end so I decided to split it up. This week will be a continuation of last week’s discussion regarding the two tenets of conservatism that I introduced in the last newsletter.
As a reminder, the two tenets that I introduced are: the world is imperfect and human nature is immutable. I focused on the first tenet, the world is imperfect, last week which you can read here if you missed it. This week I want to focus on the immutability of human nature and demonstrate how this tenet is a major divergent point between conservatives and progressives. But first, I want to reiterate that when I say conservative I am not talking about the Republican party. Rather, I am referring to certain principles espoused by people like Burke, Buckley, and Reagan. Read last week’s newsletter for more elaboration if you would like.
Human Nature is Immutable
In order to discuss the idea that human nature as immutable, I need to first address what conservatives believe human nature to be. Conservatives, at the core, believe human nature to be generally self-interested and self-serving. This idea was famously espoused by James Madison in Federalist 51. He wrote,
Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
The essence of the conservative belief about human nature is that humans are far from being angels, rather they are ambitious and self-interested. Furthermore, it is this nature of humans that is immutable, meaning it is unable to be changed.
This is where, I believe, the biggest divergence is between progressives and conservatives. Progressives typically possess one of two opposing views. Either they believe human nature is inherently good and has been corrupted by society, or they believe human nature up until this point has been corrupt but humans can change that by choosing to live in harmony with one another. Here, we see that the two tenets are necessarily connected. For, if humans chose to live in harmony with one another then the world would be a better place or if the world were perfected then human nature could be perfected as well.
Similar to the idea that the world is imperfect, this tenet of the immutability of human nature leads conservatives and progressives to misunderstand each other’s positions. As a result, they talk past each other in policy and cultural debates.
“Size” of Government
I put size here in quotations because really this is never a debate over the actual size of government. Rather, it is a debate over the proper role of government. It devolves into a discussion over the size of government because progressives typically have a more expansive view of the role of government. Conservatives don’t want a “small” government to control a small army with no power to defend its citizens. They want a strong, powerful government thats spends a lot of money (albeit efficiently) on developing and maintaining the most powerful military in the world. However, conservatives don’t want the government to expand into other areas of life, such as the economy.
In other words, conservatives want a powerful government that is limited in when and how it can exert its power. Conservatives are typically not fans of giving government immense discretion on when and how it uses its power because that makes it ripe for abuse. This is because, as Madison said, the government consists of individual humans that are all self-interested. The more power and discretion the government has, the more power these self-interested individuals can abuse. Inherent in this is an understanding that even relatively neutral or even seemingly good powers given to the government require skepticism because self-interested individuals can and will find a way to use the powers to their advantage.
Welfare
This extends beyond the self-interested nature of those in government and applies to individuals within society. This is really the crux of the disagreement between conservatives and progressives over government welfare. By welfare, I am including any program that falls under the social safety net, such as food stamps, government housing, social security, Medicaid, etc. It’s not that conservatives are heartless people that don’t believe in helping those in need. Conservatives believe that, because people are self-interested, people will take advantage of these programs if guardrails are not put in place to prevent that from happening.
Progressives, on the other hand, do not have these same concerns because they believe that people in need are either trying their best to get out of their situation or that improving their situation for them will help encourage them to do their best. While this is certainly true of some people, it is certainly not true of others. Conservatives recognize this and seek to prevent people from abusing the welfare system.
Supreme Court
This difference presents itself in the debate between progressive and conservative legal theories, particularly with regards to the Supreme Court. Progressive legal theories call for justices to interpret the Constitution as a living document that conforms to modern standards. This gives justices immense power to determine, based on their own judgment, what is the modern standard and whether a law meets that standard. Progressives are okay with this because these justices are some of the best educated and justice-minded individuals in the country. They would never abuse this power and remake the country to look like they want it to look.
Conservatives, however, believe that these justices are absolutely capable of abusing this immense power so they seek to limit the role of justices to merely interpreting the law as it was originally intended and/or textually reads. Whenever the Constitution is silent on an issue, conservative justices defer to the legislative branch because the members of the legislative branch can be held accountable by voters if they abuse their power.
Free-Market Capitalism
Free-market capitalism is another area that the progressive and conservative view of human nature shapes the debate. To the conservative, human beings are innately self-interested and will not be changed to be something different. Therefore, a system should be created that takes advantage of this reality and uses it to the benefit of all. This is exactly what capitalism does.
For example, if Apple and Microsoft are both self-interested corporations that are only looking out for what will make them the most money, then they will naturally compete against each other. The amount of money they can make is limited, so whenever Microsoft gets someone’s money, it is less money that Apple can make. As a result, Apple will compete against Microsoft to get more money by lowering prices to incentivize the consumer to buy a MacBook, improving their MacBook so that it is a better option for the consumer, or seeking to produce the MacBook more efficiently/cheapily so they can keep more money each time they sell a MacBook. This ultimately results in cheaper prices, better goods or services, and the most efficient distribution of resources.
Capitalism uses the selfishness and greed of humans to benefit all of society. Socialism is the exact opposite. Socialism relies on the goodness of humans to share and be content with what they have. This fits into a progressive’s view of human nature but a conservative would see this as impossible.
Conclusion
Again, these are just a few of the ways that this core difference manifests itself in our public debates. There are probably endless examples that one could use to demonstrate these two tenets at work. In fact, identifying these examples and understanding the differences should be a more frequent occurrence than it presently is. When we fail to understand these deeper differences, we will continue to talk about surface level issues, all the while talking past one another and even impugning the motives of the other side.
God Bless,
Hunter Burnett
Braves Breakdown
Opening Day for the Atlanta Braves was yesterday. The Braves lost to the Phillies in extra innings after Jean Segura barely hit the ball but it bounced over Austin Riley’s head. The universal DH still needs to be implemented because watching pitchers strike out or bunt sucks. Panda panda panda hit a pinch hit homerun to tie the game at 2-2 in the top of the 7th inning which was the highlight of the game. The Braves record stands at 0-1 for the season.