On Medium: How Trumpism Reveals the Black Hole of Conservatism
Here's an article about political theater, the stakes of modernity, and how Trumpism is an aberration only in that this populism dispenses with the conservative's pleasantries.
There's an incongruence I perceive between your take on conservatism and conservatives's behaviour towards science, specifically in regards to the theory of evolution. If conservatives – inward or outwardly – desire a "return to nature" via the establishing of dominance hierarchies, then why has the majority of them, typically, taken such hostility towards Darwin's theory of evolution? Wouldn't they have championed that theory with the same, or more, intensity than they champion religious dogmas? After all, religion seems more apt than darwinism to sustain the illusion of personhood that the conservative, presumably, wants to abolish in favor of his 'regress' to nature. Darwinism also has more 'modern appeal', as it bows to the 'authority' of science. So why didn't they ditch religion altogether?
I was under the impression that the aim to 'transcend nature' (via religious dogmas) was rather conservative, not liberal. I think liberalism wanted to subvert the conservative's social hierarchy (absolute monarchies by divine right) with another, namely, a hierarchy based on the principles of the Enlightened absolutism. History, with the advent of capitalism, seems to have settled for a hierarchy between those two types.
That's a perceptive comment. I noticed that irony when I began to work out this thesis in 2013 (link below). Indeed, you wouldn't expect a social Darwinian to be anti-intellectual and to retreat to religion. At least, this greedy reductionist would lean on pseudoscience, as the Nazis did.
But there are a number of reasons for this oddity. First, social Darwinism has been taboo since WWII, so conservatives might protest too much to make it seem as though their values weren't so contemptible. They turn to Randian or Trumpian cults perhaps even to fool themselves into thinking that they're not just nihilists. If you follow science and eschew religion, you might be tempted by this nihilistic social Darwinism. Conservatives come to this same point via their authoritarian or sadomasochistic personalities.
It's also a question of tactics. How to convince others and themselves to forgo modernity and to enact policies that would take us back to monarchy, dictatorship, plutocracy, or some other form of minority rule? You tell a good story rather than just presenting straight-up biological arguments. Even the Nazis did that with their Romantic myth of white supremacy. Religion supplies the myth, and when you're steeped in religion, you're liable to become anti-intellectual (since reason is typically the enemy of faith). This is especially true for conservatives who have mainly a political rather than a spiritual use for religion. Their fundamentalist religions are existentially illegitimate from the outset, and what they worship is raw natural power, not truth or wisdom.
So the irony is that conservative policies are naturalistic, and it's the modern liberal who has the more authentic religion, namely the humanistic, Promethean, Faustian, transhuman myth and ritual of social and technological progress. Judging from the political rhetoric, the opposite is the case: conservatives are religious zealots, and liberals are nonreligious. And of course liberals are more likely to be atheistic, but there are different kinds of faith at work here: faith in nature (the wilderness) vs faith in human nature (in that which transcends the wilderness). That's why I say the real political divide is between (mostly closeted) animalists and (less closeted) humanists.
"...How to convince others and themselves to forgo modernity and to enact policies that would take us back to monarchy, dictatorship, plutocracy, or some other form of minority rule?"
Well, I'd imagine the theory of evolution would grant them just what they've been longing for. A 'scientific' rationale to justify minority rule on the basis that we're nothing but violent animals in a brutal environment, where only the fittest survive and pass their genes, and that any other interpretation of the human predicament (humanism, modernity, etc.) is just old fashioned sentimentality, or mumbo jumbo in the face of natural facts. I can't help but think that if that was the basis of conservatism, then conservatives should have something like an instinctual aversion to any kind of myth or legend that posits the existence of a metaphysical or transcendent realm. Granted, those myths could have been deemed useful to justify absolutist rule back in the day, but what would be their use after the scientific revolution, if you can use 'empirical' arguments to 'prove' your point?
Also, religious myths could be now seen just as contemptible and nihilist as this kind of naturalist myth, or even more. Consider, for example, the religious one which says that god can let someone burn in hell simply for not having been baptised. An overt conservative darwinian, on the other hand, could justify all the pain that comes from her policies simply by saying that she's following nature's inhumane qualities, so nothing to be sorry and, what's more, no pesky theodicy to worry about.
"So the irony is that conservative policies are naturalistic, and it's the modern liberal who has the more authentic religion, namely the humanistic, Promethean, Faustian, transhuman myth and ritual of social and technological progress."
I agree that conservatism and liberalism (the humanistic and Promethean one) are both kinds of faiths. As for which one is better, I don't know. In my view, both are now complicit in the unprecedented devastation of nature in the name of elevating the standards of living of the masses, letting them enjoy certain privileges which were once reserved for a tiny elite. Liberalism intentions are nobler than those of conservatism, maybe, because the latter tends to be more conspiratorial, irrational and sectarist, but one could argue there's plenty of that in the liberal side too, it's just that is not as evident.
Remember, my point is that conservatism is empty specifically because it's self-contradictory. Social Darwinism might (theoretically) be established by scientific explanations, but science is inherently progressive. Thus, conservatives will be tempted by anti-intellectualism so that scientific methods don't burst their bubble.
Paradoxically, if we can learn that we're just animals, we're no longer just animals because now we have a philosophical overview of the facts. The medium's the message here: scientific methods are tools that help transform us from animals into people, thus falsifying social Darwinism and deflationary conservativism alike.
As a social activity, I agree that science tends to be on the 'progressive side'. However, the paradox persists. If conservatives wanted above all to bow to the 'natural order of things', they should tend towards science, not faith (my point is that science tends to be defended by progressives, where it should be otherwise, presupposing the principles of conservative's psychology expounded on the article, which are also necessary to claim conservatism is self-contradictory).
Faith would primarily be a tool for the underdogs, which could be then coopted by the elite. However, once you have something like the theory of evolution to sustain your myth of superiority, it's the perfect excuse to dispense with all other myths.
"...scientific methods are tools that help transform us from animals into people..."
Or they're tools which made us discover there are animals who like to pretend they're 'people' (however you want to define it). So, two kinds of animals (that we currently know of), but animals all the same. That would be the 'regress to nature' the conservative most desires.
I agree that a nature-worshipper would be in favour of science since science informs us about nature. But my thesis isn't quite that conservatives are just nature-lovers. They're autocratic personalities that are attracted specifically to the wilderness's lawlessness, and to the amoral power dynamics of sadomasochistic dominance hierarchies.
Science is progressive in other ways too. Science enables us to break out of our life cycle by informing us about the wider world. Science frees us from our subjectivity by supplying us with objective knowledge. Science is apolitical and subversive, and it threatens religious dogmas.
So if you're in favour of the kind of tyranny that turns the subordinates and the dominators alike into animals, you should be opposed to science because you'll need to rule with cons or with noble lies which science would contradict. That's why dictators dispose of the independent thinkers and the free press.
"Science is apolitical and subversive, and it threatens religious dogmas".
I agree. We would have to make a distinction between science as such and the 'politicization' or 'mythologization' of science. The use of Darwin's theory of evolution for political goals would be an example of the latter, not the former. Still, the 'naturalist myth', as I'd like to call it, would be much better suited than the religious myth in advancing the conservative's agenda.
We see the politicization of science in virtually everyday discourse, sometimes with great rhetorical effect. If the principles of conservative's psychology are as you portrayed them ("autocratic personalities that are attracted specifically to the wilderness's lawlessness") then I guess conservatives are really bad at selling their pitch to the masses, invoking archaic myths instead of secular ones. Secular and pragmatic myths can be more effective today than religious one (the case of China, for example).
So, I guess the question is why conservatives favor religious myths over secular ones (remarking that secular myths have nothing whatsoever to do with real science and assuming that conservatives have no shame in employing any tactic to gain power).
On the contrary, I argue in my articles on politics that conservatives are masterful myth-makers and that liberals are incompetent at selling anything because they're less sociopathic, so they're incompetent at politics.
In fact, the mythologization of science and nature is the Nietzschean task and it's what my blog and Medium articles are about. This is the question of a modern mythos for transhumans and for our zeitgeist of hyperskepticism and technological progress. It's not clear, though, what the content of this mythos should be. A demagogue would have a much easier time exploiting the established religions, which is what the cynical conservative politicians do.
What do you mean by the "everyday politicization of science"? Do you mean just the misuse of numbers and of evidence in advertising and the like? Those shenanigans don't amount to a myth that could drive a political movement.
There's also the fact that conservatives did try out a quasi-Nietzschean, social Darwinian mythos. They were the Nazi fascists, so that modern mythos became taboo after WWII. Only the lingering white supremacist pariahs dust it off.
"What do you mean by the 'everyday politicization of science'?"
I meant, in a general way, that every time someone tries to draw political/cultural conclusions from scientific facts, or appealing to scientific practice as a basis or justification for a cultural praxis, is not doing proper science. That is what I meant with the 'mythologization' or 'politicization' of science (utilizing, in the broadest sense, a mythos based on science for political purposes) which is now a current practice.
I have been trying to develop an intuition that I have, which seems incongruent with your general take on conservatism. Namely, that if conservatives wanted above all to set up a 'natural regime' where a minority rules over the majority, then I think they would be naturally inclined to 'secular' myths, in a secular 'Weltanschauung' which emphasizes the 'struggle for life' in a darwinian sense. It should be ingrained in their discourse overtly and not be in the fringes of their philosophy. If a darwinian mythos (nazism, etc.) isn't palatable to the masses today (a taboo), then conservative rhetoric would be at fault. Neo-nazism would have to be overtly displayed through secular myths, scapegoating minorities, appealing to the natural rights of the dominant class, etc. The temptation to do this would be too great, I believe, for a cabal of thugs, and it wouldn't be deterred by an 'enlightened', modern, sensibility.
However, I think conservatives would be horrified by the aforementioned mythos, mainly because it lacks a religious, transcendent, dimension. So, the hierarchy they want to establish is not based on secular myths, but on religious ones. Maybe your point is that, whichever the reason or motives, they (conservatives) are defending a particular kind of hierarchy and, in doing that, they're inadvertently being 'nature's fools', by submitting to the de facto mode animals behave in the wilderness.
We have to keep in mind the naturalistic fallacy. Technically, no prescription or justification of a social order follows from strictly evolutionary or scientific premises. There are no natural rights in that sense. The natural "rights" are just the abilities of the strong to rule over the weak or of the weak to gang up on the strong. Those rights are just capacities or regularities. So a natural story about our capacities isn't a myth that justifies anything. It's only an explanation of the probabilities that unfold.
The series I'm doing now on conservatism is where I'm working this out at great length. A long article I recently wrote on Russell Kirk clarifies my view, I think. I say towards the end of it, "Therefore, there’s no such thing as an intellectual conservative. The true conservative is a Machiavellian schemer like Vladimir Putin or Donald Trump, a retrograde psychopath who uses the gifts of personhood (language, reason, charisma, storytelling, and the like) purely as tools for cynical projects of social engineering or self-aggrandizement."
So what we have are "conservatives" who use social Darwinism and religious myths as excuses or rationalizations of their inherited advantages (including their psychopathy) or of their luck. The social Darwinism speaks to their true, Machiavellian realism, which is that the moral justifications don't matter because reality is amoral. All there really are are natural capacities and positions. The values are subjective, so naturally the rich have different values than the poor. And the rich and powerful appeal to various myths only cynically to distract from or to obfuscate their dominance.
But yeah, if you're interested, keep reading because I go into this from various angles in this ongoing series. The one on Russell Kirk will be a highlight, I think.
I'm curious if you're going to delve into ways this social hierarchies can be overcome in practice, and the relation between human/social hierarchies and the other hierarchies of the animal kingdom.
Well, those are broader questions, I think, or they're about the implications of conservatism. This series is mainly to test out my hypothesis that the distinction between conservatives and liberals boils down to that between animalists and humanists. I'm testing the hypothesis against the philosophies of leading conservatives. Just how much of conservatism can be explained in my sweeping terms?
There's an incongruence I perceive between your take on conservatism and conservatives's behaviour towards science, specifically in regards to the theory of evolution. If conservatives – inward or outwardly – desire a "return to nature" via the establishing of dominance hierarchies, then why has the majority of them, typically, taken such hostility towards Darwin's theory of evolution? Wouldn't they have championed that theory with the same, or more, intensity than they champion religious dogmas? After all, religion seems more apt than darwinism to sustain the illusion of personhood that the conservative, presumably, wants to abolish in favor of his 'regress' to nature. Darwinism also has more 'modern appeal', as it bows to the 'authority' of science. So why didn't they ditch religion altogether?
ReplyDeleteI was under the impression that the aim to 'transcend nature' (via religious dogmas) was rather conservative, not liberal. I think liberalism wanted to subvert the conservative's social hierarchy (absolute monarchies by divine right) with another, namely, a hierarchy based on the principles of the Enlightened absolutism. History, with the advent of capitalism, seems to have settled for a hierarchy between those two types.
''Trump is held hostage by his flagrant mental disorders. Consequently, he’s more animal than person''
ReplyDeleteIt is necessary to say what kind of disorder he has so as not to generalize in relation to people with mental disorders.
Trump's is likely malignant narcissism.
DeleteThat's a perceptive comment. I noticed that irony when I began to work out this thesis in 2013 (link below). Indeed, you wouldn't expect a social Darwinian to be anti-intellectual and to retreat to religion. At least, this greedy reductionist would lean on pseudoscience, as the Nazis did.
ReplyDeleteBut there are a number of reasons for this oddity. First, social Darwinism has been taboo since WWII, so conservatives might protest too much to make it seem as though their values weren't so contemptible. They turn to Randian or Trumpian cults perhaps even to fool themselves into thinking that they're not just nihilists. If you follow science and eschew religion, you might be tempted by this nihilistic social Darwinism. Conservatives come to this same point via their authoritarian or sadomasochistic personalities.
It's also a question of tactics. How to convince others and themselves to forgo modernity and to enact policies that would take us back to monarchy, dictatorship, plutocracy, or some other form of minority rule? You tell a good story rather than just presenting straight-up biological arguments. Even the Nazis did that with their Romantic myth of white supremacy. Religion supplies the myth, and when you're steeped in religion, you're liable to become anti-intellectual (since reason is typically the enemy of faith). This is especially true for conservatives who have mainly a political rather than a spiritual use for religion. Their fundamentalist religions are existentially illegitimate from the outset, and what they worship is raw natural power, not truth or wisdom.
So the irony is that conservative policies are naturalistic, and it's the modern liberal who has the more authentic religion, namely the humanistic, Promethean, Faustian, transhuman myth and ritual of social and technological progress. Judging from the political rhetoric, the opposite is the case: conservatives are religious zealots, and liberals are nonreligious. And of course liberals are more likely to be atheistic, but there are different kinds of faith at work here: faith in nature (the wilderness) vs faith in human nature (in that which transcends the wilderness). That's why I say the real political divide is between (mostly closeted) animalists and (less closeted) humanists.
http://rantswithintheundeadgod.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-hidden-divergences-between.html
http://rantswithintheundeadgod.blogspot.com/2019/06/liberals-and-conservatives-humanists.html
"...How to convince others and themselves to forgo modernity and to enact policies that would take us back to monarchy, dictatorship, plutocracy, or some other form of minority rule?"
ReplyDeleteWell, I'd imagine the theory of evolution would grant them just what they've been longing for. A 'scientific' rationale to justify minority rule on the basis that we're nothing but violent animals in a brutal environment, where only the fittest survive and pass their genes, and that any other interpretation of the human predicament (humanism, modernity, etc.) is just old fashioned sentimentality, or mumbo jumbo in the face of natural facts. I can't help but think that if that was the basis of conservatism, then conservatives should have something like an instinctual aversion to any kind of myth or legend that posits the existence of a metaphysical or transcendent realm. Granted, those myths could have been deemed useful to justify absolutist rule back in the day, but what would be their use after the scientific revolution, if you can use 'empirical' arguments to 'prove' your point?
Also, religious myths could be now seen just as contemptible and nihilist as this kind of naturalist myth, or even more. Consider, for example, the religious one which says that god can let someone burn in hell simply for not having been baptised. An overt conservative darwinian, on the other hand, could justify all the pain that comes from her policies simply by saying that she's following nature's inhumane qualities, so nothing to be sorry and, what's more, no pesky theodicy to worry about.
"So the irony is that conservative policies are naturalistic, and it's the modern liberal who has the more authentic religion, namely the humanistic, Promethean, Faustian, transhuman myth and ritual of social and technological progress."
I agree that conservatism and liberalism (the humanistic and Promethean one) are both kinds of faiths. As for which one is better, I don't know. In my view, both are now complicit in the unprecedented devastation of nature in the name of elevating the standards of living of the masses, letting them enjoy certain privileges which were once reserved for a tiny elite. Liberalism intentions are nobler than those of conservatism, maybe, because the latter tends to be more conspiratorial, irrational and sectarist, but one could argue there's plenty of that in the liberal side too, it's just that is not as evident.
Remember, my point is that conservatism is empty specifically because it's self-contradictory. Social Darwinism might (theoretically) be established by scientific explanations, but science is inherently progressive. Thus, conservatives will be tempted by anti-intellectualism so that scientific methods don't burst their bubble.
DeleteParadoxically, if we can learn that we're just animals, we're no longer just animals because now we have a philosophical overview of the facts. The medium's the message here: scientific methods are tools that help transform us from animals into people, thus falsifying social Darwinism and deflationary conservativism alike.
"...but science is inherently progressive."
ReplyDeleteAs a social activity, I agree that science tends to be on the 'progressive side'. However, the paradox persists. If conservatives wanted above all to bow to the 'natural order of things', they should tend towards science, not faith (my point is that science tends to be defended by progressives, where it should be otherwise, presupposing the principles of conservative's psychology expounded on the article, which are also necessary to claim conservatism is self-contradictory).
Faith would primarily be a tool for the underdogs, which could be then coopted by the elite. However, once you have something like the theory of evolution to sustain your myth of superiority, it's the perfect excuse to dispense with all other myths.
"...scientific methods are tools that help transform us from animals into people..."
Or they're tools which made us discover there are animals who like to pretend they're 'people' (however you want to define it). So, two kinds of animals (that we currently know of), but animals all the same. That would be the 'regress to nature' the conservative most desires.
I agree that a nature-worshipper would be in favour of science since science informs us about nature. But my thesis isn't quite that conservatives are just nature-lovers. They're autocratic personalities that are attracted specifically to the wilderness's lawlessness, and to the amoral power dynamics of sadomasochistic dominance hierarchies.
DeleteScience is progressive in other ways too. Science enables us to break out of our life cycle by informing us about the wider world. Science frees us from our subjectivity by supplying us with objective knowledge. Science is apolitical and subversive, and it threatens religious dogmas.
So if you're in favour of the kind of tyranny that turns the subordinates and the dominators alike into animals, you should be opposed to science because you'll need to rule with cons or with noble lies which science would contradict. That's why dictators dispose of the independent thinkers and the free press.
"Science is apolitical and subversive, and it threatens religious dogmas".
DeleteI agree. We would have to make a distinction between science as such and the 'politicization' or 'mythologization' of science. The use of Darwin's theory of evolution for political goals would be an example of the latter, not the former. Still, the 'naturalist myth', as I'd like to call it, would be much better suited than the religious myth in advancing the conservative's agenda.
We see the politicization of science in virtually everyday discourse, sometimes with great rhetorical effect. If the principles of conservative's psychology are as you portrayed them ("autocratic personalities that are attracted specifically to the wilderness's lawlessness") then I guess conservatives are really bad at selling their pitch to the masses, invoking archaic myths instead of secular ones. Secular and pragmatic myths can be more effective today than religious one (the case of China, for example).
So, I guess the question is why conservatives favor religious myths over secular ones (remarking that secular myths have nothing whatsoever to do with real science and assuming that conservatives have no shame in employing any tactic to gain power).
On the contrary, I argue in my articles on politics that conservatives are masterful myth-makers and that liberals are incompetent at selling anything because they're less sociopathic, so they're incompetent at politics.
DeleteIn fact, the mythologization of science and nature is the Nietzschean task and it's what my blog and Medium articles are about. This is the question of a modern mythos for transhumans and for our zeitgeist of hyperskepticism and technological progress. It's not clear, though, what the content of this mythos should be. A demagogue would have a much easier time exploiting the established religions, which is what the cynical conservative politicians do.
What do you mean by the "everyday politicization of science"? Do you mean just the misuse of numbers and of evidence in advertising and the like? Those shenanigans don't amount to a myth that could drive a political movement.
There's also the fact that conservatives did try out a quasi-Nietzschean, social Darwinian mythos. They were the Nazi fascists, so that modern mythos became taboo after WWII. Only the lingering white supremacist pariahs dust it off.
"What do you mean by the 'everyday politicization of science'?"
ReplyDeleteI meant, in a general way, that every time someone tries to draw political/cultural conclusions from scientific facts, or appealing to scientific practice as a basis or justification for a cultural praxis, is not doing proper science. That is what I meant with the 'mythologization' or 'politicization' of science (utilizing, in the broadest sense, a mythos based on science for political purposes) which is now a current practice.
I have been trying to develop an intuition that I have, which seems incongruent with your general take on conservatism. Namely, that if conservatives wanted above all to set up a 'natural regime' where a minority rules over the majority, then I think they would be naturally inclined to 'secular' myths, in a secular 'Weltanschauung' which emphasizes the 'struggle for life' in a darwinian sense. It should be ingrained in their discourse overtly and not be in the fringes of their philosophy. If a darwinian mythos (nazism, etc.) isn't palatable to the masses today (a taboo), then conservative rhetoric would be at fault. Neo-nazism would have to be overtly displayed through secular myths, scapegoating minorities, appealing to the natural rights of the dominant class, etc. The temptation to do this would be too great, I believe, for a cabal of thugs, and it wouldn't be deterred by an 'enlightened', modern, sensibility.
However, I think conservatives would be horrified by the aforementioned mythos, mainly because it lacks a religious, transcendent, dimension. So, the hierarchy they want to establish is not based on secular myths, but on religious ones. Maybe your point is that, whichever the reason or motives, they (conservatives) are defending a particular kind of hierarchy and, in doing that, they're inadvertently being 'nature's fools', by submitting to the de facto mode animals behave in the wilderness.
We have to keep in mind the naturalistic fallacy. Technically, no prescription or justification of a social order follows from strictly evolutionary or scientific premises. There are no natural rights in that sense. The natural "rights" are just the abilities of the strong to rule over the weak or of the weak to gang up on the strong. Those rights are just capacities or regularities. So a natural story about our capacities isn't a myth that justifies anything. It's only an explanation of the probabilities that unfold.
DeleteThe series I'm doing now on conservatism is where I'm working this out at great length. A long article I recently wrote on Russell Kirk clarifies my view, I think. I say towards the end of it, "Therefore, there’s no such thing as an intellectual conservative. The true conservative is a Machiavellian schemer like Vladimir Putin or Donald Trump, a retrograde psychopath who uses the gifts of personhood (language, reason, charisma, storytelling, and the like) purely as tools for cynical projects of social engineering or self-aggrandizement."
So what we have are "conservatives" who use social Darwinism and religious myths as excuses or rationalizations of their inherited advantages (including their psychopathy) or of their luck. The social Darwinism speaks to their true, Machiavellian realism, which is that the moral justifications don't matter because reality is amoral. All there really are are natural capacities and positions. The values are subjective, so naturally the rich have different values than the poor. And the rich and powerful appeal to various myths only cynically to distract from or to obfuscate their dominance.
But yeah, if you're interested, keep reading because I go into this from various angles in this ongoing series. The one on Russell Kirk will be a highlight, I think.
Great! Looking forward to reading those articles.
DeleteI'm curious if you're going to delve into ways this social hierarchies can be overcome in practice, and the relation between human/social hierarchies and the other hierarchies of the animal kingdom.
Well, those are broader questions, I think, or they're about the implications of conservatism. This series is mainly to test out my hypothesis that the distinction between conservatives and liberals boils down to that between animalists and humanists. I'm testing the hypothesis against the philosophies of leading conservatives. Just how much of conservatism can be explained in my sweeping terms?
Delete