Category: Epistemology

know that there are two main differences between Conservative and Liberal ideology: One is that Conservatives are basically British Empiricists while Liberals are at heart Continental Rationalists.

That is something I have talked about before, and you can bet that I will again. Not now, however. I’m focused on something else. But without that basic understand the whole intellectual endeavor is fraught with anger and misunderstanding.

But there is another: Conservatives seek a restoration of things that have, in the past, been known to work. Broadly, Conservatives want to keep what has been demonstrated in the past to be good. THAT is what is being conserved. Liberals, on the other hand, want to destroy everything and start anew.

It’s related, since we have empirical evidence about what has worked in the past and what hasn’t. But it’s not really the same thing as Empiricism as a foundational ethic. But the Conservative impulse is indeed to keep what has been shown to work, and avoid thinking that you know so much that you can (and should) re-create society according to your lights.

Modern Liberals almost always see themselves as iconoclasts, and seek to utterly destroy the things of the past and start again. The wrecking ball and sledge hammer are never far from their hands. Thus, their focus is famously on the “new man” and “Heaven on earth.”

In other words, modern Liberals are not interested in remodeling society. Their goal is not to “bring it up to code,” it is to tear down the whole thing and build anew (most often in their own image). 

Whereas the Conservative says, “Yeah, it needs some sprucing up but the ‘bones’ are good,” the Liberal says, “Nothing is worth preserving—let’s just tear the whole thing down and build it anew. We’ll build it better this time, because we are so dang smart and awesome that we can do that sort of thing, while the benighted racists/sexists/homophobes/morons/bigots of the past got it all wrong–WE know better now!”

This “take” is not at all controversial. I really doubt even hard Leftists would disagree. It is merely a statement of fact–there IS no value-judgment necessarily attached to it. Liberals want to tear the whole thing down and build anew, while Conservatives want to preserve the historical basic structure.

Hence, the Leftist impulse is to destroy in many areas (such as abortion, BLM, reliance on force, etc.), because such destruction is part and parcel of the whole Lefty worldview. On the other side, the Conservative impulse is to preserve (preserve life, peace, moral agency/freedom, etc.).

I know you’ve all been waiting with ‘bated breath for it…

The Declaration of Independence was written by Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson was very much in the tradition of Continental Rationalism. And that really stands out in the Declaration. And that was totally appropriate for the Declaration.

But the Declaration was much more a work of persuasion and explanation and ideals, while the (future) Constitution was a nuts-and-bolts manual for how the government should work. So a different animal entirely.

As for the Constitution, Jefferson thought the Constitution should be re-written every 20 years or so. You know, a “living” document. Jefferson’s position has been espoused by and blown up by the Left at least since 1900 or so.

He and Thomas Paine were very much that in that Rationalist tradition. But most of the other founders of the nation were absolutely not–they leaned toward Hume–and they modeled the government on a more ideal form of the British government (though, of course, without a King). They were Empiricists, not Rationalists. They wanted what had been shown to work, not some amalgam of airy-fairy suppositions.

So the Articles of Confederation were too loose, and we needed to turn to Federalism rather than to the previous CONfederacry (just why that is and why it was necessary in order to get all 13 colonies to get on board is a discussion for another day).

So in 1887, the Constitution was adopted. But Jefferson was gone–he was the ambassador (in France?) by then. So it was written by the empiricists who were there. Had Jefferson been involved, it would have looked very different!

So let’s take a moment and be thankful that Jefferson was there to write the sublime Declaration but was gone and therefore couldn’t muck up the Constitution.