260720: Whigs & Tories
Jefferson and Adams, despite their many differences, agreed: The antagonism of the Tories and Whigs, conservatives and progressives, is immortal, as if a law of nature. There is the Exit vote, and the Stay vote. There is the Experiment vote, and the Tradition vote. We can change, or we can stay the same. We can replace pillars of our culture, or we can keep them. It is the fundamental problem of a brain, pruning its neurons, wondering whether to accommodate or assimilate, whether to preserve its structure or rewire itself. There is no right answer, at least no general right answer, free of the specifics of situation.
The Tories' most successful argument may be Chesterton's fence. It says that reality is very complicated, and our causal models, of how systems fit together and behave, are always so lacking, so impoverished, that we need be careful what aspects we tinker with or dispose of, for the consequences of removing any structure may be catastrophic.
It is no coincidence that Chesterton's fence is the strongest Tory argument, because Chesterton's fence is an argument from Nature. It is an argument from Evolution.
James Scott, Edmund Burke, and Friedrich Hayek all make versions of this argument: For the complexity of situation, and of the tradition which manages it; for the rich embodied indexicality of local orders, which reasoning outsiders meddle with; for the humility necessary—and usually lacking—from all reformists.
If Reason is driving our evolution, our progress, and if the costs of Reason alone appear unbearable, what is needed? One option is more Reason. But as much as I believe in Reason, I do not think Reason is a panacea. It is a method like any method which is better suited to some problems, and ill-suited to others. It requires complements, and a bounded space of application.
But is Reason driving our cultural evolution? Is technology a form of reason? I am far from sure it is.