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Or, to restate it properly, it's a very poor argument.
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starcat_jewel recently recommended an online monograph on her LJ. The title, if you couldn't guess, is, "Conservatives are always wrong."
I've read it, and it's rubbish- not because of any lack of potential valid argument, but because of the many and various flaws in the argument.
First, the broadness of the argument. "Conservatives are always wrong" says it all, really: in order for the basic argument to be valid, conservatives can never be right. This is obviously not correct- blind pigs and acorns, etc. Conservatives were right about the collapse of communism (sp. that an economy cannot function without some market-based systems and the ability of the individual to keep some wealth for him/herself). Conservatives were right about the French Revolution devouring itself (and were very nearly right about the American Revolution doing so before that- had it not been for Washington). Conservatives were right about socialist economies going beyond the point of diminishing returns (which is why Maggie Thatcher held power for fourteen years, and why Great Britain came out of its economic malaise under her watch).
The argument should not be, "conservatives are always wrong," but, "conservatives are usually wrong." There's a very basic reason for this: conservatives, by definition, are those who resist change. In order to resist change, there has to be someone wanting to change something. In order for someone to want to change something, there has to be some aspect of government, the economy, or society that doesn't work properly in their eyes. The greater the number of people who want to change that aspect, the more likely it's broken- but in most cases, conservatives will continue to defend this broken aspect, because that's the status quo (or, in cases like abortion, gay rights, etc. status quo ante) they seek to defend.
Put another way: conservatives preserve the status quo. When the status quo is broken, they're wrong. When the status quo works well, they're right. Since broken things are more likely to get fixed, conservatives fight more often to defend them than to defend things that work- because conservatives preserve the status quo, regardless of its merits. Hence, conservatives are more likely to be wrong than right on any major issue.
Jefferson Smith's monograph doesn't make that argument, or anything like it. Instead it goes on a long ramble, using blatant strawmen and deliberate misstatements of basic conservative arguments to demonize conservatism. Rather than go into the rambling (which I'm prone to myself), I'll focus on the strawmen and deliberate misstatements in the article.
( Of course, if you don't intend to read the original article, you can skip all this. )
The second half or so of the monograph is much better than the first half, where the above errors are concentrated. There is one erroneous argument, though, that I want to address before I end: namely, that progressive liberalism wins because its causes are historically favored.
Quoting:
Well... no. Evidence to the contrary, in fact.
We started, thousands of years ago, with tribal cultures, followed by theocracy, followed by absolute monarchy... which then, in Greece and Rome, were followed by republics... which were followed by dictatorships and absolute monarchies... which, in their wake, were followed by tribal cultures and elected monarchies, which were followed by hereditary but limited monarchies... which then, everywhere in Europe except England and Poland, were followed by absolute monarchies (and Poland weakened and eventually vanished as a nation-state). Absolute monarchy was destroyed not by war or by inevitable progress, but by the lone example of a stable representative democracy- the United States- during the 19th century. Even then, had the Central Powers won the first World War, absolute monarchy would likely still be the norm rather than the exception.
We started with enslaving prisoners of war but joining their children to the tribes, to chattel slavery, to abhorrence of slavery (in Europe), to acceptance of slavery, to race-based chattel slavery, to gradual emancipation, to war in order to preserve slavery.
We started with limited franchise (in pre-Norman England) to no franchise, to a franchise that waxed and waned according with the times. There were more English entitled to vote for members of Parliament in 1688 than in 1776. Even in the United States, "progress" has been unsteady. Pennsylvania abolished property requirements for the vote, then reinstated them. New Jersey allowed women (who owned property) to vote, then removed that right. Non-white voting rights went back and forth (and, currently, are still on a backwards track).
Progressive change, as presented in the quote, is a myth- an illusion generated by hindsight. Jefferson Smith, in concluding his monograph with this argument, is indulging in cheerleading for his side. Not only does this ignore past progressivist failures such as Prohibition, but it creates a tautology that works to blind potential liberals- "because it's the way things are going, we support it-" in the same way that convervatives' "status quo is best" tautology blinds them.
In conclusion, this monograph would be better had it been about one-third the length, minus the deliberate distortions of the opposing viewpoints, and with a more clear statement of the unifying weakness behind conservatism. It's so badly done that, yes, I felt compelled to write something half the length of the original to rebut it.
There really has to be something better on the left than this...
starcat_jewel recently recommended an online monograph on her LJ. The title, if you couldn't guess, is, "Conservatives are always wrong."I've read it, and it's rubbish- not because of any lack of potential valid argument, but because of the many and various flaws in the argument.
First, the broadness of the argument. "Conservatives are always wrong" says it all, really: in order for the basic argument to be valid, conservatives can never be right. This is obviously not correct- blind pigs and acorns, etc. Conservatives were right about the collapse of communism (sp. that an economy cannot function without some market-based systems and the ability of the individual to keep some wealth for him/herself). Conservatives were right about the French Revolution devouring itself (and were very nearly right about the American Revolution doing so before that- had it not been for Washington). Conservatives were right about socialist economies going beyond the point of diminishing returns (which is why Maggie Thatcher held power for fourteen years, and why Great Britain came out of its economic malaise under her watch).
The argument should not be, "conservatives are always wrong," but, "conservatives are usually wrong." There's a very basic reason for this: conservatives, by definition, are those who resist change. In order to resist change, there has to be someone wanting to change something. In order for someone to want to change something, there has to be some aspect of government, the economy, or society that doesn't work properly in their eyes. The greater the number of people who want to change that aspect, the more likely it's broken- but in most cases, conservatives will continue to defend this broken aspect, because that's the status quo (or, in cases like abortion, gay rights, etc. status quo ante) they seek to defend.
Put another way: conservatives preserve the status quo. When the status quo is broken, they're wrong. When the status quo works well, they're right. Since broken things are more likely to get fixed, conservatives fight more often to defend them than to defend things that work- because conservatives preserve the status quo, regardless of its merits. Hence, conservatives are more likely to be wrong than right on any major issue.
Jefferson Smith's monograph doesn't make that argument, or anything like it. Instead it goes on a long ramble, using blatant strawmen and deliberate misstatements of basic conservative arguments to demonize conservatism. Rather than go into the rambling (which I'm prone to myself), I'll focus on the strawmen and deliberate misstatements in the article.
( Of course, if you don't intend to read the original article, you can skip all this. )
The second half or so of the monograph is much better than the first half, where the above errors are concentrated. There is one erroneous argument, though, that I want to address before I end: namely, that progressive liberalism wins because its causes are historically favored.
Quoting:
History isn’t just a big churning, with humankind continually ending up back where it started. Just as we didn’t start with the recognition that the earth is round, or that germs cause disease, and move from there toward flat-earth theories and superstitions about witches and spirits, our social understandings have clearly gone in certain directions and not others. We didn’t start, thousands of years ago, with liberal democracies, and gradually move in the direction of monarchies, feudal aristocracies, Roman military emperors and eventually the rule of priests, pharaohs and tribal chieftains. We went the other way around. We didn’t go from a worldwide rejection of slavery to broad acceptance of it, or from universal suffrage to a voting franchise limited to the propertied elite. We went the other way around. In society as in science, the overall trend is obvious – and it has a name: “progress.”
Well... no. Evidence to the contrary, in fact.
We started, thousands of years ago, with tribal cultures, followed by theocracy, followed by absolute monarchy... which then, in Greece and Rome, were followed by republics... which were followed by dictatorships and absolute monarchies... which, in their wake, were followed by tribal cultures and elected monarchies, which were followed by hereditary but limited monarchies... which then, everywhere in Europe except England and Poland, were followed by absolute monarchies (and Poland weakened and eventually vanished as a nation-state). Absolute monarchy was destroyed not by war or by inevitable progress, but by the lone example of a stable representative democracy- the United States- during the 19th century. Even then, had the Central Powers won the first World War, absolute monarchy would likely still be the norm rather than the exception.
We started with enslaving prisoners of war but joining their children to the tribes, to chattel slavery, to abhorrence of slavery (in Europe), to acceptance of slavery, to race-based chattel slavery, to gradual emancipation, to war in order to preserve slavery.
We started with limited franchise (in pre-Norman England) to no franchise, to a franchise that waxed and waned according with the times. There were more English entitled to vote for members of Parliament in 1688 than in 1776. Even in the United States, "progress" has been unsteady. Pennsylvania abolished property requirements for the vote, then reinstated them. New Jersey allowed women (who owned property) to vote, then removed that right. Non-white voting rights went back and forth (and, currently, are still on a backwards track).
Progressive change, as presented in the quote, is a myth- an illusion generated by hindsight. Jefferson Smith, in concluding his monograph with this argument, is indulging in cheerleading for his side. Not only does this ignore past progressivist failures such as Prohibition, but it creates a tautology that works to blind potential liberals- "because it's the way things are going, we support it-" in the same way that convervatives' "status quo is best" tautology blinds them.
In conclusion, this monograph would be better had it been about one-third the length, minus the deliberate distortions of the opposing viewpoints, and with a more clear statement of the unifying weakness behind conservatism. It's so badly done that, yes, I felt compelled to write something half the length of the original to rebut it.
There really has to be something better on the left than this...
