We see this so called celebration played out daily in Congress, in society and on these boards.
Their ideology celebrates faith at the expense of reason and directs them away from attempts to innovate and improve the world around them, which is seen as dangerous because attempts to improve ‘may’ turn out to be destructive.[11]
The Limits of Dialogue Between Faith and Reason: Russell Kirk, John Stuart Mill, and The Stupid Party
Date: February 12, 2017
Author: commonnonsenseweb
Despite all this clever word play, Kirk still fails to lift Mill’s label; “the stupid party”, from conservatism, and actually makes a case in support of this label. Of Kirk’s six canons of conservative thought, the first two actually contradict each other. Conservatives may believe in a transcendent order, a natural law that rules man’s conscience as well as society, which should be applied through politics to serve as justice in a community, but this contradicts the second canon; that life is to be lived, not guided, and that there should be no logical uniformity in a community.[6]
Firstly, how is it possible to prescribe justice in a community without laying down guidelines to at least mark off what is unjust?
Secondly, and more importantly, logic and reason embody natural law in the state of nature; it is man’s only law for liberals from Hobbes to Rousseau.[7] Even for John Locke, in his Christian justification of property, to act against reason in the state of nature is to sin, so how can there be a natural law without subscribing to logic?[8]
This is where Mill’s label gains even more weight. It would seem that conservatives are unconcerned with logic and reason, for them faith serves to dictate ideology.
The fifth canon of conservatism, “faith in prescription and distrust of sophisters, calculators, and economists” paints the picture of a complacent ideology, whose adherents might just be a little jealous of the free thinkers who wish to reshape and improve society.[9]
Kirk holds evident disdain for those who “look to reason and impulse as guides for social welfare, over the wisdom of our ancestors” and claims that “change may not be salutary reform: hasty innovations may be a devouring conflagration, rather than a torch of progress”.[10] There is small wonder why Mill had the confidence to label the conservatives as “the stupid party”.
Their ideology celebrates faith at the expense of reason and directs them away from attempts to innovate and improve the world around them, which is seen as dangerous because attempts to improve ‘may’ turn out to be destructive.[11]
Whether conservatives believe in the wisdom of their ancestors out of blind faith, laziness, or fear of what could go wrong, is unimportant; reason plays no part in their ideology, so why would the reasons behind their faith? Kirk illuminates the complacency needed to practice conservatism and in doing so lends support to Mill, who claims, “I did not mean that Conservatives are generally stupid; I meant, that stupid persons are generally Conservative”.[12]
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