It’s nice to imagine that the typical progressive has one issue about which he or she is passionate, one issue and one specific, clearly defined objective. If that were the case, we could discuss the merits of pursuing that objective. We could talk about the likely costs and the likely benefits, and maybe even reach some kind of understanding. Failing that, we could at least advocate for or against the progressive’s policy proposals in a thoughtful way.
But progressivism isn’t simply a response to the realization that something is wrong and needs to be fixed. It’s a perspective, an approach to living, an optimism about what could be. And make no mistake: however disenchanted progressives may be with the status quo, however convinced they may be that the current situation is intolerable and unjust, progressives are nonetheless optimists. They believe that the world, and the people in it, can be made better — endlessly better — and they fearlessly embrace change in pursuit of a hazy, undefinable and distant perfection.
They’re right: the world can be made better — endlessly better. An honest conservative should acknowledge that: the world is not as good as it can be, we are not as good as we can be. There is, and always will be, room for improvement, and that improvement will only come about through change. Conservatives and progressives should agree on this point: whether it is our temperament to optimistically embrace change or to pessimistically distrust it, some change is necessary and good.
Unfortunately, some change is unnecessary and bad. Some change is truly horrible: look to the starvation in oil-rich Venezuela for an example of that.
The reality is that neither pure conservatism nor pure progressivism works, in the sense of moving the human race ahead and making the world a better place. Progressivism only works if there is not much of it, just as conservatism only works if it is imperfect and, at least occasionally, amenable to progressive persuasion.
Everything is connected. We live and interact within a complex web of competing and cooperating interests, abilities, values, and goals. No one can grasp the complexity, the boundless detail, of our society, our economy, our culture. And yet it works: we coexist, get along with each other, and have created an enormous, historically unprecedented prosperity for an historically unprecedented number of people.
This is true because the web “understands” what we can not — because the whole is smarter than any of its parts. Over time, it has weeded out ideas that don’t work, so that what is left, however imperfect, works well enough to give us all we have.
So here’s where the conservative and the progressive differ, and also why the conservative is, in general, more likely right than the progressive.
Conservatives don’t understand how the world works. They just know that they don’t want to change it, because change is scary and fraught with danger, and what we have now works pretty well.
Progressives don’t understand how the world works either. They just know that they want to change it, some small part of it. The problem is that everything is connected, and that that small change will ripple outward and change other aspects of the society, economy, culture — change them in ways the progressive can’t anticipate, because no one is that smart.
This has always been true: change has always brought unintended consequences. What is different, today, is that there are a lot of progressives, and they have a lot of leverage now, in our media-driven monoculture filled with people ignorant of history and unmindful of complexity and, most importantly, embarrassed to be thought of as old-fashioned or unenlightened.
So when Rep. Ocasio-Cortez proposes something as deeply, profoundly, comprehensively, and objectively absurd as the Green New Deal, people who should know better — prominent, respected Democrats — jump on board, when instead they should be taking the child aside and explaining to her that being elected doesn’t make the foolish wise, and certainly not in her case.
Pick your bizarre and unworkable excess: imaginary human sexes beyond male and female, abortion until the day of birth, the elimination of cars and planes and fossil fuels, a centrally-planned economy that doesn’t descend into tyranny and poverty, a nation without borders, an economy crippled by the fear of climate change a hundred years from now for which no evidence exists today. In a culture with a sensible balance of conservative and progressive voices, all of these would be met with skepticism, and would have to fight to gain traction.
Progressive ideas will still fail, as often as and for the same reasons that they always have: because they change a functioning world in ways no one expected or intended. What’s different now is that the safety net of conservatism has been weakened, and more ideas — good and bad, but mostly bad because most ideas are bad — are going to slip through, and are going to have to be weeded out by painful experience rather than preemptively by natural conservative skepticism.
It would be good for conservatives to begin taking pride in their conservatism, and seeing their skepticism as a necessary and valuable contribution to defending a successful culture. We have built something good, and we should be proud to be its champions and protectors. We can’t expect progressives to surrender their optimism and hubris, nor to gain the wisdom that comes from a sensible humility. It’s our job to rein them in; it has always been our job.
Progressives are doing what they’ve always done. Conservatives have to get back to doing their job, and doing it better. So, fellow conservatives, stick your neck out and dig your feet in, be bold in your skepticism, stop going along with what you believe is nonsensical, and be the defender of what has been shown to be good.