A Reading List for Conservatism
Writing by abuhatem on Friday, 16 of May , 2008 at 10:18 pm
Most of those who encounter political thought end up somewhere by the side of positivism, scientism, relativism, or social engineering. The self-evident notion that reason and experience lead to knowledge and truth - one which no rational human being can deny - is often repressed for a nihilistic belief in nothing. It is in this sense that Eric Voegelin once said that “if philosophy is not the search for truth, it is simply the cataloging of opinions.”
That all moral judgments are equal, that human beings cannot know anything, and that law itself is just random orders backed by threats to make continuity in our lives are the modern tenets of the postmodern secular religion. Eric Voegelin himself wrote about this discussing how the root of such secular religions was the gnostic desire to create heaven on earth in the world. The order of history has been the history of order. Every society attempts to view itself in the natural order of God’s creation.
Instead of seeping through myriads of pages concerning post-Enlightenment catalogs of opinion, wherein the mind which God has endowed and blessed man with is denigrated into either an “organizer” of truthlessness (postmodern nihilism) or the slave of human passions (utilitarian social engineering, socialism), it is important that one have a reading list of the alternative conservative works of political thought. No, not the gobbldygook neoconservative propaganda you find on your local library’s shelf (that itself is also Straussian nihilism, masked in religious language). The classics silly!
- Edmund Bukre - Reflections on the Revolution in France. Tradition is a natural mechanism which preserves the natural law and order. Burke was a Whig and not a Tory, he thus argues the importance of economic freedom. Revolutionaries are always wrong, even when they are right, those who promote “uprising” or “revolution” are simply backwards radicals who have the worst of human nature brought about in them. Those who sit around and discuss politics and abstract theory are contributing to societal sickness if it is excessive - abstract theory is not what makes good governance but experience. Society makes man good, and it is natural, man without society is an animal. This is the bedrock of European conservatism.
- Ibn Khaldun - al-Muqaddimah. Societies rise and fall based upon natural laws. Human beings are social animals and need interdependence to survive. Human solidarity forms the foundation of society and thus civilization. Economic freedom is paramount to a functioning society - high taxation yields low profits, price controls lead to shortages and problems, and commerce is a natural way of making a living as long as it is honest. Over indulgence in luxury leads to a lopsided human being who emphasizes the sensate. Civilizations fall primarily because of (a) the infringement on property rights and economic freedoms, and (b) the turning back on tradition and culture - the fitra or natural disposition and innate natural virtues of man at birth.
- Joseph De’Maistre - Study on Sovereignty. God gives the sanction of societies and government, not the people. Societies are natural institutions which are formed in the Divine will. Isolation is unnatural, interdependence is natural. There was no time previous to society for man. De’Maistre says agreeing with Burke, “Man’s natural state is therefore to be what he is today and what he has always been, that is to say, sociable. All human records attest to this truth….”
- Confucius - The Analects. Society imposes upon man various duties. There must exist a balanced mean which pervades man’s actions in society. Justice, charity, respect, modesty, and compassion are all aspects of ethical conduct. Friendship, filial piety, community, and society are vital realms of man’s existence and hence his happiness. Virtue must underlie society for society to thrive.
- Aristotle - The Politics. Every political community is formed to fulfill some sort of end. Human social cooperation is exponentially more beneficial than isolation - it gives a comparative advantage. Human beings are rational social animals. Justice is to give every human being their natural right - such as their natural right to life, and property. The good government is that in which the government rules for the benefit of the governed and not in unjust plundering of the populace in the governmental self-interest. The problem with a democratic government is that the poor and rich will have tense relations - the poor will attempt to use their numbers to transgress against the rich’s property.
- Ibn Tufail - Hayy ibn Yaqzan (Live the son of the Wake). The story of a human being living in isolation on an island himself who uses human reason to understand God, the natural law, and the importance of the natural order of the universe.
- Thomas Aquinas - Summa Theologica. Man’s happiness is achieved through the obedience of natural law. Freedom is devotion to God through the obedience of natural law. There exists a natural social, political, economic, and scientific order in the universe which is naturally set by God. Pondering the universe leads to the knowledge of God and his nature. Going against God’s nature leads to unhappiness in this life and various problems. Man by nature is social and cooperative, and it is the Divine natural law that societies will be formed by men.
- Alexis de’Touqeville - Democracy in America. A Whiggish conservatism discussing the pros and cons of democracy in America, especially the faults of democratic society.
- Lord Acton - Essays in the History of Liberty. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
- Arnold Toynbee - Civilization on Trial.
- C.S. Lewis - The Abolition of Man. Man’s nature is destroyed when morality is outsourced and simple school children are made to believe the dogmas of relativism in replacement of morality and ethics.
- C.S. Lewis - The Four Loves. The importance of brotherly love in civilization, agape and charitas.
- Reinhold Neihbur -Christ in Culture. A discussion of the various manifestations of how culture treats God.
- James Madison - The Federalist Papers.
- Eric Voegelin - A New Science of Politics. Positivist relativist science and political discourse which cares only for social engineering and not for morality and human order will give liberal democracy an empty nihilistic core of which it cannot stand. If liberalism is to survive, it must stand on higher moral principles than the aggregate satisfaction of pleasures. Totalitarianism arises out of moral and religious vacuums in the quest to create utopia on earth (immanentize the eschaton) which creates hell on earth. People cannot live without some sort of religion, even those who reject religion end up creating secular and political religions to make order.
- Russell Kirk - The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot. A summary of the tenets of conservatism throughout history, specifically European conservatism. The utmost tenet of conservatism, according to Kirk, is the belief in the transcendent and natural order.
- Friedrich von Hayek - The Constitution of Liberty. Hayek merges together two concepts - the importance of tradition as a natural mechanism at weeding out behaviors or activities which lead to hardship or unhappiness and the spontaneous order which results in affirming interpersonal cooperation from the marketplace. Both tradition and the spontaneous market order are aspects of the natural law, in that both are natural (Burkeans called “tradition” itself as a semi-Darwinian “natural selection” of behaviors) way of things.
- Friedrich Basitat - The Law. Justice is giving everyone their due natural rights. Socialism is thus injustice. Democray often contributes to socialism because the rich use government to help business, while the poor use government to tax the rich. Instead of cooperation and trade, you have two wrongs which don’t make a right. Plunder and conquest are illegitimate means of gaining wealth, and the web of injustices which springs about in societies lead to their ruin. The law’s main purpose should be enforcing natural rights and the markets. Extending the right to vote or democracy is sheer ruinous delusion - capitalism and markets, not democracy, is the paramount institution to be maintained.
- Karl Popper - The Open Society and Its Enemies. Societies which are open and self-criticizing prosper. Societies which are closed and punish dissent fail. As Thomas Jefferson said “Dissent is the highest fom of patriotism.” Popper’s thesis is that continual self-correction is the best political community. Failed philosophers such as Plato and Marx did not understand this point.
- Ludwig von Mises - Socialism. Socialism can never exist because of the impossibility of economic calculation under socialism. The free market allocates resources to those who subjectively value them and thus is the most democratic institution created. It also maintains private property rights. Men are by nature inequal, but helping others must be private to really count.
- Richard Weaver - Ideas have Consequences. The conceptions one have of the world, one’s belief systems, and our worldviews have consequences in the political and social realms. The Enlightenment mentality has ruined the West and not given it success. The Middle Ages was not the “dark ages” but indeed contained many reflections of the natural order which we have transgressed against and thus dealt with the pathological consequences. Imperial warfare, and relativist morality will be the emptiness that ruins the West.
- Robert Nisbet - The Quest for Community. Read all of Nisbet’s books. His core thesis is the importance of intermediate institutions such as the community in the context of individualism. Communities, churches, and other social institutions cede their voluntary virtue to the power of the state. This causes such institutions to be weakened, the state to be expanded and powerful, and the shirking of responsibility.
There are other authors to be sure. Each of which emphasizes their own aspect of the conservative political philosophy - social order, natural law, custom, civility, the rejection of utopia, anti-socialism, economic freedom, civil liberties, community, localism, and the importance of God in life. I am sure Joshua Snyder at Western Confucian knows a few more Confucian conservative thinkers. I also know a few more Islamic ones, such as the social thought of al-Ghazali and Rumi.
However, the booklist above, if read through fully, should give one a firm grounding in the worldview of the natural order.
The purpose of political theory is nothing more than policy. Thus voting policymakers, even if they do not subscribe to the conservative worldview, should read those books!
Category: Political philosophy
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Comment by The Western Confucian
Made Saturday, 17 of May , 2008 at 7:34 am
Excellent list, to which I would add José Ortega y Gasset’s Revolt of the Masses and Wilhelm Röpke’s A Humane Economy.
As far as Confucians, the “Second Sage,” Mencius, deserves a place, as do the great Taoists, Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu.
Comment by Integer
Made Saturday, 17 of May , 2008 at 7:46 pm
A very good list, but I don’t think you should have given up on Plato. You are obviously using Straussianism as a negative criteria. However there is a non-Staussian reading of Republic which sees it as a satire on Pythagorian political perfectionism. Everything else by Plato (well OK, the Laws is suspicious) is more conservative than authoritarian, and in fact an attack on the kind of relativism which evokes athoritarianism. Weaver, whom you graciously list, understood this.
At any rate, I enjoyed you blog (surfed in from Western Confucian) and plan to return.
Comment by 
abuhatem
Made Saturday, 17 of May , 2008 at 11:51 pm
Thank you for alerting me to this. There is a certain genius to Plato. His psychological analysis of the soul, and his discussions on love and agape in the dialogs are par excellence. His statement that politics is “the pursuit of the good,” is also meaningful yet becomes problematic. One quote I will always remember from Plato is that doing what you love makes you happy, and you are happy if you do what you love.
However, although Plato attacks relativism, he replaces it with a collectivism, authoritarianism, and in many cases communism (in his discussion of the guardians). Thus, Karl Popper writes widely in his “Open Society” about the great follies which have resulted through the forced readings of Plato in universities and schools. Popper writes that if people truly knew what Plato stood for they would and should be horrified and not amazed.
The weakness of Plato’s ideas are evident. In Islamic civilization all of the Platonists did not come up with any meaningful philosophical system or political theory. Ibn al-Bajjah, al-Farabi, al-Tusi, ad-Dawwani, Avicenna, and others who were inspired by Plato only came up with a muddled metaphysics and an affirmative belief in numerous variants of the vacuous belief in a “philosopher-king.”
There is a certain genius to Plato, but even Strauss attacked relativism. The genius to Plato is that he saw politics as a “higher calling” a “greater good” and attacked sophistic notions of morality and ethics. Yet he does not replace this with anything meaningful. His conservatism is implicit and latent while his authoritarianism is explicit and apparent.
But a good discussion nonetheless… ;)
Comment by TimH
Made Sunday, 18 of May , 2008 at 9:56 am
Excellent blog Abuhatem!
I would concur with Joshua that Mencius and the core Taoists Zhuangzi and Laozi should be included.
In addition, I think Augustine of Hippo’s City of God would be a valuable addition to the list. In summary:
The decline of Rome was not caused by the Christians, just as they did not cause its rise. The rise of Rome was a direct result of the natural virtues of the Roman people and polity, and its decline was a direct result of the decline of the same. Said decline was inevitable with the violent expansion of the Empire, the end of republican rule, and the creation of large estates thorough warfare. Like humans, polities also grow to a natural optimum size, growth beyond this begets gigantism. Government outside the divinely ordained natural law is indistinguishable from a band of thieves. Posits the “City of God” characterized by Charity and Justice as per the natural divine law, and the “City of Man” characterized by the “lust to dominate others”.
Comment by abuhatem
Made Sunday, 18 of May , 2008 at 2:41 pm
St. Augustine of Hippo’s book is wonderful. I was about to add it to this list. Thank you for that valuable summary. It is extremely interesting how this theme of acting naturally versus acting unnaturally and the importance of justice in civilization is almost universal.
This desire for the natural law unites the people of faith, as well as many secularists, in an ecumenic and universal desire to prevent the appearances of further social and political pathologies in the world. This is why reading these books are so important.
