Friday, September 25, 2009

Libertarian and Conservative Misapprehensions of Human Nature

Russell Kirk writes of John Stuart Mills “imperfect apprehension of human nature” leading to the libertarianism of today. But conservatives also have an imperfect apprehension of human nature.

Libertarians believe in personal liberty or freedom as the whole end of everything and they seem oblivious to the positive achievements of the use of force throughout history. Yet conservatives seem virtually oblivious to biological evolution even as they affirm the wisdom of their ancestors and Tradition.

Ultimately it is evolution which determines the tradition and wisdom of one's ancestors. It is success in survival and reproduction which sets the tradition and wisdom of one's ancestors. As it turns out, one of the best arguments for affirming conservatism is that it has been the best philosophy for long term successful survival and reproduction.

Evolution is not an affirmation of neoterism—the lust for novelty—which is the weakness of the libertarian in their completely open view of “freedom.” Long term evolution takes place best in traditional societies. During war most positive actions cease.

We are circumscribed by our sociobiological human nature as if, as suggested by E. O. Wilson, we are on a leash which allows just so much freedom. The leash of human nature, however, tends to include the traditions of conservatism, that is, pair bonding, kin centeredness, group altruism, hierarchy, even ethnocentrism.

Like conservatives, we also suggest a deeper religious source of human action and human nature in which the Spirit Within, or the Will to Godhood activates human nature. There is a dialogue between the activation of the Spirit and natural selection in evolution. Although traditional conservatives do believe in a transcendent moral order, and libertarians (or liberals) do not, we believe that we are evolving to Godhood in nature, activated by the Spirit and formed by evolution.

The Evolutionary Christian Church, of course, is not the same as Marx's dialectic materialism, which has no spiritual activation and no Godhood goal, although Hegel's view, which Marx transvalued, might have anticipated evolutionary spirituality.

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