The method we use to deal with change is the central political question

Culture and politics need to be compatible with human nature or we end up getting nowhere. Prior to the central question of political change the question is: what is human nature?

As Paul Lewis pointed out (Modern Age, Winter 2015), Edmund Burke's rising Whig bourgeoisie could have created a revolution against English feudalism if England had not already gone through centuries of change, such as the so-called “Glorious Revolution” against the Stuart kings, which brought about more press freedom, annual sessions of Parliament, and a more limited monarchy---although the “revolution” also included some violent change as well.

Those who think America was not class conscious because we had no feudal past don't define the Civil War as a northern bourgeoisie revolution against a feudal South, which it was in many ways. Now we have seen the rise of another feudal-like system, global capitalism, with the one percent controlling more and more of the wealth and the people becoming more like serfs.

So we can anticipate revolution against the one percent, as well as disruptions, civil disorder, and even revolution resulting from multiculturalism and contending ethnic groups, which is increasingly seen. And here is where the method dealing with change becomes vital. I think we need a combination of conservatism, modern liberalism, and the evolutionary science of human nature, a combination of Burke, Thomas Paine and Edward O. Wilson.

Contrary to Burke, human nature is not a “mere abstraction,” human nature is the state of nature that preceded the creation of culture. But contrary to Paine, human nature is also much influenced by the environment, social groups, habits and traditions, which depend on the time and the place. It is true that abstract ideas have often led to radical revolution, but social traditions have often led to stagnation. So, again, how political philosophy deals with change is vital.

I believe human nature is now defined by the evolutionary sciences more accurately than ever before as including kin-selection preferences, incest taboos, marriage, hierarchy, division of labor, gender differentiation, localism, ethnocentrism, even xenophobic, and religious-making, among other things, with group-selection as the primary unit of selection. If culture or political philosophy proposes to not include these things, the culture does not last long and it will always return to these things.

I believe this view of human nature leads to the ethnopluralism hypothesis, and so I think we need to apply the best methods to deal with the changes needed to establish ethnopluralism. Will it be revolutionary or conservative change? As mentioned above, I think a combination of conservatism and modern liberalism grounded in the evolutionary science of human nature—a combination of Burke, Paine and Wilson---is the way to change.

In the United States the separation of powers and states seen in the original Constitution could legally lead to an ethnopluralism of regions and states with ethnic cultures, protected by a light federalism. I think this might better avoid radical revolution against the new feudalism of the global one percent, as well as avoiding civil disorder and revolution from multiculturalism, with contending ethnic groups, which is increasingly seen.

With a deep conservatism, I would hope that the religious foundation required by any long lasting civilization would, gradually, change toward the philosophy of theological materialism, which retains but transforms past religion, as we all evolve materially in our own ways toward supermaterial Godhood.