All of these are true for certain contexts and deserve reflection by those of any political persuasion.
“…the actual to the possible…” —Oakeshott
“Conservatism is more an instinct than an idea. But it’s the instinct that I think we all ultimately share, at least if we are happy in this world. It’s the instinct to hold on to what we love, to protect it from degradation and violence and to build our lives around it.”
— Roger Scruton
I was born unwanted, in mean circumstances to a fractured family group beleaguered by poverty and physical and mental infirmity. There was very little love to hold on to and what little there was had no power. There was nothing for me to build a life around, nothing to conserve.
The actual, in my life, was never going to be preferable to the possible. If I had not held on to the possibilities of something better and worked to make my escape, I would be dead.
Not everything is worth conserving. Slavery, for instance. Women’s indentured servitude to men. The penalties for being gay. Sometimes things have to change because some of our “traditions” are predicated upon exploitation or ignorance. Humans can be a greedy, superstitious lot at times.
This is where liberalism shines. It opens space for new possibilities and corrections to the conventional wisdom, which every society needs from time to time. It is for this reason that I am and will remain a liberal politically in spite of how I am currently voting (as Sowell constantly reminds us, life requires trade offs).
That said, balance is required.
“For the conservative, human beings come into this world burdened by obligations, and subject to institutions and traditions that contain within them a precious inheritance of wisdom, without which the exercise of freedom is as likely to destroy human rights and entitlements as to enhance them.”
— Roger Scruton
Too much freedom and too little responsibility does not a balanced polity make. We must exercise enough discipline and forbearance to uphold our institutions if we want to be able to enjoy the fruits of Western civilization. I served in the military because I felt it was my duty to protect the ideals of my country. Without the ability to self determine, I would have been stuck in a horror show of a family group and my life would have been much degraded and far shorter. So, the promise of the US Constitution was and is personal for me. And I will fight to preserve it until the day I die, up to and including voting for Republicans until the left exercises some maturity and some restraint, if that is even possible. They are so high on sanctimony and theory right now that they might never come down.
I believe in nation states (globalism has been a disaster and a grift) and ideals and free speech and association. I believe in tradition and duty, but also in the freedom to determine our own course in life and unfold possibility in new ways. But these beliefs are always in tension. Discernment is required dependent on context. Too far one way and we stagnate. Too far the other and we fall off the cliff.
Here’s hoping we can exercise the wisdom to find a middle ground of creative tension. It feels both far away and right around the corner at present.
Chesterton almost had it right, this is more how I see it:
"The business of Progressives is to go on *proposing reform*. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being *made*."
Ideally people would have some understanding of this inherent tension, and the idea that both aims have valid roles. And some people might even be able to balance both concepts in judging proposals, weighing each side fairly*, and not stay pig-headedly in a partisan camp.
*Fairly, as so many of the greats expressed in various ways in the quotes above, means the priors should heavily favor the current system. Or, as frequentist statisticians would say, the null hypothesis that should only be rejected, with very convincing argument and evidence, is that the current system leads to the greatest overall good.
I would agree with this approach for the most part.
And even though I love the new and opening space for possibility, I am not such a fan of AI. It appears to be a powerful but poorly considered and overly hyped technology that has many, many downsides and the profit motive is inserting it into the commons far too quickly for people to adjust to in a balanced manner. Some conservative thoughtfulness would be useful here.
Yes. I read Asimov’s short stories about robots as a teenager and it gave me a false sense of security. It led me to attribute a certain baseline morality to scientists, and by extension, all of the gifted/smart. I believed in the benign Jetsons modality of technological evolution. I deeply believed that they would make the world a better place.
Almost 50 years later and I’ve learned that wiser heads don’t always prevail — in fact, they rarely do — and that more often than I would like, those who despise humanity have the upper hand. I am aghast at the way we are handling AI.
It is destroying my design business and my husband has been unemployed for over 17 months now even though he fought valiantly to find a job and is a brilliant engineer. We are having to pivot just a few years before we should be retiring and learn whole new vocations. Luckily, we are both autodidacts, but it’s challenging to be sure.
The whole idea of replacing all human endeavor with mechanized slop for profit seems misanthropic. And the first vocations the creators of AI went after was the creative world — writers, designers, musicians. It was always a struggle to make a living doing these things. Now, we are being replaced with simulacra for pennies on the dollar. It is rather disheartening.
Even worse, what about how our younger gens will no longer engage in skills building? What will a credential / degree be worth when it is created by AI written papers?
AI is stealing our purpose (as well as our livelihoods), and whether they regulate it or not, this won’t end well. I think they’ll have to regulate eventually, but it won’t happen before some serious damage is done.
“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”
I agree with pretty much everything you've said. Sorry to hear you and your husband are in the leading edge of the displacement. I know the industrial revolution did a similar thing to those who worked talks that became mechanized, and yet new jobs, requiring mental skills, became available. But it's hard to see the machines that take the jobs that require mental skills do anything other than concentrate power in the hands of a few. Yes, good programmers are going to be able to churn out even more good programs. But how many good programs does the world need? Not an unlimited supply, surely. So programmers themselves will be put out of work. Ditto for other industries. Even Elon Musk is admitting we will need to provided UBI, aka, socialism provided by machines. Who wants to live in that world? What do you do in a life without challenges and service and sacrifice? That's should destroying, and one short step from the Matrix.
All of these are true for certain contexts and deserve reflection by those of any political persuasion.
“…the actual to the possible…” —Oakeshott
“Conservatism is more an instinct than an idea. But it’s the instinct that I think we all ultimately share, at least if we are happy in this world. It’s the instinct to hold on to what we love, to protect it from degradation and violence and to build our lives around it.”
— Roger Scruton
I was born unwanted, in mean circumstances to a fractured family group beleaguered by poverty and physical and mental infirmity. There was very little love to hold on to and what little there was had no power. There was nothing for me to build a life around, nothing to conserve.
The actual, in my life, was never going to be preferable to the possible. If I had not held on to the possibilities of something better and worked to make my escape, I would be dead.
Not everything is worth conserving. Slavery, for instance. Women’s indentured servitude to men. The penalties for being gay. Sometimes things have to change because some of our “traditions” are predicated upon exploitation or ignorance. Humans can be a greedy, superstitious lot at times.
This is where liberalism shines. It opens space for new possibilities and corrections to the conventional wisdom, which every society needs from time to time. It is for this reason that I am and will remain a liberal politically in spite of how I am currently voting (as Sowell constantly reminds us, life requires trade offs).
That said, balance is required.
“For the conservative, human beings come into this world burdened by obligations, and subject to institutions and traditions that contain within them a precious inheritance of wisdom, without which the exercise of freedom is as likely to destroy human rights and entitlements as to enhance them.”
— Roger Scruton
Too much freedom and too little responsibility does not a balanced polity make. We must exercise enough discipline and forbearance to uphold our institutions if we want to be able to enjoy the fruits of Western civilization. I served in the military because I felt it was my duty to protect the ideals of my country. Without the ability to self determine, I would have been stuck in a horror show of a family group and my life would have been much degraded and far shorter. So, the promise of the US Constitution was and is personal for me. And I will fight to preserve it until the day I die, up to and including voting for Republicans until the left exercises some maturity and some restraint, if that is even possible. They are so high on sanctimony and theory right now that they might never come down.
I believe in nation states (globalism has been a disaster and a grift) and ideals and free speech and association. I believe in tradition and duty, but also in the freedom to determine our own course in life and unfold possibility in new ways. But these beliefs are always in tension. Discernment is required dependent on context. Too far one way and we stagnate. Too far the other and we fall off the cliff.
Here’s hoping we can exercise the wisdom to find a middle ground of creative tension. It feels both far away and right around the corner at present.
Chesterton almost had it right, this is more how I see it:
"The business of Progressives is to go on *proposing reform*. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being *made*."
Ideally people would have some understanding of this inherent tension, and the idea that both aims have valid roles. And some people might even be able to balance both concepts in judging proposals, weighing each side fairly*, and not stay pig-headedly in a partisan camp.
*Fairly, as so many of the greats expressed in various ways in the quotes above, means the priors should heavily favor the current system. Or, as frequentist statisticians would say, the null hypothesis that should only be rejected, with very convincing argument and evidence, is that the current system leads to the greatest overall good.
I would agree with this approach for the most part.
And even though I love the new and opening space for possibility, I am not such a fan of AI. It appears to be a powerful but poorly considered and overly hyped technology that has many, many downsides and the profit motive is inserting it into the commons far too quickly for people to adjust to in a balanced manner. Some conservative thoughtfulness would be useful here.
I am very fearful of the future of the world under our AI overlords, be they orchids who control the AI, or the AI itself.
Where are the proposals for how to ethically guide and control AI?
The equivalent of Asimov's laws of robotics?
*oligarchs
Yes. I read Asimov’s short stories about robots as a teenager and it gave me a false sense of security. It led me to attribute a certain baseline morality to scientists, and by extension, all of the gifted/smart. I believed in the benign Jetsons modality of technological evolution. I deeply believed that they would make the world a better place.
Almost 50 years later and I’ve learned that wiser heads don’t always prevail — in fact, they rarely do — and that more often than I would like, those who despise humanity have the upper hand. I am aghast at the way we are handling AI.
It is destroying my design business and my husband has been unemployed for over 17 months now even though he fought valiantly to find a job and is a brilliant engineer. We are having to pivot just a few years before we should be retiring and learn whole new vocations. Luckily, we are both autodidacts, but it’s challenging to be sure.
The whole idea of replacing all human endeavor with mechanized slop for profit seems misanthropic. And the first vocations the creators of AI went after was the creative world — writers, designers, musicians. It was always a struggle to make a living doing these things. Now, we are being replaced with simulacra for pennies on the dollar. It is rather disheartening.
Even worse, what about how our younger gens will no longer engage in skills building? What will a credential / degree be worth when it is created by AI written papers?
AI is stealing our purpose (as well as our livelihoods), and whether they regulate it or not, this won’t end well. I think they’ll have to regulate eventually, but it won’t happen before some serious damage is done.
“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”
—Frank Herbert, Dune
I agree with pretty much everything you've said. Sorry to hear you and your husband are in the leading edge of the displacement. I know the industrial revolution did a similar thing to those who worked talks that became mechanized, and yet new jobs, requiring mental skills, became available. But it's hard to see the machines that take the jobs that require mental skills do anything other than concentrate power in the hands of a few. Yes, good programmers are going to be able to churn out even more good programs. But how many good programs does the world need? Not an unlimited supply, surely. So programmers themselves will be put out of work. Ditto for other industries. Even Elon Musk is admitting we will need to provided UBI, aka, socialism provided by machines. Who wants to live in that world? What do you do in a life without challenges and service and sacrifice? That's should destroying, and one short step from the Matrix.
*tasks
Great quotes! I was not aware that Nick Cave is also a deep thinker.