Husker Red

This will be a reply for both Squashed and Politicalprof, who have been courteous enough to engage with me in a thread of discussion on the Enlightenment. I’d like to quickly provide what I hope can steer the discussion in the direction I originally intended, which is most certainly not merely a discussion of property rights. 

As I discussed briefly over Facebook this morning with my political theory Professor Dr. Ari Kohen, much of modern Conservative thought in the United States derives through a strain of anti-Enlightenment thought. For me personally, the English statesman Edmund Burke provides a very nice way of approaching and understanding governance and man’s relation to his society. Such a philosophy holds a certain disdain for the Enlightenment principles of linear progress and universal natural rights for the same reason Richard Rorty proposes a need for liberal ironists. The laws that have resulted from our understanding of natural rights are nice things, but we cannot reasonably hold them to be necessarily true due to a state of nature theory. Instead, as Rorty postulates, we are better off holding liberal principles not for their origin but because they encourage human flourishing.

With that said, it is possible to separate political opposition to Enlightenment principles from opposition to science and empiricism. Burke and his contemporaries may not have been fans of the state of nature theory, but that did not preclude them from scientific curiosity. Today, finding certain principles of the Enlightenment relatively useless for our body politic does not mean people are also locked in opposition to the rest of the Enlightenment project. Now, I do not mean to erect a straw man here. Neither of my interlocutors, to the best of my knowledge, has suggested an argument to this extent. I am simply suggesting that if modern American political liberals can embrace certain parts of the Enlightenment while distancing themselves from others, Conservatives can do likewise. 

Before going further, however, I’d like to address the claims in both posts that I seem overly concerned with property. I’ll begin with a quote from Politicalprof:

“I am concerned that “property” seems to be the be all and end all in your thinking”

After viewing this line, I nearly gave up and moved on. If *this* is what appears to be the “all and end all” of my argument, I clearly cannot argue or Politicalprof is reading my argument very selectively. 

The “all and end all” of my thinking, to be sure we are on the same page, is this:

“Perhaps a better post from Politicalprof would have stated that Americans in general seem to be rejecting science that does not adhere to their worldviews and individual prejudices. *That* would be nothing new, yet it makes it much tougher to smear a collective group of people for being less advanced or smart than another. “

Now, using “smear” in this line was clearly sarcastic. I didn’t mean to suggest that Politicalprof was engaged in some deep rooted conspiracy to propagandize against good, folksy Republican people. I merely was proposing that there is a distinct tendency in American politics for people to ignore data and conclusions that do not neatly fit their opinions. I of all people am frequently guilty of this, which is why I do my best to predominately read material and arguments from an ideological perspective not my own. (Also, *I* clearly need a writing class. *I* use *I* entirely too much in my writing)

Dr. Kohen has suggested that people’s embrace or lack thereof of empiricism is itself empirically measurable. If this has already been done, I would like to read such information and immediately dismiss it if it does not confirm my pre-existing beliefs. After all, why not?

On a serious note, the reason I read carefully from dead rich white men from the 17th century isn’t because I want to hold on to my stuff. At this point, I am largely unencumbered by much stuff that requires protecting, and if Squashed would like to sit in my chair or on my beat up leather couch when I’m not around, feel free.

I read these dead white men because they thought seriously about political problems in a time of thought that was revolutionarily different from the absolutism they were born into. I believe these dead white men were useful in the 17th century, and while personally flawed, these dead white men can provide useful insight in today’s world.

It appears to me more valuable and useful to pay attention to what these flawed individuals said rather than what they did. We are not trying to emulate their actions, but rather live up to their aspirations. Dr. King said as much over and over about our founding vision here in the United States. If he was willing to work with an imperfect system and imperfect people, that’s good enough for me as well.

Will we interpret their findings differently, using lessons we have learned and incorporating many more people into the perspective previously reserved for upper class European males? Certainly, just as I hope that someday in the future people consider what I thought within their own perspectives and worldview. A man can dream, right?