Do we want a new Renaissance? It was a time of revolutionary change, great conflict and constant warfare. New information technology helped spread revolutionary ideas leading to the destruction of established institutions.
The Reformation and Counter-Reformation, peasant revolts, the Sack of Rome, corruption of the clergy, redrawing political and social boundaries all came out of the Renaissance. Conservatives want to save, restore what is good from the past, not destroy it to create a new world.
“Conservatives want to save, restore what is good from the past, not destroy it to create a new world.”
- During the Renaissance, what was good from the past - most importantly the belief in the possibilities of the human mind itself (the core idea of the ancient Western ideology of Humanism) and the democratic republic - was restored.
Who needs medievality and chewing on rotten turnips while repeatedly being slammed in the face by the door of an iron maiden?
Today, a loser like I can drive around in a nice car and say whatever I like, without being tortured to death - and afterwards I can enjoy a glass of Château de la Château.
That actually means a lot to me.
Naomi Klein, of all people, talks about the flip side of this in her book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. She notes that the destruction of established institutions can lead to the spread of revolutionary ideas.
She complains, however, about how Milton Friedmanit acolytes viewed the Katrina-caused destruction of New Orleans, for example, as an opportunity to fix the broken culture of the city rather than just restore the natives to their prior squalor (both economic and cultural). She sees it as a bad thing that the powers-that-be grasped the opportunity to replace the unworkable public schools system with a network of innovative charter schools. She somehow thinks that the response to destruction should be a restoration of the status quo rather than making things better.