Posted on 04/24/2003 7:15:23 AM PDT by KC Burke
I don't define Machiavelli by pragmatism. I view pragmatism an equally absurd reply to idealism. Machiavelli was concerned with neither.
PsyOp ran a thread on Machiavelli, The Quotes Justify the Man
Politics and philosophy are not the same thing, strategy or not. While politics and philosophy are not the same thing, they must be understood in their respective relations. This counts for politics and theology as well.
the conservative is concerned with what works
I should hope so . . . and more. The ancient wisdom taught that just because you can doesn't mean you should.
The ancient wisdom taught that just because you can doesn't mean you should.That's backwards. While might does not necessarily make right, right does not necessarily make might. It has to work. Machiavelli -- and Burke -- were concerned with making right.
Machiavelli appears to have broken with all preceding political philosophers. There is weighty evidence in support of this view. Yet his largest political work ostesibly seeks to bring about the rebirth of the ancient Roman Republic; far from being a radical inovator, Machiavelli is a restorer of something old and forgotten.He continues when discussing the Discourses:
We understand now why the discovery of new modes and orders, is dangerous. That rediscovery which leads up to the demands that the virtue of the ancients be imitated by present-day men, runs counter to the present-day religion: it is that religion that teaches that the imitation of ancient virtue is impossible, that it is morally impossible, for the virtues of the pagans are only resplendent vices. What Machiavelli will have to achieve in the Discourses is not merely the presentation, but the re-habilitation, of ancient virtue against the Christian critque. This does not dispose of the difficulty that the discovery of new modes and orders is only the re-discovery of the ancient modes and orders.Strauss goes on to show how Machiavelli views "present-day", Christian, "religion" as corrupt and corrupting. In fact, the Discourses model on Livy and Livy ends his history of the Republic on the rise of Christianity.
Now, this is not the main point of Strauss's essay on this fellow in the History of Political Philosopy, but it is illustrative of the depth of issues covered in Machiavelli's political thought.
I got to go to "Piety Hill," Kirk's ancestral home in rural Michigan, a long time ago, for an exquisite weekend seminar. The man had penache!
My take has always been that European conservatism was primarily traditionalist, as are some strains of US conservatism, concerned as they are with the proper order of things. But the predominant strain of US conservatism is classic liberal. Most US conservatives are essentially Constitutionalists, and this is the quintessential "classic liberal" document. The doctrines that infused the founding of the republic were revolutionary, and continue to be revolutionary even in the modern context. And very much under fire, of course.
Both kinds of conservatives are concerned with virtue, of course, but the traditionalist see it as being embedded in the historical order, and the classic liberal perhaps sees it as being embedded in the natural order, perhaps, but something to be pursued in opposition to the historical order.
Conservatism isn't about holding on to the past, since history has shown that change happens.
You sound more like what I consider to be the "classic liberal" version of conservative, if my analysis is valid. Americans tend toward this simply because of their history, which was the rejection of the old order. The idea of a natural hierarchy among men has never had much attraction on this continent, although there are some who have been attracted to this proposition.
Those who deal in what should be, in the realm of utopianism and fancy, and who put a particular ideology on such a high pedestal that real life cannot touch it, are not conservatives, even if at times they may find themselves in alliance.
Someone else in this thread made the remark that the traditionalists, in harkening back to a past and an order that never was, are themselves utopians. And this is my take.
Of course, my caveats listed here don't really lay a glove on Burke, who was standing up against a collectivist anarchy on the continent. His reverence for the established British order only made sense; not because it was old, but because it was by comparison virtuous, and led the British people to the closest semblance of liberty.
Likewise the revolution on the continent was not evil because it was novel, it was evil because it was evil. The mass executions shocked Burke, and couldn't fail to shock any decent man (although is seems it failed to shock Jefferson, I think).
But that is the test. A reverence for an established order not because it is established, but to the degree that it embodies virtue. And a suspicion of novelty that requires mass executions for its success.
The distinction between the traditionalist and the classic liberal gets blurred in the US at least, though, simply because so many of us are not one or the other but include elements in our makeup of both.
You've said it best.
A courage in the service of virtue is more enduring than a life. A life works, but death alters its meaning. And while there will always be cynics and practiced satirists with their partial evidence succeeding left and right, the expedient remains historically contingent--this is no less true for the established procedure of a constitution. Unless it is grounded in the enduring truths beyond the law itself--which is what Strauss said--it will be the effectual whim of the moment that works.
A good trade paperback available a fairly reasonible cost is the History of Political Philosophy editied by Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey. It is a mammoth overview of just about every philospher that was of political importance.
There are two ways of viewing this. I would prefer to read the best of them in the same vein as you might reverence the past: If I value any traditional culture, it is only that tradition of noble struggle, which is a only a very definite subset of the larger culture.
In other words, their healthy emulation of a past is not for the larger culture as much as for its definite subset. We could also see--from another perspective--that even nostalgia is touched by a taste for noble struggle. (I admit a sometimes embarrassing taste for sentimental pop culture)
And so, even the best of them (there is no absolute release from historical dimension for humanity) will make the subset suspect.
I hadn't read your responses before, but I find them very insightful.
Actually to be more specific, he was trying to reconcile the traditionalist and libertarian strains in the conservative movement. I read Meyer's "In Defense of Freedom" last year, and I liked it a lot. It's the closest thing I've seen in print to my own political ideas. I also have a recent biography of Meyer that was printed by ISI Books. I admire Meyer. He was a great man.
And, nicollo, if your dad has been on a Peirce "kick", then, I think Short is the man for him.
Pyro7480,
It's too bad we didn't get a chance to meet!
I got quite a few books while at that reception.
How is your internship going?
CD
Burke was an apologist for the British Monarchy and Monarchy in general and nothing more.
Today we can look at the government of the United States, founded upon the ideals of Locke, and compare it with the government of the United Kingdom, adhering to the ideals of Burke, and easily state that the government of the United States is an explicitly superior form of government.
Bumping this thread.
Bump back to you.
Tell it to Connor Cruise O'Brien.
try this as well
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