Phaedrus, you say, "by nature." How is this concept to be conveyed to, say, a Darwinist (let alone any other species of materialist or utilitarianist or "formalist") in any kind of intelligible way that would be consistent with what you mean by this statement?
The search for a common language seems to be the main challenge these days. And the search is made more difficult, given the increasingly polyglot and "multicultural" character of our native nation, not to mention the sheer impermeability of the reigning political orthodoxies with respect to the reception of new insights, experiences, or information....
Burke and Scruton make the point well, I think, but there is a fairly large class of people in this culture and in this time who are in denial and I further think they have removed themselves from reachability by discourse.
You know that I believe truth to be a "felt thing", and an example I would give is your earlier post recounting a vivid, compelling, enlightening dream, a moving experience having everything to do with truth.
The search for a common language seems to be the main challenge these days. And the search is made more difficult, given the increasingly polyglot and "multicultural" character of our native nation, not to mention the sheer impermeability of the reigning political orthodoxies with respect to the reception of new insights, experiences, or information....
The human experience is remarkably unform in many ways and the same "general rules" of conduct, the Golden Rule for example, seem to be more-or-less consistent across cultures.
You are asking, though, a very large question, bb, and I know you have your thoughts, but I don't believe the answer is to be found in improved communication for a large minority of our culture. Most do not think and are thus led apathetically toward vague "conclusions". The "Elite, Liberal" academic contingent, though, cannot be blind to their fundamentally erroneous Materialism and Atheism. They are too bright. I believe that they exhibit psychological dysfunction, severe insecurity and arrested development, by virtue of their eternal dependence upon others for their sustenance. They are cowards through and through. They are unreachable in the present institutional context.
Your take?
Was there another thread where this point was raised. I recall this was discussed somewhere else--the Hayek thread? Do you know? Where else does Scruton raise the problem of communication? Does he get it from Voegelin?
All I could find on that was: Henceforth I understood conservatism not as a political credo only, but as a lasting vision of human society, one whose truth would always be hard to perceive, harder still to communicate, and hardest of all to act upon. And especially hard is it now, when religious sentiments follow the whims of fashion, when the global economy throws our local loyalties into disarray, and when materialism and luxury deflect the spirit from the proper business of living.