Saturday, October 24, 2026

The Metaphysical Foundations of Conservatism

I notice that at PhilArchive, my essay “The Metaphysical Foundations of Conservatism” has been posted.  This appeared in the 2022 anthology Dissident Philosophers, edited by T. Allan Hillman and Tully Borland.

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125 comments:

  1. EXEOctober 24, 2026 at 12:15 PM

    (1/2)

    Interesting. So, insofar as I understood the article, the metaphysical foundations of conservatism come down to the defense of, at the very least, a presumption in the favor of tradition and common sense. Namely, that we ought to, at least, presume them innocent until proven guilty.

    OK. There are many things that could be said about this. My first and core concern is that this position typically holds an arbitrarily myopic view of what counts as "traditional moral and political arrangements". I've never once heard a conservative use this to defend egalitarianism on the grounds that hunter-gatherer societies were highly egalitarian. No, instead it's always used to defend hierarchy, monarchy, and so on. The problem is that Conservatives seem to think that hierarchical kingships where the Big Boss man is on top and everyone does what he says are our oldest and most natural form of existence. But anthropology shows that *that's simply not true*. We began as nomadic, egalitarian hunter-gatherers where both men and women did almost exactly the same work almost all of the time, and any chief who thought he could bully everyone else around by force could be and would be killed by the other members of the tribe.

    Point is, the social structures you regard as "traditional" are *not* natural or original to us - they are artifacts of the Agricultural Revolution. They only began to appear when we started settling down, farming, and especially inheriting land. Given that, why should *they* be given precedence?

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    1. AnonymousOctober 25, 2026 at 2:55 AM

      @EXE

      "We began as nomadic, egalitarian hunter-gatherers where both men and women did almost exactly the same work almost all of the time, and any chief who thought he could bully everyone else around by force could be and would be killed by the other members of the tribe.

      Point is, the social structures you regard as "traditional" are *not* natural or original to us - they are artifacts of the Agricultural Revolution. They only began to appear when we started settling down, farming, and especially inheriting land. Given that, why should *they* be given precedence?"

      You make some categorical assertions that need supporting evidence. For instance, reading a well-researched book such as Robert L. Kelly's The Lifeways of Hunter-Gatherers leaves the impression that not all hunter-gatherer societies have been egalitarian, nor does the egalitarianism (which itself requires qualification) of those that have been—which, by the way, have been far from embodying the ideal of peace and non-violence that some falsely attribute to them—represent the "natural state" of human society.

      On the other hand, if you want to critique conservative thought, you must begin by understanding its principles, especially its conception of human nature and what constitutes its fulfillment. For instance, it is futile to try to challenge the affirmation that traditional institutions are the fruit of wisdom gathered across generations if it is not clear to you why it is called wisdom, and if you fail to distinguish between its purely universal, formal aspect and its particular embodiments—which depend on the specificities, each with its own demands, that the various human communities have in different times and places.

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    2. TalmidOctober 25, 2026 at 8:53 PM

      Even if one is a thin conservative that does not seems much of a natural conection we have with private property and hierarchy i can see the argument that the agricultural revolution came to stay, so our experience with it will need to be our basis.

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    3. AnonymousOctober 26, 2026 at 7:13 AM

      @Anonymous, are you saying monarchy/hierarchy existed in prehistoric times? Why bring up the etymology of the word “wisdom”?

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    4. AnonymousOctober 26, 2026 at 7:17 AM

      @Anonymous you cannot deny that a lot of Feser’s arguments about morality and “family values” seem to presuppose 1950’s upper-middle class American capitalism which women as stay at home homemaker mom stereotypes as the primeval, natural state of humanity instituted by Adam Himself.

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    5. EXEOctober 26, 2026 at 8:35 AM

      Kelly's work doesn't really *overturn* the basic notion that pre-Agricultural hunter-gatherers were overwhelmingly egalitarian, though, it just adds more nuance to it. Kelly's actual contribution was to argue that egalitarianism was not a state of Original Innocence that people naturally ended up in, but was instead a consciously chosen and highly successful strategy. He also pointed out that they weren't all equally egalitarian all the time, with sedentary groups tending to develop hierarchy sooner. But none of that suggests that hierarchy is *natural*. It would be far more reasonable to interpret Kelly as arguing that there is *no such thing* as a natural, "original" human social structure, with both egalitarianism and hierarchy being simply things that we do in response to specific physical environments and circumstances. But to accept that would be absolutely *fatal* to Ed's entire argument, because then there wouldn't *be* any such thing as a "traditional moral and social structure" to prioritize. Those structures would not be natural to us in any sense, it would just be a blind byproduct of early sedentary farming.

      "
      On the other hand, if you want to critique conservative thought, you must begin by understanding its principles, especially its conception of human nature and what constitutes its fulfillment. For instance, it is futile to try to challenge the affirmation that traditional institutions are the fruit of wisdom gathered across generations if it is not clear to you why it is called wisdom, and if you fail to distinguish between its purely universal, formal aspect and its particular embodiments—which depend on the specificities, each with its own demands, that the various human communities have in different times and places."

      Could you please disambiguate this sentence? I'm not clear on what you are actually trying to say.

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    6. EXEOctober 26, 2026 at 9:03 AM

      Talmid,

      ...but then you are no longer appealing to human nature, you are appealing to an accidental development in social organization. It's no longer "just the way we are", it's one specific way we happened to choose to do things, once, 12,000 years ago. It therefore becomes a pure human creation, meaning that it is entirely capable of being replaced by a different human creation.

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    7. someone elseOctober 26, 2026 at 1:12 PM

      But anthropology shows that *that's simply not true*. We began as nomadic, egalitarian hunter-gatherers where both men and women did almost exactly the same work almost all of the time,

      Your assertion is not what the current state of science holds: there were, in many early societies, divisions of labor for the advantages it holds. The divisions might be not specifically across sex lines - e.g. women might be involved hunting big game - but at least some of the time the divisions carried sex-based functional parameters: nursing women probably were not as often given tasks that required long treks e.g. to hunt big game. (And because a woman might be nursing a substantial portion of her adult life, ANY such tasking differential would have a substantial impact on how much of her life she worked at such a task.) And the tasking might have been different in various societies, because their environments affected the values of the tasking: mountain ridges vs jungle valleys. The idea that they all shared all the jobs out and everyone worked at everything is as unscientific as the old statistician's joke: Shooter 1 missed to the left, Shooter 2 missed to the right, so on average, they hit him.

      Nor would the idea that they were somewhat, or even primarily, "egalitarian" mean that there was literally no form of hierarchy in the picture. I can guarantee you that a hunter-gatherer society that did not value the ideas of adults over those of children is unlikely to have survived long. They may have had different forms of hierarchy, but had it nonetheless.

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    8. TonyOctober 26, 2026 at 2:23 PM

      We began as nomadic, egalitarian hunter-gatherers

      Actually, science doesn't tell us "how we began". It informs us of a lot of nomadic groups. But it also informs us of some groups that lived in a rich, resource-stable environment (like a river delta) and stayed there. There's quite a variety of what was out there. Some of it was more egalitarian, some of it less so. There is little evidence that many were absolutely egalitarian, to the point that everyone just did whatever they felt like on every matter, because there were no rules nor rule structures.

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    9. TalmidOctober 26, 2026 at 6:55 PM

      @EXE

      What Ed calls a thin conservative would probably not be bothered by accepting this at all. I was just seeing things their way, since their view is the one who gives more credit to your own but seems to still maintain a kinda of conservatism to contemporary societies.

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    10. EXEOctober 27, 2026 at 11:18 AM

      someone else,

      I think there's a conceptual confusion going on here. When I speak of hierarchy in this context, I'm talking about "Institutional Hierarchy" - formalised power with a chain of command, like a monarchy, chieftainship, priesthood, or so forth. I don't have a problem with "Situational Authority", where, say, the Best Hunter is in charge of leading the hunt, or children having to listen to their parents (I'd still put some more restrictions on parental authority myself, but I acknowledge its basic legitimacy). That kind of authority only exists within a specific context, doesn't apply outside of that context, and is to a large degree voluntary (you can choose to ignore the best hunter's advice, even if that's a stupid idea). I don't require my Egalitarian society to have no rules at all, or to ignore the difference between wisdom and folly. What I require is for it to lack Institutional, Permanent, Hierarchy. There is no enforced obedience, no structural coercion, no squadron of thugs to go around breaking the skulls of anyone who won't obey you. That's what I mean by "Egalitarian".

      Tony,

      My point about how I define "Egalitarianism" also answers part of your point, the one about "everyone doing whatever they want". As to the other, yes, you are right, actually. Early groups that lived in resource-rich areas did settle down and tended towards being more hierarchical. But I think this actually supports my point rather than undermining it. The fact that early humans invented a huge variety of different social structures based on whatever conditions they found themselves is actually evidence *in favor* of the idea that there is no such thing as a natural society or natural institutional hierarchy, but that they are instead purely human inventions.

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    11. TonyOctober 28, 2026 at 12:58 PM

      I don't require my Egalitarian society to have no rules at all, or to ignore the difference between wisdom and folly. What I require is for it to lack Institutional, Permanent, Hierarchy. There is no enforced obedience, no structural coercion,...

      That kind of authority only exists within a specific context, doesn't apply outside of that context, and is to a large degree voluntary (you can choose to ignore the best hunter's advice, even if that's a stupid idea).

      How likely is it that there will be effective "rules" without people enforcing those rules on the ones who don't want to? And even if those who are in authority are only temporary, or only situational (the hunter leader on the hunt), for that period, his role meets the concept of "hierarchy" in its base sense: the ability of others to act at their own preference is constrained MORE than by the inherent consequences of those actions themselves. In fact, there is physical evidence of tribal (violent) enforcement against individuals who violated whatever expectations the tribe had, which violent enforcement may have been merely ad hoc by an individual, but sometimes (clearly) was a group effort. You may say that "it wasn't by 'an enforcer' designated by a power structure, but in plenty of cases it appears that's exactly what it was.

      The fact that a given power structure (even if only as to a portion of the group's activities, (e.g. the ritual priest controlled only the religious ceremonies themselves) might have not been "permanent" is an irrelevancy to my point. The fact that there might have been different structures in different places is also not germane: in considering 30 different villages that used 30 different social structures, "they're all different" doesn't in the least represent "they're egalitarian", even if some were. And my underlying point isn't that
      THERE IS ONE SPECIFIC NATURAL FORM OF SOCIAL STRUCTURE AND POWER ARRANGEMENT.
      It is that (a) having a society is itself suited to human nature, and (b) given a society, rules and consequently decision and enforcement structures are natural. They may well be egalitarian ones, sure. Egalitarian ones aren't unnatural by that mere fact.

      No half-way intelligent form of conservatism stands for the proposition that in the practical world, all societies should have one monarchical power structure, nor any specific one. Nor did conservatives like Kirk or Scruton think the US should be a monarchy. Yes, Burke defended a monarchy, but that's because that is the form THEY had already had for centuries, and he was arguing to repel the ideas of a targeted attack from the outside to violently import a different form. Given the end results 10, 20, 50, and 100 years following (compared to France), I think he was right to repel those ideas - and Britain became democratic within one long lifetime after him without a revolution.

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    12. EXEOctober 29, 2026 at 2:43 PM

      Tony,
      (1/2)
      Hmm. Those are some good points. I'm gonna need to split my response into two again. I think there's actually much less disagreement between us than it might seem. I agree that a stable society requires rules and that rules require enforcement. My main issue is with the *method* of that enforcement. You mention that there was violence against those who violated the group's rules, and that's true. But as anthropologists have pointed out, those groups typically used *reverse* dominance hierarchies - this enforcement was carried out by the group collectively, and usually against someone who was trying to accumulate permanent power or domination. For instance, ganging up on Big Boss Grug who thought he could cow everyone into submission and stabbing him to death. You even see this in our Great Ape relatives sometimes - this is how bonobos keep their sexually promiscuous society from leading to sexual domination. If a male bonobo abuses the females (say, by threatening to kill their children if they don't give him what he wants), the females gang up on him in a group of 5 or more and beat the living daylights out of him.

      But getting back to humans - my point is that there's a big difference between decentralized peer enforcement and *institutional* enforcement, where one group holds a monopoly on violence in a chain of command. The former is a rule-following community, the latter is a state/institutional hierarchy.

      Secondly, I don't agree that the example of the hunt leader satisfies the definition of "hierarchy", unless you're using hierarchy in such a loose sense that *any* form of cooperative enterprise is a hierarchy. Temporary, voluntary submission to someone else's expertise is more like a contract than a hierarchy, in my view. In this example, the *task* is what's constraining you, not the *person*. You are obeying the Chief Hunter because if you disobey, then the hunt will fail, or at least you will fail. You aren't obeying because the Chief Hunter is the Boss and what he says goes. Put it this way - after the hunt ends, can the Chief Hunter rightfully order you to clean his tent? If not, then I wouldn't classify your relationship as hierarchical in the sense I'm talking about.

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    13. EXEOctober 29, 2026 at 2:45 PM

      (2/2)

      Lastly, to your final point: you are once again correct. Conservatism needn't require a singular universal power structure. Burke's defense of monarchy does make sense within his own system and within the conditions he was working in. But you see, my actual argument in this thread hasn't been "Egalitarianism is our Nature". I raised that because I think it would be a much *more* defensible position than the kind of "Hierarchy is Our Nature" arguments that are common among conservatives. But the actual core of my argument is simply that *all* social forms are technologies that we invented and can choose to use or not. In the article, Ed defends the notion that:

      "Traditional moral and political arrangements [...] get the first word"

      I do *not* agree with this, because as I have been arguing, traditional political, moral, and social arrangements are frequently based on bad thinking, or oppression, or manipulated by the ruling class to serve their own benefit, etc. Something is not wrong just because it was handed down from our fathers, but I deny that it deserves any presumption in its favor because of that either. Ed is arguing that these structures and mores should not need to justify their existence, that they should get a free pass and that the burden of proof lies on the reformer to show that they are bad. I view this as naive at best - it's not as if we don't have plentiful evidence already of the harm caused by these structures. And at worst, this view is actively playing defense for oppression, the King's Conman tricking the peasants into being satisfied under his boot.

      I'll note that while Ed himself doesn't explicitly state "Hierarchy is Natural" in this article, he does quote Scruton as saying exactly that, and regards Scruton as representative of a major strain of Conservative thought. So even if we restrict ourselves purely to the scope of this specific article, it's clear that at least a large chunk of the people on Ed's side do believe in Natural Hierarchy. And given outside context (namely that Ed holds a Patriarchal view of family structure and thinks that social organization ultimately derives from the family), it does seem like Ed himself would logically be required to also agree that Hierarchy is Natural. And *that* view is completely undermined by the evidence that I've given so far. *That's* what I mean when I say that Conservatives often seem to have a myopic and arbitrary view of what counts as "traditional" or "natural". If you listen to some people, you'd think we just popped into existence during the Bronze Age, and that's that.

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  2. EXEOctober 24, 2026 at 12:29 PM

    (2/2)

    Now, the second point about "Common Sense". I'm OK with it as a general, quick'n'dirty heuristic for everyday affairs, but there are multiple problems with trying to appeal to Common Sense on a philosophical level. For one thing, Common Sense is inherently culturally and temporally relative. What one culture thinks of as polite and deferential strikes another as weird, rude, or even offensive. What may be treated as obvious in the Academy may be treated with skepticism or confusion outside of it. The same is true across time periods.

    Secondly, Common Sense is often socially constructed from above rather than an expression of the genuine sentiment of the common people. The people in charge of society arrange for certain ideas to be promoted and for others to be discouraged, thus shaping what counts as "Common Sense". Gramsci's theory of Cultural Hegemony is all about this concept - about how "Common Sense" is frequently little more than the interests and/or sensibilities of the powerful. Ask a random peasant from the year 1600 if the Divine Right of Kings is Common Sense, and he'll probably say yes. Go forward a few centuries and the *falsity* of the Divine Right is seen as Common Sense. Which goes to show how contingent and malleable the concept is.

    Thirdly, Common Sense relies heavily upon our intuitions as a guide. But intuition is a notoriously unreliable tool for decision-making. It's not useless, but it *is* heavily flawed. Cognitive biases, emotional responses, and misinformation can all distort intuitive judgments and regularly do so. Indeed, critical thinking mostly consists of trying to *prevent* our thinking from being distorted in the ways that it is prone to. Given this, why on Earth would we have a bias *in favor* of intuition? Isn't that a lot like having a bias *against* critical thinking?

    The fact that a Tradition has lasted a long time doesn't guarantee that it reflects any deep truth. Much like with Evolution, all that it means is that it "works well enough". To achieve a venerable old age, a Tradition just needs to avoid being so deleterious to its community that it significantly harms their chances of survival. A useless but harmless Tradition can survive just as well as a genuinely helpful one.

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    1. AnonymousOctober 25, 2026 at 4:22 AM

      @EXE

      "For one thing, Common Sense is inherently culturally and temporally relative. What one culture thinks of as polite and deferential strikes another as weird, rude, or even offensive."

      This is enough to show that you don't understand what "common sense" meant for Roger Scruton. From his perspective, common sense has both a universal aspect, valid for human communities across all times and places, and a particular one, relative to different human communities from different times and places, each with its own specifics and the concrete demands it faces. But you tend to imagine that those who speak of the universal view it as a particular, as if there were a human community having the human culture and speaking the human language alongside the various human communities of different cultures and languages


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    2. NLROctober 25, 2026 at 7:27 PM

      Common sense is not infallible. But it doesn't need to be. It is not necessary to establish common sense as infallible to argue that it is a valid starting point.

      Skepticism about common sense has a venerable history in philosophy, for instance, Zeno and Parmenides. But choosing something other than common sense as a starting point for philosophy is not infallible either.

      There is no meta-philosophy that is in a position to impartially critique all other philosophies. Arguing for or against a particular philosophy on methodological grounds (and justifying those particular methodological grounds) is simply part and parcel of doing philosophy.

      For instance, EXE, you favorably mentioned hunter-gatherer societies in your earlier comment. If someone thinks that such a society is good and wants to conserve its values, then a good starting place is the common sense of the hunter-gatherers in question. Maybe someone would want to make changes believing they would improve the society, but you have to start somewhere and so why not common sense?

      I would say that whatever one's favored type of society, there has to be some stability, the society has to preserve its core values or it is not improving, just changing. It is no good to say of whatever change that happens, it's progressing, because progressing to what? People have said all kinds of things are progress, because it is a word with a positive connotation (including eugenics). But the question is, are they, though?

      So, basically, I agree that there are drawbacks to common sense, but it is not all or nothing. Common sense and critical thinking are both parts of doing philosophy and are complementary.

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    3. EXEOctober 26, 2026 at 9:42 AM

      NLR,

      You're quietly shifting the goalposts here. My complaint wasn't that common sense is *fallible*, it's that it has frequently proved to be *outright bad* as a way of understanding reality. Let me reframe this as a political analogy to make my meaning clear:

      EXE: NLR's candidate is provably corrupt, incompetent, and dishonest. He has provably ruined most of the past postings that he has been appointed to, and there is no reason to think he has changed, so why should we trust him?

      NLR: Lay off, man! Nobody's perfect! Your candidate has flaws too!

      Basically, you are creating a false equivalence between common sense and critical thinking, as if they were both equally valid ways to truth. They just aren't. One is the reflexive prejudice and experience of a group, another is the conscious attempt to analyze reality while being mindful of the many cognitive flaws that plague our minds. Framing them as some kind of co-equal partnership is just inaccurate. One largely exists to *check* the excesses of the other, and represents a superior form of knowledge - the only reason why we don't employ it more frequently is because that's too difficult for us frail flesh-beings.

      "I would say that whatever one's favored type of society, there has to be some stability, the society has to preserve its core values or it is not improving, just changing."

      Granted, but also irrelevant. The fact that an idea keeps a society stable has nothing to do with whether or not it is true, just, flawed, etc. A society can be kept stable by a deeply unjust and oppressive concept, like the Divine Right of Kings. My argument was based on the fact that what we think of as "Common Sense" is very often nothing more than the interests of the powerful, dressed up to con us into acting against our own best interests. Your response hasn't addressed that fact at all. Just gesturing towards the fact that stability is needed does nothing to solve that.

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    4. EXEOctober 26, 2026 at 9:57 AM

      Anonymous,

      I'm going to need to ask you to explain what you actually mean when you refer to the "universal aspect" of common sense. I don't know what this is referring to, and my attempts to search it up online have not helped much. As far as I can tell, it's an extremely broad concept something along the lines of "humans naturally want to recognize each other as people, seek mutual agreement, and form communities". But I don't see how that could actually undermine my critique at all. You yourself say there is no "human community" with a single set of "human values". So, this universal capacity can only ever actually express itself in the form of *particular* local cultures, and it does nothing to protect those cultures from the bias and elite manipulation that I mentioned in my critique. So Common Sense remains an unreliable guide to the truth. If I'm wrong, can you explain how I've misunderstood this "Universal Sense", and how this sense can undermine the critiques I made?

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    5. AnonymousOctober 27, 2026 at 5:06 AM

      @EXE

      That is precisely the problem. I did not say that a set of universal values does not exist; I said that the same universal values take various embodiments depending on the specificities of the communities which manifest and reflect them, and that imagining there can be a "universal" embodiment of them indicates a misunderstanding of the universal itself.

      Regarding common sense, of course it cannot be a reliable criterion for truth in general, as there are truths it cannot reach and it can fail in its estimations. But this does not mean there is not a category of truths—envisioned by those who have spoken about that—which it uncovers and brings to light, and in the absence of which they lose their intelligibility.

      For me, the elite means the best or most valuable group within a community. If even the best aren't good, then who is good?

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    6. EXEOctober 28, 2026 at 2:43 PM

      Anon,

      Uh...ok. This is still about as clear as mud. You agree with me that Common Sense is not a useful guide to many kinds of truth. But you then invent a new, vaguely-defined "category of truths" that it supposedly is good for. You never explain what these are supposed to be, so I dunno what I'm supposed to do with that.

      "For me, the elite means the best or most valuable group within a community. If even the best aren't good, then who is good?"

      This is a purely philosophical, idealistic definition of "the elite". In reality, though, "the elite" is simply those with a monopoly on power, wealth, control of institutions, etc. There is absolutely no reason to believe that those with the most power are the best morally or intellectually, in fact, the only commonality among the elite is that they tend to be good at getting and maintaining power. Matter of fact, experience strongly suggests that the opposite is frequently true, the most powerful among us are frequently the most *immoral*. My point is that *these people*, the people with *power*, control the narrative and define what counts as "common sense". So, frequently, common sense is nothing more than the ideology of the ruling group, imposed on those below, often without them even knowing that this has happened.

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    7. AnonymousOctober 30, 2026 at 6:44 AM

      @EXE

      "Uh...ok. This is still about as clear as mud. You agree with me that Common Sense is not a useful guide to many kinds of truth. But you then invent a new, vaguely-defined "category of truths" that it supposedly is good for. You never explain what these are supposed to be, so I dunno what I'm supposed to do with that."

      Once again you are attributing words to me that I never said. Within the conceptual framework I was using as a reference, there aren't "many kinds", and "many truths" doesn't mean "many kinds of truth". I don't know if you are familiar with that anecdote about Kierkegaard (an 'apocryphal' one) regarding the answer to why water was boiling. Why are they good? Because they preserve being; if they destroyed it, they would be evil. Is not good that which preserves being and fulfills it, and evil that which leads it astray and brings about its ruin?

      "This is a purely philosophical, idealistic definition of 'the elite'."

      By no means; rather, that is how the word was commonly understood for centuries until its meaning was ideologically distorted (from anti-democratic positions!) and the distortion taken further by circles driven by resentment, that is, made up of individuals who are masterfully portrayed by Max Scheler in Ressentiment.

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    8. EXEOctober 31, 2026 at 6:55 PM

      You're spending an awful lot of time playing word-games to try and avoid my actual point. Whether you want to call them "kinds of truth", or "specific truths" or whatever, you admit that Common Sense is unreliable at many kinds of estimations. Yet then you go on to try and claim that it's uniquely capable of uncovering existential or moral truths. The problem is that, since these truths are *social* and *emotional*, they're actually very easy for powerful institutions to manipulate.

      The appeal to Ressentiment is nothing more than a cheap bit of psychoanalysis. Analyzing how power structures actually work, how they actually control narratives, isn't "envy". It's called having basic literacy in history and sociology. If you want to go and define "the elite" as "the morally best people", then knock yourself out, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the social elite, the kings, the slaveowners, the priests, the oligarchs, and so on. Historically, they got their power through violence or inheritance through blind luck, not by being the morally or intellectually best people. If you wanna claim that they *were* the best, be my guest, but you're gonna need actual evidence for that. By using this idealistic definition you are simply trying to avoid engaging with reality.

      When you bring up Kierkegaard and boiling water, I presume you're referring to the idea that truths of meaning provide us with purpose. I have to presume, because you didn't bother explaining your reference. But even if I grant that these truths give value to our lives, how does that undermine my critique? Beliefs rooted in meaning and emotion are the most vulnerable to being manufactured by a ruling class as a tool of control.

      I also notice you left "preserving being" entirely undefined. Attempting to understand you in good faith, I presume you mean that while common sense may not be scientifically true, it is "good" because it protects the traditional values that keep a society stable. (If you object to this characterization, try actually explaining your position next time.)

      But if survival and stability equal "good," your point is irrelevant. Feudalism, Absolutism, and Chattel Slavery all kept societies stable for generations, yet all of them were horrifically oppressive. If a tradition is justified simply because it preserves social stability, you are backed into a corner where you have to defend those atrocities.

      Heck, let's take the example I actually gave - the Divine Right of Kings. For centuries, the Divine Right of Kings was "common sense" to millions. If common sense is a reliable tool to "preserve being" and uncover existential truth, why did it lock humanity into a false, oppressive political system for a millennium? How do we tell the difference between a tradition that "preserves being" and one that just preserves the power of the ruling class?

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    9. AnonymousNovember 5, 2026 at 7:17 AM

      @EXE

      Actually, you are the one seeking to debate matters with which you are unfamiliar, showing more than once that you lack any serious understanding of the concepts underlying the views you dislike. In fact, the purpose provides the meaning, and not vice versa, just as the target gives meaning to the path, and not the path to the target.

      The book I recommended to you—if you are interested in increasing not just your general knowledge, but your self-knowledge, which I consider fundamental—is not written from a psychoanalytic perspective, but rather a phenomenological one. Labels aside, however, it offers a superior description of the psychology of the resentful individual.

      Regarding the "social elites" you are talking about, they assert themselves and will always do so. It depends on whether they assert themselves through genuine qualities—when we speak of true elites—or through pseudo-qualities, as seen with pseudo-elites. The latter impose themselves, for instance, in democratic systems, where it is considered just for the opinion of a knowledgeable, intelligent person to carry the same weight as that of an ignorant fool. This is why democratic systems end up with "elites" (meaning pseudo-elites) made up of demagogic swindlers, cunning opportunists, and profiteers. Supported at the ballot box by the naivety of the ordinary man—who never takes responsibility for his vote—these intellectually and morally degenerate pseudo-elites ruin their respective societies, leading them to perdition. As for the truly egalitarian hunter-gatherer tribes you idealize by blindly believing in leftist fairy tales: when misunderstandings arise in their councils, where some speak and dominate more than others, they split. Once divided, some groups thrive, while others decline. No society led by pseudo-elites lasts very long!

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  3. AnonymousOctober 24, 2026 at 1:55 PM

    With all due respect, that was 14 pages of nothing.

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    1. John LeeOctober 24, 2026 at 6:32 PM

      I suggest reading the topic sentences if you're struggling at grasping the concepts. I've had many professors suggest this to my peers and I. It works pretty well.

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    2. AnonymousOctober 25, 2026 at 1:51 PM

      John Lee, I read the topic sentences on all the pages. The only thing I am struggling with is my reading knowledge of German for my M.A. I suggest you improve your grammar. It should be "my peers and me."

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    3. AnonymousOctober 25, 2026 at 2:08 PM

      John Lee,
      I apologize for my abrasive reply. I read your Blogger profile and that I see you are a history student at Christendom College and that you meant well. I wish you well. Anon.

      Delete
  4. OAPoliceOctober 24, 2026 at 2:16 PM

    Thank you for this Ed, I will read it fully with interest when I get home.

    The passages about Scruton remind of something on the recent Twitter posts about him--ironically reason I never much bothered with him is because (maybe wrongly) I had the impression of him as a quasi-Kantian and non-metaphysically serious philosopher--give a D.M. Armstrong or a Quentin Smith to disagree with any day rather than a columnist who brushes hard ontological graft aside.

    (Ironically I know Armstrong famously was a conservative; I am not sure about Smith, though he basically reinvents Aristotle's ethics)

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    1. AnonymousOctober 25, 2026 at 2:00 PM

      I used to regularly email the late Quentin Smith, who was a kind, eccentric and brilliant philosopher. Here is Dr. Feser's eulogy to him
      https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2021/02/smith-and-divine-eternity.html

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    2. OAPoliceOctober 26, 2026 at 12:52 PM

      Thank you for this, I hadn’t seen this entry.

      Smith’s Ethical & Religious Thought in Analytic Philosophy of Language is an excellent book—or more accurately two excellent books cut together. Aside from the interesting Anselmian take on the problem of evil and development of a new Aristotelean ethics, the first part is just a great history of the shortcomings of logical positivism, plain language philosophy and other anti-metaphysical trends in analytical philosophy, as well as interesting stuff on the controversy between Kripke and Baron-Marcus. I’d recommend anyone read it as interesting and stimulating foil to The Nature of Necessity.

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  5. EXEOctober 24, 2026 at 3:02 PM

    Actually, given how Burke gets brought up regularly as a founder of Conservative thought (he is mentioned as a critical source several times in the article), I think it might be worthwhile to explore Burke and his critics. Actually, Burke was criticized by some of the most famous and intellectually-significant people of his era, so any such endeavor would inevitably be enlightening in any event. Thomas Paine, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Karl Marx all had considerable responses to the man, and they're all interesting thinkers. Of course, it's your blog, but I thought I'd make a suggestion.

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    1. AnonymousOctober 25, 2026 at 2:33 PM

      Thomas Paine wrote for the masses. Burke did not.

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    2. AnonymousOctober 25, 2026 at 4:20 PM

      And in every case, those responses aged like milk in light of the rivers of blood shed in revolutionary France and the communist world.

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    3. AnonymousOctober 25, 2026 at 7:01 PM

      Somewhere between 80- 110 million died under Communism

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    4. AnonymousOctober 25, 2026 at 11:14 PM

      Burke is not the founder of conservatism. He gets given that name on occasion by people who don't understand conservatism.

      Conservatism preceded him by as long a time as traditions preceded him: for wherever someone decided to keep to a tradition that came before him, you had a conserving act, and a conservative approach. To utterly deny every shred of conservatism would require, for example, to repudiate language, for a language just is a collection of customs. And would require for every act of a day, rethinking its value from all angles from top to bottom, and generally ignoring the past trials to meet a goal, trying instead one of the 264 other options you can think of. So far. In other words, insanity and inhumanity. We all conserve some things from yesterday.

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    5. EXEOctober 26, 2026 at 10:56 AM

      I'm going to treat all of these as if they were the same person - please speak up if this is incorrect.

      The first response is meaningless. I care about the content of someone's ideas, not the elegance with which they're expressed.

      The second is deeply uninformed. Paine and Wollstonecraft both wrote about the specific topic of the violence of the French Revolution, and neither of them felt like it undermined their claims. Indeed, *that's the entire thesis* of Paine's "the Rights of Man"! The entire book is a direct RESPONSE to Burke's "Reflections on the Revolution in France"! Meanwhile, in her similarly-named treatise from the previous year, "On the Vindication of the Rights of Men", Wollstonecraft had ably displayed Burke's hypocrisy in ignoring the structural violence that the Crown regularly inflicted on the commonfolk:

      """Misery, to reach your heart, must have its cap and bells... You mourn for the empty pageant of a court, whilst you view with careless indifference the substantial misery of the poor.""

      Or, in other words, "you only care about suffering when it's extravagant, dramatic, and happens to the 'Great and Good'".

      Do you have any actual, specific arguments they made which you can criticize? Because so far all I'm seeing is breezy rhetoric.

      Ah, now we get to the "Communist Death Toll" argument. First thing to note is that this has absolutely no relevance to anyone except Marx. Even if it were correct, it would not vindicate Burke, nor refute Paine or Wollstonecraft. Second, if we're going to say that ideas are bad because they ended up killing a lot of people, then we're going to have to get rid of Capitalism too. Why does the starvation of Ukrainians under Stalin count as deaths of Communism, but the starvation of Irish under Peel and Russel, or the starvation of the Bengalis under Churchill NOT count as deaths of Capitalism? This whole analysis relies on remaining blind to the immense structural violence that such countries carry out every single day.

      Fourthly and finally: sure, if you define "Conservatism" *that* broadly, then everyone is a Conservative. Which should be your first hint that it's a bad definition. You're confusing a personal attitude with a political philosophy. That's not what anyone means when they talk about *political* Conservatism. In reality, they mean someone trying to preserve the existing social, political, and/or economic hierarchy. If Conservatism is simply keeping good things, then Mao Zedong is a Conservative. Doesn't seem like that'd be a very helpful category.

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    6. OAPoliceOctober 26, 2026 at 3:17 PM

      Far be it for me to defend Marxism—it is after all dependent on the psychology of Ludwig Feurbuch, on the most idiotic thinkers ever to have lived—but the historical Marx could probably brush aside a lot of the consequences of actual Communist movements on the grounds that none of them actually came about following the evolution of Industrialism and Labour as he predicted e.g. Russia was a feudal agrarian society. Of course since our technology has arguably advanced beyond the material circumstances it looks like real Communism will never be tried.

      Terrifyingly a lot of the deaths under Mao occurred as a consequence of that individual not grasping Iron Age points about metallurgy and agriculture.

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    7. TalmidOctober 26, 2026 at 7:08 PM

      Dr. Feser series on the Old Atheists was just awesome, a series on the enemies of conservatism would be ver cool.
      I think than Ed is very good at representing others thoughts, hard to see a strawman from him.

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    8. TalmidOctober 26, 2026 at 7:27 PM

      Also, why talk about communism here? You americans have a strange fear of it that sadly creeped here. The whole election i'am hearing this word from the extreme right and now that our left or center-left larger than life president won again i see you guys... leader using this silly word again.

      Lets talk about the conservative x classical liberal divide at Burke time, shall we?

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    9. TonyOctober 26, 2026 at 11:22 PM

      That's not what anyone means when they talk about *political* Conservatism. In reality, they mean someone trying to preserve the existing social, political, and/or economic hierarchy.

      What is it with you and this bugaboo about "kings" and "hierarchy"? Conservatism is fine with democracies too, you know. And the conservative preference to preserve isn't limited to "the hierarchy" by any means, it extends to way, way more than that: preserving such good as now exists from destruction; preserving the society itself, from eradication, from anarchy, etc. When the economic system hasn't crashed around our ears (Germany, 1924), it aims at preserving the economic system so that the poor can get at least the same goods it used to be able to get (and maybe more), and not have even that stolen from them. It aims at preserving social norms in which MOST people find MOST of their ordinary daily enjoyments plannable, instead of an absolute law of the jungle every moment of the day, red of tooth and claw.

      You may argue that conservatives want to keep the poor in that state, keep the powerless so that they remain powerless, and so on. But in fact you've missed the point: conservatism isn't per se against fixing social defects, but to fix them with care and caution to not make things worse as you go about it making that effort. (And to the extent Burke and his ilk thought things that could be construed that way, they were merely bad at formulating the conservatism that predated them by being implicit in prior society.)

      I am for keeping the powerless from having power - when, specifically, those powerless are so because they have demonstrated the ignorance of children, trenchant disregard of the common good, or insanity. And for converting the ignorant powerless and the malicious or dissolute powerless into well-educated people and virtuous people fit for power, and getting them power. Yet somehow I am counted as a conservative.

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    10. TerilienOctober 27, 2026 at 8:06 AM

      If yall want a balanced take on the french revolution I found the oxford history of the French revolution excellent.

      Delete
    11. EXEOctober 27, 2026 at 10:33 AM

      Americans' fear of Communism is strange in one sense, in that it is bizarre and ridiculous to an outsider. However, in another sense, it is not strange at all - by which I mean that it is precisely what you would expect them to believe given the kinds of propaganda they are regularly bombarded with, and which it is in the interests of their rulers to promote. "Red-Baiting" (accusing someone or something of being connected with Communism) is a very old, very powerful slander in American politics. Generally, you can assume that anything that opposes American interests will be slapped with that label, especially if it opposes American business interests. Pancho Villa, for instance, was slandered as a "Bolshevik" even though he wasn't even really a socialist at all - he was simply a peasant leader who wanted land reform, for the peasants to own their land rather than having to rent it from huge landlords. And he wanted Mexico to not be dominated and exploited by American businesses, so of course they treated him as if he were no different from Lenin.

      The *other* half of this coin is even uglier - anti-Communism has been used for many purposes, but most common of all has been the defense of racism. Any and every civil rights movement in the United States has been called Socialist, Communist, Radical, etc. Go back to the Civil Rights Era and you can find preserved photographs of segregation advocates with placards that loudly proclaim "RACE MIXING IS COMMUNISM". And actually, it goes back even further, to slavery itself. Go back to the 1850s and you will find Southern pro-slavery voices denouncing the abolition of slavery as socialist madness. I present to the community a speech given by one Robert M.T. Hunter, Virginia Senator, in 1850:

      "“no government has yet existed, which did not recognize and enforce involuntary servitude for other causes than crime. To destroy that, we must destroy all inequality in property . . . Your socialist is the true abolitionist, and he only fully understands his mission.”"

      Even more ridiculously, they were saying this in an era before Marx had really written anything of note, so when they say "Socialism", they're attacking Utopian Socialism - the Robert Owen and Charles Fourier style of Socialism. Which was pacifistic, rationalistic, and about as far from the Bolsheviks as it's possible to be! Which should put paid to the idea that anti-Socialism is merely some innocent response to the brutality of Lenin and Stalin. They've been singing the same old fear-mongering hymn for nearly 200 years, and had been doing so *long* before Socialism had killed anyone.

      Also, Talmid, I presume from your comments that you're Brazilian? Congratulations on defeating a Trump puppet. However, you might want to look at dealing with Evangelicalism. The Evangelicals in your country support basically the same kind of politics that they do in the United States - that is to say, they'll support any old fascist uncritically just so long as he says "I love Jesus" and promises to hurt all the people they hate (which is basically anyone who isn't like them).

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    12. EXEOctober 27, 2026 at 4:53 PM

      Tony,

      Who gets to decide what counts as ignorance, malice, and insanity? If your instinctual response is to say "it's obvious" - no, no it's not.

      I have no problem with conserving good things. Try not to get confused between "conservatism" as a personal habit and *political* conservatism. But if you protect unjust social structures, then you are complicit in their injustice. You are not absolved just because your complicity comes from a habitual resistance to change rather than conscious alignment with that exploitative system.

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    13. TalmidOctober 27, 2026 at 9:15 PM

      @EXE

      That was a informative and a bit sad expositition on anti-communism(which did look cool in Rocky IV). Will definitely research. As a reward i give you a new word: miliciano.
      As in "the miliciano than lost the election even with Meta help has run away to the Unite States!" Yea, that happened, you guys can stay with him.

      You are completely right about evangelicals. In the 70s your government actually helped this thing proliferate here in our awesome soil exactly to conter the influence of left-wing catholics on social and political questions. I try to explain that to a traditionalist friend for months! The average person is okay enough, but they are completely dominate mentally by people as evil as a Medici, but with way less culture.

      This is actually relevant for the discussion, for these evangelicals are not exactly conservative, they hate our national symbols*, try to violently change peoples customs, art and even clothing and still insist in presenting themselves as good conservatives, so the word here is very misunderstood.

      This problem seems to be happening on the discussion, for the conservative atitude and even conservative principles defended by past thinkers seems to not be as well separated here from these than call themselves conservatives today and from some bad political opinions older thinkers had on their day.
      Tony, for instance, seems to be trying to separate, say, Burke principles from some atitudes of his

      *Brasil is culturally catholic, after all

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    14. TonyOctober 27, 2026 at 9:15 PM

      Who gets to decide what counts as ignorance, malice, and insanity?

      Great question. Is it obvious? No, I agree that not every aspect of it is obvious.

      But I will also insist that SOME aspects are, indeed, obvious. Nobody gives the reins of power to toddlers, or those 5 or 10 or 15 years old. If nobody does it, can we admit that THIS, at least, is obvious?

      But if you protect unjust social structures, then you are complicit in their injustice. You are not absolved just because your complicity comes from a habitual resistance to change rather than conscious alignment with that exploitative system.

      I agree that if you protect unjust social structures solely out of habitual resistance to change, then you share in the injustice.

      What it you don't protect unjust social structures per se, but are working to change them slowly? What if you don't change certain unjust systems because you are unable to unable at this time to gather the resources to have even a plausible stab at replacing them with better - but you are working at changing the preliminaries so that eventually your children CAN gather the resources to make a good change? What if you protect unjust social structures because all of the loudest voices for pulling them down are clearly bent on far worse?

      I tried to meet you half way. Can you come forward the other half?

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    15. DrYogamiOctober 28, 2026 at 6:12 AM

      "Go back to the 1850s and you will find Southern pro-slavery voices denouncing the abolition of slavery as socialist madness"

      EXE, two can play this silly game. You can even find pro-slavery voices that endorse socialism and were anti-capitalist, such as George Fitzhugh, who in his book Sociology for the South, wrote:

      "Slavery is a form and the very best form of socialism"

      Here's another quote:

      "Louis Napoleon is made Emperor. He
      is a socialist, and socialism is the new fashion-
      able name of slavery. He understands the dis-
      ease of society, and has nerve enough for any
      surgical operation that may be required to cure
      it. His first step in socialism was to take the
      money of the rich to buy wheat for all. The
      measure was well-timed, necessary and just. He
      is now building houses on the social plan for
      working men, and his Queen is providing nurse-
      ries and nurses for the children of the working
      women, just as we Southerners do for our negro
      women and children. It is a great economy.
      Fourier suggested it long after Southerners had
      practiced it."

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    16. TonyOctober 28, 2026 at 7:52 AM

      And let me add:

      I have no problem with conserving good things.

      Yes, I figured that, thank you. Now much more to the point: do you have anywhere in your paradigm a setting that presumes conserving (at least in some areas) unless something comes along to prove that's not beneficial? That's the crux. Do you, each morning, ask yourself "Before I put these clothes on, I should first reconsider every aspect of whether I should act as if i owned them, or should I just go with yesterday's situation and assume that's the best idea for today also. Should make a pitstop in this bathroom at hand like I was doing yesterday and the day before, or should I instead consider if maybe I should use the trench outside and any other options?" Etc. If we (all of us) simply assume some things continue in force from yesterday until a more urgent reason comes along to dislodge that, we are (all of us) using a conservative principle in our practical behavior.

      Then the questions seems to be more along the lines of "is this principle justifiable at all, and if so, what is the justification, and what are its limiting factors?" The person who is "a conservative" rather than merely one who uses a conservative principle in practice" is one who at least implicitly believes that the principle is indeed justifiable and widely applicable (especially politics) - though different stripes of conservatives will offer a variety of different justifications for it, and even more varieties of limiting factors. Burke's and Scruton's answers to those questions do not define conservatism, they set forth their particular flavors of it.

      I would suggest that many who describe themselves as liberals either deny that there is a justification for the principle (though they use it anyway), or deny that the principle applies in politics, or (probably most commonly) they imagine the principle's justification is very thin and weak and they deny that it applies widely at all, so it is hardly useful to think in terms of that principle as a guideline. (I say "imagine" above rather than "think" because the average liberal cannot actually articulate any of the justifications that conservatives would offer as the underlying justification, so they cannot be said to have considered them and rejected them on reasoned grounds. Though this complaint is probably just about as applicable the other way around.)

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    17. EXEOctober 28, 2026 at 2:22 PM

      DrYogami,

      You *cannot* be serious. Either you are extremely ignorant of this topic or else you are extremely dishonest. Anyone who's ever studied Fitzhugh knows that the man was about as far from a Socialist as it's possible to be! The man was such a rabid authoritarian that he thought slavery should be extended to *every race, EVEN POOR WHITES!*. He explicitly hated liberty, hated equality, and argued that the free market gave regular people too much freedom.
      When he appropriated the language of socialism, he was doing it to *troll abolitionists*! Here's another quote from the same man:

      "We treat the Abolitionists and Socialists as identical, because they are notoriously the same people, employing the same arguments and bent on the same schemes. Abolition is the first step in Socialism: the former proposes to abolish negro slavery, the latter all kinds of slavery – religion, government, marriage, families, property – nay, human nature itself. Yet the former contains the germ of the latter, and very soon ripens into it; Abolition is Socialism in its infancy.[36]"
      -George Fitzhugh, "Sociology For the South, or The Failure of a Free Society".

      His *actual* beliefs were that all poor folk, Black and White, were too weak for freedom and ought to be put in chains as a kind of mercy. The mainstream Southern elite rejected Fitzhugh's weird pseudo-feudalism and instead defended slavery by appealing explicitly to their right to private property, and repeatedly called abolitionism a kind of socialist madness.

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    18. EXEOctober 28, 2026 at 2:32 PM

      Tony,

      You know what? We might have a degree of agreement there. I'm especially cautious about this sort of thing because I am part of a few marginalized categories, and thus I am familiar with being on the wrong side of these kinds of rules and judgments.

      As for your reformist suggestion? It depends on whether you're correct about this being the best or only thing you can do. If it is, then I actually agree with you, though probably not in every specific example you might think of. I'm just aware that rotten institutions generally need to be knocked down with force at some point. However, that doesn't mean we can go off half-cocked, either.

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    19. AnonymousOctober 29, 2026 at 9:47 AM

      EXE,

      "The man was such a rabid authoritarian that he thought slavery should be extended to *every race, EVEN POOR WHITES!*. He explicitly hated liberty, hated equality, and argued that the free market gave regular people too much freedom."

      Yes, indeed. Thank you for proving my point.

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    20. DrYogamiOctober 29, 2026 at 9:49 AM

      That was me under 'anonymous'.

      Delete
    21. EXEOctober 29, 2026 at 12:36 PM

      ...I...didn't? My point was that anti-Socialism was used as a shield for slavery. How does one weirdo making jokes about "hey, slavery is actually the real socialism, bro!" change any of that? It doesn't. He actually hated Socialism, as he makes explicit *even in the exact book you quoted from*. And even if we somehow decided to ignore that, why would one dude using socialism to *support* slavery somehow negate the many, many others who argued fiercely that the two were incompatible? Do you have more than one example? Because if one dude is all it takes, then the existence of Jackson Hinkle and his "MAGA Communism" movement is proof that Donald Trump is a Communist.
      And what of the fact that the "Socialist/Communist" label has been slapped on every civil rights movement since then? You have completely failed to address anything I've said. Smug quips are not answers. Do better.

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    22. EXEOctober 31, 2026 at 8:05 PM

      Tony,

      Hmm. Ok, to your point about having a general principle re: keeping what worked yesterday -
      I'd argue that this principle cannot be safely generalized beyond the arena of personal routine. "This routine works for me so I don't feel a need to change it" is a completely different kind of claim than "this social order works so we shouldn't feel a need to change it." When it comes to your own routine, you are the only stakeholder. No coercion or exploitation is involved, and there is no moral element. Nobody is going to put you in prison for having the "wrong" morning routine. It's simply a matter of individual cognitive efficiency.

      This is not true of social organization. For one thing, there is no unified "we" or "us" in a political context. Your routine works for you because it only affects you. But does the present social order "work for us"? A landlord and a tenant facing eviction do not share the same "us," and they will give radically different answers to that question. Defaulting to the status quo is not a neutral act—it is a political choice to default to the side of the current "winners." As the saying goes, "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor."

      Furthermore, the notion that the reformer always bears the burden of proof to show the current order is harmful is fundamentally flawed in practice. Human beings are socialized within their environments. If you are personally benefiting from a social structure, that structure becomes completely invisible to you. Your common sense tells you everything is fine; if you are never presumed to be dangerous or criminal by the police, it is easy to default to skepticism when marginalized groups report systemic brutality.

      Additionally, the institutional framework that decides what constitutes valid "proof" is itself never neutral. In an unequal society, the institutions that adjudicate proof (the legal system, the media, the academy) are controlled by those who benefit from the status quo. They will naturally ignore, dismiss, or outright suppress evidence of harm to protect their own legitimacy.

      History is a catalog of this exact dynamic. Under American slavery, Black slaves legally could not testify against white people; the legal system forcibly disqualified their testimony even when the whip-welts were visible in their flesh. Even Free Blacks generally had their right to testify against Whites severely restricted; it was only allowed rarely and on a situational basis. When they fled captivity, their natural desire for freedom was medicalized as a mental disorder called "drapetomania." When early industrial workers brought the mangled bodies of their colleagues to court as proof of lethal factory conditions, judges routinely threw the cases out under the 'Assumption of Risk' doctrine, ruling that workers had 'consensually' accepted the threat of death when they took a wage, or that it didn't count if the injury was caused by a fellow employee. Heck, in Priestly vs Fowler, the judge even admitted that he made his ruling specifically to protect the great and powerful from having to take responsibility for their underlings.

      My point ultimately boils down to this: expecting the victims of an unequal social order to provide proof of harm before making a change is a rigged game. It forces people to prove their own suffering to the very institutions responsible for inflicting it, using a rulebook written by the oppressors.

      Delete
  6. OAPoliceOctober 25, 2026 at 3:07 AM

    I would propose the minimal position: Belief in some transcendent Good.

    The anti-metaphysical aspect of conservatism I have always found dubious verging on deleterious. Ironically I suspect what most people associate with the supposed negative aspects of conservatism--parochialism, closed mindedness and custom for custom's sake--are actually more closely related to a Sceptical linage, as meant in the literal sense. The Roman sceptics believed their philosophy supported conservatism just because it barred the way to any intellectual innovation making it safer to stick with custom, and Hume himself flirted with this position.

    There is a fear, maybe unfair, that the conservative would be quick to answer the question "why ought one not set fire to the city in order to watch the beautiful flames?" with threats of police and appeals to communal desire for want of any answer to the soul. Which of course should lead the more patient aesthetic urban arsonist to conclude the "morally" determining factor is power, hence "I will become Emperor and then be free to watch with joy as the city burns."

    In short: No God = No morality, No objective truth.

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    1. TalmidOctober 26, 2026 at 7:23 PM

      How transcendent is this Good? Confucianism seems to me very conservative in temperament, at least, but it is completely focused on this world, which seems more common in societies molded by it, like Japan and China.

      Sure, they had gods and ancestors worship, but that is more on they not having the Abrahamic natural/supernatural distinction than anything else. And, like the greeks and even the buddhists, their gods are hardly transcendent.

      Even today on the officially atheistic Republic of China confucians apparently do have some influence. Perhaps a view of a objective morality* is what we need?

      *confucians, at least today, probably would not admit it on a metaphysical sense, but socially? Yea.

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    2. EXEOctober 27, 2026 at 4:08 PM

      (1/2)

      This seems a bit myopic. Confucianism is focused on this-worldly ethics, but it didn't need to do otherwise, because it was embedded in a deeply-enchanted cosmology where Tian ("Heaven", though it's important to note that this concept refers more to a transcendent, cosmic moral order and purpose to the Universe, so it might be more accurate to compare this to "The Cosmic Law") permeated and oversaw all things. They focused on this-worldly order because that behavior was supposed to bring this world into harmony with the transcendent moral order of Tian. It just has a very different perception of what "sacred" even means, and what its purpose is, than does Christianity. This was further embedded into political concepts like Tianxia ("All/Everything Under Heaven"), which was the concept that the Chinese Emperor, being Son of Heaven, had been divinely appointed to rule the mortal universe, with order and civilization radiating outward from his court to China Proper, then to China's subject tributary states, and finally with the Barbarians on the outside, on the fringes of the moral order.

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    3. EXEOctober 27, 2026 at 4:37 PM

      (2/2)

      Also, Confucianism is only one piece of Chinese religious thought. It has always co-existed with various kinds of Folk Religion, for one thing. And of course the influence of Buddhism can't be understated. However, if you'll permit me a diversion into my favorite of the Chinese religions...

      Daoism is also crucial, and often served as the mystical counterweight to the often-dry Confucian ritualism. As to the question of transcendence; I'm not sure if the concept even makes sense under Daoism. My understanding is obviously very poor and amateurish, but I think a Daoist would view the attempt to "get outside" of reality as inherently foolish, misguided, and impossible. "The Way" is the fundamental force/flow/action of the Universe, and Daoism would probably say something along the lines that Transcendence is not found outside the Universe, but within it. More accurately, transcendence would consist of something more like being completely without preconceptions and simply taking reality as it comes, without trying to impose one's will or suppositions upon it. This is sometimes summed up, inelegantly, as "Go With The Flow", but that implies passivity and resignation, which is not a good description of Daoist thought (it would be more accurate to say that it's about doing everything at the right time and in the right way, rather than simply doing nothing).

      This all comes down to a central tenet called "Wuwei", which is a term of art with a specific meaning. Literally it means "Not-Acting/Non-Doing", but it is crucial to realize that it is very different from *inaction*. Wuwei is not "doing nothing", it would be much more accurate to compare it to complete and utter spontaneity at all times. The "Wei" part of the word refers not just to action but specifically to *conscious, deliberate* action. So, Wuwei might best be compared to the complete eschewal of having conscious ideals or plans to guide one, instead simply doing what strikes one in the moment. It's because of this complete rejection of artificiality that Taoism's favored metaphor for excellence is that one should make oneself like a block of uncarved wood, as opposed to Confucianism's preference for the ornate, elaborately-carved Jade.

      Here, I'll offer a quote from a book that understands better than I ever could:

      "Wei means “doing” or “making,” but also “for a conscious, deliberate purpose.” Wu-wei thus means non-doing, implying effortlessness, non-striving, non-artificiality, non-coercion, but most centrally eschewal of conscious purpose as controller of our actions.

      So in a way the idea of wu-wei implies a global reconsideration of the very premise of your question — the status and desirability of striving as such, or having any definite conscious ideals guide our lives, any definite conscious ethical guide. Wu-wei is what happens without being made to happen by a definite intention, without a plan, without an ulterior motive — the way one does the things one doesn’t have to try to do, what one is doing without noticing it, without conscious motive. Our heart beats, but we do not “do” the beating of our hearts — it just happens. Taoism says “wu-wei er wu bu-wei” — by non-doing, nothing is left undone.

      Theistic traditions might suggest that what is not deliberately made or done by us is done by someone else — God — and done by design, for a purpose. Even post-theistic naturalists might still speak of the functions of things in terms of their “purpose” (“the heart pumps in order to circulate the blood and keep the body alive”). But for Taoists, only what is done by a mind with a prior intention can have a purpose, and nature isn’t like that. It does it all without anyone knowing how or why it’s done, and that’s why it works so well."
      -Brook Ziporyn

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    4. EXEOctober 27, 2026 at 4:47 PM

      OAPolice,

      Anyone who argues that morality requires theism loses a great deal of my respect. Atheists can and do come up with moral systems, and abide by them too. Some of them even believe in objective morality! You don't need to find these persuasive, but pretending like they don't exist is just silly. And the idea that God is required for objective truth is even sillier. For the record, I don't see why we need "objective" morality in order to have morality in the first place. Whenever I see theists make these absurd "well if there's no objective morality why shouldn't I kill everyone?" hypotheticals all I can think is that they've outed themselves as a psychopath on a leash, someone whose bloodlust and depravity is only kept in check by a constant threat of damnation. The vast majority of people would never even *want* to do such things in the first place. Such monsters are kept in check perfectly well by the fact that everyone else would prefer to live in a world where they *don't* have to deal with their shit and thus they'd better toe the line or suffer punishment. I sometimes see people go on and say "well what if I don't care about being executed by the mob, why then shouldn't I be a murderer?", but that reply works just as well against God. Anyone that crazed could easily say "what if I don't care about being sent to Hell?". At least we actually know for a fact that being killed by a mob is a real thing that can actually happen.

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    5. TalmidOctober 27, 2026 at 9:27 PM

      @EXE

      Agreed than Confucianism has a objective moral order, but the Tian seems more pantheistic than anything else, there is ordered cosmos but not real divide between orderer and ordered. They do remember me a bit of the stoics, even if the greeks cosmos is smaller and less mythical.

      I did only take off objective morality from today confucians*, the philosophy as such is in a way transcendent, but i would not say it is very theistic, that is the dificult with QAPolice view.

      And Daoism do fit more with your views. It is hard to understand, will try the book again someday, but it seems like historically it is not very conservative politically. Exposition was cool, thought.

      *but i admit this is only a supposition

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    6. EXEOctober 28, 2026 at 1:27 PM

      Talmid

      Thanks. It genuinely touches me to be seen and engaged with. And yes, it's true, Daoism is naturally suited to my temperament. This explanation got away from me in length, so I hope you don't mind if I split it into two parts :p

      (1/2)
      Let me put it this way - I am neurodivergent. This means a few things, but most relevant is the fact that I cannot be unaware of how foolish, illogical, and unjust our social conventions can be. And I mean "cannot", that fact is made painfully clear to me on a regular basis. I, and those like me, frequently suffer because of the way social conventions work. For example, I don't understand why so many neurotypicals cannot seem to be honest or straightforward about anything. If they want me to close a window, they won't just ask me to close the darn window, instead they'll insinuate with phrases like "it sure is cold today". But because *I* would not use such insinuation in speech, it will never occur to me (unless I have experience with this happening before) that they are doing anything other than making a literal statement. Then they often jump to the conclusion that I'm either stupid or consciously choosing to be rude. Then, of course, I'm baffled and upset that the person is angry at me for no discernible reason at all. Try to imagine the distress you'd feel if you had a seemingly-normal social interaction, and then two minutes later the other person was furious at you for some grave insult you had apparently thrown at them. Oh, and if you ask what you said wrong you will be considered *even ruder* and be told that "you know what you did!!!!". Examples could be multiplied a thousandfold, mostly to do with the quiet assumptions that "everyone knows" and which are thus not taught to anyone, except neurodivergent people don't know these! Like "you're not ACTUALLY expected to give 100% at work, that's just empty rhetoric", or "you're not ACTUALLY expected to follow every rule", or "meetings don't ACTUALLY want your input, they're social grooming rituals where the real purpose is to pat each other on the back and kiss the boss' backside".

      There's also the difference in top-down vs bottom-up processing. A neurotypical will see a beach scene and automatically impose a frame of reference on it based on past experience, and thus make certain assumptions about the scene, filtering out information deemed "irrelevant". A neurodivergent person will note the sand, the sea, the clouds, the deck chair, the spade, the bucket, the crab, the towel, and treat these as individual data points to build up a picture ("it's a beach"). We bring no or far fewer assumptions to that process. But this mismatch can cause severe miscommunication. Say you send me a text message and I don't reply. The next day, you ask me why I didn't get back to you. I do what seems sensible to me - I give you the exact sequence of events that led to me not returning your call along with how they affected me. "I saw your message, but my phone ran out of battery, and then I'd lost my charger and I went to get my laptop but then I got distracted and overwhelmed..." and so on. To me, this is all genuinely necessary information to explain why I didn't reply, but the neurotypical, who was probably expecting "Sorry, my bad bro", is now upset, because they expected me to lead with an acknowledgment of their hurt feelings, and to them, my "excessive" level of detail comes across as dishonest, as coming up with a lame cock-and-bull story. So what they hear is "I didn't return your call because I don't care about you", even though I didn't mean anything like that whatsoever! ...it's rough.

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    7. EXEOctober 28, 2026 at 1:49 PM

      (2/2)

      OK, now to why this is relevant to Daoism. Consider being a person to whom social rules are largely inscrutable, arbitrary, and burdensome, an "invisible rulebook" that everyone except you was granted a copy of at birth. Now imagine how this person would respond to a philosophy that says that social rules, moral orders, and conventions are artificial distortions of nature that alienate us from the true way of Nature, and which get in the way of harmony and peace. Imagine being told, or thinking, that you were inferior or useless because the way you were born makes you incapable of "fitting in", of being like others, and then being told that it is a great virtue to be entirely, unapologetically yourself, and to be of no utility for producing things.

      Here's a famous story that I rather like, which sums it up. This is a paraphrase, but it carries the same meaning:

      "Carpenter Shi was traveling through the countryside with his young apprentice when they came upon a village shrine built around an enormous oak tree. The tree was ancient beyond measure, its trunk so vast that a thousand men holding hands couldn't encircle it. Its branches spread like a green cathedral, offering shade to the entire village square.

      The apprentice stood transfixed. "Master!" he called excitedly. "In all my travels I've never seen timber so magnificent! Why won't you even look at it?"

      Carpenter Shi barely glanced up from his path. "Worthless wood," he muttered dismissively. "Make boats from it and they'll sink. Make coffins and they'll rot before the bodies do. Make tools and they'll break in your hands. Make houses and they'll be eaten by worms. It's completely useless—that's the only reason it's lived so long."

      The carpenter continued on his way, but that night the great tree appeared to him in a dream.

      "What are you comparing me to?" asked the tree. "Fine trees like cherry and pear? Those trees that bear fruit are attacked the moment they ripen. Their branches are broken, their bark is stripped. Their very usefulness makes their lives miserable, cutting short their natural span. This happens to all things.

      "I've been working for ages to become perfectly useless. I nearly died several times in the attempt, but I've finally succeeded. My uselessness is now my greatest usefulness. If I had been useful, do you think I could have grown this large?

      "Besides, you and I are both just things in this world. How can one thing judge another? You're a dying man who understands nothing—what could you know about a useless tree?"

      When Carpenter Shi awoke, he told his apprentice about the dream. The young man was confused: "If the tree wants to be useless, why does it serve as a shrine?"

      The master smiled. "Quiet! It's simply taking shelter there. Those who don't understand it might harm it otherwise. If it weren't a shrine tree, wouldn't it be in danger of being cut down? Its way of preserving itself is different from ordinary trees, so using conventional standards to judge it will lead us far astray.""
      -Paraphrase of Zhuangzi, Chapter 4, "Of Man In The World", Tale 5

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    8. EXEOctober 28, 2026 at 1:50 PM

      (FYI, if you want to learn about Daoism, the two foundational texts are the Tao Te Ching (a notoriously obscure book written in poetic style) and the Zhuangzi (a book of tales and parables)). The actual intended meaning is not always clear, so having a commentary on hand might be of use.

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    9. TalmidOctober 28, 2026 at 9:59 PM

      @EXE

      That was a deeply personal exposition, thanks for that. I wonder if i'am not neurodivergent myself in having similar experiences*, so i can see pretty well your point.

      In my case this dificult was something that i came to learn to mitigate with the years, as a child i was pretty bad at it, even if i'am a bit of a outcast. A thing it created, along with life, was a sorta of lack of confidence on others ability to understand me, what people call masking and a lot of arrogance on any subject i consider myself knowledgeable(medicine obviously not but philosophy yes, for instance). I know i'am diferent and is hard to not see my way as better.

      A thing i learned was exactly than people see the world diferently, so i'am also bound to not understand their reasoning very well, exactly like you in seeing their way of communicating as stupid. Perhaps it is, but we need to learn to do it as to live well. It is frustrating, i know.

      But also my love of philosophy and St. Thomas work with "outsider" philosophy was to me pretty much a invitation to dedicating myself to understanding others, which i do try also in religion. Any kind of fundamentalist thinking is a nightmare to do it, still can't, but i try.

      *and being treated as having something wrong with since i can remember, that also helps

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    10. TalmidOctober 28, 2026 at 10:10 PM

      (Cont)
      So i can understand pretty well the appeal of a view like Daoism*, but here us the invite: try to create the strongest version of Confucianism or even Conservatism. These views seems to acknowledge than human interaction is very hard, so this cristalization of behavior, social structures etc is plausible.

      When it is very contextual, when it excludes these outside the norm(like neurodivergents) or when it is used as a shield of bad social structures it truly is bad, but it has a valuable insight, and a effort to understand it is valuable.

      I say that as being mostly left-wing, who knows very well what you describe, being from the working class on the Global South and all that. But human life does ask even we to try to see things from other people eyes.

      And historically it seems than Daoism was less of a conservative force, no? It is ironically, for it has a more theistic flavor, if i understand the Tao in not understanding it, than the this-wordly but strictly moralist Confucianism.


      *i did try to read these two books before, but i was younger and arrogant, way before trying Nagarjuna humbled me, so i plan to try again latter, also need to see how it connects with the religious part. In Buddhism i can see the connection, though

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    11. EXEOctober 29, 2026 at 3:07 PM

      Thank you! This has been a wonderful conversation. Yes, I've been masking, and to some extent it is necessary. However, you need to be very careful. Masking requires a lot of cognitive effort, and involves being untrue to oneself. Do that for too long and you will end up burnt out and with no idea who you really are. It is important to find times and places where it is safe to "Unmask", to be unapologetically yourself, to revel in your hobbies and not care about social norms. Your attitude towards others also resonates with me - from a Neurodivergent perspective, many Neurotypical behaviors often come across as shallow, vapid, and conformist - like the "NPC" of meme culture, incapable of speaking of anything meaningful and wasting tremendous time and effort on maintaining their standing within the social hierarchy. I know that this is often not really a fair comparison, but it can also be rather difficult to feel any charity towards people who feel no need to accommodate or understand *you*.

      Ironically, you could consider Daoism to be Conservative or even Reactionary in some ways, in that it advocates a return to a natural state of harmony with the world. However, it could never be *politically* Conservative because it is almost anarchistic, viewing states themselves as things that only arise as a result of corruption. There's a quote that explains this:

      "When the Tao is lost, there is goodness.
      When goodness is lost, there is kindness.
      When kindness is lost, there is justice.
      When justice is lost, there is ritual.
      Rituals are the end of fidelity and honesty,
      And the beginning of confusion."

      -Tao Te Ching, Chapter 38

      The idea behind this quote is that Virtue, even the highest and most genuine Virtue, is something that only emerges *after* we have broken away from the Way. If we were in contact with the Way, we would not need virtue to guide us. But virtue is a poor replacement for the Way. Many of us hurry to decide what's right and what's wrong, then become very proud and stubbornly cling to our ideas, to our ruin. If virtue is lost, then we turn to benevolence, to cause the least amount of damage in our confusion. Benevolence, at least, is obviously superior to evil, and arises from our own human hearts. But if even that is lost, then we turn to justice/righteousness. This is very risky, because without benevolence and virtue it is very easy for this to turn into inhumane oppression and brutal laws. Worst of all is when even justice is lost, and we are left with mere ritual. This is the parody version of conservative society, hidebound, ignorant, committed to customs and beliefs that have lost their meaning. That is mankind at its lowest, repeating things of old just because of habit, sticking desperately to outdated fragments of thoughts, as if their lack of reason were proof of their elevation. As if ignorance is bliss. When rituals rule, force is always used to uphold them. They are not to be questioned, because there is no explanation to them. Unfortunately, it happens frequently that our society degrades to such practice.

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    12. TonyOctober 30, 2026 at 8:20 AM

      Worst of all is when even justice is lost, and we are left with mere ritual. This is the parody version of conservative society, hidebound, ignorant, committed to customs and beliefs that have lost their meaning. That is mankind at its lowest, repeating things of old just because of habit, sticking desperately to outdated fragments of thoughts, as if their lack of reason were proof of their elevation.

      I would point out that while mere ritual - as an expression of the good - is indeed unfitting, it isn't "worst". We find in some cases something still worse: a pure destructive impulse. These people (and movements they foment) are bent on destruction without intent for replacing with a better: they may have despaired of good and simply will to export to all the nihil in themselves.

      Alternatively, there are the ones who aim neither for social good nor wish to retain ritual or custom, seeking merely personal benefit and willing to eradicate anyone and any standard (and any ritual or custom) standing in the way.

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    13. TalmidOctober 30, 2026 at 8:44 PM

      @EXE

      That truly is being a awesome conversation! Thanks.

      About masking, you are right, it is exausting as hell. A thing that helps me is that i like to give good impressions and find out how to be interesting or funny to others, is pretty much a challenge. It is very tiring when it can't be done and i need to not draw much attention or when my diferent neuroconstitution will aways be a source of contempt, of course.
      And yea, even when it works well it tires a lot, working in services was veeery tiring! Having people who accepts you being "weird" is a necessity.

      You are completely right, it is just frustrating in having to learn how others think and expect you to act and never seeing several of these doing the least bit of effort in trying to do the same to you. Sartle famous phrase on other people is sure a temptation to use as others definition!

      About Daoism, interesting take on it in a way being conservative. I guess it fit well into philosophical anarchism in that it see non-conformism and descentralization as the "moral" or at least the better way to be and to organize society*. It take on distinctions being superficial and, as you exposed, pretty much distortions of what should be fits well with anarchism. I think i saw you talking about anarchy positively, so it tracks

      We them can perhaps say than conservatism need something like a objective morality, at least in a social level, than legitimizes certain hierachical distinctions.

      *i remember the "good started to exist when bad was created" bit, something like that, so i know than morality in Daoism is closest to virtue ethics than the deontological or divine command takes we tend to associate with it, even if not even that captures it well

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    14. TalmidOctober 30, 2026 at 8:53 PM

      (Cont)

      Fascinant. I'am looking at the quote and your exposition and seeing ideas similar to the five confucian virtues! At least belevolence, justice and obviously ritual seems to be here.

      Sure. Confucious take seemed precisely than his virtues all needed to be together or else they would risk running into serious defects, so perhaps part of the idea could be accepted by him, even if he obviously would disagree with the ideal daoist society or even to the social degeneracy exposition.

      Funny how they look similar, i suppose it is not a parody but just living in similar contexts, but it is funny!
      I'am seeing right?

      @Tony
      Interesting than Daoism seemed to in part take shape in a very bad situation, the Warring States Period was not the greatest time to be, but the sage tried his best.

      And while EXE view is quite non-conservative, a time were no one knows why we do what we do is indeed bad. Seeing how this generation is so pessimist and embracing of revolutionary and even fascist ideas, i feel we are at least close to a bad situation.

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    15. EXENovember 1, 2026 at 11:22 AM

      Talmid,

      Yup, it's not surprising that you'd see Confucian-adjacent concepts showing up in Laozi. He was quite critical of Confucius, and much of the Dao De Jing is an attempt to critique or parody Confucian thought. To my understanding, that's actually what's happening in the quote I gave; Laozi is inverting the Confucian moral order by portraying the thing it aims to create through lifelong moral refinement as actually being the result of moral degeneration. For Laozi, the attempt to "manufacture" goodness can only ever produce hypocrisy. In fact, his program, such as he has one, is the exact opposite:

      "Abandon wisdom, discard knowledge,
      And people will benefit a hundredfold.
      Abandon benevolence, discard duty,
      And people will return to the family ties.
      Abandon cleverness, discard profit,
      And thieves and robbers will disappear.
      These three, though, are superficial, and not enough. Let this be what to rely on:
      Behave simply and hold on to purity.
      Lessen selfishness and restrain desires.
      Abandon knowledge and your worries are over."
      -Tao Te Ching, Chapter 19

      I mentioned this before, but this is why the two have very different metaphors for excellence; for Confucianism it is Jade, which must be mined, cut, chiselled, and polished before it can be beautiful. For Daoism, it is "Pu", which literally refers to uncarved wood, but has also adopted the related meanings of "simple, natural, inherent quality".

      He also has other criticism to make, such as his critique of Ren (humaneness, concern for others), the greatest of the Confucian virtues. One of Confucius' main reasons for promoting this is the idea that Heaven and Earth already have this kind of relationship with Humanity, or want to, so we should mirror this. Laozi, however, does not believe this at all:

      "Heaven and Earth are not humane ("are not Ren", 'Bu Ren').
      They regard all things as straw dogs.
      The sage is not humane.
      He regards people as straw dogs."
      -Tao Te Ching, Chapter 5

      For context, "Straw Dogs" were little straw effigies in the shape of dogs, which would be placed on an altar during certain rituals, then discarded and trampled afterwards. Anthropologists believe these came about as substitutes for the sacrifice of actual, flesh-and-blood dogs, as we have found many dead puppies in Chinese ritual sites from about 1500 BC and earlier. These in turn are believed by many to have been "budget" replacements for ritual human sacrifice, which was an expensive display of wealth that only the elite could afford.

      Lao Zi's point here (as far as I can understand it) is an assertion that the Universe is apathetic; it has its own cycles and ways, it sends human beings into the world and takes them out of it in its own time, without partiality to good or bad. We dress up the straw dogs and put them on the altar in a position of honor, but not because we love them. Afterwards, we discard them and trample upon them, but not because we hate them.

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    16. EXENovember 1, 2026 at 11:32 AM

      Oh, and I forgot to mention: the fact that Laozi lived during the highly violent Warring States Period is one of the things that contributed to the philosophy's...well, "fear of death" is not the right way of putting it. Daoism regards a fear of *premature* death as virtuous, though it encourages one to accept natural death, as it does not matter whether we participate in the world as conscious animals or fertilizer - all happens according to the Way. This is why one of Laozi's Three Jewels/Virtues (not to be confused with the Buddhist concept of the same name) is "refusing to be foremost of all things", IE, don't go looking for fame, wealth, power, etc. To him, things like bravery, patriotism, etc, are not virtues at all, but rather folly (at least in the sense of submitting to socially-constructed concepts of what counts as bravery - he does have a high view of courage if it results from Compassion).

      "Those who have the courage to dare will perish.
      Those who have the courage not to dare will live."
      -Tao Te Ching, Chapter 73

      All of this makes more sense when you remember that he was writing at a time filled with ambitious, violent warlords seeking to elevate themselves above all others.

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    17. EXENovember 1, 2026 at 4:25 PM

      Tony,

      You may well have a point. Laozi here is likely attempting to make a polemical point against Confucianism, where Rituals (Li) are considered extremely important for the cultivation of Virtue (Te). "Li" initially referred exclusively to religious sacrifices and ancestral rites, but expanded to mean propriety, decorum, ceremonial form, and the proper way to act in everyday life (from greeting elders to state governance). As far as I can tell, his point here is that if you've reached the point of trying to force people to obey rules to make them good, then things are already very dire indeed. But he does in fact suggest an even worse state. The excerpt I quoted from Chapter 38 is preceded by this:

      "The highest virtue is not virtuous.
      Therefore it has virtue.
      The lowest virtue holds on to virtue.
      Therefore it has no virtue.

      The highest virtue does nothing.
      Yet, nothing needs to be done.
      The lowest virtue does everything.
      Yet, much remains to be done.

      The highest benevolence acts without purpose.
      The highest righteousness acts with purpose.
      The highest ritual acts, but since no one cares,
      It raises its arms and uses force."

      Thus, he suggests that Ritual is actually the final and frailest mask of moral authority. When even that breaks, society turns to brute force and subjugation. Laozi's reinterpreter Zhuangzi expanded this into a post-Ritual state, describing a kind of violent, legalistic dystopia that despite its brutality is quite powerless to prevent evil. It is choked with hypocrisy and false virtue because of its complete "amputation from Nature". My favorite quote on that topic goes like this:

      "The petty thief is imprisoned, but the great thief becomes a Lord."

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    18. TalmidNovember 2, 2026 at 8:19 PM

      @EXE

      That was another great exposition! It makes even more sense now. I did not know this part about the straw-dog but it is a brilliant metaphor. Context is key.

      The daoist view does seems less mysterious, and it is nice than my eye to comparing chinese views is getting better.

      Your quote and exposition to Tony even make me remember Legalism or something similar, i think it is from the periody. The view does remind me of Hobbes viewpoint, who did live in similarly bad times(from more ideological reasons, of course).

      My viewpoint in a lot of ways is closer to Confucious, but i can see the appeal of Laozi views politically, small groups, democratic decisions and informal hierarquies do have their appeal and should be looked after when possible.

      Also, that quote at the end reminds me of St. Augustine history of the pirate who did use a similar point against the emperor censure. Funny how these quotes are still relevant.

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  7. Miguel CervantesOctober 25, 2026 at 3:40 AM

    If we’re talking about Burke, Oakeshott, Kirk or Scruton, there is no “metaphysically robust” conservatism; that would be a futurist project to make conservatism into something it is not now.
    Conservatism is radically scepticist, metaphysically speaking, but socially fideist. Burke, Scruton and Kirk all shared this trait and its logical consequence, refusing to make society accountable to the rationally and universally knowable template of natural law. “Tradition” in their ideology means whatever different societies evolve for themselves. Conservatives “believe” only in society. A Thomistic metaphysician would immediately reply, “but these “social truths” are mutually contradictory”. “Tant pis”, replies the conservative, “we are moderns, having been around only since the Enlightenment. But we love naïve people who really do believe in absolutes. They give society so much character. Ours is a higher existence, however”.

    Scruton’s secularist view of “a Church” as a “free association of civil society” is the Enlightenment view, as is his idea that civil society is a “person” in the real sense. To see civil societies as “ends in themselves rather than having merely instrumental value” is the Enlightenment in a nutshell, and the extreme contrary of Thomistic social theory in which societies are merely associations of immortal persons, and have, by definition, “instrumental value”. Scruton’s cited examples show confusion, for true persons cannot die even as civil societies easily can. On the other hand, the Church, unlike civil society, is a true person. Roger Scruton did not uphold religious belief; what he called “theology” was strictly utilitarian socially: its primary purpose was to work as a social bond.

    The conservative attitude, expressed as, “because our knowledge is limited and unlikely to improve much on tradition, the social and political order can never be made perfect”, is the core of its opposition to society being accountable to natural law. Natural law is that perfect template which allows us to tear up false “traditions that have stood the test of time”, as the Christian revolution that uprooted the pagan world. Logically, Burke and Scruton could see no point in missionaries exporting “our” provincial “tradition” to the Islamic world, for example.

    Scruton didn’t really discuss the “relation” between human persons and his imaginary social person because he didn’t accept human personality in its own right. For him it was engendered by society. He denied the immortal individual soul and believed that children were animals before attaining the age of reason. For Scruton, men who lost their reason or had never had it were not persons either, even though, because of what they “once were” they deserved to be treated respectfully – nevertheless he did not rule out euthanasia.

    All these positions are radically alien to scholastic metaphysics, which is banished by conservatism’s scepticism, rejection of society’s accountability to natural law, and the idea that human personhood is constituted by society rather that the body/soul composite itself. Instead of trying to sanitise something based on historical figures whose faulty writings cannot be reinvented now, why not simply promote what exists, scholastic social theory. It has an answer for all the political and social questions of today, and no need for long-winded sanitisation.

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    Replies
    1. OAPoliceOctober 25, 2026 at 11:00 AM

      Give that man a small cigar! Excellent take on the shortcomings of Scruton and the way a certain kind of conservative nationalism just ends up as relativism. I now wonder if he, like his kinsmen Christopher Hitchens, are really just an English take on Spengler.

      Two further points on this theme. One must be careful with assuming that words such as “state” and “nation” mean the same thing in the works of Augustine, Aquinas and Hegel, for each of those thinkers had individual specific understandings of them.

      Also interestingly if the historian Eric Voegelin is correct then that particular view of the soul and personhood as constituted by society actually stemmed from the Latin Averroists.

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    2. AnonymousOctober 25, 2026 at 4:24 PM

      Because 1) “scholastic social theory” is ahistorical - that is, it is an abstract system - and 2) it is eclectic - it has drawn from any different interlocutors with whom it agrees only in part. You will immediately notice the tension, but it is a fruitful tension. There is much scholastic thought has to gain in dialogue with philosophical conservatives, and much they have to gain from it.

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    3. English CatholicOctober 25, 2026 at 5:26 PM

      Agree. Scruton has many ideas that are good in themselves (as well as some terrible ones), but he gives no reason to think his ideas are real. I say this with sadness because he brought me out of my libertarian insanity as a young man, and some of the way toward the truth.

      Anglo-Saxon 'conservatism' has the same problem as he does. It is, very obviously, the liberalism of 50 or 100 years ago, simply with a few more unprincipled exceptions. The left continues to triumph decade by decade, because there is no political force that opposes it with principle. In some ways, Anglo Saxon liberalism is even more corrosive of Christ's religion than the more obviously -- but equally in substance -- atheistic version on the Continent. It is terrifying and depressing to see Anglo-Saxon Catholics almost universally defending the Church using principles that logically bring about her dissolution. You can't believe the Faith ought to be treated the same as any false religion, and at the same time believe that it's as real as gravity. Anglo-Saxon liberalism necessarily leads to subjectivism and destroys Faith.

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    4. MJROctober 25, 2026 at 7:56 PM

      Miguel and QAPolice:
      I much prefer what Prof. Feser said about Scruton to what you both wrote.
      https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2020/01/scrutons-virtues_12.html

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    5. TalmidOctober 25, 2026 at 9:17 PM

      There does appear to exist a tradition of thin conservatism on British philosohy. Enlightenment thinking there did appear to form in a less agressive form, where instead of attacking traditional views it pays lip service to it but leaves at that.

      St. Henry Newman is a very good example of a british thinker than took truth seriously and ended up with Truth, no wonder that he could not remain anglican.

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    6. Miguel CervantesOctober 26, 2026 at 2:22 AM

      Anonymous, that’s a bit of a caricature. St Thomas Aquinas got stuck into the big social issues of the day concerning Church and state, supporting the positions that are still Church teaching, but without naming names. Suarez and St Robert Bellarmine did the same thing, attacking divine right monarchy and political absolutism, and defending legitimate resistance, for which their works were burned by the Paris Parliament, and by order of James I.

      Suarez’s De legibus, especially, answers all the conservative mistakes in anticipation. Proto-conservatives like Hobbes were well aware of this and fumed about it. Scholastic social theory is part of a long tradition and is not shy of citing names going back to antiquity, but it always gives the same answer which is alien to conservatism: society and political authority are inherent in nature, not the “antidote” to “nature”; society answers to natural law, which is universal and unchanging; “correcting” Aristotelian secularist social theory, scholastic social theory makes civil society ultimately subservient to goals beyond itself, the otherworldly ends of its members; because of all these things, resistance to civil authority is justified, even necessary, on occasion. This is the metaphysical background to any Christian political action today, yet it’s denied by all the players in the political game today. Finally, the buck has to stop somewhere: the Church is the arbiter of natural law. Perhaps a “Little Black Book” based on De legibus would be the kindest form of dialogue.

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    7. OAPoliceOctober 26, 2026 at 2:31 AM

      I am unsure of what Anon means about Catholic social theory being abstract and ahistorical. It might be that topicwise social theory and Catholic philosophy of history doesn’t touch as much as nationalists theorists do (I get this part, just not how Scruton has anything better.)

      If one wants Catholic theory and metaphysics with more a focus on history I’d recommend Dr. E. Michael Jones’ books, especially Logos Rising and Barren Metal. He has another one coming out soon on the collapse of the Catholic state.

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    8. OAPoliceOctober 26, 2026 at 3:28 AM

      Playing Devil’s Advocate, I think the best Anglo-Liberalism could have done is something like the American Bill of Rights, a core ground of justifiable values based on natural theology and natural law which sets the parameters in which pluralism and disagreements can occur (if an Anglican disagrees with a Quaker or a Sunni about bank’s being allowed to charge x amount interest on a loan fine, if someone wishes to sacrifice children to Moloch or the Flying Spaghetti Monster then they will get a dusty answer.)

      Delete
    9. AnonymousOctober 26, 2026 at 7:50 AM

      "I am unsure of what Anon means about Catholic social theory being abstract and ahistorical."

      Scholasticism is an abstract philosophical system. Even Christopher Dawson recognized, at the height of the scholastic revival, that Catholicism lacked engagement with the social sciences.

      "If one wants Catholic theory and metaphysics with more a focus on history I’d recommend Dr. E. Michael Jones’ books, especially Logos Rising and Barren Metal."

      E. Michael Jones is a rabid anti-semite, and no Catholic should have anything to do with his "work".

      Delete
    10. AnonymousOctober 26, 2026 at 7:55 AM

      The conservative attitude, expressed as, “because our knowledge is limited and unlikely to improve much on tradition, the social and political order can never be made perfect”, is the core of its opposition to society being accountable to natural law. Natural law is that perfect template which allows us to tear up false “traditions that have stood the test of time”, as the Christian revolution that uprooted the pagan world.

      Complete and total BS. Conservatism doesn't stand for the idea that absolutely nothing can change, it stands for caution against change. Caution to make change carefully. Caution to understand why a custom exists and what goods it protects - and what connections it has to other goods - before destroying it. Caution to recognize that the very process of change, even to eradicate a recognized evil, has a cost that should be factored into the cost/benefit ratio. When these reasons for caution have been attended to, conservatism accepts valuable change.

      So, when a statesman sets forth that a custom is actually contrary to natural law, clarifies how far its evil exceeds the other goods connected to it, and derives a plan of change that minimizes the costs of change by planning for change in steps over time, this is a conservative sort of change.

      Conservative Catholics, whether of the English-speaking variety or the Italian flavor of Leo XIII, aren't angling for a return to 14th century social structure when they point to certain goods lost when modernism changed many social forms abruptly and without caution.

      You can't believe the Faith ought to be treated the same as any false religion,

      You CAN, however, ask that the Faith be treated to the same principles of reason and persuasion that are derived from the natural law and that other beliefs are subjected to: the Church herself expressly declares that She welcomes this kind of treatment because God has given His Church the bona fides to succeed in such a test.

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    11. OAPoliceOctober 26, 2026 at 3:03 PM

      Anon,

      Jones is anti-Judaism, but more moderate about the issues associated with that position than many pop-Catholic commentators are on Islam, ironically because of Neo-Conservativism. I don’t agree with some of his grand historical thesis as presented in those books, partly because of the Hegelian influence and failure to see how trauma condition is such an effective tool on the part of Zionism, but if you wish to refute some of them please do go ahead and be my guest. Otherwise your rather rude and silly dismissal of his work is proof of his thesis.

      I would also ask: are you a member of the clergy? Can you speak from a position of the authority in the Church? If not you have absolutely no capacity to say what thinkers Catholics should and should not have anything to do.

      Others have covered the ways in which the latter scholastics engaged with social issues of their time and sometimes came under fire for it.

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    12. Miguel CervantesOctober 26, 2026 at 7:29 PM

      Social accountability to natural law is the existential threat to your platitudinary BS. Of course conservatism is bound to constant change. Its only truth is social evolutionism. It is allergic to the universal, unchanging principles taught by Pope Leo XIII. Only the template of natural and divine law allows us to discriminate what to keep, discard, legitimately resist, or have a revolution against. The conservative has only his socially-determined inclinations to go by and in general , he will cede to "history's judgement" in Burkean fashion.

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    13. AnonymousOctober 27, 2026 at 6:11 AM

      @English Catholic

      "Anglo-Saxon 'conservatism' has the same problem as he does. It is, very obviously, the liberalism of 50 or 100 years ago, simply with a few more unprincipled exceptions. The left continues to triumph decade by decade, because there is no political force that opposes it with principle. In some ways, Anglo Saxon liberalism is even more corrosive of Christ's religion than the more obviously -- but equally in substance -- atheistic version on the Continent. It is terrifying and depressing to see Anglo-Saxon Catholics almost universally defending the Church using principles that logically bring about her dissolution. You can't believe the Faith ought to be treated the same as any false religion, and at the same time believe that it's as real as gravity. Anglo-Saxon liberalism necessarily leads to subjectivism and destroys Faith."

      I agree with the first part of your words that I quoted above, but not with the second. Indeed, the "conservatism" you refer to is heavily hybridized by liberalism, and the result is not even harmonious, but gnawed by tensions, sometimes leading even to obvious internal contradictions. But the principles of conservative thought belong to natural reason, not to your belief that Catholicism is the true religion and the rest are false, or that the true church of Christ is the Catholic Church and the rest that claim to be so are false; and to say that conservatism, even hybridized and disfigured, "is even more corrosive of Christ's religion..." seems to me a greatly exaggerated statement. I think, on the contrary, that this "conservatism" has opened for many the path to knowing genuine, unhybridized and undisfigured conservatism, which itself has led not a few to discover the Church of Christ and to turn or return to her with faith.

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    14. TonyOctober 30, 2026 at 8:06 AM

      Of course conservatism is bound to constant change. Its only truth is social evolutionism. It is allergic to the universal, unchanging principles taught by Pope Leo XIII.

      Did you even read the article? The attribute you are claiming is "conservatism" is actually characteristic only of one flavor of it, metaphysically weak conservatism (as Feser identifies it). Other conservatives, including people who call themselves conservative and whom most others also call conservative, hold it differently, and some hold metaphysically robust conservatism which does entail natural law as a necessary social principle.

      Feser didn't point this out explicitly, but this goes hand in hand with what he did say about metaphysically robust conservatism: not only does conservatism hold negative reasons to protect tradition, (the skepticism he outlines regarding both the possibility of achieving a utopia, and the probability of failing to notice or properly account for all the goods that a certain tradition provides), it has positive ones as well. We can trace it in St. Thomas in his treatise on law: human excellence is found in virtue, and virtue just is a habit of doing the good. This habit requires habituation, which entails as a necessary component customary actions repeated generally. Custom lends assistance to virtue, though of course it doesn't MAKE virtue all on its own.

      And St. Thomas doesn't invent this on his own, he leans on St. Isidore for support, e.g. that "law" should be "possible to nature" and "according to the custom of the country", both of which connect readily with the Thomistic principles of natural law and of virtue. I think that one aspect of "possible to nature" refers to natural principles that precede custom altogether (e.g. man's being a rational being), but another aspect refers to man situated in a specific society, i.e. men cannot easily give up deeply embedded custom, this is rooted in his nature, and demanding he change practices abruptly and broadly will tend to produce unexpected bad consequences elsewhere - from the moral and psychic strain of change leaking out the sides if not from something more direct. But even aside from this, certainly Isidore's "according to the custom of the country" is squarely on point.

      These are teachings belonging to metaphysically robust conservatism, which firmly grasps natural law in its hands.

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    15. Miguel CervantesOctober 30, 2026 at 7:42 PM

      Did you read my comment? The post wished for metaphysically robust conservatism, but discussed Burke, Oakeshott and Scruton, who are metaphysically gelatinous. This is not Edward's Feser's fault, is it? No discussion of the ideology can avoid such figures (or Kirk, who is of the same stripe).

      Of course society has a role to play in creating habitus, but these must still be based on natural law which is not determined by societies, don't you agree? Human sacrifice and infanticide were conventions that "stood the test of time", but were uprooted as soon as Christians got within range, don't you think? Because conservative scepticism has no mechanism for verifying natural law, and this law is not determined by society, it refuses to make society accountable to it; only society is absolute. "Religious" versions of conservatism divinise this vicious circle, making it even more absolute and irrational. Can you see the result in the "divine right" monarchies that persecuted the Church in the eighteenth century and got their deserts?

      If one wants to have "metaphysically solid conservatism" one will have to create it, because when the ideology appeared during the early Enlightenment, it shared all that period's anti-metaphysical traits. The situation can't be saved by calling St Thomas Aquinas a conservative (Burke hated scholasticism), or invoking contemporary Thomists who call themselves conservatives. They have no determinative influence over conservatism. Wouldn't you agree that using scholastic metaphysics as a base to re-route conservatism is one of the worst places to start because of the ideology's inveterate allergy to this philosophy?

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    16. TalmidOctober 30, 2026 at 8:25 PM

      @Miguel Cervantes

      We can accept than the figures Ed mentions on the article represent a bad tradition, anglo-conservatism is a unhelpful ideology and americans reliance in it*, but is that all conservatism can be?

      Were there not defenses of traditional views and of political prudence on the hispanic world as well? Sure. A Salamanca thinker, for instance, would insist on the necessity of natural law and of the catholic faith, but they seemed to aways value prudence and being realistic as well. Can we not do better on conservatism than Scruton and others?
      A genuine question, since you definitely knows hispanic historical views better.

      *ironic fitting, for they are just being loyal to their historical customs, which are sadly tainted with enlightenment values, just as the ideology says

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    17. TonyOctober 31, 2026 at 3:57 PM

      and this [natural] law is not determined by society, [conservatism] refuses to make society accountable to it; only society is absolute.

      You make this "only society is absolute" out to be an essential, core component of conservatism, but many conservatives DON'T do that, they put this specific society at least one or two rungs below the core essentials.

      or invoking contemporary Thomists who call themselves conservatives. They have no determinative influence over conservatism.

      Conservatism of any flavor at all has had little influence on society for decades, and what little it has had an influence it has been a smorgasbord of the different flavors of conservatism, typically when several flavors happen to all get aboard the same bus instead of each taking their own. I think you are confusing the fact that relatively fewer of the the robust-version conservatives have been the spokesmen for large political spheres of influence for settling the question of what is the best name to apply to them, rather than ask "what name are they generally given by people". But it's par for the course: even within the Church, relatively few thinkers who are proponents for robust, principled resort to natural law as an essential touchstone for social organization - WHATEVER you call them - are spokesmen for any recognizably large chunks of Church spheres of influence - certainly not in the Vatican. This fact is of course a sad commentary on the state of affairs in modern life, but it doesn't control the question of whether the people who do found their social thinking on the natural law, virtue, and tradition should be called "conservative" even though they do think society and its organizing themes must be held accountable according to natural law.

      Because conservative scepticism has no mechanism for verifying natural law,

      No version of skepticism, qua skepticism, constitutes a mechanism for verifying natural law, because skepticism is merely a negative principle, not a positive one. But the common attitude among the Church's teachers throughout the period of the Scholastics and beyond, until Modernism, did heavily rely on the kind of tradition characterized by "the perennial philosophy" (which was not a single school of philosophy) did provide methods for ascertaining natural law. This was, therefore, the natural locus of the positive side, of which the skepticism toward novel thinking is the negative side, both together giving a robust support for tradition. This thinking has its current proponents, and at least in America they are typically called conservative and there simply isn't another well-agreed term for them that sets them apart from conservatives.

      Wouldn't you agree that using scholastic metaphysics as a base to re-route conservatism is one of the worst places to start because of the ideology's inveterate allergy to this philosophy?

      I don't think "rerouting conservatism" - in the sense of converting existing but error-filled leaders of ANY movement is likely to be very effective. Better to get hold of young people and teach them the truth from the ground up. But in the context of pluralistic conditions, most of the time you're going to have some more successes if you can live with cooperating with many others whose views have practical similarities to your views, even if not grounded in principle the way yours are. This is the difficulty of dealing with a society with both wide freedom plus universal suffrage, and extreme ignorance of fundamental truths.

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    18. Miguel CervantesNovember 1, 2026 at 2:42 AM

      Unfortunately, Burke, Oakeshott and Scruton put society before universal principles. Men like these are the authorities conservative proponents of all kinds have to refer to (this post couldn't avoid it), especially if one is talking about conservatism with any interest in religion at all, wouldn't you concur? For the Church, on the other hand, the authority of its magisterium cannot be appealed to if one wants to ignore natural law.

      The leading conservative authorities mentioned were sceptics. Society was their only "certainty" and they would not allow a universal, rationally established natural law to break through the closed circuit of social absolutism because that would ruin it. The scholastic natural law tradition on the other hand is rational, and society answers to it, don't you agree?

      Long-term "practical" living arrangements with intellectual systems that are radically incompatible with scholasticism will always end in tears. But practical living arrangements with open minded-people who have no dogmatic preconditions like scepticism, could be beneficial, don't you think?

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    19. TonyNovember 2, 2026 at 1:25 PM

      I offered:
      if you can live with cooperating with many others whose views have practical similarities to your views, even if not grounded in principle the way yours are.

      Miguel responded:
      Long-term "practical" living arrangements with intellectual systems that are radically incompatible with scholasticism will always end in tears.

      Yes, they will end in tears. By no means did I have any intention whatsoever, in mentioning "cooperation" with those whose underlying principles are flawed, as meaning a permanent condition of accepting disordered social norms. The cooperation should be viewed as on the pathway toward a more perfect arrangement that doesn't need cooperation with those who are ignorant of truth because everyone has been brought into agreement with the truth, by reasonable means in accordance with human nature e.g. persuasion, education, etc. That pathway entails noting the current state of customs are good and where they are awry, and noting where changes can be made that, on a long term view, tend toward the good overall, e.g. do not represent one step forward and then two steps backward. This inevitably means tolerating some evils while others are addressed more proximately, until the tolerated evils can come up to the top of the list to be addressed.

      But practical living arrangements with open minded-people who have no dogmatic preconditions like scepticism, could be beneficial, don't you think?

      Yes. And such practical arrangements with such open-minded people may well lead them to conversion to the truth (including social wisdom) as they witness charity and goodness in the true Christians who work with them for social good, and who also teach the truth charitably.

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    20. Miguel CervantesNovember 2, 2026 at 10:30 PM

      Unfortunately, conservative ideologues (especially those most interested in religion discussed above) can't ideologically co-operate temporarily with scholasticism because they reject the very idea of making society accountable to natural law, don't you agree.
      On the other hand, ordinary people are not Enlightenment ideologues like Burke and Scruton, and living arrangements are quite possible with those who are open-minded and not dogmatic sceptics. The original post was discussing something else, n'est pas?

      Delete
  8. Paul D. Van PeltOctober 25, 2026 at 6:42 AM

    I have,in my own thinking, long associated conservatism with common sense. Now I've begun to question that, insofar as more people I meet and get to know are more liberal in their actions and/or beliefs than their professed *common sense* dictates. It is curiouser. And curiouser.

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  9. TalmidOctober 25, 2026 at 7:05 AM

    Nice article! Conservatism on western contexts seems associate with, frankly, pretty ridiculous and non-conservative ideas. Ironically, a China or a general Balkan State has more to do with conservatism(of the thin variety) than the tipical Bible Basher that wants to impose his "freedom" and highly iconoclast evangelicalism to the world, with no respect or understanding of tradition or the defender of the profound injustices and inequalities of the present moment who goes by the name.

    Having said that and offending a few, i definitely can see the appeal of the conservatist view of the world, humankind is notoriously resistent to grand visions, with most people mostly being mediocre and needing social guidance to operate, no matter the era or social class. I just lack faith on this world order than is living in a grand fight with this vision of the world, as so criticized by post-liberals.

    While free markets, traditional institutions and freedom from revolutionary projects are quite good, the classical liberal order is profoundly revolutionary and things it brought like capitalism, social impositions like the atomized self(which gives us the nuclear family) and a disconection between "facts(science and a few materialist philosophical assumptions)" and "opinion"* had their run but we do not need they.

    What something than ditches out liberalism and do not falls back to the Ancien Régime or the horrible experiments of the last century look like i do not know, but with a bit of pluralism, prudence and virtue we can find something interesting, i suppose.


    *by no means science is bad, we should be clear on that

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  10. NLROctober 25, 2026 at 12:13 PM

    This was a good article, I had not heard about Strawson's distinction between revisionary and descriptive metaphysics. Some people view metaphysics as entailing high-flown speculation into realms far removed from ordinary experience, but it doesn't need to mean that.

    It can mean attempting to articulate foundational beliefs, which is valuable because often these beliefs are not articulated. Actually, this kind of metaphysics becomes even more important in the modern era, because so many things that used to go without saying are being criticized (either in overt or subtle ways). So if you want to consciously try to preserve things, you have to talk about them.

    Also, since metaphysics is more basic than politics, while politically there can exist a metaphysically thin conservatism, its adherents will all have their own metaphysical commitments. If these are not similar enough, then the conservatism will fracture over time.

    This has already happened with different varieties of conservatism, incidentally.

    But it is a problem with any political attitude. Without a foundation, it can't sustain itself. This doesn't mean some sort of academic treatise on metaphysics, either. Anyway, such a treatise would just be a matter of articulating in a more scholarly way what people already believe. Stone Age men had a metaphysics and it wasn't viewed as just socially useful, they thought it was really true.

    There can be many varieties of conservatism, but a stable conservatism needs foundations in beliefs that go deeper than politics.

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    1. OAPoliceOctober 26, 2026 at 12:46 PM

      Excellent observations about the foundations of political order in metaphysics or proto-metaphysics (like those of Hesiod). Ironically this is an actual common-sense observation of an historical truth.

      People forget at their peril how radically unnatural naturalism is. Almost no society in history has had much time for it.

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    2. OAPoliceOctober 26, 2026 at 12:46 PM

      Excellent observations about the foundations of political order in metaphysics or proto-metaphysics (like those of Hesiod). Ironically this is an actual common-sense observation of an historical truth.

      People forget at their peril how radically unnatural naturalism is. Almost no society in history has had much time for it.

      Delete
  11. BobOctober 25, 2026 at 3:48 PM

    Completely atrocious, mendacious and retarded articul. So much discombobulated nonsense. What happened in Europe in the erly 20th century is that Germany, Japan and Italy "gott mit eins" and created a fascist-totalitarian-white-Christian-panopticon. The Republican party is the modern protestant verzhun of this priject; telling vegans, gamers and liberals to follow a Christian lifestylr or "get bent". All at the same time Republican politicians are taking it up the ass and screaming over calm of duty matches. Calling the GOP 'traditionalist' is epistemologically incoherent. Understood?

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    1. AnonymousOctober 26, 2026 at 4:26 AM

      This is borderline illiterate

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    2. AnonymousOctober 26, 2026 at 7:34 AM

      Japan... "gott mit eins" and created a fascist-totalitarian-white-Christian-panopticon.

      Yes, they murdered Chinese in the millions because they weren't white.

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    3. BobOctober 26, 2026 at 8:04 AM

      What did you not understand?

      Delete
    4. OAPoliceOctober 26, 2026 at 8:55 AM

      It’s satire, hence the part about Imperial Japan being Christian and the oppressed being vegans and gamers. I’d give it 7/10–needs more stuff about the Axis invasion of Wakanda, and how Pope Heidegger the Tenth threw Freud into a furnace, only for that latter to come out miraculously unscathed.

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    5. AnonymousOctober 26, 2026 at 3:00 PM

      Comments that only prove how this blog has declined.

      Delete
    6. ficino4mlNovember 1, 2026 at 6:01 AM

      Gott mit eins? Or Eins? Maybe Bob is a neo-Platonist.

      Delete
  12. AnonymousOctober 25, 2026 at 11:43 PM

    I'd love to get that book if it wasn't $120 (and only 320 pages?!)

    ReplyDelete
  13. AnonymousOctober 26, 2026 at 9:16 PM

    Volliger Unsinn.

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    1. AnonymousOctober 28, 2026 at 7:57 AM

      Can't figure out whether that is some other language, some degenerate form of an English slur, or someone's name.

      Delete
    2. NLROctober 29, 2026 at 4:14 AM

      I don't speak German, but looking up the words in wiktionary, I think it means "complete nonsense" in German. I don't know why the commenter didn't just say it in English.

      Unrelated, but here is an interesting factoid: the philosopher Leibniz wrote a letter about meeting someone who had apparently taught his dog to pronounce 30 German words.

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    3. AnonymousOctober 29, 2026 at 12:31 PM

      I wrote in German because I am fluent in German and I was replying to some nonsensical comments sprinkled with German.

      Delete
    4. NLROctober 30, 2026 at 2:53 AM

      That makes sense.

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    5. AnonymousOctober 30, 2026 at 12:41 PM

      NLR
      You were right about Leibniz!
      https://www.leibniz-translations.com/dog

      Delete
  14. Paul D. Van PeltNovember 1, 2026 at 3:56 AM

    I don't know if "ground up" instruction works. Doesn't every parent aspire to this approach, to one degree or another? Yet, children tend to go their own way; find their own patb. This happens with every generation. Kids grow up and find their way. Many choose poorly, but, if they are fortunate, their dreams may be realized, in spite of early faux pas and muleheadedness.

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  15. NormNovember 3, 2026 at 6:53 PM

    Hi Prof

    I think you were right about the republicans and the blood bath that was going to happen.

    But do you think we can continue to asca nation under the democrats ?

    I think it's Trump's

    It sure looks like the we are going to have the court packed, filibuster removed, more illegal immigration, more radical gender ideology.

    And I think it is all Trump's fault.

    But I think we can definitely say that this is the end.

    You are out there tweeting that Desantis will run in the next election cycle.

    That's the only place I disagree with you, there is no coming back from this ever.

    Republicans will never ever win the house or senate again. And we can forget about the presidency so it's kind of silly for you to say "Desantis is positioning himself". It doesn't matter

    This is the beginning of the end.

    And I think you ought to mention that Prof out of honesty. Perhaps it would be prudent to talk about the fact that this life is not the end and that we should focus on the joys of the next life.

    And I agree with you it's Trump's fault but you should also agree that it is the end of conservatives ever winning anything in the USA.

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    Replies
    1. EXENovember 4, 2026 at 6:48 AM

      To quote a random Youtuber commenter I saw today:

      "This is the live execution Hegseth was talking about".

      But I don't think you have anything to worry about. Let me tell you with certainty that the picture you have in your head of both Socialism and the Democratic Party is comedically overblown, beyond the point of caricature.

      One thing you absolutely must understand if you want to know what's going on is that the Democrats are deeply split between the Left Flank (who are various flavors of Progressive, Socialist, and Social Democrat) and the Centrists/Moderates (who are overwhelmingly Neoliberals who still support unregulated Capitalism and are overall more concerned with pleasing their corporate donors than helping their constituents. They may tack on a token concession to LGBT rights or environmentalism, but they share the majority of their economic platform with the Right). You also must understand that the Centrists despise the Left Flank FAR more than they could ever hate the Republicans. They're terrified of them, because if the Left Flank becomes ascendant then their cushy jobs go away and they have to actually do real work.

      Unfortunately for the Centrists, Neoliberalism has been failing the common man for decades now, so all the energy is with the Left Flank. The next few years will be marked by an accelerating realignment away from the Chuck Schumers and Hakeem Jeffries' of the world and towards people like AOC and Bernie Sanders. The Democratic party of the future will look more and more like a European Progressive party, advocating Universal Healthcare, Progressive Taxation, and the ejection of big money from politics. They're not going to set up gulags or exterminate White people, because those aren't positions anyone serious wants. They won't even implement Socialism, even the earliest murmurings of that are probably decades out.

      Also, why wouldn't Republicans be able to win in future? Can't they reorient their platform? Or are there certain things about the party' makeup that make that impossible?

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    2. EXENovember 4, 2026 at 7:05 AM

      To be clear; what I'm hoping for is the Left Flank going to Safe Blue seats held by geriatric Centrists and primarying them to replace them with Left Flank candidates.

      Delete
    3. NormNovember 4, 2026 at 8:11 AM

      EXE

      "This is the live execution Hegseth was talking about".

      It was indeed a public execution lol.

      Delete
    4. NormNovember 4, 2026 at 8:50 AM

      Hi EXE

      I think there comes a point in a person's life where they'd rather not engage in the toxicity of politics.

      I think unchecked immigration, but I also think ICE often acted in an inhumane way, an example being detainees being denied the sacraments while being detained.

      An important ministry of the church is to minister to those in prisons, one of the seven corporal works of mercy.

      I also think Trump gutted a lot of pro life legilation and implemented anti pro life legislation with IVF.

      But at the same time I think once we enact pro life legislation, after enacting it is politically better to follow it up with pro family policy, incentives for poor families (bearing in mind the principle of subsidiarity of course)

      I think they did little to stave off the more racist and fringe elements of their party and often used terrible demeaning invective.

      And of course the Iran war was a disaster and it raised prices and there is no justification for it.

      For all that I think the republican party deserves to lose.

      But I also think this was our last chance as conservatives to enact good policy.

      I think here onwards conservatives will never ever win a presidential election and their seat share will completely decline. And that's where I differ from Prof respectfully. He has been very clear minded on Trump, but if he is talking about GOP changing course, as if that will work. Ofcourse they should change course, but he seems to think that will matter in some way and I just don't think it will. (But we still ought to participate in the process)

      I also think the Dems will destroy the filibuster (maybe even with Trump's backing), Pack the Court , Redraw the map, Hound innocent pro lifers praying outside clinics, close down crisis pregnancy centers, take children away from their parents in the name of radical gender ideology, persecute those who resist.

      If Prof thinks that we can politically resist in the future , he is being myopic and he is misleading people in that regard. Setting them up for failure.

      Instead we ought to try (I am not saying don't try), we ought to participate and we ought to vote for good candidates knowing that we will lose but realising at the end of the day, that this life is not the end. (Prof is constantly omitting this path)

      Call me a doomer, but it's over folks.

      Instead , I would say to Christians , They will come for you especially pro lifers , they will name you, shame you, take your jobs always, but we ought to accept these sufferings, as Christ did and bear them , God is permitting it with your greater good in mind or as punishments for your sins either ways pray for those who persecute you. It is over for us in this life and it looked like it was always going to be but this life is not the end.

      Prof is letting this go unsaid but he shouldn't.

      And EXE , Even though we disagree on important matters, I love you brother and I am praying for you.

      And whoever else comes across this post, you are in my prayers as well.

      Delete
    5. TalmidNovember 4, 2026 at 8:15 PM

      There is nothing more changeable than the views of the majority. Unless your country completely economically colapses*, things will likely not change too much, the corporations need to have their share!

      The right in your country and in some places way south kinda shoot itself on the foot by letting the discontentment people face thanks to.. several things be catched by the extreme-right, which can't do a long term plan to save its mother life, disrespects the truth and true religion more than a french postmodernist, feeds on the most destructive and disgusting passions a group can have and just elect idiots too dumb to exploit the country while not tearing it down way to fast to it to endure it.

      Sure. The left and the normal right suck, but come on! Postliberalism needs to learn with this, not feeding groups than are pretty much the worse liberalism can offer is the first rule.

      While you are seeing things happen, live your life well, for while your country is... what it is, you guys are ginaly dodging a orange bullet.

      *which i find unlikely, but forget being the most powerful nation, that ship has long gone

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    6. EXENovember 5, 2026 at 6:19 AM

      (1/2)

      OK. Y'know, I appreciate that. As for Republican realignment? Well, see here, the thing is, there's a difference between what would be for the best and what is actually feasible. I would like to preface this next segment by making it abundantly clear that I am not speaking in any way polemically, but instead am purely trying to be factual, despite its content.

      The uncomfortable reality that many have tried to ignore for years is that the GOP, by appealing to the South, has been the party of Racists for many decades now. The Party of Lincoln has been dead for a long time. Much as I love lengthy historical tangents, I'll have to decline the analysis of why this is for now. The point I'm trying to make is that I don't think the racist elements of the party are incidental or fringe, I think they're pretty core to the GOP base. They can't be marginalized. More importantly, the only realistic angle of realignment for the GOP is along the Tucker Carlson/Nick Fuentes axis: keep the White Nationalism but ditch the Zionism, and instead start blaming Jews for everything. If you tried to pivot to anything *else*, then you'd end up having to *fight* these people. This is why many GOP members are so antsy about demographics and birthrates. A non-racialized Conservative party could build appeal across racial lines and be relatively unperturbed by demographic shifts; in fact that's what many hoped Trump had delivered in 2024. But a party that needs to appease White Racists cannot make those cross-racial appeals without risking losing their core base.

      I don't think this will work. I absolutely don't think this a good idea or what people like you want, Norm. I'm saying that this is the only realignment I can see having the kind of energy and coordination required to actually happen. I fully expect Tucker Carlson to run for President in 2032 on precisely this kind of ticket.

      That being said, there definitely has been a major realignment. With the literally 100% clean sweep of Texas (the Dems took not just the Senate but the State Legislature and Governorship), Lone Star is going to be a Blue state for the near future (at least 4-6 years, we'll see if it lasts beyond that, reverts to the mean, or becomes a swing state in the long term). There's no realistic road to the Presidency for the present-day GOP that doesn't go through Texas, so they're locked out of that office until either Texas reverts or they adapt to a radically different strategy. And in the long term, the Dems now control enough State Legislatures to fulfill the National Voter Compact, an agreement between states to award their Electoral College votes to whoever wins the Popular Vote across all 50 states. It only goes into force once 270 Electoral Votes' worth of states sign up to it, which is now within reach. While this would not formally abolish the Electoral College, it would abolish it in reality, making it an impotent political artifact.

      In addition, Millenials and Gen Z are way, way more Progressive than Gen X and Boomers, so the demographics for the foreseeable future favor an increasing, gradual shift to the Left.

      (Predictions in Part 2):

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    7. EXENovember 5, 2026 at 6:59 AM

      (2/2)
      I don't know what all of this amounts to in the long run, but I do know that the present-day GOP is finished. As for what I expect to happen? Well, I could be wrong, but my predictions go something like this:

      ->Barring some historically unprecedented miraculous recovery, and barring the Do-Nothing Centrists completely and utterly fumbling the ball and thus wasting the Dem energy, the 2028 Presidential Election is probably DOA for the GOP. Most likely some prominent establishment figure "runs" (read: is offered up as a scapegoat for sacrifice). My guess is JD Vance, Marco Rubio, or Ron DeSantis, but Vance is the most likely, as he has the least to offer outside of loyalty to Trump).

      ->The remaining GOP fractures into a civil war between the Carlson/Fuentes faction which wants to go deeper into the vile gutter bigotry, and between literally everyone else. I expect this faction to ultimately win and run in 2030/2032, but be unsuccessful (God, I hope they're unsuccessful, anyway).

      ->GOP in its current formation fades away into irrelevancy like the Whigs. Possible outcomes I can see from here are:

      1.Rump GOP is rebuilt from the ground up following some kind of radically different message completely divorced from the previous party, becoming totally unrecognizable. Might even feature a complete rebrand or merger to scrub the Republican name from them. Such an organization would probably spend a long time in the minority learning from the mistakes of the past and capitalizing on the inevitable flaws and failures of the ascendant Democratic establishment before eventually finding a set of material conditions that enable it to find a winning path (maybe by the late 2040s some new issue will have arisen that allows them to win the East Coast or something). Any such party might be Conservative by the standards of the time, but probably wouldn't be called Conservative today.

      2. Basically the same as 1, but with an entirely new party that doesn't bother integrating the Rump GOP (honestly, I don't see this as likely).

      3. The Libertarian Party makes its grand resurgence and replaces the GOP. Also unlikely, but not impossible.

      4. (Can only happen if DSA gets their wish and turns America into a multi-party parliamentary system): America's huge-tent political alliances-masquerading-as-parties split apart across ideological camps. In this situation, there's a decisive DSA/Democrat split, as they no longer need each other. DSA becomes an actual political party (or founds one) and becomes the Left party. The Democrats become the Centre-Left party, the Republicans become the Centre Right party, the far right MAGA types found their own party, while the Libertarians and Greens become actually relevant. From then on America is governed by coalitions and agreements in a European-style democracy. Sometimes we'll get Republican + Libertarian + Far Right coalitions, sometimes we get DSA + Democrat coalitions, sometimes, when they're aligned, we get Republican + Democrat coalitions.

      Delete
    8. EXENovember 5, 2026 at 7:37 AM

      Oh, and one more thing while I'm still here:

      Schumer needs to, and hopefully will, go. He's probably the most unpopular Democrat in a position of power, and his milquetoast do-nothingism and loyalty to Israel make him deeply despised by the base. In an environment where the base is baying for blood and the Wine Moms are angry enough to call for the guillotine, there is no place for reconciliation. In Game Theory, the consistently best strategy is Tit-For-Tat (assume good faith and open cooperation with everyone, but always punish bad behavior or exploitation of your good nature). If you never punish anyone, then being a bad faith actor becomes the optimal strategy. The Trump family requires investigation and punishment. ICE requires investigation, punishment, and possible dissolution. MAGA must be taught that there are consequences for their behavior. Only then can there be any talk of reconciliation.

      Delete
    9. NormNovember 6, 2026 at 10:02 AM

      EXE

      Ofcourse no one wants White Supremacists or race grifters or people who are too obsessed with the politics of color.

      And many of us would also say that, immigrants who have been living here 20 years

      By now you should probably realise that majority of us here are people who are seeking God's image in every human being.

      And my view of this kind of race politics is the same as eminent natural law theorist J Budzisiziewski.

      https://www.undergroundthomist.org/so-called-replacement-theory

      "Progressives like to say that a racist doctrine they call “replacement theory” is very big on the right.

      I won’t say there is no such theory. There is. Actually, though, versions of the theory are held both on the farthest, farthest fringes of the right and – more quietly – among large, large sections of the left.

      The right wing version is that immigrants, especially immigrants of color, outbreed people who were born in the country, so that descendants of the former will “replace” descendants of the latter. This is supposed to be bad.

      The left wing version is that immigrants, especially immigrants of color, trend more to the left than people who were born in the country, so that leftists will “replace” conservatives. This is supposed to be good.

      Both versions of the theory are nuts.


      As to the former version: If the country becomes browner in a few generations, so be it. People who are too selfish to have children deserve to be “replaced” by people who love them.

      As to the latter version: Immigrants who are acquainted with the politics of the country are often quite conservative; they don’t want to lose what they’ve worked and suffered to attain. So if left-wingers think immigration will lead to the “replacement” of conservatives by liberals, they may have it backwards.

      We like to say that we are a nation of immigrants, and it is true. The real question isn’t, or shouldn’t be, whether immigration is good, but whether chaotic immigration is good. What is happening at the southern border is simply cruel."

      I think you would also agree with this Prof, Yes ?



      Delete
  16. NormNovember 7, 2026 at 2:39 PM

    "Come on, Father. Obviously you and I disagree with him on theology, but it's not like the Right lines up neatly (or, increasingly at all) with what the faith demands of political actors. A little generosity and openness to encounter with the renascent religious Left, please!"

    Fr Gabriel Mosher took a legitimate swipe at Talarico and Sohrab Ahmari castigated above him for it to which Fr Mosher very rightly replied

    "The brutishness of the political right is irrelevant to the point, brother, and a distraction. The toleration of a person who says nice things while supporting the murder and mutilation of children is unacceptable."

    You ought not to tie yourself to Sohrab, Prof, all things considered. You rightly called out the LARP of Christian values on the right this time, but it was also always assumed that the left for whatever it was worth was always beyond the pale, and their appeal to Christian values was always a grift or a LARP.

    You can't let Sohrab start handing them any legitimacy , he has already started praising these Christians Larping on the left, Mind you Sohrab was one of those pundits who also approved Trump's delegation of the Pro Life Cause on the RNC platform.

    https://x.com/SohrabAhmari/status/1810123836207055233?a=AYgeQkMZjo2-Dbf5hxU&s=19

    Quite literally Prof

    Just take a min and look at this tweet
    which begins with "Yes to the Populist compromise on abortion"

    https://x.com/SohrabAhmari/status/1811028011413606414?a=7Po3oyORmdkK7Wbnz9w&s=19

    Doesn't he also deserve admonishment.

    He has always been a leftie and willing to compromise on abortion by saying things like we need to fix the broken economic system before we can tackle abortion.

    Please speak out against this also.


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