Moral Relativism on the Right: The Brothers Judd
I'm often amused at how quickly conservatives start sliding into moral relativism. If you actually listen to what they say, they go that way almost as often as the extreme left does, and far more frequently than centrists and liberals do.
Via Atrios, I found this catch by Digby in which Orrin Judd, apparently a rather popular righty blogger, heads in that direction, defending not only the burning of witches but, apparently, anti-Semitism as well. (It's down in the comments.)
People fail to notice that there are basically two distinct varieties of conservatism, the rational and the insane. Rational conservatives are basically Burkeans--they think that social institutions are the outputs of long, informal experimentation, and that, consequently, they should be changed only cautiously. (Such conservatives worry about liberalism because they think that a liberal is--to quote a friend of mine quoting somebody else but I don't remember whom--someone who thinks that he's smarter than everybody else who's ever lived.)
Even if that variety of conservatism turns out to be wrong, it's at least not crazy. There are several varieties of crazy conservative--e.g. divine command theorists--but one crazy kind is the conservative cultural relativist. They think that we ought to conform to social norms because they are our norms and for no other reason. That is, they think that that's the way we've always done it is a good reason to keep doing it that way. Non-conformity is bad simply because it's non-conformity, and things somehow magically become right out of sheer repetition.
I could go on at length about the abject irrationality of this position--whether held by righties or lefties--but you've heard it all before. Besides, you don't really need me to explain it to you. With a bit of reflection anyone can see why that position is utterly mad.
I'm often amused at how quickly conservatives start sliding into moral relativism. If you actually listen to what they say, they go that way almost as often as the extreme left does, and far more frequently than centrists and liberals do.
Via Atrios, I found this catch by Digby in which Orrin Judd, apparently a rather popular righty blogger, heads in that direction, defending not only the burning of witches but, apparently, anti-Semitism as well. (It's down in the comments.)
People fail to notice that there are basically two distinct varieties of conservatism, the rational and the insane. Rational conservatives are basically Burkeans--they think that social institutions are the outputs of long, informal experimentation, and that, consequently, they should be changed only cautiously. (Such conservatives worry about liberalism because they think that a liberal is--to quote a friend of mine quoting somebody else but I don't remember whom--someone who thinks that he's smarter than everybody else who's ever lived.)
Even if that variety of conservatism turns out to be wrong, it's at least not crazy. There are several varieties of crazy conservative--e.g. divine command theorists--but one crazy kind is the conservative cultural relativist. They think that we ought to conform to social norms because they are our norms and for no other reason. That is, they think that that's the way we've always done it is a good reason to keep doing it that way. Non-conformity is bad simply because it's non-conformity, and things somehow magically become right out of sheer repetition.
I could go on at length about the abject irrationality of this position--whether held by righties or lefties--but you've heard it all before. Besides, you don't really need me to explain it to you. With a bit of reflection anyone can see why that position is utterly mad.
posted by Winston Smith at
7:24 PM
2 Comments:
It's difficult to tell if Judd meant it literally or as a philosophical proposition. I expect some sort of explanation as the shitstorm rises.
Regardless, I don't vouch for him, and don't find him often as I make the rounds of my own internet righty echo chamber.
But social conventions are interesting, and as he notes, respecting them, no matter how stupid, is at the heart of multiculturalism. France tried to deal with it with the creation of the egalitarian, rigidly secular neo-French culture that even bans Muslim headscarves, something unthinkable in our own pluralistic society.
Moreover, this neo-French culture is artificial, and so is in conflict with the spirit of man, if such a thing exists.
Now, I don't know CS Peirce from a doorstop, but he's known as the originator of semiotics, a science of symbols as it were. If I follow his thought correctly, this scientist/philosopher detected a certain poetry to reality, an ineffable quality that defies reduction and empiricism. Something about life beyond what we can quantify, as in the Greek word ethos, whose original meaning meant the character of a painting or a piece of music.
So my question would be, is there something semiotic about seemingly arbitrary age-old customs---do they spark some recognition in the spirit of man that carries resonance if not meaning?
I'm sure we could be acculturized into thinking of Winnie-the-Pooh as the sign of impending death, but is there something to what seem to be stupid customs?
And can man live without his symbols, his myths? Are they tools used to control him, or are they some unquantifiable music of his soul? I could be wrong, and I'm sure you'll correct me, but I think Peirce was musing on this too.
There must have been some reason Plato's perfect order wanted to ban the poets, and why they burned witches.
been meaning to respond here, but keep getting distracted.
First: Well, there's some sense in which all culture is artificial (and, I guess, some sense in which none is...)...so not sure how much we can use this point against the French...
Re: Perice: Very astute, dude. The semiotics makes my head go all awhirl, but I think you're close on this.
I think he ends up being a kind of Whiggish Burkean, seeing social institutions as analogous to hypotheses (which are, I think, signs of their causes) being, in effect, tested over time. Their likely to be messed up, but I think he thinks they're more likely to get it right as a result of such experimentation, lame though it is, than we are to get it right after a few years *a priori* reflection.
On a sobering note here, though, Peirce was a young man during the Civil War and never once--to the best of my knowledge--made a peep about slavery.
This is troubling.
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