From Orthodox Conservatives
6. That the imperfect known is better to the possibly perfect. (Change for change’s sake risks the loss of what we may not have recognised we had.)
6. That the imperfect known is better to the possibly perfect.
As well as Oakeshott’s preference for ‘present laughter’ over ‘utopian bliss’, other conservative philosophers have neatly summarised the rejection of the idea of perfectibility. Roger Scruton, for instance, described conservatism as the love of the real, the liebenswelt (living world) that we find around us. Part of this love, or preference, is an implicit recognition that it is not perfect; there are many problems in this world, almost no one denies that – even Leibniz claimed this was the best of all possible worlds, not that is was a perfect world – but these problems have been slowly whittled down and made manageable (for the most part) throughout human history.
The temptation to dream of a perfect world – utopia – is not a new phenomenon. It has existed for time immemorial, from dreams of Heaven to the Elysian Fields, and has recurred ever since, though the modern name came from Thomas More’s novel Utopia. The problem with a perfect place is that it requires perfect inhabitants, which human beings are not (see principle seven); but the impulse of utopian politics is to try and make human beings perfect. This impulse began innocently with social experiments such as Robert Owens in the 19th century, and his project in New Lanark, but degenerated rapidly as these social experimentations turned to social engineering under the totalitarian powers of the mid-twentieth century, where the future society was defined partly on the grounds of who would inhabit it (the Aryan race, the homo sovieticus, and so on). And in the misguided pursuit of perfection, much that was imperfect but had proven itself to work (the local cultures and identities of Eastern Europe, for instance) was lost or damaged.
So the conservative, rather than risk these dire experiments that treat human beings not as morally autonomous individuals but as cogs in a machine that can be dispensed of once they have fulfilled their purpose, works with the world as he finds it; imperfect, yes, and not perfectible, but improvable. The risk of dystopia lurks in the shadow of utopia, and it is safer to resist the temptation than to lose that which we have.
The temptation to dream of a perfect world – utopia – is not a new phenomenon. It has existed for time immemorial, from dreams of Heaven to the Elysian Fields, and has recurred ever since, though the modern name came from Thomas More’s novel Utopia. The problem with a perfect place is that it requires perfect inhabitants, which human beings are not (see principle seven); but the impulse of utopian politics is to try and make human beings perfect. This impulse began innocently with social experiments such as Robert Owens in the 19th century, and his project in New Lanark, but degenerated rapidly as these social experimentations turned to social engineering under the totalitarian powers of the mid-twentieth century, where the future society was defined partly on the grounds of who would inhabit it (the Aryan race, the homo sovieticus, and so on). And in the misguided pursuit of perfection, much that was imperfect but had proven itself to work (the local cultures and identities of Eastern Europe, for instance) was lost or damaged.
So the conservative, rather than risk these dire experiments that treat human beings not as morally autonomous individuals but as cogs in a machine that can be dispensed of once they have fulfilled their purpose, works with the world as he finds it; imperfect, yes, and not perfectible, but improvable. The risk of dystopia lurks in the shadow of utopia, and it is safer to resist the temptation than to lose that which we have.
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