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Why Darwinism/HBD cannot be conservative
(note: see Alan Roebuck’s followup post here. )
A blog called Gucci Little Piggy runs this entry:
Larry Auster Doesn’t Get the Sexy Science: Natural Selection is God
We don’t need Larry Auster muddling these things up, shifting the focus. Bio-conservatives who seek social change have rigid science: evolution, and the sexy science: Game, in their corner.
Gucci Little Piggy—http://chuckross.blogspot.com/
Alan Roebuck sends this comment which he posted at the Piggy site:
Chuck,
You have made what to me is the best defense yet of the proposition that HBD is good for conservatism. You said
Evolution’s field general has ordered society…
If I understand it correctly, this quote shows that you grasp an important truth about conservatism: It’s ultimately about the order of society—its laws, rules, customs, traditions, etc. Proper conservatism is about preserving (or, more commonly these days, restoring) a proper ordering of American society.
And your basic argument, as I understand it, is that evolution (by which you mean the mindless, Darwinian sort) has made man what he is, including all of his differences and inequalities. HBD, then, is about understanding and acknowledging these differences scientifically, so that we can properly order our society. And since HBD is scientific, it will be harder to ignore or contradict than religious doctrines are.
Well, this is the part of HBD that can be valuable: acknowledging differences between groups. But if conservatism is ever to return to being the ordering principle of society, HBD can at best only be one component of a more comprehensive system.
This is because any ruling paradigm needs to have authority, that is, the right to be believed and obeyed. The ruling (i.e., ordering) principles of society need to tell John Q. Public what he ought to believe and how he ought to behave, for otherwise he will look elsewhere for his ordering principles. We see this now in our liberal society: According to America’s official leadership class, America only stands for tolerance and openness. But tolerance and openness don’t actually have any content, so people look elsewhere for guidance: some become religious, some become leftist activists (for whom “tolerance” really means “destroying conservatism”), some become ethnic activists, some become partisans of science, and so on.
HBD, then, cannot be truly conservative because its foundation is evolution, and evolution has no authority. Evolution is simply a statement of how (we think) man came to be what he is, but it has no authority to tell man how he ought to behave. One cannot derive an “ought” from an “is,” especially when you are referring to something as vast as society
In fact, the leading lights of evolution generally say that now that man has become aware of evolution, he is no longer constrained by its results. This being the case, they go on to endorse ordinary, garden-variety liberalism.
In order to get real conservatism, the minimum requirement is an acknowledgment of human reality, plus something else that has real authority over man. That “something else” will necessarily be non-scientific, in which case HBD is radically insufficient.
LA replies:
You write:
HBD, then, cannot be truly conservative because its foundation is evolution, and evolution has no authority. Evolution is simply a statement of how (we think) man came to be what he is, but it has no authority to tell man how he ought to behave. One cannot derive an “ought” from an “is,” especially when you are referring to something as vast as society
Has this simple, obvious point—which goes to the heart of the bio-conservatives’ claim that Darwinism is the true basis of conservatism—been made before?
Further, now that I think about it, while I’ve looked at the passages of Richard Dawkins and E.O. Wilson where they construct a new “religion” based on Darwinism, I haven’t seen any “ought” in this religion of theirs. Mainly their religion is about how to find meaning and satisfaction in life by contemplating the marvelous phenomena of evolution. But beyond telling people to be intellectual connoisseurs of biology, does this religion tell its aspirants how to live their lives, how to behave toward other people, how to organize marriage and family, what sexual morality to follow, and so on? Does the Wilsonist religion tell a person what to do if he finds someone’s billfold that’s been lost with, say, $500 in it? If Wilsonism tells the person to track down the owner and return the wallet, on what basis does it tell him this? Will Wilson’s answer be that the individual, on finding the billfold, should sit down and remind himself that societies in which people have a high level of honesty toward complete strangers out-reproduce societies that don’t? But if that’s the case, why do most people NOT return money they’ve found? Shouldn’t humans with highly ethical behavior have out-bred humans with unethical behavior by now?
And do such considerations really tell us what is right and wrong?
LA continues:
Or do the bio-cons perchance get their ethical system from Roissy, who tells them that the ethical value of a human female is strictly a function of the degree of sexual arousal she causes in men? (Roissy himself puts this idea in somewhat rawer terms.)
Alan Roebuck writes:
Gucci Little Piggy has not responded to my comment, but Mangan has. I sent the following comment to Mangan’s post:
Dennis, you said
So, no, HBD isn’t conservative in the sense that it necessarily prescribes any particular political philosophy, but neither is Newton’s second law. Therefore the complaint that it carries no authority seems odd, just as it would be were it directed against Newton.
This is formally correct, but it misses the big picture. The HBDers’ basic complaint against us “theocons” is that we “just don’t get it.” Well, what don’t we get? Regarding HBD’s materialistic, atheistic, Darwinian worldview, it’s not that we don’t get it, it’s that we have good reasons for rejecting it.
Aside from that, though, is HBD’s claim (perhaps implicit) that it understands human reality more accurately than any other school of thought. For example, in the post at Gucci Little Piggy that triggered this discussion, Chuck Ross says
Natural selection is God. This force has ordered the development of human physiology, sociology, psychology, and moral codes. All are inextricably linked. Evolution’s field general has ordered society…
And
Science—through HBD, sociobiology, and evolutionary theory—is in the process of codifying their own moral tale.
And also
…the God of natural selection is the model for the God of religion.
Ross, along with a lot of other people, obviously believes that science has authority. You may pooh-pooh this as hubris, but moral and social principles must come from somewhere. If they do not come from an authoritative religion (as opposed to a religion that is just you doing your own thing) or from an authoritative science, from where will they come?
Chuck Ross writes:
I’m Chuck Ross, operator of Gucci Little Piggy. Nice to meet you.
Obviously we have some differences of opinion with regards to Game and HBD’s place in the realm of conservatism. I’ll try to impart my viewpoint as best I can. Keep in mind, my blog is a place for me to develop my own ethical beliefs. I don’t claim to have a staunch belief system in place as of yet. I’m still developing my ethical system. I’m merely trying to find the right primer before I decide to paint my walls. Mine is the decision between eggshell, cream, or plain ol” white. Retreating back to first principles, as a non-believer and Darwinist, I have to take issue with your assertion that God holds some absolute truth that in turn lays down a moral code for us to abide by. You see it as something that was just given to us because you assume that God was here before us. I, on the other hand, see this code as something humans came up with on their own—because I assume we were here before God.
Now, I try to argue that we do have a moral code in place. It hasn’t been codified and printed on rock yet because we haven’t actually figured out the nuts and bolts of it. I’ll admit that that creates a malleable, weak-ish moral code, but it is rooted in truth rather than superstition.
Alan Roebuck said:
“HBD, then, cannot be truly conservative because its foundation is evolution, and evolution has no authority. Evolution is simply a statement of how (we think) man came to be what he is, but it has no authority to tell man how he ought to behave. One cannot derive an “ought” from an “is,” especially when you are referring to something as vast as society”
But what then settles the ultimate authority of God, at least as we are able to perceive it? To be more clear, what makes the thing you call God the arbiter of morality? Since God is not proven, how can an entity that may not exist lay down our moral code? As a believer, you are making a lofty assumption just as you believe I am.
Also, it is very simple to derive an “ought” from an “is.” Every being has a desire to survive. The traffic on the road “is” heavy. I “ought” not cross the road. The dog “is” baring his teeth. I “ought” not pet the dog. I think you and Roebuck put too much on evolution’s plate. Evolution and HBD merely explains reality. It doesn’t explain what we are supposed to do with that knowledge of reality. It is up to society to develop a system of behaviors according to that. As rational beings with developed memories, humans quickly learn what can hurt them and what can’t. As such, we operate by a “Negative Golden Rule” which says “Don’t do unto others what you don’t want done to you.” Based upon entrenched power hierarchies and social situations, humans gauge the usefulness of this morality. More often than not, we abide by it. We don’t kill others because we don’t want to be killed. We don’t not kill because someone else chose not to kill us as the “Golden Rule” would teach. So our morality is based on some sort of self-preservation. It’s not as rigid as yours, but its still a code.
My final thought: perhaps you are correct in saying that HBD doesn’t have a place in conservatism. I’d argue that this isn’t because HBD is flawed but because conservatism is. Take a look at free-market principles which I assume most conservatives agree with. Free-market economics argues that social good is maximized when individual agents have the freedom to do what they feel is best for them. An individual hedonism, to an extent, is best for society. There will certainly be transgressions and “immoral” behavior along the way—Game, economics, whatever—but trying to fill in all the gaps is the way of leftists. This isn’t material reductionism though, as you would argue, because the hedonistic activities are curbed by some ingrained behaviors and emotional responses. Also, the umbrella term “conservative” may be improperly applied to advocates of HBD. In my post, I didn’t go far enough into my thought that conservatism isn’t the best “home” for HBD although they are allies. Obviously, liberalism isn’t either given their blank-slatism.
These are just my quick thoughts. I’ll be posting this on my blog as well if you’d like to respond directly. Thanks.
LA replies:
You say you don’t have a staunch belief system in place and are still searching. Yet you have said at your site:
Natural selection is God. This force has ordered the development of human physiology, sociology, psychology, and moral codes. All are inextricably linked. Evolution’s field general has ordered society …
Science—through HBD, sociobiology, and evolutionary theory—is in the process of codifying their own moral tale….
… the God of natural selection is the model for the God of religion.
These are very assured, dogmatic, sweeping, and authoritative-sounding statements, especially coming from an obviously very young man who admits he doesn’t “have a staunch belief system in place as of yet. I’m still developing my ethical system….”
If you don’t have a staunch belief system in place yet, then I recommend that you stop coming across like someone who possesses the truth and is proclaiming the new gospel to the world.
You continue:
“Now, I try to argue that we do have a moral code in place. It hasn’t been codified and printed on rock yet because we haven’t actually figured out the nuts and bolts of it. I’ll admit that that creates a malleable, weak-ish moral code”
If your code is malleable and weak-ish, it can’t be an authoritative moral code and can’t be the basis for any sustained society, let alone for our particular society. Since your code is both malleable-weakish AND not the code of our society, then by definition it’s not conservative and you have made Alan Roebuck’s case.
Finally, your statements about God, or rather the straw man you have set up as God, are worthy, or rather unworthy, of a junior high school student, so cartoonish they are not worth replying to. If you want people to take you seriously in discussions about theism versus non-theism, you had better learn something about theism and stop portraying it in terms of the crudest caricatures.
Thanks for writing.
September 17
Leonard D. writes:
Alan Roebuck writes:
HBD, then, cannot be truly conservative because its foundation is evolution, and evolution has no authority. Evolution is simply a statement of how (we think) man came to be what he is, but it has no authority to tell man how he ought to behave. One cannot derive an “ought” from an “is,” especially when you are referring to something as vast as society
Alan Roebuck is quite right, if you assume he means that HBD by itself cannot be truly conservative. That human beings are congenitally diverse is, after all, common sense, and therefore a part of conservatism. (To be clear, the mechanisms causing this diversity, and the evolutionary source of it, are new things, and thus not part of conservativism.) But quite obviously we can take HBD and turn it to progressive ends, simply by adding the axiom that all people should be the same. Then HBD becomes yet another aspect of “social injustice”, a “challenge” for us to overcome. Chain the strong! Raise up the weak! The first shall be last and the last, first!
I would also note in response to Alan’s point that while we cannot derive “ought” from “is”, we can derive “ought not” from “is”, in a sense. We ought not do things under the assumption that something is true that is not true. For example, if it is true that men are naturally different in some respect from women, then (at the least), we ought not expect any policy that assumes they they are the same in that respect to succeed. Of course, I am smuggling in an “ought” here to begin with, namely that we ought to care if our means achieve our ends. But this I think most people will agree with, as an axiom if no more transcendental justification is apparent. [LA This is true as far as it goes, but is radically insufficient. Mr. Roebuck is talking about the basis of a moral code, a way of life. Darwinism doesn’t provide that.]
As for what most bio-cons think, I think it is fairly obvious that they are not basing their conservatism (if they are conservative) on HBD. HBD is salient, in that current progressivism is incompatible with it, and thus coming to believe HBD almost automatically drives a person out of the progressive faith. (You can stay in the church, but only if you never let on to your beliefs—if you do that, you become a racist and a sexist, at minimum, and probably also a genocidal fascist.) But being a non-progressive does not make you a conservative. At most, it makes you an anti-progressive, as I am, and they are different. Thus, for example, Roissy appears to be a nihilist more than conservative. Mencius Moldbug, by contrast, is conservative, but in a very different way than traditional conservatives. He essentially takes the principle of order and raises it to the status of an axiom: human societies ought to be heirarchically ordered. He does not ground this in God or anything else transcendental. It seems to me to be a sort of minimal kernel of conservatism.
But I think most “bio cons” are more normal conservatives, in that they simply love and value many aspects of the society they have received. They love God, America, capitalism and Western culture, and their families. [LA replies: biocons love God?] Of course, valuing a thing is different than believing in any “ought”—i.e. that a thing ought to continue; that we ought to have policy or other action to preserve something. But most people are willing to make that jump. You could call that an instance of the naturalistic fallacy, I guess. But I think that is rather blinkered. Rather, I think most people simply believe, as an axiom, I ought to make an effort to preserve things I love, or something like that.
Todd White (here is his blog) writes:
If it’s not too late to weigh-in on this issue, here’s my two cents.
I think—at one time, decades ago—it was possible for an atheist to be a full partner in the fight to preserve Western civilization. Ayn Rand comes to mind. So does Karl Popper. They loved freedom and America, and just as importantly, they loved mankind. They also lived in a more innocent time (1940s/50s)—a time before Richard Dawkins, E.O. Wilson, Daniel Dennett, and the rest of the Reductionist movement.
Today, atheism equals reductionism. reductionism is the idea that we’re all mindless meat puppets manipulated by our selfish genes to survive and reproduce. Even human reason (which was championed by Rand) is impotent in the reductionist/atheist worldview. As David Brooks says, “Reason is just the press secretary of the emotions.” [LA replies: Naturally he’s going to say that. Since he drifts from view to view as mood, convenience, or self-interest dictates, a world view that denies the reality of reason will suit him.]
As we’ve discussed before, a free republic has to believe that its citizens have the capacity for reason and morality (two things denied by the atheist/reductionist crowd). Otherwise, it is intellectually defenseless against Washington elites who want to lead their brethren around by the nose.
In conclusion, for me, it’s not the principle of atheism (“no God”) that is incompatible with Western civilization; it is the modern practice of atheism (“reductionism”) which denies not only God’s existence, but the existence of a truly rational, moral human being.
LA replies:
This is a very interesting and useful distinction.
But the question is, is atheism (reductionism) a different thing from atheism (no God), or just a more consistent form of it?
Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 16, 2009 08:13 AM | Send
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