Conservative Mind 2

As I said before, I in no way want to give the impression that a summary of this book comes even close to capturing the majesty of the book, and to go even further, a reading of the book shows that Burke, Locke, Rousseau, Locke, Hobbes, John Adams, Tocqueville and a host of others need to be read and understood to claim to be appreciating the meaning of what is written. To grossly summarize the key insights that stick with me however:

Leveling in all its forms is supremely dangerous to all freedoms of man, to the freedoms of both the masses and the aristocracy. We see the result of economic leveling in socialist and communist countries where the general outcome is that the overall standard of living is lowered in the extreme so that all may be “equal”, but the equivalence is of the lowest common denominator where nobody has anything worth having economically. The economic results are minor compared to the intellectual and spiritual cost, and in fact the tyranny of spiritual and intellectual leveling is perfectly capable to be carried out, and maybe even preferably so where people are in fact worshiping material gain and unaware that they have lost the meaning of their lives.

Sadly, we see that the cultural, intellectual, and spiritual leveling has already been carried out successfully for the bulk of the US population, and the mass of people are chasing various material goods while only dimly aware that they have no sense of meaning, allegiance to family, church, country or any other organization. They gather material with no more meaning than “the flies of summer”, since their connection to any higher power of history, culture, religion, family, or community has been taken from the them by the combination of minimal education, and a mass culture dedicated to the lowest common denominator.

The term “aristocracy” is used as a positive thing throughout the book, while it isn’t precisely their definition I’ll define it as “it is good to have betters”. I’m often maligned by people for saying that I actually appreciate that there are some people of wealth that can have multiple beautiful homes, private jets, and the like. The point I try to make is that jealousy isn’t the ONLY human emotion … one can appreciate the good fortune of others, and feel that the fact that things are possible for SOME is an improvement on them not being impossible for any, and raises the overall level of the economic system.

Most people hate that analysis, but after reading this book I realize in more depth the profound thankfulness and some level of jealousy that I have for a William Buckley. Without “betters”, we have nothing to even aspire to, or realize where life CAN go, to appreciate what is possible. We are dumb sheep that wallow in the pre-packaged crumbs of civilization, religion, and knowledge that are doled out to us by an educational system and media that by and large has lost track of what even exists in the store room of western culture.

This is again the same lament of the Closing of the American Mind. We have lost the basic connection with our own culture. From the Conservative Mind it becomes clear that this is at least in part a "conspiracy". When people are aware of the treasure of thought and culture that has gone before them in western civilization, that understanding in itself acts as a conserving anchor. When one appreciates what they have, they are far less likely to tear it down in a vain attempt to create some abstract heaven on earth.

All of the loss of meaning to life, the trivialization of religion, family, and all institutions other than the federal government was predicted and discussed by conservatives before 1700. The dangers of increasingly direct democratic rule, of removal of religion from connection with the state, and of even the rise of protestantism are discussed in detail as risks to freedom. As Bork points out in Slouching Toward Gomorrah, there isn't, nor can be any brake on the forces of radicalism and liberalism. Once the masses believe that they are on a train named “progress”, they are only interested in going faster and faster even if it becomes clear that the near destination is tyranny, hell on earth, followed by destruction.

The biggest sense that I’m left with is much the same as when I read “Atlas Shrugged”. How could I have gone through a normal US education and graduated from college and be completely ignorant of Edmund Burke? Much as in the case of the ideas of Ayn Rand, it becomes clear that it wasn’t an accident.