"Conservatives have ideas -- liberals don't"


Now that Bush & Co. are being jumped on by the media and the establishment types who until the other day quaked in fear of them, we hear the retort: "Yes, but at least they had ideas for running the country. The Democrats don't have a single idea to present to the public."

Conservatives have ideas -- they always do. Because conservatism is simply the existing system mirrored in the realm of ideas, and the existing system by definition always exists.
But the ideas of conservatism, in the long run, can't be put into practice because the existing system is always changing. (Heraclitus: you can't step into the same stream twice. Marx: it's a dialectical system, which is constantly throwing up and resolving new conflicts.) So conservatives always trip themselves up eventually, though it may take a while for that to become evident.
It's usually much harder for the opponents of conservatism to come up with clear, universally persuasive ideas, since to do so requires, among other things, a clear vision of the future -- where the system is going -- which one needs a well-polished crystal ball to acquire (anyone who has a functioning crystal ball to sell, let me know; I'd find one handy). Also, progressives continually quarrel over ideological angels-on-a-pin nonsense.
But sometimes, when the present reality becomes unbearable (as in the 1930s), the populace will reluctantly listen to progressives. And I have a feeling that such a time is coming.

Posted: Sat - October 15, 2005 at 01:09 PM           | |

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