Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Good afternoon, everyone. Today's lecture will be the last lecture on this first unit of conservative ism.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): This idea of conservative as skepticism and we'll be looking at today. The work of Michael Oakeshott
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Who as we will be closing closing our discussion of skepticism concerning the Palace of human reason with these essays by the English philosopher
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And what's interesting about overshot to start off with is that we're Burke never really uses the language of conservatism hike explicitly rejects it
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And I say that will look at a bit later in this class overshot actually uses the term conservatism, and attempts to give a kind of analysis of what conservatism is
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And what conservative politics might be. So we're moving from a kind of implicit conservative ism to actually making explicit what the theoretical commitments are
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And we'll look at this quote again later in today's lecture. But in this essay and one of the essays. I had you read on being conservatism.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): So I'm being conservative overshot famously writes that to be conservative is to prefer the familiar to the unknown.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): To refer the tried to the untried fact to mystery, the actual to the possible limited to the unbounded. The near to the distant the sufficient to the super abundant.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): The convenient to the present present to the perfect sorry present laughter to utopian bliss.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And while OSHA was not directly involved in party politics in the same way that Burke was and to a certain way in which hype was more involved in politics.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): OSHA was more of a traditional political philosopher. He shares this conservative understanding of politics through the lens of traditional knowledge that is the pilot
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): That the conservative understanding of politics is a is an understanding that has gained through history through tradition through experience. It's a knowing how not knowing that
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Rather than what they critique kind of radical rationalist liberal socialist forms of politics.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): As those that are kind of focusing on an abstract principle and then derive political conclusions from the abstract principle.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And so they shot like Burke and high IQ is critical of these approaches to politics that presuppose that we can develop definitive answers in advance that we can approach.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Politics, like we would approach mathematics or science. And so today, our goals are to first give an explanation of oak shots critique of what he calls political rationalism and explain his account to the concert disposition
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): What does this mean for conservative ism as a political thought and then we're going to look at a little bit towards the end. And we'll do this more in section this week at the similarities and differences between Burke bookshop and hike.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And so I'm going to quickly provide some context for ocean dot and then turn to the first essay that I had you read rationalism and politics and then two, then we'll take a quick break and then turn to the second essay on being conservative.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Now the context of shot is a little bit less.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Important for understanding his thoughts, his thought that it was for Birkin high IQ because it really is a, like a political philosopher and modern contemporary sense he's most involved in actual politics. He was born.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): In December 11 1990 1901 and he died in December 19 1990 and he lived his, his life in the United Kingdom.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): His father was a member of the Fabian Society, which was a British socialist organization that eventually went on to found the British Labour Party.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And in his own youth overshot thought of himself as a socialist, but he viewed socialism more as a kind of romantic spiritual Trent a philosophy of personal transformation, rather than a political economic program.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): He studied at Cambridge in the 1920s and then served in the British Army between 1940 1945
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): He then went on to
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Teach at Cambridge and then an Oxford before becoming a professor of political science at the London School of Economics
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): While he's associated with a conservative political thought mostly for the essays that we read today and Other Essays that are collected in the volume rationalism and politics and Other Essays
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): He himself in his like personal life was not particularly political. He was not a super involved in politics, personally.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And as a provocatively informed those attending the 20th anniversary celebration of the National Review, a conservative magazine.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Founded by William F. Buckley, and we'll talk about buckwheat and National Review towards the end of the semester.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): At this celebration. He was asked to give it give a talk and he actually writes that the rights differences with the left are not ideological and not really about significant philosophical differences.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): But there instead what he called a petty squabble over how the spoils of the state as a corporate enterprise were to be distributed that at least in American politics shrunken view.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): The left and the right, the concert, the Democratic Party and the Publican party. It's actually embodying significant philosophical differences but pay squabbles over the spoils of war.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): As a philosopher his early work focused on experience. So, how we experience the world how we come to know the world and he argued that we never really experienced the world neutrally or objectively, but we always experience it through a certain mode.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Or we experienced it through a certain kind of framework or mode or or lens and in this book published in 1933 experience in its modes was not a political theory.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): But it did provide kind of this framework that he goes on and to develop later and in his writings
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Including rationalism in politics.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): In which he emphasizes the role of experience rather than kind of abstract reason and abstract rationalism.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): That became the end which the role in which we how we experience the world.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Through different dispositions through different different modes. So the conservative disposition is a way that which we experienced the world.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): That we don't expect Megan This idea is that we don't experience the world objectively to we shouldn't think of politics is following these kind of objective scientific laws.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And the works in this edited this collection of essays rationalism and politics that was published in 1962 made him much more popular. The his early work was not super
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Popular was not received very well it wasn't study much by other philosophers who responded to that these essays from this from the that were written in the 50s and 60s.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Made him much more popular and his magnum opus on human conduct published in 1975
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And he tried to develop a theory of human action and civil association. So why do we have political communities at all.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Why do we have, why are we obliged to follow the law. And this was more of like a grand theory of what politics is rather than an ideological or a partisan treatise
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): But this was mostly ignored by other political philosophers
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): People didn't really talk about it or comment on it until well after his death. So it's only more recently that overshot has become the kind of like object of study that political theorist have actually taken to study.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): So if we're thinking of these two essays from rationalism in politics, the tissue RSA rationalism and politics and the more famous or popular say on being conservative. In both of these essays shot is critical of approaches to politics that substitute judgment.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Which like for Burke is formed through habit custom in history judgment is this ability to make decisions informed by kind of general rules based on your heads based on
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Traditional knowledge based on history, based on experience working in politics.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And he's critical of approaches that substitute that form of judgment for definitive rules where you're not actually making a judgment. You're just following a formula.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Like hierarchy saw this as a modern phenomenon as an attempt to abstract away from local needs customs histories
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And from like the kind of experiential knowledge of people who are actually involved in the political world have to a kind of philosophical scientific approach to politics.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): But ultimately a workshop rejects the idea that political theory should be making any sort of prescriptive political positions that political theory.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And political philosophy shouldn't kind of tell us how the world should be organized that he viewed philosophy, much more as posing questions that have and this is a quote from
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): From on human conduct in which questions are asked, not in order to be answered. But so that they made themselves be interrogated with respect to their conditions.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And so this, this idea that to do political philosophy or political theory for shot is to kind of make sense and pose questions to what the nature of politics is
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Not design utopian ideals not designed ideal theories politics, instead of should be left to those who have experience doing politics to people who are involved in the world and not to philosophers who study
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Politics abstract way and part of the flaw of rationalism, is it, it kind of takes away. It's substitutes this like learned experience from years of being involved in the world to a philosophical knowledge and he defends
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Conservative ism and these traditional knowledge is traditional knowledge as the sources of where we actually developed with political judgment.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And the rationalism in politics. This is it was originally published in 1947 and as many ways operating as the same in the same context of high extra serve them.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Both OSHA and high IQ were very wary of the increasing move towards economic planning and during the war. During in Great Britain.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And especially they worried about the kind of applied scientific mode of thinking to social questions on being conservative was originally
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): A lecture given in 1956 and then published in rationalism in politics in 1962 and the context for these texts is far less pressing them for Burton high IQ.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): As outshot was really writing them from the perspective of a political philosopher. He was reflecting on the nature of conservative ism as a kind of concept.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Rather than responding to specific developments in the world around him, though the obviously you can't escape context, but it's not what we don't need. It's not like the content. He was intended kind of intervene in contemporary political affairs in the same way.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): So shot begins this critique of rationalism with an account of the general character and disposition of the rationalist who he writes
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): On page six is the enemy of authority of prejudice of the merely traditional customary habitual
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Is mental attitude is at one skeptical and optimistic skeptical because there's no opinion, no habit know believe nothing so firmly rooted are so widely held
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): That he hesitates to quote. Not that he hesitates to question it and judge it by what he calls his reason optimistic because the rationalist number doubts the power of his reason when properly applied determine the work of a thing. The truth of opinion or the propriety of an action.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And so I'm sure that all of you are thinking, like, oh, he is clearly targeting people, they can't people like me. So this enlightenment tradition, right, that is simultaneously skeptical of traditional knowledge skeptical of
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): traditional forms of authority of religion of custom of habits prejudices, but yet optimistic.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): That human reason. Once we can kind of clean out all these superstitions and habits and traditions that are holding us back that we can design a more perfect more rational more just form of political organization.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And so he describes the rationalist ultimately as a kind of problem solver, or as a social engineer that the social world is a big engineering problem that we can find an efficient solution of using our philosophical theories that are rational are constructed of human reason
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And this kind of once we figure out what the problem is and apply our reason correctly, we will figure out the answer. And that's going to solve all of our social and political problems.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And the problem for OSHA and I imagine that many of you probably agree with this is that politics are inherently messy.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): It, it kind of rejects this idea that we can approach politics at through this problem solving mentality.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): But, but he used that. But his argument. His characterization of the rationalist is that
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): It's not the posters and that kind of inherent human nature that makes politics messy or something like that. But that we simply haven't found the right theory yet that we haven't fully cleanse human reason of superstition yet.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And so for OSHA this entailed the rationalist approach to politics is for him. Both one of perfection.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And uniformity. So with this idea is that there is a right answer to political questions. And once we find that right answer to political questions, it will necessarily be perfect.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Because we will have resolved all we'll finally found the answer can can resolve all the political problems like we would resolve Germany problem.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And because there's a right answer. It's going to mean that there's only one right answer that we can't have equally legitimate, but the competing opinions or ideologies. One of them has to be wrong. And one of them has to be right.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And as he summarized on page 10 of the of the essay for the rationalist of political activity is recognized as the imposition of a uniform condition of perfection upon human conduct.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): That rationalism is this idea that we could figure out how to make human society. Perfect. Right. It's this utopian impulse
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And for Oakeshott um it's important for him to distinguish between two types of knowledge and this and he believes that this the overlying the distinction between these two types of knowledge is the root flaw of the rationalist approach to health politics.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): So he distinguishes technical knowledge which can be formulated into specific rules.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And formulas and practical knowledge which is based on experience and can be turned into kind of general heuristics or kind of like habits, but not explicit rules any argues that any form of activity requires both forms of knowledge as acknowledges on page 14
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): But it's pretty important not to confuse the two. So you can use the example of cooking.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): So technical knowledge is knowledge that you would learn by reading and memorizing recipes learning rules about flavor combinations, the right balance of acids and fats salts
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): How to that kind of techniques of preparation and learning about them.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): But a good chef isn't someone who isn't isn't just someone who knows these technical roles, though you clearly like need to know these rules, but someone who is practice these techniques and is able to make adjustments when needed.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): To be able to taste something and be able to figure out from the way it tastes are the way that it smells, or the texture of the sauce or the way in which the feel of the dough while you're needing it what types of adjustments you need and so
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): For overshot we have need both of these forms of knowledge but rationalist approaches to politics believe that what that practical knowledge is not a form of knowledge at all that practical knowledge which is gained through experience or what he emphasizes the role of apprenticeship.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): That that this knowledge is is just, it's just merely superstition that the rationalist belief is these things can't be knowledge because they don't generate certainty only technical knowledge computer certainty.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Or the same answer for everyone wants to follow the same techniques. So this technical knowledge is very democratic. But, but the rationalist believes that
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Any form of knowledge doesn't produce certainty in a way that like mathematics produces certainty is
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Not real knowledge and so for OSHA he traces its desire to for certainty to the enlightenment, but he's focusing more on Descartes and Bacon and scientific revolution, rather than or so and calm.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): But the challenge is that when such thinking this desire for certainty.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Comes to replace all forms of knowledge and expands into domains where it can apply like social, moral and political questions where we don't have the same types of certainty, where it's where it's inappropriate to expect to have the same type of certainty.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): So for much of contemporary politics is rationalist, and by this he means it involves the claim to scientific expertise and certainty and is dismissive of custom tradition folk beliefs.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And this type of politics becomes primarily administrative. It's not about collaboratively resolving questions of the common good, but applying technical knowledge to the problem.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And simply following the rules and so for him rationalism offers a really clear solution that it simplifies the complexity of the political world into a kind of formula that you can follow. Oh, you have this ideal you apply this ideal and then you get the right answer, and it's
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Democratic anyone can learn these techniques of how to administer a political community you read your political philosophy you memorize these principles and then you go out into the world and apply them.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): You don't need to be what overshot describes on page 29 a well established hereditary ruler educated in a tradition and error to along family experience.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Instead, he writes on this, on page eight that the offer is such a technique will seem to him the offer of salvation itself.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): To be told that the necessary knowledge is to be found complete and self contained in a book to be told that this knowledge is of a sort that can be learned quickly and applied mechanically. So, it offers a solution to politics that it can simplify the world.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): The problem is this approach like similar to an argue arguments that hike makes is it this thinking relies on a category mistake, it assumes that politics is a domain of human life that consists of technical knowledge of rules that can be memorized from a book.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): As he writes on page 36 the rationalist want so much to be right.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): But quote. Unfortunately, he will never quite succeed. He'd be gone too late and on the wrong foot. His knowledge will never be more than half knowledge and, consequently, he will never be more than half right.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And this is because politics is all about uncertainty. It's about compromises about unanticipated consequences unforeseen circumstances. It's about exceptions to the rule.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And any attempt to reduce all this complexity will always result in mistakes, but it's only this kind of experiential this practical knowledge.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): This experience that you gained through kind of working through politics that understands the complexity and cultivates the ability to make judgments when
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): There isn't an obvious right answer. When you have to compromise, when you have to kind of figure out the next best option when the best option isn't available when you have to kind of make decisions without but that are
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): That are novel and unforeseen that don't fit any of the examples in your textbook. Right. And so the rationalist because they've already discounted all these other forms of knowledge, I'm
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): For OSHA this these rationalist will never acknowledged the flaws of their approach to politics, but will continue imposing these rules on society. And basically, they're going to basically double down on this idea that, like, oh,
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Arm it's when we fail. It's not because of our approach to pull up politics is wrong. It's because other people were irrational that that the the danger to to for OSHA is not simply that these policies are going to fail.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): But then the rationalist in charge, they will systematically eliminate all the real forms of political education that provide practical knowledge, they're going to get rid of experience, they're going to get rid of history.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): We're going to get rid of apprenticeship, they're going to get rid of customs and habits and prejudices and existing institutions and institutional knowledge.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): All this in order to get rid of what they view as the superstitious forms of politics that are holding
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): The world back and transform all politics into technical problems that can be solved with their proper technique.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): They'll view all of their policy failures as signs of the people are too stupid and too superstitious and the educational reform.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And this is the this is going to in the long run, lead to the destruction of all sorts of tacit political knowledge that
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): That people relying on and crises that people rely on when values conflict. Conflict that people rely on when when when exceptions are needed that we're going to
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Basically turn politics to this like a computer program where we don't prioritize people's experience and judgment and ability to kind of make decisions, but we simply follow an algorithm. And this ultimately
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): concluded he concludes in pages 41 and 42 that we have the spectacle of a set of sanctimonious rationalist politicians.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Preaching an ideology of unselfishness and social service to a population in which they and their predecessors have done the best their best to destroy the only living root of moral behavior.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And oppose by another set of politicians dabbling with the projects of converting us from rationalism under the inspiration of a fresh rationalization of our political tradition.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): That he views, both sides of contemporary political debates as either fully rational lists or an attempt to rationalize
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Existing tradition. So, the Liberals a socialist that progressives, on the one hand to trying to impose this rational model of politics.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And party conservatives for him trying to defend us from rationalism by rationalizing political traditions and will, and we can think about whether or not we find that an accurate account of party politics today.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): We're going to turn to his essay on being conservative in just a second. But if you need to pause this lecture. Take a break, get a snack have a glass of water come back to it after you walk your dog. This is a great time to do so
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): So what is conservative ism for overshot. How does this fit into his critique of rationalism. What is this alternative
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And for oak shot he thinks he wants us to think of conservative ism less as a set of beliefs or values and it's not about a set of like
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): A political values like individual liberty or small government or traditional family values or any of these kind of words that we kind of here.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): But for him. Ultimately, it comes down to a disposition. So it's a character. It's set of preferences. It's a kind of mood or it's a kind of way of being in the world that prioritize a certain things over others, and the conservative disposition, according to
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): OSHA is ultimately what he calls a preference for familiar parody. He says that the conservative values.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): The President tradition existing forms of authority, not because it quote is recognized to be more admirable than any possible alternative on account of its familiarity.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): But to be conservative for shot it's not to say that like the traditional way of doing things is better or right but it's to prefer the traditional way of doing things, because you are familiar with it because you are
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Comfortable with that model, right. And so we have that this quote that we started the class with right the to be conservative is to prefer the familiar to the unknown.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): The prefer to try to the untried fact industry, the actual to the possible the limited to the unbounded. The near to the distant sufficient to the super abundant the convenient to the perfect present laughter to utopian bliss.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): So when you're thinking about this quote I want you to think of like, whoa, both on like what type of person is likely to have this disposition and what types of politics are likely to come out of this disposition
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Now for Oakeshott this this disposition is really comes down to a relationship to change. And this is something very similar that we saw with Burke ray and there was a distinction between change and innovation.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Change he breaks his this inevitable and he said about it on page 49 is something that we have to suffer.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): But innovation is not inevitable innovation are those changes that we intentionally initiate out of our own will.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): That we don't have to be there and we all for OSHA have to reconcile ourselves to change like change is inevitable.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): But the conservative because they value the familiar and the unknown. They view changes through the lens of loss that they have lost something that
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): The conservative views change quote is having lost something he actually enjoyed and learned how to enjoy. That's from 409
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And he continues on for 10 the quote change is a threat to identity and every change is an emblem of extinction.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And he continues that the conservative survives change by quote cleaning to whatever familiarity or not immediately threatened and this assimilating what is new without becoming unrecognizable to ourselves.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): That the conservative disposition is essentially a resistance to our response to change, which is a threat to our identity because it requires it's going to
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Any sort of system significant change is going to involve changes in the way we live our way of life, our comforts our habits, our prejudices or dispositions, all of that.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And it's a response to change, not by embracing it and doing changing necessarily always good, but to kind of more it's it's kind of a relationship of morning or melancholia about the loss of familiarity.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And a clinging to what is what remains unchanged. What is familiar what's still closest hand at hand in order to kind of navigate this change. It's like holding on to something.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Well, it's holding on to some sort of traditions and sort of habit or custom as a kind of life raft as you're being swept through that the tide of history.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): However, if change. It has this kind of melancholic effect on the conservative innovation evokes defensiveness, and skepticism even resentment and for the conservative
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): They don't, they, they both don't go around looking to intentionally change and obey things and they're always going to place a high burden of proof on anyone claiming to improve the status quo.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Because they unlike the rationalist, unlike the innovator are going to recognize the improvement and innovation is always a change and therefore a loss and that change has to
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): For the conservative significant bring such significant important benefits and provide a such a clear and obvious sense of benefit to outweigh the loss that loss of familiarity that loss of a sense of certainty of home have a presence and a fit.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): To make up for that loss and because politics is set by complexity and uncertainty and unintended consequences that we can't control like once we pass once we take action in the political world.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): We don't know all the effects of that action. We don't know all the downstream effects of a piece of legislation or or putting one leader in charge of another.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And this means that this is a super high burden of proof because the innovator, as he argued in rationalism in politics can never provide that type of certainty that there won't be unforeseen consequences or other losses.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And that's the conservative, he writes on page 412 is cautious and he has disposed to indicate his accent or descent, not an absolute
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): But graduated terms. He is the situation in terms of its propensity disrupt the familiarity of the features of the world.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): So the conservative as the person who's always kind of pumping the brakes and shots world is always wants to asking, Are you sure this is a good idea.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Or what are we losing when we are trying to make this progress or this innovation or this change.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): What's getting left behind. Who's getting left out. What are we sacrificing for this greater good. And this is a send the essence of the concert disposition
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And so, in part two of the essay. Oh, child argues that this disposition is inherently valuable.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): In relationships like friendship and activities like hobbies, it talks about fishing where we find value in them for their own sake, not for some expected utility or gain or loss. But what is this disposition mean for politics.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And according to john on page 424 conservative politics is grounded on the belief that governing quote is a specific unlimited activity, namely the provision.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And custody of general rules of conduct which are understood not as plans for imposing substantive activities.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): But as instruments, enabling people to pursue the activities of their own choice with minimum frustration and therefore, something which is appropriate to be conservative about
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): That conservative is have had take approaches politics very cautiously on very similar to hike OSHA argues that it
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): That the government is not the result of pre that should not be about pre planning things that society is not the result of premeditated planning.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): But the result of individuals seeking their own benefit, and happiness.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Through interactions with others. And this leads to general patterns and routines of behavior and moral norms social customs and rules of conduct.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And the role of governing then is to kind of follow those social norms and social rules of conduct and enforce them right if people are violating these norms and social laws and rules of conduct.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): But otherwise, let people live their life as they choose that it should be very restricted form of governance and politics should be kind of left
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Left alone to just kind of this management, kind of a referee or an umpire model of politics and here he he. They conservative finds his enemy in the rationalist.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): The rationalist. He writes on page 426 feel that there ought to be something that ought to be done to convert the so called chaos into order.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): For there. This is no way for rational human beings to be spending two lives. And so the rationalist to dream of more perfect and more rationally ordered societies and view politics as a means to impose
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): What overshot describes as their private dreams on others, but the concern and contrast views the ruler as a this on page one for 2017 tribal ruler as an umpire on the goal of governing is not to make the rules. I'm
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Not to produce the new rules that those rules kind of emerged spontaneously from society from history and tradition in a kind of hierarchy and model.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): But simply to administer those rules that your job is not to try to go around and fix every problem and developing a new society from scratch, but to kind of govern the existing society based on the norms and rules and laws that have already made it work so far.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And this doesn't mean that the conservative is an anarchist for action, he argues, on page 428
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): That it's necessary to resolve disputes between people when their interests, beliefs, values come into conflict with each other.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): But the goal is to not impose uniformity, or to correct human nature. So these conflicts don't happen.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): But simply to arbitrate these disputes based on the rules that already exists for society that conflict is going to be inevitable and shots from the conception of politics.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): That we shouldn't view politics as a way to end conflict once and for all. But as a means to follow social rules that allow for the arbitration of conflict.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And this mode of politics requires a lot of discipline to not impose your own values and your own preferences on others but assembly arbitrate disputes with an eye towards preserving the existing
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Social Order and for that reason he ends the essay by saying that politics is ultimately best practice by the old
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): For when we're young, he, he writes that we view the world as a mirror in which we see the reflection of our own desires.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): The allure of violent emotions is irresistible. When we are young, we are not supposed to make concessions to the world. We never feel the balance of the thing in our hands that when we're young.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): We see the world with something that we can shape that we can change that we can mold it to our own ideas of a more perfect world.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Where when we are older, we come to recognize the world has something to impose its will on us that he says that we learned that the world is quote inhabited by others besides ourselves who cannot be reduced to me reflections.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Of our own emotions and coming to be at home and this commonplace world qualifies us
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): If we are so inclined, and have nothing better to think about to engage in what the man of conservative disposition understands to be political activity that it's only once we learned that
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Other people might disagree with us and that the world is a complex place where there aren't right answers and that we can only learn these political lessons through experience.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Not through philosophy, not through political science, not through kind of abstract rational reflection.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And it's only after we learn these hard lessons. Where are you kind of youthful utopian dreams for changing the world and making the world a better place or chase into by experience that then we are qualified to go into politics.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Now shot in this essay doesn't really
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Give arguments in favor of this conservative this position.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): He's kind of he's describing it. Not really arguing in favor of it and the persuasiveness of this conservative approach to politics realize I'm sharing his understanding
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Of the social, political order something emergent rather than constructed so that practical and technical knowledge is a practical knowledge is the best means of engaging in political behavior.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And before we do, I turn to leave you with some questions to think about while you finish the reading and prepare for a section this week.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): I wanted to kind of tie some things together this this trend of conservative ism as skepticism and remember this is the idea that conservatism takes the skepticism that was kind of this core
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Belief that we should subject all existing institutions to doubt into critique and skepticism and turns it back on the Enlightenment project itself, it turns the skepticism back on human reason
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And offers a critique of of rationalism a critique of human reason as being so abstracted from reality for Burke.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): For trying to impose a kind of us a plan on the social order for hike for trying to translate the realm of experience to the realm of formulate for workshop
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): That that in essence it's trying to show that the Enlightenment project is is it
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Attempt to kind of tear everything down and rebuild a kind of utopian society and its absence is always doomed to failure is going to create danger is dangerous of violence in its awake because it's fundamentally misunderstood the nature of politics.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And in this kind of stranded thinking, this leads to three kind of political implications. I'm going to suggest
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): First, it's kind of preference for slow manage change. This is something that we see in all three of the readings that there is a kind of
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Defensive change that like it's not saying that we should never change anything. If the conservative ism is not saying that we should defend the status quo.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): All the time. Um, but that this change that is inevitable, and in many ways. Good. Great. Hi, it talks about in the road to serfdom about how
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): The world has gotten better that people have become more and more politically free and equal through the kind of development of economic and political freedom.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): But that this would be slow and manage and kind of test it out and kind of, you should always kind of test the waters first before you go too far in contrast to kind of the need for immediate revolution or constant innovation.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And this entails is very explicit and high I can or less, but it's I think it's implicit in Berk to
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): The role of government should be relatively limited. It is not the role of government is not to solve all the problems or to remake human nature.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): But that the role of government is to kind of keep it's to kind of manage and maintain the existing social order it is to kind of arbitrate disputes, it is to kind of manage this change that is inevitable, but it is not to instigate and bring this change about
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And that there's a pragmatic respect for existing institutions and authority.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): That this ruler this like this skeptical line of thinking and conservatism doesn't defend these existing forms of institution these existing institutions existing social practices these existing forms of authority as necessarily right
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): What will turn to next week in the kind of more natural law tradition of conservatism is more willing to make the stronger claims that these, these are the right way to do things.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): But for Burke Hi Can overshot that there's a kind of pragmatic defense that for Burke, right, that these existing institutions maintain social stability.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): For high IQ that these are the kind of result of an evolutionary adaptation or kind of a market competition and are probably the most efficient and effective and
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): forms of social organization or for workshop that these are simply what is familiar and therefore more likely to kind of maintain social
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Social Order and and so the thing to think about. And what we're going to think about this weekend section is
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Where we see these types of this this line of conservative thinking and contemporary conservatism and how accurate it in what we can learn from this this mode of skepticism.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): So while you're finishing the workshop reading some questions to consider.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): What arguments would be persuasive and making the case for the conservative disposition, instead of merely describing it. So what would make. Why, why should we be conservative. If I
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Was going to make that argument, who is likely to embody this conservative disposition. What groups of people are likely to have this preference for familiarity and who's likely to have a posting dispositions.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Are you persuaded by his critique of rationalism why or why not what connections. Do you see between OSHA and contemporary conservative discourse or policy in this country.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): And finally, where do you see similarities between workshop and bookshop Burke and high IQ and whereas shots to the account of conservatism part from Birkin high
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): So that's going to be it for today's lecture on shot again. I will see you in class I'm either Monday or Wednesday and we're big into these a little bit more deeper and kind of think through some of the implications
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): For poet politics and for political theory from shots writings. As always, if you have any questions, join me in office hours. You can sign up for a 10 minute slot, send me an email.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Happy to kind of work through some of these ideas with you.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): As always, if there's I'm always happy when you share, kind of like news articles or tweets or what are other things that you've seen in the world that kind of
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): Remind you of something that you found a reading. I think that's always interesting to see these connections in the real world.
Prof. Sardo (he/him/his): But at the very least, I'll see you all in class on Monday and Wednesday or Monday or Wednesday, have a good rest of your day. Make sure you're staying safe staying healthy and and i will see you this week, take care.
