Useful Fools

Posted By John Moore on July 26, 2004

This is spillover from a discussion on Roger L. Simon’s fine blog…

I said, on the subject of social conservatism

I haven’t read all the comments, but there is one thing jumping out at me: this freedom/non-freedom dichotomy.

I’m a social conservative. I suspect that would put me in the non-freedom category. And yet I see only one non-freedom view associated with social conservatism, and that is drug prohibition. Drug prohibition is widely popular and for almost any politician it is political suicide to oppose it.

I oppose it, as does the National Review, which I think is the primary journal of social conservatism.

So, what freedoms do I suppress?

To which Charlie(Colorado) said

John, I think the assumption that being a “social conservative” puts you in the “non-freedom” category may be isomorphic to the mistake Roger is talking about, and for just the reason you note: be socially conservative enough and you wrap around to the notion that being left alone is the core value to be desired in one’s interaction with the State.

What I do see among social conservatives, sometimes, is an assumption that they can assume everyone else shares their assumptions. (There’s a sentence for you. You’ve gotta be a pro to write a sentence like that.)

Notable examples to me are the “America is a Christian nation” assumption, the “human life — which begins at conception — is intrinsically special and immediately sacrosanct” assumption, and the “if I think it’s disgusting, it must be morally wrong” assumption. (Cf., Leon Klass on human genetic engineering and cloning, or Stanley Kurtz and John Derbyshire on homosexuality.)

I’m quite socially libertarian, and I find that when I foolishly let myself get into an argument on any of those topics — and several others — it turns out that the underlying issue is the corresponding assumption, taken as axiomatic. Since I’ve read enough Revolutionary War and early Constitutional history to know that the Founders explicitly were making the Constitution inclusive of non-Christians, since as a Buddhist I don’t believe there is an intrinsic difference between human life and other life, and since I don’t find buggery to be inherently revolting, I find that I often have trouble finding anything to talk about with social conservatives.

The pro- or anti-freedom issue comes up when we progress to the question of how willing the social conservative is to use force to compell me to act as if I shared their assumptions.

My response:

What I do see among social conservatives, sometimes, is an assumption that they can assume everyone else shares their assumptions.

I see that on the left, also.

This one – “human life — which begins at conception — is intrinsically special and immediately sacrosanct” assumption is an issue I have discussed before. Some raise it as a freedom issue, but it’s really an issue of protecting one human from another, and as such is consistent with libertarian principles. The time when a fetus acquires legal protections can only be decided arbitrarily, and that means that if we had the freedom to decide, the result would always displease a lot of people.

I would argue that our current system ( allowing the killing of a full term fetus ) is anti-freedom, or more accurately, biased absurdly in the direction of the freedom of one party of interest to the severe detriment of the life of one other party – without life, no freedom. So I do not consider a pro-life (at any level) stance to be anti-freedom. Somebody has to decide by some arbitrary criteria. Right now, that was a supreme court acting way outside of constitutional law.

, and the “if I think it’s disgusting, it must be morally wrong” assumption. (Cf., Leon Klass on human genetic engineering and cloning, or Stanley Kurtz and John Derbyshire on homosexuality.)

I’ve never seen it expressed that way. There are some serious issues to consider on both genetic engineering and cloning, not to mention embryonic stem cells (which is not a freedom issue, but rather a funding one).

Homosexuality is a more interesting issue. In Christianity, it’s a sin. But today social conservatives don’t try to attack homosexuals.

I am against homosexual marriage as a state sanctioned marriage for conservative reasons having nothing to do with “disgust”. But that doesn’t deprive anyone of freedom, but rather of state privilege.

You must have an odd set of social conservatives to talk to. Many can address the issues on the merits, not in a manner that requires axiomatic agreement.

I think you have a subset that is fundamentalist Christian, where one often finds assumptions of shared axioms.

The only force I’m willing to have the state use in these issues is to stop the killing of fetuses. I have no trouble proving that this is a valid use of government power, even argued in a non-religious libertarian sense.
Charlie responds:
John, there’s no doubt that the same “shared assumption assumption” happens on the left as well.

The “disgust argument” guy is Leon Kass, sorry. It’s a work day, so I can’t google for it right now.

W.r.t. abortion, you actually appear to be making the assumption I questioned, that human life is both intrinsically different from other life and intrinsically sacrosanct. I don’t want to hijack the thread with an abortion discussion, really, both out of vestigial respect for the thread and because I think we’ll just come around to those same un-shared assumptions. I’ll just point out that to someone who doesn’t share the assumption, being willing to use force to compell someone to behave according to your assumption may well look anti-freedom.

I don’t recall mentioning gay marriage per se, nor your opinion of it, so I suspect we may have touched a raw spot. I was thinking instead of John Derbyshire — someone I would consider a friend — who can explain to you why homosexuals spread disease, destroy the social order, abuse young boys, and, I don’t know, drink blood and vote Democrat.

After many conversations with him, I’m convinced that what underlies this is his illogical and quite visceral reaction that homosexuality is just icky.

Goof responded:
As a self-described social conservative, what are your views concerning what should be taught, if anything, on the subject of Darwinian evolution-creationism-intelligent design, etc. in the public schools.

Also, what should be taught, of anything, regarding human sexuality

To both of which I responded:

Charlie

I disagree with the proposed assumption. I argue that opposing abortion (at some stage of gestation) relies primarily on the arbitrary decision that fetus has reached a stage at which it gains human rights. If you accept laws against murder (which rely on a shared assumption), then you must accept that a human being at some point devlops legal protection against murder. When it comes to abortion, the issue is at what stage of gestation does that protection accrue, with a closely coupled issue of when the protection overcomes the rights of the mother (and with other issues, utterly ignored by the law, of when other stakeholders gain a say – the parents of a pregnant minor, and the father). The majority of Americans put the age at three months for most cases, and incorrectly believe that 3 months is the law. Notice that none of this argument rests on an inherent superiority of humans as a life form – it is orthogonal to that argument. Notice also that depriving people of the freedom to murder othe humans is one of the most important purposes of government, and is operant with fetuses today – starting at the instant of birth. So freedoms are limited, I (and most Americans aware of the state of the law) agree that the age should be pushed back.

Finally, but unrelated to abortion, I believe that human beings are a special life form. You are free to believe otherwise, obviously, but the laws of our land disagree with you.

I raised gay marriage because it is a very current issue, and one of the few places where I favor discrimination against gays (another being working with adolescent males). As to Derb’s derivation of his views, as you characterize them, that is not at all consistent with my reasoning. As to his other assertions, he is right about some of them (based on a lot of reading my wife has done), but I don’t think this is the right place or time to discuss them. Is it possible that your are discounting his observations because you see them as the product of an irrational prejudice rather than as indpendent assertions?

See here for a bit more explanation in one controversy.

Goof
My mother was a public school teacher (after having been a mathematician and engineer). When my daughter was born, my mother said “I have only one demand: I want none of my grandchildren to go to public school.

I am not fond of the public school system. Far more effective is home schooling, but that is too much for many people. My daughter went to Catholic School, and my wife spent a lot of time raising funds to poor kids could do so.

As far as evolution, it is one of the most well established theory in all of science (although not quite as precise as quantum theory). Evolution should be the basis of any biology course. Intelligent design is a pseudo-science – people with real scientific degrees looking for holes in evolution – which they invariably find, since evolution has such a broad scope. It should not be taught – it is a religious, not a scientific doctrine.

There is an area based on evolutionary principles that leads to lots of very interesting analyses o human behavior, but which is largely unscientific in usage: sociobiology – the evolution of behavior. It is a lot of fun to speculate on evolutionary reasons for, say, male promiscuity. But experiments are difficult.

A few years back there was a biology teacher in Lawrence, Kansas who was removed from teaching for his response to a student’s question on intelligent design (or maybe it was creationism). That teacher had been my biology teacher, who taught me enough to quiz out of 9 semester hours of university biology. He was the best teacher I have ever had, and I also went on many field trips with him. I and a huge number of other former students, many of them now scientists high in various biological fields, sent letters in support, to no avail.

As to sex education, ideally it belongs at home. Practically, some is needed in school. I haven’t given it a lot of thought.

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