Sunday, January 4, 2009

Absurdities -- oops, I mean ideologies....

People who think that conservatism lacks the logical coherence of ideologies such as socialism or liberalism are absolutely right, but, as people usually are, for the wrong reasons.

I will discuss this more as time goes on, but right now I make this declaration for the record:

They are correct in saying that conservatism lacks an ideological framework. And that is precisely because conservatism is not an ideology. It is the absence of ideology. It in fact condemns ideology because ideologies unrealistically seek to make people conform to an absurd ideal--an abstraction, a metaphysical utopia--which has no connection with the vast story of human experience.

Conservatism is not ideology: it is indeed the only conceivable antidote to ideology.

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