WEBVTT NOTE Can Conservatives be Libertarians? Can Libertarians be Conservatives? 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.480 Okay, there are very few jokes in this presentation, but to lighten the mood, we recently had an election in Ireland and 2 00:00:06.480 --> 00:00:11.920 just to show you that we haven't just laid down and die, 3 00:00:11.920 --> 00:00:19.920 here are some things that appeared on doors to greet canvassers as they went around. 4 00:00:19.920 --> 00:00:25.160 So, you need to know some indications of public attitude towards the outgoing government, 5 00:00:25.160 --> 00:00:31.160 Okay, and you now have to know that Fianna Fáil was in the majority party with the coalition with Greens, okay? 6 00:00:31.160 --> 00:00:33.160 Right. 7 00:00:35.160 --> 00:00:39.160 Beware of the vicious anti-Fianna Fáil dog. 8 00:00:39.160 --> 00:00:45.160 No canvases, please. We know who we're going to vote for. Apologies for the quality. The quality is bad. That's the way it was in the original. 9 00:00:46.160 --> 00:00:48.160 Canvases will be shot. 10 00:00:55.160 --> 00:01:02.160 I like the last bit. Green Party canvassers will have their bicycles clamped. 11 00:01:05.320 --> 00:01:09.240 If you're canvassing for Fianna Fáil or the Green Party, have a slice of free cheese. 12 00:01:09.240 --> 00:01:12.760 It was your solution to Irish people's problems a few months ago while you wasted money on 13 00:01:12.760 --> 00:01:19.760 bankrupt banks. Enjoy. Ringing doorbell not recommended. 14 00:01:19.760 --> 00:01:25.760 This is pretty good. You have to see that the poster was placed at the bottom of the door, right? 15 00:01:25.760 --> 00:01:27.760 So when you went down to read it, it said, 16 00:01:27.760 --> 00:01:34.760 Fiend of all canvassers, the position you are now adopting to look at this notice is the position you have left the country in with the IMF. 17 00:01:38.760 --> 00:01:41.760 Bent over, arse in the air. Apologies for the thing. 18 00:01:41.760 --> 00:01:44.760 Still want to knock? Thought not. 19 00:01:44.760 --> 00:01:55.040 And so I'm just going to show you a 50-second clip. This is a Vox Pop, which is down up 20 00:01:55.040 --> 00:02:03.280 in the northwest of the country. I think this will amuse you too. So here's a 50-second 21 00:02:03.280 --> 00:02:08.200 clip. It's either deadly serious or satirical. You decide, okay. 22 00:02:08.200 --> 00:02:12.200 Are you looking forward to the election? 23 00:02:12.200 --> 00:02:15.200 I am indeed. I'm an anarchist myself. 24 00:02:15.200 --> 00:02:16.200 An anarchist? 25 00:02:16.200 --> 00:02:23.200 Yes. And I think Pinafore have been doing a fantastic job. And I will be voting for Pinafore in the upcoming elections. 26 00:02:23.200 --> 00:02:26.200 And why would an anarchist be voting for Pinafore? 27 00:02:26.200 --> 00:02:32.200 Well, we believe in the theory of chaos, of complete destruction of society as it stands at the moment. 28 00:02:32.200 --> 00:02:36.200 And the only one in this country that is here as to my part is Pinafore. 29 00:02:36.200 --> 00:02:40.200 The country has destroyed, they have to get back in for another turn, they are totally destroyed. 30 00:02:40.200 --> 00:02:42.200 So you would be interested in getting a new government to play? 31 00:02:42.200 --> 00:02:48.200 No, I think that a new political system will emerge from the ashes. 32 00:02:49.200 --> 00:02:54.200 Total destruction of the system we know of and only one that is doing it at the moment is freedom of thought. 33 00:02:54.200 --> 00:02:58.200 Okay. Well that's actually fantastic. 34 00:02:58.200 --> 00:03:05.760 Okay, you probably didn't get much of that, but what he said was, the guy said, 35 00:03:05.760 --> 00:03:08.120 who are you going to vote for? He said, I'm going to vote for Fianna Fáil. 36 00:03:08.120 --> 00:03:11.280 He said, I'm an anarchist myself. He goes, really? Why are you voting for Fianna Fáil? 37 00:03:11.280 --> 00:03:14.760 He said, well, because they've half destroyed the country. We believe in the theory of total 38 00:03:14.760 --> 00:03:17.280 destruction and we want to get them back in so they can finish the job. 39 00:03:17.280 --> 00:03:25.840 All right, that's it. That's all the entertainment you're going to get. The rest is the paper. 40 00:03:25.840 --> 00:03:31.280 Okay, here we go. Actually, given what Gary North just said, I feel somewhat embarrassed 41 00:03:31.280 --> 00:03:34.920 about reading from a script. I feel like the woman who went to the cathedral and the new 42 00:03:34.920 --> 00:03:39.240 bishop gave a sermon and he read it. When she came out, a friend of hers, what did he 43 00:03:39.240 --> 00:03:42.960 say? And she said, I can't remember. If he can't remember, how can I? 44 00:03:42.960 --> 00:03:48.800 But anyway, so an overwhelming prejudice in favor of ancient and existing usages has been 45 00:03:48.800 --> 00:03:53.400 and probably will now continue to be one of the most prominent characteristics of humanity. 46 00:03:53.400 --> 00:03:57.200 No matter how totally inconsistent with the existing state of society, 47 00:03:57.280 --> 00:04:01.000 no matter how utterly unreasonable, both in principle and practice, 48 00:04:01.080 --> 00:04:04.200 no matter how eminently absurd, in every respect, 49 00:04:04.280 --> 00:04:06.080 such institutions or customs may be, 50 00:04:06.160 --> 00:04:09.880 still, if they have but the countenance of fashion or antiquity, 51 00:04:09.960 --> 00:04:13.520 if they have but been patronised and handed down to us by our forefathers, 52 00:04:13.600 --> 00:04:16.360 their glaring inconsistencies, defects and purities 53 00:04:16.440 --> 00:04:19.160 are so completely hidden by the radiant halo 54 00:04:19.240 --> 00:04:21.600 wherewith a blind veneration has invested them. 55 00:04:21.600 --> 00:04:23.760 God, I wish I could write like this. 56 00:04:23.760 --> 00:04:27.280 But it is almost impossible to open the dazzled eyes of the world to an 57 00:04:27.280 --> 00:04:28.720 unprejudiced view of them. 58 00:04:28.720 --> 00:04:30.640 Herbert Spencer. 59 00:04:30.640 --> 00:04:37.480 That's the guy. You better believe it. 60 00:04:37.480 --> 00:04:42.120 As the opening citation attests, perhaps most people have a deep-rooted 61 00:04:42.120 --> 00:04:45.440 predisposition to keep things the way they are. For every one person who is avid for 62 00:04:45.440 --> 00:04:46.880 change, there are 99 63 00:04:46.880 --> 00:04:49.480 who instinctively resist it. 64 00:04:49.480 --> 00:04:54.760 This innate resistance to change finds expression in the political philosophy called conservatism. 65 00:04:54.760 --> 00:05:00.680 Now on the other hand, unlike conservatives, the attitude of libertarians towards change is not derivable from their name. 66 00:05:00.680 --> 00:05:08.960 While the libertarians name witnesses obviously to the high regard valuation of liberty, to be pro-liberty is as yet to adopt no particular attitude 67 00:05:08.960 --> 00:05:12.880 to the status quo unless the status quo limits or prevents freedom. 68 00:05:12.880 --> 00:05:17.960 Are these political philosophies intrinsically opposed to each other or is it possible to be both? 69 00:05:17.960 --> 00:05:24.640 Russell Kirk believes that apart from their common detestation of collectivism in governments 70 00:05:24.640 --> 00:05:29.480 that go beyond their competence, conservatives and libertarians have little or nothing in 71 00:05:29.480 --> 00:05:36.040 common. The problem with libertarians is their fanatical attachment to the notion of personal 72 00:05:36.040 --> 00:05:41.920 freedom as the whole end of civil social order and indeed of human existence. Their pathological 73 00:05:41.920 --> 00:05:46.760 concern with freedom leads them to adopt an attitude of tolerance to all sorts of views 74 00:05:46.760 --> 00:06:16.760 What libertarians read most of all, according to Kirk, is obedience to the dictates of custom. They are intolerant of any authority and immoral, such intolerance can lead to 75 00:06:16.760 --> 00:06:23.760 and Diversity. In the end, there is no great gulf fixed between libertarianism and libertanism. 76 00:06:29.840 --> 00:06:35.880 And if that isn't enough, libertarians also suffer from some kind of metaphysical madness, 77 00:06:35.880 --> 00:06:41.240 inasmuch as despite their doctrines being repeatedly rejected both logically and practically, 78 00:06:41.240 --> 00:06:46.280 they still persist in putting them forward. If stupidity consists in the repetition of 79 00:06:46.280 --> 00:06:53.280 Are libertarians necessarily utilitarians? Does libertarianism impel human freedom? Do libertarians disparage or degrade all human values except freedom? Do they reject order in government and espouse chaos? Does libertarianism evacuate the world not only of love and friendship, but also of duty, discipline and psychology? 80 00:07:16.280 --> 00:07:31.200 An unsympathetic critic of conservatism might return Kirz's compliment and claim that conservatism 81 00:07:31.200 --> 00:07:35.640 has its own charges to answer. A crude account of conservatism might be that it amounts in 82 00:07:35.640 --> 00:07:40.160 effect to a settled policy of resistance to change of any kind. If this resistance to 83 00:07:40.160 --> 00:07:43.720 change is to be something more than the practical expression of reaction, it must be based on 84 00:07:43.720 --> 00:07:48.440 and a normative claim, explicit or implicit, to the effect that the way things are is good. 85 00:07:48.440 --> 00:07:51.840 In fact, it must be committed to the claim not just that the way things are is good, 86 00:07:51.840 --> 00:07:56.360 but the way things are is the best, or if not the best, why resist the change from the 87 00:07:56.360 --> 00:07:59.800 bad to good, the good to better, and the better to best? 88 00:07:59.800 --> 00:08:04.480 The self-evident absurdity of this position reveals it's fundamental and reasonable. 89 00:08:04.480 --> 00:08:08.480 The way things are now is manifestly not the way things were 100 years ago, and 100 years 90 00:08:08.480 --> 00:08:11.920 from now things will be different in ways as yet unimaginable. 91 00:08:11.920 --> 00:08:21.920 No change policy would commit a conservative, not just to the normative claim that the way things are now is the best, but to the absurd claim that the way things are now is the best, until tomorrow. 92 00:08:21.920 --> 00:08:34.920 You may remember that in Monty Python's Life of Brian, that's hence the snarky, as a member of the People's Front of Judea, not to be confused, as we all know, with the splitters of the Judeans, People's Front and the Popular Front of Judea, 93 00:08:34.920 --> 00:08:39.920 And as they conspire to kidnap Punch's pilot's wife, the question is asked, what have the Romans ever done for us? 94 00:08:39.920 --> 00:08:50.920 And the answer is nothing. Well, nothing apart from better sanitation, and medicine, and education, and irrigation, and public health. 95 00:08:50.920 --> 00:09:01.920 Oh, and roads, and a freshwater system, and baths, and public order. But apart from that, nothing. 96 00:09:01.920 --> 00:09:06.880 Okay, that'll probably be the last laugh you get on this one. 97 00:09:06.880 --> 00:09:14.600 The fundamentalist conservative has to believe, like Voltaire's hierarch, indeed, that everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds, until, of course, things improve. 98 00:09:14.600 --> 00:09:27.360 Tate Hondrish remarks that if conservatism were at bottom of the defense of the familiar, we should have a mystery in our hands, the mystery of how such an egregious idiocy could have become a large political tradition. 99 00:09:27.360 --> 00:09:31.040 Another way of capturing the essence of the conservative approach to change is given by 100 00:09:31.040 --> 00:09:35.200 the contemporary philosopher Roger Scruton who remarks that the desire to conserve is 101 00:09:35.200 --> 00:09:40.600 compatible with all manners of change provided only that the change is also continuity. 102 00:09:40.600 --> 00:09:44.640 Continuous change according to Scruton is good, discontinuous change is bad. 103 00:09:44.640 --> 00:09:47.880 Once again, this criterion seems implausible. 104 00:09:47.880 --> 00:09:53.200 If something is really bad, its continuation is certainly no better than its termination. 105 00:09:53.200 --> 00:09:56.760 When for example the fundamental injustice of slavery finally penetrated the conscience 106 00:09:56.760 --> 00:10:02.000 of the Civilized World, there was only one thing to be done, abolish it fortwith. 107 00:10:02.000 --> 00:10:05.540 Such abolition was radically discontinuous with what had gone before, indeed radically 108 00:10:05.540 --> 00:10:09.040 discontinuous with human history from its earliest period. But who would argue that 109 00:10:09.040 --> 00:10:13.940 this change was not for the better? What conservative is prepared to defend the perpetuation of 110 00:10:13.940 --> 00:10:19.000 slavery simply to avoid the discomfort of discontinuity? 111 00:10:19.000 --> 00:10:39.120 In their focus on tradition, conservatives touch on something important however, but 112 00:10:39.120 --> 00:10:42.720 it may not have for the conservatives quite the significance they attribute to it. It 113 00:10:42.720 --> 00:10:46.780 is true that much of what we are is simply given to us and is not a matter of choice. 114 00:10:46.780 --> 00:10:51.260 The family we belong to, however much we'd like to change them, right, is given to us. 115 00:10:51.260 --> 00:10:54.700 The nation we conceive of as ours, the language we speak, the way we speak it, indeed many 116 00:10:54.700 --> 00:10:58.940 of our ideas, all these are important, perhaps constitutive parts of what we are, parts of 117 00:10:58.940 --> 00:11:02.420 our very identity, if you will, and yet not a matter of choice. 118 00:11:02.420 --> 00:11:11.540 One calls to mind the hero of the Gilbertian satire, one calls to mind the hero of the 119 00:11:11.540 --> 00:11:15.420 Gilbertian satire, HMS Pinnifor, who is proud to be an Englishman, although as the Bosnian 120 00:11:15.420 --> 00:11:28.420 Eugen proclaims he might have been a Russian, a French, a Turk, a Prussian, or perhaps an Italian, and who, in spite of all temptations to belong to other nations, remains an Englishman, as if he had any choice in the matter, that's the whole point of the satire. 121 00:11:28.420 --> 00:11:40.420 Even if one were to change one's political allegiances and obtain a new passport, it is scarcely possible to cease to be, in some fundamental sense, a member of the nation you were born into. 122 00:11:40.420 --> 00:11:47.420 Now, a key point of tension between conservatives and libertarians is precisely this question of coercion, 123 00:11:47.420 --> 00:11:51.420 but if it's granted that one should not be coerced into observing customs and tradition, 124 00:11:51.420 --> 00:11:54.420 Rothbard, for one, was more than happy to go along with much of conservative thought. 125 00:11:54.420 --> 00:11:58.420 In a late essay, he called his fellow libertarians to order, remarking that 126 00:11:58.420 --> 00:12:04.420 libertarians often mistakenly assume that individuals are bound to one another only by the nexus of market exchange, 127 00:12:04.420 --> 00:12:08.420 forgetting that, as he said, everyone is necessarily born into a family 128 00:12:08.420 --> 00:12:16.420 and one or more of several overlapping communities, usually including an ethnic group with specific values, cultures, religious beliefs and traditions. 129 00:12:16.420 --> 00:12:22.420 And yet, despite being partially constitutive of our identities, tradition can at best have a heuristic function. 130 00:12:22.420 --> 00:12:27.420 For however much something has been done, for however long and by however many, questions can always be asked. 131 00:12:27.420 --> 00:12:30.420 Is this right? Is this good? Is this the best? 132 00:12:30.420 --> 00:12:35.420 And these questions subvert any ultimate normative claim that tradition can make. 133 00:12:35.420 --> 00:12:45.540 Now, misunderstandings are rife. If it's possible to screw up and misunderstand, you're guaranteed 134 00:12:45.540 --> 00:12:50.180 that this will happen. I know there's some teaching as a teacher, and you will know yourself 135 00:12:50.180 --> 00:12:55.100 that if you were to read the students' notes of what you just said, you would be horrified. 136 00:12:55.100 --> 00:12:59.020 So if people can screw it up, they will screw it up. So the amazing thing is not that we 137 00:12:59.020 --> 00:13:03.980 misunderstand and misinterpret and get things screwed up. The mystery is we even occasionally 138 00:13:03.980 --> 00:13:25.980 Misunderstandings can arise from the failure to recognize the severely limited ethical scope of libertarianism. It is not intended to be, nor is it, a complete ethical theory. It is rather an overarching constraint on any such theory. This is, indeed, I take this precisely from the Ethics of Liberty. 139 00:13:25.980 --> 00:13:30.980 Libertarianism does not imply that all modes of conduct are equally valuable or have equal merit. 140 00:13:30.980 --> 00:13:34.980 There may well be those who think of themselves as libertarians who think this, 141 00:13:34.980 --> 00:13:40.980 but despite such a view, and despite Kirk's assertion that liberty descends into a maelstrom of license, 142 00:13:40.980 --> 00:13:46.980 it is not a necessary consequence of libertarianism as such, and a libertarian may choose to be a libertine, 143 00:13:46.980 --> 00:13:49.980 but there is nothing in libertarianism to constrain him to be one. 144 00:13:49.980 --> 00:13:56.980 Weaver-Mackin asks, is libertinism implicit in the advocacy of liberty as the highest political principle? Any answers? No. 145 00:13:56.980 --> 00:14:06.980 Libertarianism only prohibits the forcible quelching of indecent conduct, not its vigorous criticism, opposition, boycott or denunciation, in peaceful ways. 146 00:14:13.980 --> 00:14:17.980 Conservatives are committed to the centrality and priority of the notion of order. 147 00:14:17.980 --> 00:14:22.060 While, to a large extent, the principle of order is primarily manifest in little societies, 148 00:14:22.060 --> 00:14:25.820 works, little platoons and so on, such as families or local communities, it culminates 149 00:14:25.820 --> 00:14:28.860 for the conservative in the state, which, from the conservative point of view, is the 150 00:14:28.860 --> 00:14:32.740 guarantor of the conditions which allow its constituent communities to flourish. 151 00:14:32.740 --> 00:14:36.620 Libertarians, on the other hand, are sometimes portrayed as if they consider social disorder 152 00:14:36.620 --> 00:14:38.500 to be something desirable. 153 00:14:38.500 --> 00:14:40.300 Nothing could be further from the truth. 154 00:14:40.300 --> 00:14:43.940 While there may be some individual libertarians who bizarrely judge that a disordered, Hobbesian 155 00:14:43.940 --> 00:14:47.940 state of nature is a consummation devoutly to be wished, most libertarians, just 156 00:14:47.940 --> 00:14:52.420 as much as conservatives desire to live in an ordered society. The difference between 157 00:14:52.420 --> 00:14:57.220 conservative and libertarian is not whether order is desirable, it is what kind of order 158 00:14:57.220 --> 00:15:02.540 is desirable and where that order comes from. For the libertarian, genuine order arises 159 00:15:02.540 --> 00:15:06.020 intrinsically from the free interaction among individuals and among groups of individuals. 160 00:15:06.020 --> 00:15:10.900 It does not descend intrinsically from one high. 161 00:15:10.900 --> 00:15:15.560 It is clear then that conservatives and libertarians accord liberty different priorities. Nisbet 162 00:15:15.560 --> 00:15:19.760 claims that for libertarians, individual liberty in almost every conceivable domain is the 163 00:15:19.760 --> 00:15:24.640 highest of all social values and is so, he says, irrespective of what forms and levels 164 00:15:24.640 --> 00:15:28.680 of moral, aesthetic and spiritual debasement may prove to be the unintended consequences 165 00:15:28.680 --> 00:15:34.400 of such freedom. Crikey. On the contrary, I should say that for libertarians, liberty 166 00:15:34.400 --> 00:15:39.960 is the lowest of social values, lowest in the sense of being most fundamental, as seen 167 00:15:39.960 --> 00:15:45.160 across none of the human actions being susceptible of moral evaluation in any way at all. Human 168 00:15:45.160 --> 00:15:48.480 Freedom can be used for all sorts of actions directed to all sorts of purposes which are 169 00:15:48.480 --> 00:15:53.680 then susceptible to moral evaluation. Libertarians value freedom as a hard core without which 170 00:15:53.680 --> 00:15:58.880 morally significant human action is simply not possible. But while libertarianism as 171 00:15:58.880 --> 00:16:03.400 such has nothing to say beyond asserting and defending individual liberty, this is not 172 00:16:03.400 --> 00:16:07.680 at all the same as thinking that libertarians in living out our lives are concerned with 173 00:16:07.680 --> 00:16:12.820 nothing other than liberty. This would be as absurd as to think that somebody who insisted 174 00:16:12.820 --> 00:16:17.660 on the Absolute Necessity of Water for Survival, should be taken to assert that water was the 175 00:16:17.660 --> 00:16:24.500 only thing needed for a rich and interesting diet. Why would you think that? As if to contradict 176 00:16:24.500 --> 00:16:31.300 Nisbett, Murray Rothbard, whose credentials I may say, sorry, gone past that, that's what 177 00:16:31.300 --> 00:16:41.940 I just said, moving on, Rothbard says, look, only an imbecile who could ever hold that 178 00:16:41.940 --> 00:16:46.100 But freedom, you have to hand it to Murray, he doesn't put a tooth in it, only an imbecile 179 00:16:46.100 --> 00:16:51.140 could hold that freedom is the highest or indeed the only principle or end of life. 180 00:16:51.140 --> 00:16:55.180 He agreed with Lord Acton on the contrary that freedom is the highest political end, 181 00:16:55.180 --> 00:16:58.140 not the highest end of man per se. 182 00:16:58.140 --> 00:17:00.980 Good enough for Murray, it's good enough for me. 183 00:17:00.980 --> 00:17:06.980 I've been arguing so far that conservatism and libertarianism are not necessarily identical 184 00:17:06.980 --> 00:17:10.860 with each other, indeed many people on the left of the political spectrum believe that 185 00:17:10.860 --> 00:17:14.540 Conservatism and Libertarianism are in effect one and the same, and even some 186 00:17:14.540 --> 00:17:17.340 conservatives are inclined to think that libertarians are their natural allies, 187 00:17:17.340 --> 00:17:23.460 but this is not necessarily so. While on some issues there are factual overlaps 188 00:17:23.460 --> 00:17:26.860 between two schools of thought, notably in the trade area of trade, business and 189 00:17:26.860 --> 00:17:30.380 economics, in other areas conservatism and libertarianism sharply diverge. 190 00:17:30.380 --> 00:17:35.420 Libertarianism has one and only one basic principle, which is that all should be 191 00:17:35.420 --> 00:17:38.460 free to do whatever they wish to do, provided only that in so doing they do 192 00:17:38.460 --> 00:17:49.460 This principle is both simple and initially attractive. What is not quite so simple or attractive, at least to the Conservatives, are its consequences. 193 00:17:49.460 --> 00:17:58.460 When Conservatives realise what those consequences are, they tend to have second thoughts about the principle and about their association with libertarians. 194 00:17:58.460 --> 00:18:07.460 H. L. Mencken, one of my heroes by the way, one of the greatest writers that the USA has ever produced, thought that liberty was too strong a drink for many people and what they really wanted was security. 195 00:18:07.460 --> 00:18:18.460 The fact that Ireland is not now in conflagration and people are not rioting in the street and storming the parliament building is evidence of that. 196 00:18:18.460 --> 00:18:23.460 How much more do we need to start the revolution? 197 00:18:23.460 --> 00:18:32.460 What tends to divide libertarians from conservatives is the conservative's failure to realise or their unwillingness to concede that toleration is not equivalent to endorsement. 198 00:18:32.460 --> 00:18:38.460 It should be obvious, but apparently it is not, that to tolerate something is not the same as to approve of it. 199 00:18:38.460 --> 00:18:43.460 In fact, if toleration required approval, toleration would not be a virtue. 200 00:18:43.460 --> 00:18:46.460 What value is there in being prepared to tolerate only those things of which you approve? 201 00:18:46.460 --> 00:18:49.460 Anyone can do that. It's not a problem. 202 00:18:49.460 --> 00:18:52.460 Hey, I agree with that. I tolerate that. 203 00:18:52.460 --> 00:18:58.460 But if you don't like it, hey, that's where my toleration ends. It's pointless. 204 00:18:58.460 --> 00:19:28.460 The libertarian may adopt any of a number of moral attitudes towards various issues, prostitution, drugs and so on, but the only question for him as libertarian is not whether these modes of activity are to be commended or are a fitting mode of human activity taken in the round, but only whether in engaging in such activities a person is infringing upon the liberty of others. Of course, in a society constructed on libertarian principles, one has the right to license or to 205 00:19:28.460 --> 00:19:57.460 It's my house, my rules. My street, my rules. My city, my rules, if indeed you are the owner. My community, my rules, if you are the owner or the director of a community, for example, you can do that. 206 00:19:57.460 --> 00:20:00.980 Such a right subsists whether a property is owned by one person or by a whole community. 207 00:20:00.980 --> 00:20:05.900 In such a way then, could conservative principles obtain traction in a libertarian society? 208 00:20:05.900 --> 00:20:10.540 So is it our conservatism and libertarianism intrinsically opposed to each other or is 209 00:20:10.540 --> 00:20:12.140 it possible to be both? 210 00:20:12.140 --> 00:20:16.700 The answer to this question, like the answer to many others, is it depends. 211 00:20:16.700 --> 00:20:19.220 It depends primarily on the position one starts from. 212 00:20:19.220 --> 00:20:23.580 As we've seen, conservatism is rooted in a disposition to resist rapid and fundamental 213 00:20:23.580 --> 00:20:29.220 and to accept only those changes that are, as it were, reformative and organic. 214 00:20:29.220 --> 00:20:33.420 The conservative values order and virtue above all else while liberty is only one value among 215 00:20:33.420 --> 00:20:35.340 others and in no way preeminent. 216 00:20:35.340 --> 00:20:39.020 The libertarian, in contrast, takes liberty to be the fundamental and necessary precondition 217 00:20:39.020 --> 00:20:40.900 of a life that is truly human. 218 00:20:40.900 --> 00:20:45.540 It is not, repeat, not, not, not, not the only value. 219 00:20:45.540 --> 00:20:50.340 The libertarian recognizes love, friendship, altruism, courage, charity, but none of these 220 00:20:50.340 --> 00:20:53.180 values can come to be unless we are free. 221 00:20:53.180 --> 00:20:58.060 It is true that some sort of behavioural simulacra of these values can be produced by coercion, 222 00:20:58.060 --> 00:21:02.360 by regulation and by force, but those are ghoulish animated corpses from which the real 223 00:21:02.360 --> 00:21:04.460 life has departed. 224 00:21:04.460 --> 00:21:13.200 If one starts from a conservative position, one can adopt and adapt conservative values 225 00:21:13.200 --> 00:21:16.700 in a way that supplements and embodies one's commitment to freedom, provided that in so 226 00:21:16.700 --> 00:21:21.260 doing one does not compromise one's primary commitment to freedom. 227 00:21:21.260 --> 00:21:25.320 If one starts from a conservative position, one is unlikely ever to become a libertarian 228 00:21:25.320 --> 00:21:31.420 or to endorse libertarianism unless one undergoes a political-philosophical conversion. 229 00:21:31.420 --> 00:21:37.840 However, if one starts from a libertarian position, one can, without being necessarily 230 00:21:37.840 --> 00:21:41.660 obliged to do so, accept the heuristic value of tradition and the antecedent yet rebuttable 231 00:21:41.660 --> 00:21:43.620 normativity of custom and habit. 232 00:21:43.620 --> 00:21:49.060 I've tried to show that libertarianism is not necessarily reducible to libertarianism. 233 00:21:49.060 --> 00:22:02.940 But one more or less certain way to prevent the collapse of libertarianism to libertarianism 234 00:22:02.940 --> 00:22:06.540 is for it to adopt the cultural core values of conservatism and this libertarians are 235 00:22:06.540 --> 00:22:08.340 free to do. 236 00:22:08.340 --> 00:22:12.540 Conservatism on the other hand is always at the mercy of the question whose tradition, 237 00:22:12.540 --> 00:22:14.900 which customs, what habits. 238 00:22:14.900 --> 00:22:18.900 If it develops a principled and rational response to these questions then it has ceased to be 239 00:22:18.900 --> 00:22:27.900 The theory, radically conservative and has begun to move in a direction that I believe would lead it to espouse the fundamental positions of liberty as a sine qua non. 240 00:22:27.900 --> 00:22:33.900 A sine qua non of all the virtues and thus to transmute into a form of libertarianism. 241 00:22:33.900 --> 00:22:38.900 The full version of the paper, there's 18 copies of it over there. If you don't get one of them, you can email me. 242 00:22:38.900 --> 00:22:45.900 And it's coming out in a book on, strangely enough, entitled Conservatism and Libertarianism at some time in the future. Thank you very much. 243 00:22:48.900 --> 00:22:50.900 Thank you very much.