The Danger of Political Scientism
“Society is a spiritual reality, possessing an eternal life but a delicate constitution: it cannot be scrapped and recast as if it were a machine” -Russell Kirk
What Russell Kirk explains here is the dividing line between Conservatives and ideologues. This is best represented through Edmund Burke and Antoine Desutt de Tracy. Dessutt de Tracy coined the term “ideology” which denotes what he believed was the “science of ideas” that could perfect society. He argued society was like a machine or a science, that through proper knowledge and political science we could bring utopia onto earth. Burke contrastly subscribed to the Aristotelian idea that society was like an organism. He contested that only through gradual change can society adapt, and that political quests of utopia were dangerous ambitions. Burke did not believe in the perfectibility of mankind, and he didn’t seek to achieve it. Instead, he desired to conserve the wisdom and traditions of our ancestors. Society being like an organism, it needs to adapt within its prescribed frame and skeleton. A young child cannot undergo surgery to grow an extra 2 feet in 2 days, and if they tried it would lead to devastating unintended consequences. Likewise, a society cannot radically reinvent itself without understanding of its traditions and morality or it will self implode.
Karl Marx, Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin all found refuge in the idea of ideology. Communism and fascism both are utopian conquests promising that their political science will bring about a perfect society. The reason utopia doesn’t exist for the communist is the existence of the bourgeoisie and wealth inequality. The reason utopia doesn’t exist for the fascist is the Jewish people and degeneracy. Communism and fascism both subscribe to the idea that mankind is perfectible, and that any imperfection is purely the result of political error. Both seek to rectify society through radical political expenditures rather than through familial or communal change.
Today, the leftwing heirs of Desutt de Tracy seek to promote an ideology which through the enforcement of equality is designed to bring about utopia. It is through ending poverty, alleviating homelessness, and wealth redistribution that the modern left seeks to immantesize the eschaton. It isn’t so much a belief that ending homelessness in itself is a good, but rather that through the alleviation of homelessness society can be rectified.
It is a sort of, political eschatology so to speak. Eschatology generally refers to religious doctrine of the end of humanity. The Greek word-éschatos- meaning last, and logy meaning the study of, form the word eschatology. The study of the end of human times. William Buckley popularized the phrase “Don’t immanentize the eschaton!” using it as a common critique of utopianism. He believed there was a certain eschatological nature of progressive ideology. And he properly understood the parallels between secular ideology, and religious philosophy.
Conservatives on the other hand do not conform to this idea of political eschatology. The only eschatology the Conservative believes in is that of Christianity. But because secularists do not operate within the framework of a moral lawgiver or a religious eschatology, they must create their own form of eschatology rooted and mapped out by their ideological science. The Conservative is already fulfilled through a belief in, as Kirk put it, “an enduring moral order of which the sanction, and the end, are more than objective, more than scientistic, more than human, and more than natural,” feels no need to fulfill his desire for purification through political charades. Instead, the Conservative looks at policy matters as a matter of prudence and pragmatism. He is only guided by his search for truth and moral justice, not his desire to prove and enforce a political science. His political convictions, such as those of free marketism, aren’t based on dogmatic absolutes, but instead on utility. Secularists contrastily, find absolutes through politics and ideology since they reject the traditional religious and moral absolutes that Westerners have historically held.
Napoleon criticized ideology as unreal, bombastic, and dangerous. Burke frequently warned of the danger of frivolous adventure seeking politics without regard for pragmatism or prudence. Kirk later likened ideology to secular religion, calling ideology a dangerous trap which could only be escaped through recognition of a greater moral order. And today it is very clear these criticisms were warranted as we see the normalization of radicalism, spiritual corruption, and increasing polarization in our political discord. Ideology is a failed experiment which never had the chance to succeed.
