Hated textbook gets Reagan’s dark side half right

Rare ^ | 2-25-14 | Ian Huyett

[ReformationFan]

Conservative student group Turning Point USA caused a stir last week by posting pages online from a textbook used at the University of South Carolina. The book calls Ronald Reagan “sexist” and says conservatives “take a basically pessimistic view of human nature” — one in which “people are conceived of as being corrupt.” Several avowed conservatives balked not just at the negative portrayal of Reagan but also at the idea that the conservative persuasion contains a measure of pessimism. On this point, the textbook is right and they are wrong. Russell Kirk was the man credited by William F. Buckley for the very existence of an American conservatism. To Kirk, human fallenness was an essential pillar of conservative thought. He called Original Sin the one empirically verifiable dogma. “Human nature suffers irremediably from certain grave faults,” Kirk wrote. “To seek for utopia is to end in disaster, the conservative says: we are not made for perfect things.” This sentiment is shared by the Apostle Paul, who wrote that human beings are “by nature children of wrath,” and by John Adams, who warned us to distrust government because “there is danger from all men.” If conservatives are offended by this idea, they have forgotten their own inheritance. The conservative intellectual tradition has been challenging progressive assumptions since Edmund Burke assailed the tyranny of Jacobin France.

[ReformationFan]

Very good article about why we hold to the philosophy of conservatism.

[txhurl]

bttt

[the_Watchman]

The irony is that conservatives believe in a flawed man who should be left to fend on his own; i.e., given individual liberty; while the liberal purports to believe in a perfectible man who requires lots of governmental meddling since he apparently shouldn’t be trusted to make his own decisions.

[Lake Living]

It breaks down nicely into those that believe God’s Word (The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, who can know it?) and those that don’t. True conservatives believe the Scriptures and what they have to say about human nature. So did the Founding Fathers. The fool hath said in his heart there is no God.

[txhurl]

bttt

[grobdriver]

one in which “people are conceived of as being corrupt.”

Not all people.
Only Democrats.

[GraceG]

says conservatives “take a basically pessimistic view of human nature”

We take a REALISTIC view of humanity, where the liberals all clamor over each other to believe the lie that is the “Noble Savage” myth.

[Politicalkiddo]

“...take a basically pessimistic view of human nature”

Isn’t that the view that eugenists, environmentalists, and animal right’s activists take? The view that the world would be better off without people?

[RedMDer]

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[x]

Conservative student group Turning Point USA caused a stir last week by posting pages online from a textbook used at the University of South Carolina. The book calls Ronald Reagan “sexist” and says conservatives “take a basically pessimistic view of human nature” — one in which “people are conceived of as being corrupt.” Several avowed conservatives balked not just at the negative portrayal of Reagan but also at the idea that the conservative persuasion contains a measure of pessimism. On this point, the textbook is right and they are wrong. Russell Kirk was the man credited by William F. Buckley for the very existence of an American conservatism. To Kirk, human fallenness was an essential pillar of conservative thought. He called Original Sin the one empirically verifiable dogma. “Human nature suffers irremediably from certain grave faults,” Kirk wrote. “To seek for utopia is to end in disaster, the conservative says: we are not made for perfect things.”

Fine sentiments, but some self-professed original sin conservatives thought Reagan was far too cheery, optimistic, and Emersonian.

The article does go on to make the point that pessimism about human nature and optimism about reality aren't opposites, but it's an open question.

[Ben Mugged]

“He was a man, take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again.”
William Shakespeare, Hamlet

[Reeses]

Isn’t that the view that eugenists, environmentalists, and animal right’s activists take? The view that the world would be better off without people?

They feel there are way too many people, and from their personal perspective living in big polluted cities they are 100% correct.

The term environmentalist used to mean conservative. The original Sierra Club was a Republican social club. Environmentalism was hijacked by the communists as another disguise for their evil swill.

[SunkenCiv]

Russell Kirk... called Original Sin the one empirically verifiable dogma. “Human nature suffers irremediably from certain grave faults,” Kirk wrote. “To seek for utopia is to end in disaster, the conservative says: we are not made for perfect things.”

[Sherman Logan]

The even greater irony is that liberals believe people aren’t able to make their own decisions, but somehow there is a special group of people who can make not only their own decisions but also everybody else’s.

[Praxeologue]

The author is a libertarian and Rand Paul fan who quotes Calvin Coolidge, if that is any help. I would be interested to know how others think this stance may inform his views on the topic of a pessimistic view of human nature.

[robowombat]

Fine sentiments, but some self-professed original sin conservatives thought Reagan was far too cheery, optimistic, and Emersonian.

I would say that was correct and it was something the Left never caught during the Reagan years. I personally think ‘Original Sin’ is a brilliant concept that even atheists can identify with. Man is at best flawed. RR, more power to him, actually thought man was basically good and left to his own actions would rise and flourish. I find many perhaps a majority are weak, greedy, selfish, petty, corrupt and cowardly. To make people rise above themselves you have to create hell on earth, as Joe Stalin said in 1942 or so “It was more dangerous to be a coward than a hero in the Soviet Union.” To make people rise above their petty selves some sort of forcing house has to be used or some sort of forge of destiny effect such as global war must occur.

[ReformationFan]

‘says conservatives “take a basically pessimistic view of human nature”

We take a REALISTIC view of humanity, where the liberals all clamor over each other to believe the lie that is the “Noble Savage” myth.’

EXACTLY! And look at all the human wreckage that resulted in attempting to enforce Rousseau’s “Noble Savage” myth-

the Reign of Terror, the Russian Revolution, the Maoist Cultural Revolution, the Killing Fields in Cambodia, etc.

[tophat9000]

actually I’ve view the concept of man is flawed as a subset of Socrates concept that the only wisdom is knowing you know nothing in other words grace is gain in understanding your inherent lack of perfection...

[Praxeologue]

By limiting the conservative tradition to Burke and Kirk, the author arrives at a pessimistic view of human nature. If one defines American conservatism as within the classic liberal tradition of Locke and de Montesquieu, however, the result is a more optimistic view of human nature. That would square with the author's "Christian Libertarian" outlook. Leo Strass would argue that classic liberalism, the "first wave", necessarily became modern progressive liberalism via Mill, Dewey, etc. over a century ago. We need a new formulation, both for these libertarian conservatives-to-be and for ourselves.

[haroldeveryman]

Conservatives think people are selfish.
Liberals think people are stupid.