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.
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.