Conservatism: thick and clear.

IN THE collection of essays entitled God in the Dock, C. S. Lewis observes that a true religion "must be both Thick and Clear" so that it will fit "both the child and the man, both the savage and the citizen, both the head and the belly." Only Christianity, in his view, "really breaks down the middle wall of the partition. It takes a convert from central Africa and teaches him to obey an enlightened universalist ethic: it takes a twentieth-century academic prig like me and tells me to go fasting to a Mystery, to drink the blood of the Lord."

Lewis's words have relevance to more churches than one--particularly to that Coleridgean "church" we call conservatism. A while ago, in the pages of Modern Age, I read Russell Kirk's reading the libertarians out, and Murray Rothbard's reading Frank Meyer into the libertarians, with the usual mixed results--and I recalled how nonplussed I had been twenty years ago when I was first asked, "Are you a libertarian or a conservative?"--as though one could assuredly not be both. But that, pace Mr. Kirk, I do not believe. For the fact is, as I hope to demonstrate, that the traditionalists are, in Lewis's terms, the Thick, and the libertarians the Clear, in the conservative "church."

For quite a few years now, philosophers have wrestled with the "problem of induction"--by which they mean how things can be proved from experience--or, alternatively, how one can generalize from "events" (whatever they are) to laws. This, however it is done, involves a mode of reasoning different from the deductive reasoning to which we normally apply the word "logic" (a difference seen when we compare the statement, "He is a man, and therefore mortal," with the statement, "Men are mortal"). We deduce that we will die from the "fact" that all mankind dies--but the "fact" itself we cannot deduce. We can only, somehow, accept or reject. On Our Own

WHY, THEN, dow we accept "facts"? Out of a due respect for the opinions of mankind? Because everyone "knows" them (and never mind how the "knowing" takes place)? Logicians can define the difference between L-truth (logical truth--which is to say, truth within a system of reasoning) and F-truth (factual truth--which is to say, which system best fits the "outside" or "real-world" facts). But they will not explain how to establish F-truth. For that, we are on our own, with the rest of mankind.

We do accept "facts" because everyone "knows" them. Like Dr. Johnson, we know that if we kick a stone, and we feel it, then the stone is "really" there. For all our kicking, we have proved nothing, and yet we will continue (quite reasonably) to insist that the stone is there--and that the sun will rise tomorrow morning, and that Napoleon was emperor of the French, and (if we are Christians) that Christ is the Son of God. These are all pieces of inductive knowledge. They may not, of course, be true. But to the extent that they are all based on the testimony of mankind, they bear witness to the tremendous importance of tradition. There are many and various traditions in world civilization, but all inductive knowledge depends on one or more of them.

It is my contention that the Clear (in Lewis's terms)--what we frequently call the rational--is coterminous with the deductive. And the Thick--what we call the traditional--is coterminous with the inductive. Each, as Lewis argued, is incomplete without the other: "The savage convert has to be Clear: I have to be Thick. That is how one knows one has come to the real religion." The same kind of test can be applied to our conservative "church."

There is, of course, more than one kind of deductive--that is Clear--system of thought, even within conservatism. And there is likewise more than one conservative tradition (quite apart from the fact that conservatives may guard other traditions than their own: As Chesterton reminded us, "It is only Christian men / Guard even heathen things"). Nevertheless, it remains true that to ask the question, "Are you a libertarian or a traditionalist?" is sometimes like asking the question, "Are you a believer in deductive or inductive logic?" The only correct answer may be, "Both--depending." Where Do You Start?

I SAY "SOMETIMES" and "may be," for not all conservative rationalists (and here I think particularly of the Randians) necessarily start with those parts of conservative tradition from which most "traditionalists" start, and not all traditionalists (the name of Russell Kirk comes to mind here) necessarily accept the logical principles--deductive logic, or, if you like, "rationality"--that lead from the conservative tradition (as premise) to the libertarian, or individualist, conclusion.

That is, to be sure, the problem, and it is a misperception of the problem that led to the coining of the term "fusionist" to represent a variety of conservative thought whose principal pholosopher is supposed to have been the late Frank Meyer. Professor Rothbard has argued that Frank Meyer was "really" a libertarian--well, yes, I daresay he was: He reached essentially libertarian conclusions arguing rationally from a central core of tradition. He had, perhaps, a higher regard for the power of deductive logic than many of us do--but that does not mean he was not also a traditionalist. It is time, in my view, for the word "fusionist" to be retired: It represented a misunderstanding when it was coined, and it has tended to perpetuate that misunderstanding.

There are, meanwhile, other answers to the problem of induction. We can bypass the problem entirely and say, "If it works, it's good enough for me"--and never mind, for the moment, what we mean by "works." This particular bypass is (in Spengler's terms) the Faustian or mechanical answer, and it is peculiar to the modern West; its hallmark is the working hypothesis. This I believe to be the "liberal" answer to the problem of induction.

There is also what might be called the millenarian or apocalyptic response, in which experiential knowledge depends on the vision of the individual knower (though different visionaries may agree on what is essentially the same vision). All three--traditionalists, engineers, millenarians--may, from their different premises, agree on some conclusions. But if we are going to use the word "conservative," I think we had better restrict it to those who accept the "traditionalist" answer to the problem of induction. Judge Richard Posner of the Seventh Circuit, for example, is a scholar whose work I greatly admire, and a jurist with whose decisions I will generally agree, and with which conservatives will generally agree. But he is an engineer--a pragmatist--in his response to the problem of induction.

We may dispute (as historians) the contents of tradition: But it is only if we are already conservatives that we will think its contents important. We may dispute (as mathematicians) the parameters of the deductive system by which we get from the tradition to current policy recommendations: But it is only if we are already conservatives that we will be interested in following this particular path to policy. It is quite possible to deduce "libertarian" conclusions from tradition--I do it myself (although I agree sufficiently with Mr. Kirk on the modal value of opinions commonly held to disagree with Frank Meyer--and others--on the subject of Abraham Lincoln). The great philosphical gulf is not between libertarians and traditionalists, but between those who acept the "traditionalist" answer to the problem of induction and those who do not. We may, of course, agree with pragmatists or millenarians on specific programs, but that does not make them conservatives--any more than a disagreement on programs necessitates reading those who disagree out of conservatism.

Thick and Clear, both are part of conservatism. One cultivates one's own garden, but there are other gardens also within the bounds.