John & Belle Have A Blog

Conservatism Considered, II

My humble conservatism post kicked up some lively commentary, so I'm going to try the brevity thing again - though I don't think it really suits me.

It is sometimes suggested that conservatism is a 'temperament'. Now I must confess that I haven't read many of the sustained treatments - by Oakeshott, Scruton, Kristol and others - in this vein. But I'm sort of thinking about undertaking a minor course of study. And here's a question I would like answered. A temperament is, in an obvious sort of way, not reason-giving. Specifically, the fact that you have a certain temperament - which causes you to believe certain things - does not give me any reason to believe those things. But surely conservatism is supposed to be reason-giving.

Not clear what I'm saying? Compare: if Smith tends to weep at the thought of the plight of the poor (this is his temperament) he may be caused to become a socialist. If Jones does not tend to cry at the plight of the poor, the fact that Smith is so lachrymose gives Jones no reason to become a socialist. Why should the fact that some people like things to stay the same give other people a reason to keep them the same?

Like last time, this is way too simple. But at least it's simple.I'll just pad it out with a nice passage from Mill's On Liberty I stumbled on today while preparing to teach that fine little book in 10 days time:

Bite My Tongue

Must ... resist ... speculating .... about ...Butsurelyifthebushieshadnothingtohidethey'd ... Down, boy! Down! Facts will out in a week or a month. In the meantime, you can get up every morning and read Josh Marshall like a kid digging into his stocking on X-Mas morn.

Is Not!

Ah, L'Affaire Plame. Henry seems to think I shouldn't be dancing around in my underwear listening to Prince's "Uptown", because it's unseemly. Well, sorry then, but I was having a great time. But what is the most amusing thing about all this? Half- or one-quarter-baked conspiracy theories about how it's all a leftie plot, or Valerie Plame was asking for it, or whatever. Well, no, thinking about Karl Rove going to jail is the best part. But, without further ado, here are my nominees for the "Feeble Rationalizing in a Comments Thread 2003" awards.

The Devil Must Not Be Believed, Even When He Tells the Truth

We're done with Plato in intro philosophy, so it's on to Descartes. Here is an odd bit of historical trivia providing a bit of context for the notorious Deceiving Demon thought-experiment. Only a few years before Descartes wrote his Meditations, a substantial number of nuns in a convent in Loudun decided they were possessed by devils and that a luckless priest named Grandier (who was apparently a cad, but didn't deserve what happened to him next) was responsible. Aldous "Brave New World" Huxley wrote a thinly novelized, historical account, The Devils of Loudun. Here's a passage that presents the epistemological problem that was the talk of all France:

"During the spring and summer of 1634 the main purpose of the exorcisms was not the deliverance of the nuns but the indictment of Grandier. The aim was to prove, out of the mouth of Satan himself, that the parson [Grandier] was a magician, and had bewitched the nuns. But Satan is, by definition, the Father of Lies, and his evidence is therefore worthless. To this argument Laubardemont [who wants to get Grandier], his exorcists and the Bishop of Poiters replied by affirming that, when duly constrained by a priest of the Roman Church, devils are bound to tell the truth. In other words, anything to which a hysterical nun was ready, at the instigation of her exorcist, to affirm on oath, was for all practical purposes a divine revelation. For inquisitors, this doctrine was a real convenience. But it had one grave defect; it was manifestly unorthodox. In the year 1610 a committee of learned theologians had discussed the admissibility of diabolic evidence and issued the following authoritative decision. "We, the undersigned Doctors of the Faculty of Paris, touching certain questions which have been proposed to us, are of the opinion that one must never admit the accusation of demons, still less must one exploit exorcisms for the purpose of discovering a man's faults or for determining if he is a magician; and we are further of the opinion that, even if the said exorcisms should have been applied in the present of the Holy Sacrament, with the devil forced to swear an oath (which is a ceremony of which we do not at all approve), one must not for all that give any credit to his words, the devil being always a liar and the Father of Lies." Furthermore, the devil is man's sworn enemy, and is therefore ready to endure all the torments of exorcism for the sake of doing harm to a single soul. If the devil's evidence were admitted, the most virtuous people would be in the greatest danger; for it is precisely against these that Satan rages most violently. "Wherefore St. Thomas (Book 22, Question 9, Article 22) maintains with the authority of St. Chrysostoml, DAEMONI, ETIAM VERA DICENTI, NON EST CREDENDUM. (The devil must not be believed, even when he tells the truth.)"

In the event, convenience trumped St. Thomas.

Ambrosia

By special request from reader Mitch, I'm going to tell you all about mangosteens. R.W. "Johnny" Apple has a great article about them in the NYT, in which he explains that fruit fly worries, rather than difficulties in transportation, have prevented Americans from enjoying this amazing fruit. Irradiation appears to offer a solution, though. As Apple notes, Queen Victoria, who tasted mangosteens on some tour of the imperial posessions, reputedly offered a knighthood to anyone who could get a mangosteen to her in edible condition. This had somehow lead me to think transport was still the issue today, but of course that's silly; I routinely eat white peaches from America here in Singapore. Strangely enough, they are reliably better here as well, I really can't think how. My mother was astonished. As you all know, it's hard to get good peaches in the States, even if you live in Georgia. They pick them all unripe, and a fuzzy, hard, greenish, unripe peach is a wretched thing unworthy of the name. My sister didn't even think she liked peaches until she went to Italy and had a real one. Maybe we are sending them all abroad to discerning Singaporeans? But enough about peaches!

Mitch wants to know, are mangosteens as good as they say? Well, yes, Mitch, they are. They're amazing. They look so funny; click on the link for a nice photo. The rind is thick and purple, and should yield to light pressure from your fingertips. The sepals at the top give them a jaunty, cartoonish air, as if each one were wearing a silly hat. Inside are little white sections, one of which is always much larger and contains a flat pit that you may want to spit out. Actually, there is a little seed even in the smallest sections, but you don't notice it at all and it's quite edible. They are functionally seedless. The sections have about the texture of a canned mandarin orange slice (sorry, that's not very appealing taste-wise, but it's accurate). Slightly creamier, though, the way a good mango is creamy, but without any stringiness. They don't really taste like anything else. Well, hey have a slightly perfumed taste, the way that fresh litchis or longan do. (Longan, or "dragon's eyes" are another great tropical fruit, little and round, with a single translucent white orb coming freely off a black seed, enclosed in a brown, papery husk.) And I think they taste a little like strawberries, but it's more that they have a lemony-sour taste mingling with a very, very sweet taste, the way a good strawberry does. Defects: none. Well, they can get mushy when overripe and they are very perishable. I will cause you all to doubt John's sanity again when I mention that he doesn't eat them, or really any fruit except apples. He loves fresh fruit juices, of which they have great ones in every hawker stall. He thinks fruit is too hard to eat, I think. Like, you have to peel it and stuff. I don't know why I'm always criticising my husband's food preferences on this blog; it must be some passive-agressive thing, which doesn't reflect very well on me. Let me reiterate that John is a fine man in every way, and posesses unparalleled aesthetic refinement. But the fruit thing,seriously, that's kinda weird. Every week a huge box of fruit gets delivered from the wet market and put in a big basket; every week Tena (our maid), Zoë and I eat the whole thing and John has a few apples. I don't know. De gustibus, etc.

Another tropical fruit which is really amazing is the dragonfruit. I went to where they grow them in south Vietnam, and it's odd-looking: they put the pots in the center of an old tire raised up to about six feet on a post, and then the plant trails down. They are a succulent, with blade-like leaves, and the fruit forms right off the edge of the leaf, the way the flowers of a night-blooming cereus do. The fruits themselves are ridiculous looking, and sublime: bright magenta rind embellished with violent green leaflets. Inside is the easiest to eat fruit in the word: a single, foot-ball shaped piece of fruit about the size of a big mango, white, dotted evenly with edible black seeds. My travelling companion and I bought a motorcycle in Saigon and drove it to Hanoi, about 1,200 miles. It meant we could turn off the road to find great beaches, and one of my fondest memories of the trip is eating fresh dragonfruit on an empty white beach with a gaggle of admiring children. For these fruits, transport is the problem. Even in north Vietnam they are only so-so. I've never had a truly great one here in Singapore, though I've had good ones. When ripe they are delicious and tooth-ache sweet. Outside of the immediate growing region, though, they are insipid. They taste like the edge of a watermelon, where it's turning white next to the rind. A shame. I see via google that some intrepid farmer is growing them in California. They don't call it the golden state for nothing.

Conservatism Considered

Chris Bertram posts about the rhetoric of reaction, linking to an interesting Tanner Lecture of that title. Me? I've got eye-strain issues these days. Gonna give the computer a rest in the evening - for a couple days probably - and curl up with my new Gene Wolfe book, while the rest of the world apparently curls up with Quicksilver.

My thought for the night about conservatism. I've been sort of mulling a long post, but it's really a simple idea: there is no way even to begin to conjoin so-called social or cultural conservatism and economic conservatism. Because the latter assumes that (economic) laissez faire is good: change will tend to be for the better. And the former assumes that (cultural) laissez faire is bad: change will tend to be for the worse. It would of course be possible to render these theses consistent by arguing that human beings tend to make good economic decisions but bad cultural or social ones. But it's a little hard to see how this could be made plausible.

In a sense it's all more complicated. In another sense, it's just plain obviously right that these things can't possibly go together. What's the point? This is supposed to be a first step on the way towards reforming political terminology, 'conservative' (like 'liberal') being an almost terminally infirm designation ... But I'll leave it there for now. My eye is bugging me.

Ring!

OK, now they've got a website. But there's not a lot there yet. Do you think they would be interested in hiring us for our lyrical talents?

Good Reading For the Millions

Leibnizian Pupusas

I just learned today that sometime Conspirator Tyler Cowen has a big guide to ethnic restaurants in the D.C. area on his blog. Since he lives in Northern Virginia the focus is there, but where he recommends in Maryland he gets it right. He is quite right in contending that the best ethnic food in the area is in suburban strip malls, especially run-down ones. I guess the rents are cheap. (C'mon Matthew Yglesias, you've gotta know someone with a car!) Plus, you really have to love any guide that offers you statements like this:

Costa Del Sol, 4906 Fairmont Ave., Bethesda, 301-656-2561
They claim to be Honduran as well as Salvadorean and Mexican. Maybe, but you would have to read Leibniz on the identity of indiscernibles to prove the point. One of the few really ethnic places in Bethesda, with above average pupusas.

Million Dollar Mermaid

John: I feel like watching a bad movie.

Zoë: Daddy wan a' watch a bad movie?