Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays by Michael Oakeshott

Rationalism in Politics: (p5) “The Rationalism with which I am concerned with is modern Rationalism. No doubt its suface reflects the light of rationalisms of a distant past… What I call rationalism in politics is not, of course, the only… fashion in modern European political thinking. But it is a strong and lively manner of thinking which, finding support in its filiation with so much else that is strong in the intellectual composition of contemporary Europe, has come to colour the ideas, not merely of one, but of all political persuasions, and to flow over every party line.” “Almost all politics today have become Rationalism or near-Rationalist”

(p5-6) “The general character and disposition of the Rationalist are, I think, not difficult to identify. At bottom he stands (he always stands) for independence of mind on all occasions, for thought free from obligation to any authority save the authority of ‘reason’. His circumstances in the modern world have made him contentious: he is the enemy of authority, or prejudice, of the merely traditional, customary or habitual. His mental attitude is at once sceptical and optimistic: sceptical, because there is no opinion, no habit, no belief, nothing so firmly rooted or so widely held that he hesitates to question it and to judge it by what he calls his ‘reason’; optimistic, because the rationalist never doubts the power of his ‘reason’ (when properly applied) to determine the worth of a thing, the truth of an opinion or the propriety of an action. Moreover, he is fortified by a belief in a ‘reason’ common to all mankind, a common power of rational consideration which is the ground and inspiration of argument: set up on his door is the precept of Parmenides – judge by rational argument. But besides this, which gives the Rationalist a touch of intellectual equalitarianism, he is something also of an individuals, finding it difficult to believe that anyone who can think honestly and clearly will think differently from himself.” “But it is an error to attribute to him an excessive conern with a priori argument. He does not neglect experience, but he often appears to do so because he insists always upon it being his own experience (wanting to begin everything de novo), and because of the rapidity with which he reduces the tangle and variety of experience to a set of principles which he will then attack or defend only upon rational grounds.”

(p8) “He believes, of course, in the open mind, the mind free from prejudice and its relic, habit. He believes that the unhindered human reason (if only it can be brought to bear) is an infallible guide in political activity. Further, he believes in argument as ther technique and operation of ‘reason’; the truth of an opinion and the ‘rational’ ground (not the use) of an institution is all that matters to him… To the rationalist, nothing is of value merely because it exists (and certainly not because it has existed for many generations), familiarity has no worth, and nothing is to be left standing for want of scrutiny. And his disposition makes both destruction and creation easier for him to understand and engage in, than acceptance or reform”

(p9) argues that they want ‘politics of perfection’ and ‘politics of unity’

(p408) “To be conservative, then, is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss.”

(p409) “Now, all this is represented in a certain attitude towards change and innovation; change denoting alterations we have to suffer and innovation those we design and execute.2 Arbitrary division? “Changes are circumstances to which we have to accommodate ourselves, and the disposition to be conservative is both the emblem of our difficulty in doing so and our resort in the attempts we make to do so. Changes are without effect only upon those who notice nothing, who are ignorant of what they possess and apathetic to their circumstances; and they can be welcomed indiscriminately only by those who esteem nothing, whose attachments are fleeting and who are strangers to love and affection.”

(p422) “How, then, are we to construe the disposition to be conservative in respect of politics?… It is said, for example, that conservativism in politics is the appropriate counterpart of a generally conservative disposition in respect of human conductL to be reformist in business, in morals, or in religion, and to conservative in politics is represented as being inconsistent. It is said that the conservative in politics is so by virtue of holding certain religious beliefs; a belief, for example, in a natural law to be gathered from human experience, and in a providential order reflecting a diviine purpose in nature and in human history to which it is the duty of mankind to conform its conduct and departure from which it spells injustice and calamity. Further, it is said that a disposition to be conservative in politics reflects what is called an organic theory of human society… and with a belief in primordial propensity of human beings to sin. And the conservativism of an Englishman has even been connected with Royalism and Anglicanism.”

(p423-4) “It is true that many of these beliefs have been held by people disposed to be conservative in political activity, and it may be true that these people have also believed their disposition to be in some way confirmed by them, or even to be founded upon them; but as I understand it, a disposition to be conservative in politics does not entail either that we should hold these beliefs tro be true or even that we should suppose them to be true. Indeed, I do not think it is necessarily connected with any particular beliefs about the universe, about the world in general or about human conduct in general. What it is tied to is a certain beliefs about the activity of governing and the instruments of government, and it is in terms of beliefs on these topics, and not on others, that it can be made to appear intelligible. And, to state my view briefly before elaborating it, what makes a conservative disposition in politics intellgiible is nothing to do with a natural law or a providential order, nothing to do with morals or religion; it is the observation of our current manner oif living combined with the belief (which from our point of view need to be regarded as no more than an hypothesis) that governing is a specific and limited activity, namely the provision of and custody of general rules of conduct, whichh are understood, not as plans for imposing substantive activities, but as instruments enabling people to pursue the activities of their own chopice with a minimum frustration, and therefore something which it is appropriate to be conservative about.”

(p427) “Now people of this disposition commonly defend their belief that the proper attitude of government towards the current condition of human circumstances is one of the acceptance by appealing to certain general ideas. They contend that there is absolute value in cerrtain general ideas. Tehy contend that there is absolute value in the free play of human choice, that private property (the emblem of choice) is a natural right, that it is only in the enjoyment of diversity of opinion and activity that true belief and good conduct can be expected to disclose themselves.”

(p428) “Nevertheless, if this acceptance is the spring of the conservative’s disposition in respect of government, he does not suppose that the office of government is to do nothing. As he understands it, there is work to be done which can be done only in virtue of a genuine acceptance of current beliefs simply because they are current activities simply because they are afoot. And, briefly, the office he attributes to government is to resolve some of the collisions which this variety of beliefs and activities generates; to preserve peace, not by placing an interdict upon choice and upon the diversity that springs from the exercise of preference, not by imposing substantive uniformity, but by enforcing general rules of procedure upon all subjects alike. Government, then, as the conservative in this mattter understands it, does not begin with a vision of another, different and better world, but with the observation of the self-government practised even by men of passion in the conduct of their enterprises… In short, the intimations of government are to be found in ritual, not in religion or philosophy; in the enjoyment of orderly and peaceable behaviour, not in the search for truth or perfection.”

(p429) “A more precise and a less easily corrupted ritual is required to resolve the massive collisions which our manner of living is apt to generate and to release us from the massive frustrations in which we are apt to become locked. The custodian of this ritual is ‘the government’, and the rules it imposes are ‘the law’. … “At all events the disposition to be conservative in respect of government is rooted in the belief that where government rests upon the acceptance of the current activities and beliefs of its subjects, the only appropriate manner of ruling is by making and enforcing rules of conduct. In short, to be conservative about government is a reflection of the conservativism we have recognized to be appropriate in respect of rules of conduct.” … “To govern, then, as the conservative understands it, is to provide a cinculum juris for those manners of conduct which, in the circumstances, are least likely to result in a frustrating collision of interests; to provide redress and means of compensation for those who suffer from others behaving in a contrary manner; sometimes to provide punishment for those who pursue their own interests regardless of the rules; and, of course, to provide a sufficient force to maintain the authority of an arbitrary of this kind.”