Religious Conservatism and Moral Ecology

["Cross Roberto," by Xoan Seoane, taken from PublicDomainPictures.Net; this image is in the public domain.]

This post is a repurposed comment that I wrote on @yintercept's post, "You Have the Freedom to Do as You Are Told," where she argues that political conservative movements, in general, tend to twist the arguments of Classical Liberalism by misconstruing the idea of free agency through the use of opposition logic, based on what is essentially an appeal to force. I am creating a post out of that comment because her(?) post brought out an issue that I intend to flesh out here on Steemit bit by bit: the idea of a moral ecology where, within the context of a free society, people with divergent moral outlooks are able to compete and cooperate with one another in such a way that the very divergence of their moral views creates tremendous social value, rather than social conflict and degradation; in a way, this idea is an attempt to explore the idea of a free marketplace of ideas - but I believe that this marketplace is not merely a competition to win followers - it is an intellectual ecosystem where everyone benefits from the fact that different people exercise different sets of moral values. @daemon-nice has requested that I tag him on all posts that are relevant to this subject.

In her(?) post, @yintercept links to a review of Connor Boyack's book, "Latter Day Liberty." In that review, she(?) argues that Joseph Smith's oppositional tactics in posing an argument that twists the idea of free agency that relies on an appeal to force are an application the Hegelian dialectic, which similarly obfuscates free agency in such a way as to present authoritarianism in an agreeable light. I agree that if you are reading what Hegel has to say about freedom and you're thinking that he means the same thing that the US founders meant, then you will be misled. I would argue that it isn't so much that he was trying to obfuscate the meaning of the word. I think he just meant something entirely different by it. What he meant was a kind of spiritual freedom. It's an idea that has sort of epistemological and metaphysical overtones, rather than political ones. That being said, yes, I'm not really convinced by his weak rebuttals of individual rights, either, and it is true that he argued in favor of the state as opposed to individual liberty, although it should be mentioned that his view of the state is much broader than what is referred to by the Classical Liberals. It is no mistake that Karl Marx was a Hegelian. Like Hegel, he viewed the state and society as an entirely congruent entity (obviously not a premise I would accept prima facia), and so to address Hegelian and Marxist arguments you have to carefully sort that out. Bottom line: I think it's entirely possible that Joseph Smith was a Hegelian, but I would say that, if that's the case, his application of Hegelian ideas was clumsy, to say the least; that being said, Hegelianism is problematic, even if applied faithfully and coherently.

What is implied in @yintercept's post is that the positions of the Church of Latter Day Saints are in some way representative of the conservative right and of the religious right in particular. I wouldn't necessarily conflate the Mormon Church with the conservative movement in the United States as a whole. Clearly, there is some correlation between the platforms endorsed by the Mormons and the religious right, and the religious right is far from classically liberal, on the whole. However, time and civilization have a way of moderating the religious while degrading the power of religious extremists, even though religious observance, in the long-term, will continue to grow (since secular people have fewer children).

In general, as people are increasingly exposed to people who hold differing lifestyles and viewpoints, and as the philosophical fabric of the country becomes less homogenous, the religious tend to develop a much more "live and let live" attitude, and religious ideologies tend to adjust to integrating into the moral ecology, rather than seeking to dominate it. Of course, some elements always seek dominance, but typically, they are only successful in doing so to the extent that they are able to convince others that it is the ones they are opposing who are being intolerant (oppositional logic, relying on a false dichotomy, I suppose you could say). This is the chief strategy of the Communist left and the extreme religious right. Long-term, this cannot succeed in a society with any amount of freedom, because as people are exposed to one another, they tend to humanize one another. So long as we can prevent all-out tyranny in the short term, it is highly probable that we will enjoy increased freedom in the long-term.

I do think that the more recent moderation of the Church of Latter Day Saints is an example of this. So long as we continue to humanize one another, we can expect that competing moral followings will develop an ecological, rather than domineering relationship. I think absolute freedom is in our future.

Finally, I would draw a distinction between European conservatism and American conservatism. Conservatism typically indicates an element of political traditionalism. American political traditions are inherently different from European ones. Our political tradition is the US Constitution. The US Constitution is not perfect, but it does uphold limitations on power, and the Bill of Rights is an overt defense of natural rights. I think that you can see this being upheld to some degree by the conservative movement in the United States; especially among the conservative members of the judiciary, which has, with a high (though not total) degree of consistency, upheld freedom of speech, freedom of expression and religion, property rights, and free markets.

To generalize just a bit, when we look at the course of history since before the beginning of modernity, the tendency has always been a gradual enrichment of the moral fabric in society. First, the Greek and Roman empires gave us an example of religious tolerance by not forcing the peoples they conquered to relinquish their gods. Then, the Muslim and Khan empires experimented with admittedly limited religious tolerance, which resulted in a philosophical renaissance of Aristotelianism, then, partially as a result of that Muslim renaissance by way of the work of Thomas Aquinas, a European continent dominated by Catholicism experienced the Protestant Reformation, followed by a renaissance of their own, which then led to the development of Classical Liberalism, which was responsible for the Neo-Atlantian American experiment. Americanism then quickly became the dominant culture around the globe, reaching its peak in the early 1990's as Communism began to collapse around the globe. This idea of Americanism produces the very hotbed for a moral ecology, because, at its root, it supports a free marketplace of ideas. This free marketplace of ideas, as it turns out, does not create moral homogeneity; rather, it creates moral diversity. This has led to a highly sophisticated cosmopolitan culture in which all benefit from a wide variety of perspectives, in which the open-minded have the privilege of experiencing a multitude of Daseins within the borders of their own country, as well as abroad, in other countries which have, to some extent, accepted Americanism as a basic political ideal.

Over the last few decades, Americanism has been in decline. This trend has been marked by an academic and cultural resurgence in Marxist ideology in the form of identity politics. This, in turn, has caused a limited reaction by the religious right. That being said, the resurgence of religious intolerance has not kept up with the continued moderating trend of civilized society. For example, most of the younger generation of churchgoers are tolerant of homosexuals and want an end to the war on drugs (I wasn't able to find numbers on opinions concerning the war on drugs for the religious, specifically, but the younger generation of the right, in general, wants to end it, which suggests that it is highly probable that younger churchgoers want this). The church that created the so-called "blue laws" has all but disappeared. Most religious people want to live and let live, and the Marxists are losing the argument, in spite of their oppositional tactics. Right now, the Marxists are at their very loudest and most obnoxious, but we should be encouraged by that - it indicates desperation. We are about to experience a resurgence in Americanism and Classical Liberalism that will dwarf previous trends, and will power a new renaissance that will launch us out up among the stars.