There's a common genre of articles and presentations proclaiming that everything we think we know is wrong. They often focus on our cognitive biases. There are, of course, valid points in such articles. Human fallibility is real, and old knowledge often has to be replaced. At the same time, if everything we think we know is wrong, then what does progress mean? If we are not just fallible but incompetent then how can we make progress? If our minds are too limited to have learned anything correctly before, how are we going to learn anything correctly now.
Conservatism at its best is about the notion that we can actually have at least some degree of confidence in time-tested insights. For all its skepticism of new ideas, there's also the possibility that when genuine progress is made it can be preserved and serve as a foundation for the next advance. That is a far more progressive ideology than the premise that the next breathless enthusiast in a conference room can overturn everything (for a fee).
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1 comment:
Good post.
Conservatism should be about preserving existing good things.
Progressivism should be about created new good things.
Unless the good things that progressivism creates are preserved, what's the point.
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