Sometime in my second year of university, I remember having a classroom discussion with several other students on inequality and inequity. We had just read a selection on the concept of a “durable inequality” and were debating whether the Netherlands has a problem with children of university graduates being overrepresented in university admissions.
Eventually, the discussion took a more exact turn than is the norm for students (among whom louder tends to prevail over sharper) when one wayward soul cited a statistic suggesting that the vast majority of Dutch university students are children of university graduates.
Immediately, some members of the class cried foul. “Look at this injustice!” they said; “Look at the privilege! They go to university when their lower-class peers have to go to trade school, just because of their birth!” The only thing that would satisfy my peers was a restructuring of society where these poor kids would get equal chances.
I wasn’t so sure. I didn’t (and don’t) have the expertise to weigh in with much authority, but I’ve always had a pet peeve for intellectual insubtlety. I found (and find) it perfectly possible that there is some structural inequality in the Netherlands, some durable injustice to those below. But surely this wasn’t the whole story.
“Couldn’t it be;” I said, “partly that intelligence – I.Q. that is – is an inherited characteristic, and one of the primary predictors of academic and professional success?” To this I added that the other major factor, conscientiousness, has a great deal to do with one’s upbringing. It wasn’t that society was imperfect. God rigged the game at the start.
This didn’t sit well with the rest of the class. The idea of your success in life being somewhat determined by your birth wasn’t appealing to a generation which had been promised the moon and more by politicians.They would rather believe that they had just as good a shot as any other, but for those “meddling rich people” – regardless of what reality had to say on the matter.
The reply sputtered back at me was unbelievable. In short, it couldn’t be IQ, because – and I quote – “It explained too much.”
As the discussion progressed, I figured out what this really meant. Ideas have costs, I noted to myself, and we’re not always willing to pay that cost.
What’s the price for believing that some intelligence is, in part, inherited? That some things are out of your control. That you were born imperfect. That some things are out of your reach. Uncomfortable thoughts, indeed.
The more palatable option is to believe that your problems are caused by inadequate – i.e. unjust – social organization. If only we “reform society”, these problems can be solved. If only the rich paid their taxes, if only white males stepped down from boards, if only the West stopped ‘insisting’ on free trade (hah). If only.
Some commentators have even noted this as a core distinction in political philosophy. The incisive Noel O’Sullivan argues that most centrally, Conservatism (in its philosophical sense) is a “philosophy of imperfection”. Simply put, Conservatism believes that human nature is fundamentally imperfect, that human existence is inevitably sometimes extremely unpleasant, and that no new state, politician, or other human organization can fix this.
This is the core unpleasant truth of not only political philosophy, but of life. Sometimes, life sucks. And sometimes there’s nothing we can do about it. Utopia can’t happen, because we’re not wired for it.
Tell me: if every single form of society we have had in history has failed to solve this core truth, will the next one? Way back in the 5th century BC, the Buddha – a pampered Prince – declared as the very first noble truth that life is suffering. Solomon supposedly wrote Ecclesiates, which details the internal anguish of a rich, well-off man in Ancient Israel. Since then, we’ve had all sorts of societies, and we’ve had all sorts of people. Not once have we cured suffering by reorganizing society. Nor will we, unless we are somehow special and better than the combined wisdom of ten thousand years.
That’s not to say that we cannot improve society to improve lives. We can, we should, and we have. What it rather means is that the state has its limits, potential as well as moral. One such limit is it’s inability to usher in utopia for flawed human nature.
To be sure, Conservatives have drifted from this truth. Trump promised the moon and more to his electorate – who else remembers “you’ll get tired of winning?”. CPAC is yearly self-delusion about “conservative possibility”, and certain Christian conservatives seem to believe that they can institute the City of God on earth, as if they were John Winthrop reborn.
So have certain libertarians, of course. In my view, too much of libertarianism is an eschatology pointing to a free world. Free markets are the most powerful tools man has ever made to alleviate poverty, suffering, etc. – but even they cannot fix human nature. No matter how free we get, unhappiness, suffering, and pain will remain a core feature of life.
So what’s the alternative? Look at the human condition with “both eyes open”, like Dostoyevsky, Pascal, and Augustine. Realize that human potential and imperfection go hand in hand. And when we go forward with radical intentions, making, as Hayek said, “the building a free society once again an intellectual adventure, an act of courage” – we must have courage towards ourselves more than any other, admitting truth into our minds whatever the cost.
