Inspired by Patrick Deenan’s outstanding essay about sociologist and cultural philosopher Robert Nisbet, I’d like to define a term that appears as a theme in his work and was popularized by Russell Kirk: the moral imagination. (The term comes from Edmund Burke, and its quotation is below the fold.) It can be defined as a uniquely human ability to conceive of fellow humanity as moral beings and as persons, not as objects whose value rests in utility or usefulness. It is a process by which a self “creates” metaphor from images recorded by the senses and stored in memory, which are then occupied to find and suppose moral correspondences in experience. An intuitive ability to perceive ethical truths and abiding law in the midst of chaotic experience, the moral imagination should be an aspiration to a proper ordering of the soul and, consequently, of the commonwealth. In this conception, to be a citizen is not to be an autonomous individual; it is a status given by a born existence into a world of relations to others. To be fully human is to embrace the duties and obligations toward a purpose of security and endurance for, first and foremost, the family and the local community. Success is measured by the development of character, not the fleeting emotions of status. Thinking “sacramentally,” (meaning humans are connected with a sacramental order of creation, a configuration of the mind in communion with the divine and beyond the rational) this is a sense that nature was created in such a manner that humans can draw “true analogies,” wisdom inaccessible by scientific method. Lived experiences, registered in memory and conjured through other experiences, can be interpreted through imagination so that memories may become images, analogous to the experience.

Despairing of the strong and quick changes that French revolutionaries were bringing to the established customs and institutions of civil society, Burke wrote in Reflections on the Revolution in France:

“But now all is to be changed. All the pleasing illusions, which made power gentle, and obedience liberal, which harmonized the different shades of life, and which, by bland assimilation, incorporated the politics the sentiments which beautify and soften private society, are to be dissolved by this new conquering empire of light and reason. All the decent drapery of life is to be rudely torn off. All of the superadded ideas, furnished from the wardrobe of a moral imagination, which the heart owns and the understanding ratifies, as necessary to cover the defects of our own naked shivering nature, and to raise it to dignity in our estimation, are to be exploded as ridiculous, absurd, and antiquated fashion.”

It is, usually, far too awkward to import great figures of antiquity into current political discussions. That said, let’s give it a shot. Thinking through the definitions of conservatism, it seemed to me plausible that a conservative could perhaps make a claim to Cicero. This would assume an “imaginative,” not a historical, disposition: a divine intent in history, God-gifted immutable laws of morality, to which man has a duty to conform; order as a first requirement of good governance, achieved best by a restraint and respect for custom and tradition; variety as more desirable than systematic uniformity and liberty more desirable than equality; the honor and duty of a good life in a good community as taking precedence over individual desire; an embrace of a skepticism toward reason and abstract principle. Why Cicero? Following the Stoics, he taught that virtue and vice are distinguishable through a natural law, that there is an eternality to nature and a moral constitution to the universe, and that a “mixed government” might be advisable. Following the Pro Murena, let’s take a look.

Cicero’s reverential view of the old Roman constitution was as an enunciator of the jus naturale, the law of the universe of which the laws of man can only imperfectly manifest. The “higher” happiness is moral happiness and the causes of suffering are moral evils. I think it is possible to classify him as an “anti-rationalist” asserting that natural right is human custom conforming to divine intent. Cicero the philologist might not have objected to the description “conservative,” perhaps, as the English word is derived from the Latin “conservator,” signifying one who preserves from injury, violence, and infraction. As a figure who died for the “old Roman constitution,” those defending constitutional order have looked toward Cicero as their exemplar – to be held in esteem for devotion to the natural, moral law. Cicero might legitimately be cited in a “conservative” context because he lived in a moment when everything was “going to hell” and he was trying to preserve traditions under siege at the crashing of his own civilization. Thus he was part of the broad, humanistic, and stoic (and, later, Christian) tradition of the West – one that valued basic natural rights and was incessantly called into question by variations of utilitarian and utopian thinking. (I recognize there is much to criticize here, but this is an imaginative rendering!)

Cicero delivered the pro Murena against Cato in 63 B.C.E., in response to an extraordinary set of circumstances. This work in particular is an articulation of a philosophical approach to practice. His rhetorical challenge was sensitive and difficult in execution: defend a guilty party being prosecuted by friends and allies. Michael Leff, in a well known rhetorical analysis, writes: “He needed to make a sufficiently plausible legal defense for the jurors to vote as their prudential interests inclined them to vote. In order to succeed in this effort, he had to highlight the political implications of the case without violating the decorum of legal argument, and he had to weaken the authority of the two leading prosecutors, while, for political and personal reasons, he could not offend them deeply or permanently.” For Leff, readers “can attest to the rhetorical power of this blend,” of mixing “playful attacks against the professional and philosophical pursuits (but not the persons)” of the prosecutors, including the powerful Cato, “deadly serious emotional appeals,” and “deft maneuvering around the specific legal issues.” Yet Cicero’s appeal need not be read as “pure, unalloyed examples of rhetorical manipulation.” The content and organizing principles of the speech are not ideologist but rather, in Leff’s conclusion, “a kind of judgment specifically connected with prudence, decorum, and action where rhetorical skills are seen not just as instruments of persuasion but as equipment for living.” And so a plausible case might be made, despite the absence in ancient Rome of direct resemblances of modern Western constitutional liberty, for a “Ciceronian” support of the idea, and of the lived sentiment, of values to be faithfully commemorated. These would include tradition, guidance by accumulated wisdom, constitutionalism, and a civic republican vision of the orator as an ethical representative of the formation and endurance of a beneficial community.

This community has as its core a mystery to the human experience, and a sense that story and imagery can persuade at least as well as logical, more strictly factual arguments. Tradition and historical appeals, in other words, could serve as a sturdy foundation in a confusing world. In defending counsel-elect Murena against electoral malpuractice, Cicero’s task to neutralize the authority of Cato and Sulpicius without earning their antipathy was dependent not upon facts but upon character. This source of argumentative material valued the character of the litigants more highly than the facts in establishing one’s case. Further, his oratory continuously appeals to traditional Roman political and social contexts. Connecting such rhetorical practice with contemporary issues in the study of rhetoric and public policy is a de-emphasis of “facts” and an emphasis of custom. The emphasis of ethos and custom positions the orator (even if indirectly given the absence of such a claim as a part of the speech) as an example to be emulated, as a living personification of a high value. From the first of the speech, Cicero seeks to establish his own claim to be the one who upholds and practices what is morally and properly Roman. “Speaking a few words on my own behalf,” Cicero states:

“Today I pray again to those same immortal gods that Murena’s acquittal may preserve him for his consulship, that your opinion given in your verdict may tally with the wishes of the Roman people expressed in their votes, and that this agreement may bring peace, calm, and tranquility and harmony to yourselves and to the people of Rome. Believing that that customary election prayer, hallowed by the auspices taken by a counsel, has the force and religious weight that the majesty of the Republic demands, I prayed too that the election over which I presided should bring to the successful candidates all good fortune and prosperity. Accordingly, gentlemen, since the immortal gods have either transferred to you their whole power or at least have allowed you to share it, I now commend to your protection the counsel whom I previously entrusted to the immortal gods. He will thus be defended by the voice of the man who declared him consul and preserve along with the office conferred upon him by the Roman people the safety of yourselves and of the whole citizen body.”

The appeal to authority of Cicero’s defense, his own and that of the Republic, is a call for a precarious community of political and social process to remain united by commonly held principles of justice. The appreciation of these principles is necessary to maintain order for the Roman commonwealth. Recognizing the prestige of Cato, “the root and core of the whole prosecution,” his speech attacked a flaw that might assist prosecutorial abuse, a commitment to an austere version of Stoic philosophy that could manifest itself as inflexible, rigid adherence to principle that renders one unable to exercise prudent judgment and adapt to changing circumstances. The systematic contrast between his agility in handling circumstances and the more inflexible positions of his opponents suggests that his rhetorical sensibility is not just a means to win cases but a kind of political virtue as well. Cicero states “wise and far-sighted jurors” have always resisted conduct similar to Cato’s condemnations:

“I do not like a prosecutor to come into court with overweening power, an excessive force, overwhelming influence or too much popularity. Let all these assets be used to deliver the innocent, protect the weak and help those in trouble; for the trail and destruction of fellow-citizens, let them be rejected. Yet it will perhaps be said that Cato would not have agreed to prosecute had he not first reached his decision upon the case. It will be creating an unjust precedent, gentlemen, and a wretched state of affairs for men on trial if the prosecutor’s judgment is to count against the defendant as presumption of guilt.”

Cicero’s implicit warning was to watch what could become of the Republic. In thinking through Cicero as an inspiration for conservatism, what it means for an orator to serve ethically begins with the setting of an example. Cato’s prosecution was something like a “systematic philosophy” and a rigid, purified ethic to the demands of “reason.” By contrast, Cicero retorts that the Roman people inhabit a different, more comfortable ethical world where duties are understood in relation to a realistic assessment of occasions and situations. Such is a political ethic conveyed through tradition and connected to a living culture. Thus traditions are living and a means for change is a means for conservation. The means for change, however, are “Ciceronian” in the resistance of turning idealism to formula and ideology and in the long-lived embodiment of sentiment. Causes of public decay were directly related to a decline of moral virtue. Cicero was not principally concerned in his rhetorical writings with the ethical formation of the private individual. He was concerned with a civic ideal whose dynamic was reflective of the republican constitution.

To extract from Cicero judgments applicable to the arguments of American conservatism and to the concerns of modern societies is to employ the imagination. But it might also be a plausible and profitable enterprise. (Books I and II of the Laws and Book III of Of the Commonwealth would also likely have a lot of material on these points.)

”Pre-infanticide has produced, and is still producing, immense physical as well as moral injury to society in enlightened, educated, progressive, Christian American, and with all its popularity is nevertheless – whether considered physically; intellectually or morally – an enormous crime. A few, very few, bold and honest spirits have not feared to “sound the slogan and wield the claymore” against this monstrous and degrading evil while many more Doctors in Divinity and Medicine have as yet only courage in the gristle, waiting for ossification to enable them openly to proclaim against this most revolting crime. A work entitled “Medical Communications of the Massachusetts Medical Society” adds: “In this connection it is but justice to say that the Catholic Church, in reference to Pre-infanticide and Spiritualism, is less derelict of her duty than the Protestant Church.” “Why it is so I will not here inquire or attempt to explain, but the fact is patent and undeniable, and Protestantism, especially in America, must bear the disgrace;” and thus we are brought to realize the singular and very remarkable fact that, in this land of common schools, and of knowledge greatly diffused, this land of bibles, books and newspapers, land of the pious Puritans, whose sons and daughters have never wearied or grown tired in denouncing the Catholic Church as the mother of harlots, all around, and even upon Plymouth Rock, the only form of Christian faith extant and the only religious organization whose creed controls its customs and manners to prevent the crime of murder for a cause wholly inexcusable and in its most revolting form, is the Roman Catholic Church; for in this Church, and nowhere else, is God’s command, “Thou shalt not kill,” sufficiently respected to be implicitly obeyed.

-Jonathan Haidt writes about the soon to be slaying of some very sensitive dragons as we investigate further the genome.
-A very informative article on recent and ‘big’ evolutionary changes.
-Why Darwin still matters.
-Book reviews: Why Darwin?
-A very good documentary on the Dover case.
-From National Geographic, an outstanding program: ’Morphed.’
-Steven Pinker on the ’cognitive niche.’
-Darwin the abolitionist.
-Greg Cochran, one of the great contemporary American scientists, is interviewed in five parts from here. Also, here is a podcast. An informative review of The 10,000 Year Explosion may be read here. A bloggingheads discussion with Cochran may be viewed here.
-A biologist reviews an ’intelligent design’ textbook.
-Derbyshire on the jargon of ‘culturalism.’ He considers science and policy here. For more, see here. Derbyshire considers the politics and unintended consequences of African aid here. (More on that subject from Dambisa Moyo may be read here.)
-Jim Manzi on science and religion.
-The evolution of dogs and wolves.
-Heather MacDonald on the persistently uneven distribution high level math skills.
-From Sailer: the continuing and accelerating rate of human evolution and Darwin’s enemies from the Left and from the Right. Sailer also has a useful Race and IQ “FAQ” here and here. Finally, an older piece on the realities of human difference. Sailer takes on Slate here.Derbyshire writes a piece about him here.
-The evolution of the idea of natural selection.
-How fossils reveal the truth about Darwin’s theory.
-How the political right misunderstands Darwin.
-Dawkins (no fan of the religious, but always worth a read) on Darwin.
-An article on the political influence of those who think like Dawkins (materialist, to generalize) can be read here.
-Jerry Coyne (also no fan of the religious, but always worth a read) on why evolution is true.
-Using “academic freedom” to crowd science out of science classrooms.
-An account of a debate between Professors Plantinga and Dennett.
-Ten propositions on Darwin and deity.
-Ross Douthat on Christ and Darwin. -Ross and Heather MacDonald dialogue here.
-John Lukacs on human knowledge.
-Hitchens on Texas and the evolution debate.
-A profile of Freeman Dyson, like Darwin and James Watson a man unwilling to bow down to strongly enforced pieties.
-A roundtable on evolution and cooperation.
-The evolution of a human flu virus.
-Our developing understanding of babies.
-Blogger extraordinaire agnostic thinks through teenage behavior and group identity.

Edwards analyzed hundreds of public opinion polls. He found little evidence to suggest that a presidential strategy of moving legislation through Congress by appeals to public support will be successful and concludes that public opinion is very difficult to move.

“Going public” is a central strategy for governing: without public backing they lack the influence to influence Congress, and presidents believe this is the case – for good reason. (Other governing strategies include party leadership, interest group mobilization, and legislative skills – strategic and tactical.) In looking at studies of presidential leadership and at a variety of polls since the rise of modern polling in the late 50’s to late 60’s, he concludes that even able communicators like Reagan and Clinton could not move the public much on their own. In their policy successes, they enjoyed the support of sympathetic audiences. And each knew the dangers of using the “bully pulpit” to try move the public when they were not already so inclined.

Edwards is unable to find any systematic evidence of some special form of leadership that might be termed “charismatic.” Concepts cannot be employed, in other words, to identify those who possess charisma, nor to identify any consequence of it. Charisma and personality, as such, are not useful generalizations to better explain the relative success or failure of a president to obtain public support. He concludes that “systemic factors” such as political culture and the structure of the constitutional system work to determine that leaders since Washington had to be a facilitator, not a director, of change. They were unable to create opportunities for change through leadership alone, no matter how much the veneration.

Edwards believes that little can be done to limit the overall volume, and the content, of messages that citizens encounter. And little can be done to make the public more attentive to political affairs. But what can be done is repetition, so that messages will eventually break through noise, distraction, and disinterest. Times of crisis increase the possibility of reaching the public with messages, but even then only a small portion will connect and significant competition remains.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book:

1): “Chief executives are not directors who lead the public where it otherwise refuses to go, thus reshaping the contours of the political landscape. Instead, presidents are facilitators who reflect, and may intensify, widely held views. In the process, they may endow the views of their supporters with structure and purpose and exploit opportunities in their environments to accomplish their joint goals.”

2). “The final link in the chain of communication from the president to the public is a weak one. The president must overcome the predispositions of his audience if he is to change their minds about his policies or his performance. This is very difficult to do. Most people ignore or reject arguments contrary to their predispositions.”

Questions: Does charisma exist in reality, or only in our perceptions once a candidate has “made it” by hard work, luck, talent, and the right issues at the right time? Why is it so elusive? Does the president have more success than other elected officials in breaking through public inattentiveness?

The embrace of uncertainty is an intersection of two large and confusing terms, postmodernism and conservatism. The “postmodern conservative” is skeptical of new models and standards of “efficiency,” and distrustful of an elevated rationality. The hegemonic pretenses of Enlightenment, the philosophical earthquake that birthed the limitations – and the persistent inhumanity – of modernity’s individualism and rights are a cold and flimsy moral architectural structure. The question: is tradition and revelation (such as Thomism, a Christian tradition of reason) mixed with the reflexive critique of modernity a means of return to discipline instead of a mastery of means? How, in other words, to maintain a standard of quality of life, informed by the accumulated wisdom of generations, when the standards of efficiency and rights – truly, a hurrying to nowhere – are so deeply embedded in our culture and the conduct of existence?

Policraticus considers postmodernism to be a critique of the over-ambitious nature of Enlightenment rationalism, the over-inflated projections of the achievement of the human mind, and the over-confidence in so-called rational political models (such as the conception of the modern nation state). It is suspicious of attempts to describe in narrative fashion the history of ideas as it were a linear path perfectly described and analyzed by a sort of idea-determinism; it is a way back up to “pre-modern” ideas. Jean-Francois Lyotard offers us a memorable definition (“simplifying to the extreme”): incredulity toward meta-narrative. Knowledge, he writes, can never be reduced to science or learning. How can knowledge, he asks, even “concrete,” scientific knowledge, possibly find its legitimacy without recourse to a totalizing, narrative method? Instead, all discourses of learning are taken not from their “immediate truth-value,” but by reference to the value acquired by virtue of “occupying a certain place in the itinerary of Spirit or Life.” Knowledge finds its validity in the practical subject of humanity.

For conservatives, especially “traditionalist,” non-utopian (libertarianism being the chief Right utopianism) ones such as Russell Kirk, the “negation” of ideology and the grounding of valid truth in persons created in the reflection of a perfect Good means that earthly totality is futile and dangerous, its supposed truth prone to the many weapons of violence wielded by the rhetorically attractive. Contempt for those who would reconstruct society upon their abstract designs should be accompanied by the valuation of custom, convention, and “old prescription” – checks upon man’s anarchic impulse and the innovator’s lust for power.

Peter Lawler finds postmodernism properly understood to be a return to “realism” – an understanding of our limitations, an embrace of the mysteries of life, and a rejection of the view that language, for example, is a historical construct with no natural foundation. And yet the human self is elusive – thus a rejection of totality that we may know absent death and of the temptations of ideology. If conservatism may be defined as the negation of ideology, the political secularization of the doctrine of original sin, the cautious sentiment tempered by prudence, the product of organic, local human organization observing and reforming its customs, the distaste for a priori principle disassociated from historical experience, the partaking of the mysteries of free will, divine guidance, and human agency by existing in but not of the confusions of modern society, no framework of action, no tenet, no theory, and no article of faith, then there is much to discuss at these intersections – a distrust of the systems and processes of the idols of ourselves and of our lusts of power and status, a distrust of ideology and metanarratives.

There is a problem with the rationalist desire to transform traditional institutions and human nature on the basis of an intellectual plan. Mediating institutions – the seedbeds of virtue such as family, neighborhood, church, guild, union, hobby group – should demonstrate that human motivation cannot be reduced to ideology of any manner, especially economic ones. We humans are creatures of mystery and love, as evidenced by the many grand mysteries our rationality can never unlock, such as language and music, and to revolt against this “real world” is to scorn the fulfilling accomplishments we can actually achieve (raising children first among them) so as to chase false, empty ones.