I’ve heard Marxists quip that “It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism,” implying that anyone who wishes to preserve capitalism lacks the imagination to want something better. But is limitation of imagination the only reason a person might have a conservative desire to defend capitalism?
I see at least two alternative explanations.
First, pro-capitalist conservatives might actually have better imaginations — at least different imaginations — better able to imagine what might go wrong if we make radical changes to the world.
Second, it could be due to an acute awareness of imagination’s limits. We can imagine utopic or dystopic outcomes of change, but in my experience, the future often unfolds in ways nobody imagined. Our imagination always omits crucial considerations that lead to unintended, unimagined consequences.
This is why I prefer reform. If we make slow, incremental changes, we are better able to foresee the consequences and to respond to the inevitable surprises . The greater the scale and speed of change, the less predictable it is and the harder it is to correct if things go off the rails.
A third important reason conservatives are skeptical of revolutions, economic and otherwise, is that conservatives believe societies develop organically, by complex, distributed, localized processes — far too complex for any expert or any group of experts to comprehend, however imaginative, insightful, knowledgable and intelligent they might be.
Experts can effectively influence and shape these organic processes. But the belief that they can create them from scratch is a sign of naive hubris. Friedrich Hayek called this “the fatal conceit.”
Obviously, I share all three of these mistrustful attitudes toward imagining radical futures.
Does this make me a conservative? It is relative. Compared to a revolutionary (whether a left radical or right reactionary), yes, I am conservative. But compared to people who think things are perfectly fine as they are, and therefore not requiring significant reform, then I look like a progressive, albeit a cautious one who respects conservatives. But I’m not so conservative that sensibly-paced, sensibly-scaled socialist solutions to social problems automatically horrify me.
But whatever else I am, I’m certainly anti-revolutionary.
How are you accounting for either conservatives or liberals looking at the future by building power structures?
I’m not sure what you’re asking. Can you say more?
Your post seems to make the assumption that either side is acting in a rational manner, but with differing objectives. What happens when the objective isn’t rational?
Nothing I ever say or do is based on a belief that humans, in general, behave rationally. Like you, I’m a designer, and am presented daily with overwhelming evidence that humans are barely rational at all!
In this post, I am only shooting at the smug conceit of some Marxists that the essential difference between those who hate and oppose capitalism and those who defend it is capacity to imagine something better. I’m pointing out that the difference can be explained just as easily and less self-flatteringly in terms of naive unwarranted trust in our imagination’s power to envision plausible futures, or in terms of capacity to imagine how utopian fantasies might in execution turn dystopian.
But of course, most radicals today, as you correctly point out, are not driven by rationality, nor imagination, but rather social passivity. If society demands of us radical and subversive beliefs, and fierce independence, precisely the most timid conformists will present themselves as revolutionaries and will recite critical thinking they accepted uncritically, out of craving for belonging and fear of social disapproval. Or are you speaking of irrational conservatism, which fears all change and who clings to the crappiest present to avoid risk of a crappier future?