Ideology in Crisis: What is the Relevance of Conservatism to the 21st Century? (Part 1)

A conservative learning algorithm is one that reduces error at the expense of learning speed. In certain situations, this is a zero-sum trade-off, and as risk decreases - so do potential profit and loss. But what are the conditions under which conservatism actually increases the level of errors and amplifies risks? The faster the environment changes, the greater the challenge conservatism faces. What changes must be made to conservative ideology to adapt it to a global and technological reality undergoing acceleration?

Conservatism focuses on the bottom part of the picture (Source)

In recent years, with the rise of right-wing intelligence, we are witnessing the emergence (and particularly - its aliyah [immigration to Israel]) of a new intellectual trend: conservatism. In contrast to the worn-out worldview of the left, conservatism presents an innovative, reasoned, and challenging approach - and often a witty one too. Burke, the critic of the French Revolution (and perhaps the number one conservative icon), threatens to change its historical assessment from positive to negative, some two hundred years after its occurrence. Like another conservative icon, de Tocqueville, Burke excelled at foreseeing the future, in the sense of warning against it. And like another icon, Chesterton, the style of these European gentlemen is brilliant. But does conservatism really hold the cure for the ills of the state and society at the beginning of the 21st century? Is conservatism the sober future towards which we are marching, and the new elite that will replace the Marxist-Foucauldian complex?



Well, how shall we retrospectively evaluate the achievements of the French Revolution? The horrors of the revolution are often presented as an argument for its failure, but what is forgotten is that this is very small change from a historical perspective, which was nothing compared to the Napoleonic Wars (whose historical assessment is mixed. Napoleon is not Hitler. And his Code and its dissemination are a tremendous achievement). It is clear that the English model of the Glorious Revolution is far superior to the French one, but the truly great achievement of the French Revolution lies in its comparison to the German Revolution, or the Italian Revolution, or the Spanish Revolution, or the Portuguese, or even the Russian Revolution of the 18th century. These revolutions, which did not happen, and whose absence created a long line of fascist and totalitarian regimes and flooded Europe with blood and chaos, compared to which the French Revolution (the terrible childhood trauma of conservatism!) looks like a charming childish prank, are the correct historical yardstick by which to judge the French Revolution, not "democracy in America" or England. In relation to the continental, Catholic world, with its civil law, with a rationalist and not empiricist school, the French Revolution should still be celebrated as an achievement. The idea that optimization can be achieved through careful and measured incremental changes in any system, as conservatism suggests, is an absurd idea. Evolution requires revolutions, extinctions, and disasters in order not to get stuck in a local optimum, not to mention just random walk and degeneration. Errors are part of any learning algorithm, and paradigmatic errors are part of paradigmatic learning. The main known engine (conservatives that we are, relying on the known!) for cultural and evolutionary development is a series of catastrophes, each of which brings unprecedented progress in its wake. If not for an asteroid that almost wiped out higher life on Earth - we would still be in the age of dinosaurs.

And what about the impressive predictive ability of conservatives? Well, as they say in the stock market about the doomsayers who always foresaw the previous crisis, even a broken clock is right twice a day. Regarding every revolution or dramatic change, including revolutions whose assessment is undoubted today, such as the scientific revolution, the industrial revolution, printing, secularization, urbanization, information, etc., there were warning conservatives who foresaw and warned in the gates against possible severe consequences, with eloquent arguments, and often hit the mark (while missing the overall positive picture). Each of these, if the revolution fails, is a candidate to be considered a forward-looking conservative, including opponents of the Communist revolution. The selection of conservative icons is historical cherry-picking. Conservatism fails precisely in what it criticizes - hubris and inability to predict outcomes in complex systems - manifested in its lack of historical imagination, which could have been aided by the idea of alternative histories. For example, could the failure of the Communist revolution have been predicted in advance, and therefore it is a failure of the left? Maybe, but this begs the question: Did the Communist revolution fail?



Well, can anyone still argue otherwise, in the face of tens of millions of victims? (Yes, Stalin is not a hero of World War II, but bears responsibility second only to Hitler for the number of its victims, after the pact he made with him. The Eastern Front, within whose madness the Holocaust was formed and took place, is a joint totalitarian project, which began with joint Russian-German brutality that created a territory of "Wild East", where the civilizational order was suspended - in favor of hell). But, and this is the critical question - what was the reasonable historical alternative to the Communist revolution? A glorious democratic revolution in Russia? A laughable thought. The Russian system, since the days of Ivan the Terrible, has been distinctly characterized by exceptional cruelty in relation to Europe, oppression, totalitarianism, disregard for human life, and everything that would have turned it, had it not been for the "leftist" revolution, into a brutal, murderous and oppressive superpower no less, and probably much more, than Communist Russia was. Would a right-wing fascist regime have been created there, for example, that would really have conquered the whole world with Hitler? Could a dictatorship of evil passing by inheritance, like North Korea, have been created there? Could a nuclear world war have developed under such a regime, for example at the moment when it was threatened from within and on the verge of collapse? The horror scenarios are horrifying - and plausible.

If there is anything to be said in favor of communism, both in Russia and China, it is that it departed from our world with a whimper, and not as usually happens in the collapse of empires - with a bang, of blood and fire (and in this case - nuclear). If there is a regime that presented a conservative incremental transition to the stage after it - in China and to the short years of democracy in Russia - it was the communist regime, precisely because of its leftist materialism and tendency to see economics as the basis of its worldview (including kleptocracy!). Russian right-wing nationalist totalitarianism would have behaved differently, as would personal totalitarianism, not to mention fascist (the combination of the two). Alternatively, we know that a communist revolution, if it had taken place in England, even if not successful, would have looked much better than the one in Russia, perhaps roughly like the kibbutz movement, simply because the English are different from Russians. How shall we put it? The English are a conservative people (by the way, the conservative pretension to fit the local tradition of each people - it fits one people in particular, and a particularly conservative one. There is a lack of recognition of the diversity of human consciousness here). So too a communist revolution in Israel, by the way of the kibbutzim. And at least from the Jewish perspective - if we remember the malignant antisemitism in Russia and the German Holocaust project - we can imagine a parallel Russian Holocaust project, in an alternative totalitarian history, compared to communism which "only" eliminated the Jewish cultural intelligentsia, but left the millions alive. On the other hand, if Rosa Luxemburg had succeeded, and a leftist communist revolution had taken place in Germany, instead of a right-wing revolution (a quite plausible alternative history, in the late Weimar Republic) tens of millions of victims would likely have been spared from the world, plus one Holocaust.



Therefore, conservatism fails itself by presenting the one ideal (English?) to nations whose tradition does not allow it at all, and compared to the realistic historical possibilities, which were forced to violently break fossilized and oppressive structures. Who here is against ideals that are theoretically beautiful (for example, equality, for example, an evolving and adapting tradition) in the face of a reality that has not heard of the ideal? If we're talking about conservatism that opposes an abstract idea, and chooses the least bad among the options, then often revolutionism from the left was preferable to revolutionism from the right, precisely because of the ideas behind it. Conservatism led the English peoples to brilliant achievements and democracy, but where the hell did conservatism lead the Russians and Chinese and Turks in the 19th century? Into the disasters of the 20th century. Too much conservatism - collapse. Or shall we decide in retrospect that this is not conservatism, because it is not English, and not liberal-democratic? So what is its relevance to these peoples? And medieval conservatism? And German and Japanese conservatism, which led to technological-cultural development and political catastrophe? And where did cautious conservatism lead the Jews? To extermination. And if Jewish revolutionism did not exist, and the delusional messianic gamble at its base - the State of Israel would not exist either. But the Anglosphere in the last 300 years? - Oh, an excellent example, and all thanks to conservatism (or maybe Protestantism? Or maybe capitalism? Or imperialism? The industrial revolution? A certain type of scientific-engineering world? Or just excellent geographical luck?).

And since conservatism is essentially a parameter: Would history have benefited from more conservatism - or less conservatism? (It's not clever to examine only the cases where conservatism helped and did not harm). Because when a civilizational collapse occurs - this is of course anti-conservatism (very small wisdom! Because it's also anti-any-reasonable-ideology) - but already no conservatism can stop it. Therefore, the question is whether conservatism delays or creates collapse situations? Is the resistance to move and run with the speed of world change, and heaven forbid not to precede it, not a recipe for breaking points? And is preventing breaks - not a recipe for shattering? And what is conservatism's answer to the acceleration of the world - denial? Moving the parameter to less conservatism? Or perhaps the opposite attempt, to take the parameter backwards and hold the reins more tightly than before - which sounds like a recipe for disaster? If conservatism presents itself as pragmatic utilitarianism, and not, heaven forbid, as an ideology, what are the conditions for refuting it as a beneficial method? After all, the world is changing - and worse: change itself is changing. If the rate of changes in the system accelerates exponentially - when will we move from a method of optimization (according to the past!) to exploration? Conservatism is like an algorithm that denies the need for intensive and expensive mutational exploration (of policy and social forms), but secretly enjoys exploration done at great expense by competitors - roughly like the Chinese who steal original American research, and then do it cheaper and more efficiently (and no one underestimates optimization!). Where would the Anglosphere be without capitalist and scientific structures that grew in the Italian city-states during the Renaissance (amidst utterly unconservative chaos), or without democratic and civic ideas that grew in Athens (another perpetually reformist society - until collapse)? And if the predictive ability in the global system were gradually decreasing to the level of weather, until what stage would conservatives argue that it's better to wear what we wore yesterday, instead of looking at today's morning forecast?

It is precisely conservatism, which is aware of human short-sightedness and the chaotic nature of the human condition (meaning - low predictive ability), that should have internalized that in such a situation, a system that wants to improve (or even survive, for example in the Jewish case) must often take big gambles, and make comprehensive reforms, and heaven forbid - revolutions, whose end we cannot foresee. Because when predictive ability is so low - even a continuous and measured conservative strategy can and is expected to eventually lead to catastrophe, for example in a sudden phenomenon of phase transition. The state of chaos (not referring to disorder, but to the dynamics of systems with internal feedback) is truly unpredictable to such an extent that even if we initiate little and cautiously and moderately and use proven strategies - this very method can cause our collapse, in a world changing much faster than us. As long as the maniac who will slow down time and technology is not born - we must find ways to change faster and faster, while reducing risks as much as possible, of course. There is no point in calling this strategy conservatism - but rather innovation.

Continued in Part 2: On Innovative Ideology - as a Substitute for Conservative Ideology