If you took a general survey of American “conservatives” I would contend the vast majority would support the two quotes above. One is from a Frenchman fighting the Jacobin French Revolution and the other an integral Founding Father of America who preached fervently about breaking away from the British Crown. The problem here is that the two messages pictured above are diametrically opposed. Why? The top is expressed from a Traditionalist/Christian presupposition and the other is from an Enlightenment/Deist presupposition.
Currently in our times “the Right” is hard to define or pinpoint, the main reason for this is the “conservative” lives in a world of doublethink. They love their Bible and whatever brand of “Christianity” that soothes their pallet while at the same time always falling back on the Constitution and Bill of Rights when faced with a social ill or government corruption. They condemn the leftist for their insane promotion of trans or gay rights and their defense of sex change operations for children but also fully support “free speech”. These types always feel the walls closing in on them but always resort to the same ideas that got them there in the first place. Reevaluation seems to be impossible.
The wake up call the American “conservative” needs is the realization they are classical liberals and not conservatives, in the real and classical sense of the word. Over the decades and particularly post WW2, we have been programmed to believe these two concepts to be synonymous. Let’s look at the presuppositions or a concept assumed to be true at the beginning of a line of argumentation of both political views. To make something clear, everyone has a presupposition. It is not possible to possess any knowledge in the first place or form an argument without one. Not having a presupposition would be a presupposition, its fundamentally contradictory.
Enlightenment-Man’s intellect is the starting point, man is the apex of life. Reason alone makes sense, creates and brings order to the universe. Empiricism, rationalism, nominalism, materialism, scientism, Thomism, biblical higher criticism are all related to this presupposition. Truth can only be discovered. Man is illumined by exploration and contemplation of the mind and sense experience. But since nominalism (man placing names to things, nothing having inherent meaning) is mainly where Enlightenment thinking arose from, it would follow that man would actually invent truth which would mean truth does not actually exist objectively or is totally subjective.
Medieval & Byzantine- God (The Trinity-Father, Son, & Spirit) is and are his starting point for any and everything. God is the source of all knowledge and reality. We could know nothing if not for God’s Revelation (Logos or Truth, the Second Person of the God Head, Christ or The Word) The pre incarnate Christ is the Divine Mind that brought the very concepts we use into the world at Creation. Truth is revealed. Man is illumined by the Grace of the Holy Spirit in his heart. Man is not creating anything original or from ex nihilo, man has to create from what preexisted him, including the non physical concepts he uses. Enlightenment thinking is directly at war with this reality and thus why this project is so devastating and destructive. 1
Classical liberalism and its various manifestations grew out of the Enlightenment and the republics and democracies that exist today, Christianity formed Medieval & Byzantine philosophy and the religious monarchies of Europe, the Traditional School was an outgrowth of this era. 2 3
A major area of departure between the two are the theories of law and governance.
Classical liberalism is based in negative liberty or “freedom from” interference, coercion, or the absence of obstacles. Enlightenment ideas gave birth to legal positivism
Traditionalism is based in positive liberty or “freedom to” act as one wills within the structural limitations of a society.
Parts of the US Constitution (Section 9) and the Bill of Rights are essentially a series of prohibitions against state actions on its citizens. In these, the state is in theory supposed to be constrained from what it can do. While the Declaration of Independence is not technically a legal document it does attempt to establish the identity of what an American is, poorly in my view. This is a major point of contention between the Founders, including the view that the American Revolution was not actually a revolution but an aristocratic succession. 4 This is not to say there are no elements of positive liberty or law in the US Constitution, only that there is an overabundance of negative liberty and legal elements. Article II of the constitution for instance, when interoperated broadly, gives the Chief Executive eminence power, one could argue almost monarchical.
There are a few problems that have come to a head in recent times and become obvious but the potential for them has always been there. First, there is a built in assumption that everyone should or does interpret what is written in the Constitution, or anything for that matter the same way. There is no account for someone’s worldview varying in interpretation as to what is written. There is an assumption made that laws or facts are not interpreted but imprinted in someone’s mind (Aristotle). This is also the worldview of empiricism, which the vast majority of atheists, agnostics and ironically Christians have (Classical Foundationalism). This is not a coincidence. Many of the Founder’s of the US were Enlightenment Deists. Deism is the belief there is a supreme being but “it” does not intervene in the universe and is a impersonal force and ultimately unknowable and again a direct inversion of the concepts of the Traditional Christian view of God. What they wrote and believed must be viewed from the milieu they were in. If we move to today the Enlightenment presuppositions are still with us.
While it may sound crazy Ben Shapiro, Dylan Mulvaney and Thomas Jefferson have the same presupposition, just because someone claims a belief in a higher power does not mean that is their starting point or presupposition of their worldview and train of thought, if a persons starting point is inductive reasoning (sense perception/data) it causes a host of issues. This is a fundamental problem. Take a look at the current discourse on the 1st and 2nd amendment as an obvious example of this. Solo Scriptura is a great example in the religious realm. If Solo Scriptura is the proper viewpoint why are there tens of thousands of Protestant denominations? Obviously we aren’t all on the same page with our interpretations. Most of the US is still Protestant and was almost totally Protestant in Colonial times.
To be fair to the Founder’s what they wrote and envisioned was for a specific people (ethnos) and in a specific time. The basic concepts they used such as “citizen”, “liberty” and “free man” have totally different meanings today than they did then. They formed a government for the “citizen” of that time not what a “citizen” is today. Also the Founder’s were not a monolith of ideology and views, there were many disagreements between them particularly with the Constitution itself. A look at the correspondence and arguments between Jefferson, Adams and Hamilton are the most obvious examples. The overarching point of this article, is to address the flaws of the presuppositions of this era, not that the Founder’s views were incorrect or wrong in every stance.
A person with an incorrect or incoherent presupposition can still make discoveries about the world or investigate a matter and find a truth about how the world functions. This is an argument of kind not of degree, the very fact that an atheist, agnostic, or anti-Trinitarian can make discoveries in the world at all is a proof of the Trinitarian worldview. Man is made in the image of God, the Second Person of the Godhead, the Logos, or Truth Himself, this is why man is capable of finding truth in the first place. “For He spoke, and it came to be; He commanded, and it stood firm. For when He spoke, the world began! It appeared at His command. Here's why: He spoke and there it was, in place the moment He said so.” Psalm 33:9
Second, negative liberty has no answer for a gradually morally degenerating population. To their credit, many of the Founders recognized this. Adams wrote if America lost Christianity or its general moral compass it would collapse due to the incredibly loose nature of its governing power, degeneracy would become rampant. John Adams was very clear on this point, he also had a clear understanding of what America was based on, most “conservatives” would be dumbfounded by the second quote. Interesting side note, the Constitution forbids the erecting of a national or federal church. There is nothing in the Constitution forbidding states to erect state churches.
An actual conservative nation has to be based on the religious, particularly Christian doctrines or Christ (Logos)-Centered. Unless a nation has Christianity at its base, there isn’t anything to conserve. The Romanov Dynasty of Tsarist Russia main principle of governance according to researcher Greg Reece was based on the second letter to the Thessalonians: “And you know what is now restraining him, so that he may be revealed when his time comes. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work, but only until the one who now restrains it is removed.” 5Until someone can act in a Christ like way there must be restraints against him. When he does there is freedom within the framework, the basis of positive liberty.
America today is facing the unrelenting impetus to eliminate all boundaries, this is the logical conclusion of the Enlightenment worldview and the Constitution and Bill of Rights won’t do anything to stop it. The fallacy of the autonomous human mind solving all problems is everywhere from the tech industry, to self help gurus and “life coaches”. Its salvation is in apotheosis or deification via self actualization. Christian salvation is deification by becoming one with God’s Uncreated Energies or Theosis- uniting the will to the Will of God through the Grace of the Holy Spirit (synergy).6
The pipedream being sold via Elon Musk and other transhumanists: the deification of man without God, is being welcomed by tens of millions and even by so called Christians and conservatives. A fascinating contradiction is if the individual human being is so amazing why does he need to transcend himself? The contradictions are endless but who cares about those when you could just become a robot and live forever. BASED! For naked statements about what the power players of this movement want we can look to Yuval Noah Harari, the intellectual head of the World Economic Forum.
A truly Conservative (in the classical sense) and Christian society seems very far off and may never occur. A counterrevolution is pointless as the western populations are not ready and do not want this, bifurcation and pockets of human capital organization will most likely be the future and bulwark of the Right Wing movement. While the future may seem bleak, harsh environments can cause major reactions and they can occur rapidly during a decline or collapse. While we do not know what the future holds in this life, if you are a Christian you should know that Christ has already won and there is nothing to fear, for if we repent we will be with God. “The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise.” Psalm 50
When Christ ended death by death He also ended time, we are in the in betwixt and between His Second Coming, souls are still at stake. Arrogance and pride can be seen everywhere, pride is the source of all sin. The source of all virtues is humility-(1) yielding to God, (2) earning the right to be heard rather than demanding a hearing and (3) responding with love to hatred (if that seems odd to you read the lives of the saints and how they responded to those who tortured and killed them, this is a major reason Christianity exploded the way it did in the Roman Empire, particularly within the military.)
Man’s best weapon is humility against the demons, humility is what defeats them. “You fast, but Satan does not eat. You labor fervently, but Satan never sleeps. The only dimension with which you can outperform Satan is by acquiring humility, for Satan has no humility.” -St. Moses The Black of Ethiopia
Who was St. Moses the Black
Article Sources:
Orthodox Survival Course-Fr. Steven Allen
The Mystery of the Eastern Orthodox Church