Two Theories of Change

[Baashi]

Two Theories of Change

By DAVID BROOKS

 

When I was in college I took a course in the Enlightenment. In those days, when people spoke of the Enlightenment, they usually meant the French Enlightenment — thinkers like Descartes, Rousseau, Voltaire and Condorcet.

 

These were philosophers who confronted a world of superstition and feudalism and sought to expose it to the clarifying light of reason. Inspired by the scientific revolution, they had great faith in the power of individual reason to detect error and logically arrive at universal truth.

 

Their great model was Descartes. He aimed to begin human understanding anew. He’d discard the accumulated prejudices of the past and build from the ground up, erecting one logical certainty upon another.

 

What Descartes was doing for knowledge, others would do for politics: sweep away the old precedents and write new constitutions based on reason. This was the aim of the French Revolution.

 

But there wasn’t just one Enlightenment, headquartered in France. There was another, headquartered in Scotland and Britain and led by David Hume, Adam Smith and Edmund Burke. As Gertrude Himmelfarb wrote in her 2004 book, “The Roads to Modernity,” if the members of the French Enlightenment focused on the power of reason, members of the British Enlightenment emphasized its limits.

 

They put more emphasis on our sentiments. People are born with natural desires to be admired and to be worthy of admiration. They are born with moral emotions, a sense of fair play and benevolence. They are also born with darker passions, like self-love and tribalism, which mar rationalist enterprises. We are emotional creatures first and foremost, and politics should not forget that.

 

These two views of human nature produced different attitudes toward political change, articulated most brilliantly by Thomas Paine and Edmund Burke. Their views are the subject of a superb dissertation by Yuval Levin at the University of Chicago called “The Great Law of Change.”

 

As Levin shows, Paine believed that societies exist in an “eternal now.” That something has existed for ages tells us nothing about its value. The past is dead and the living should use their powers of analysis to sweep away existing arrangements when necessary, and begin the world anew. He even suggested that laws should expire after 30 years so each new generation could begin again.

 

Paine saw the American and French Revolutions as models for his sort of radical change. In each country, he felt, the revolutionaries deduced certain universal truths about the rights of man and then designed a new society to fit them.

 

Burke, a participant in the British Enlightenment, had a different vision of change. He believed that each generation is a small part of a long chain of history. We serve as trustees for the wisdom of the ages and are obliged to pass it down, a little improved, to our descendents. That wisdom fills the gaps in our own reason, as age-old institutions implicitly contain more wisdom than any individual could have.

 

Burke was horrified at the thought that individuals would use abstract reason to sweep away arrangements that had stood the test of time. He believed in continual reform, but reform is not novelty. You don’t try to change the fundamental substance of an institution. You try to modify from within, keeping the good parts and adjusting the parts that aren’t working.

 

If you try to re-engineer society on the basis of abstract plans, Burke argued, you’ll end up causing all sorts of fresh difficulties, because the social organism is more complicated than you can possibly know. We could never get things right from scratch.

 

Burke also supported the American Revolution, but saw it in a different light than Paine. He believed the British Parliament had recklessly trampled upon the ancient liberties the colonists had come to enjoy. The Americans were seeking to preserve what they had.

 

We Americans have never figured out whether we are children of the French or the British Enlightenment. Was our founding a radical departure or an act of preservation? This was a bone of contention between Jefferson and Hamilton, and it’s a bone of contention today, both between parties and within each one.

 

Today, if you look around American politics you see self-described conservative radicals who seek to sweep away 100 years of history and return government to its preindustrial role. You see self-confident Democratic technocrats who have tremendous faith in the power of government officials to use reason to control and reorganize complex systems. You see polemicists of the left and right practicing a highly abstract and ideological Jacobin style of politics.

 

The children of the British Enlightenment are in retreat. Yet there is the stubborn fact of human nature. The Scots were right, and the French were wrong. And out of that truth grows a style of change, a style that emphasizes modesty, gradualism and balance.

[Miskiin-Macruuf-Aqiyaar]

Good to see you, old man. How is nolosha? All good dheh.

 

Soori, I can't comment on the article since I didn't read after until Descartes iyo Soltaire, err Voltaire. Dadkaas philosophers lagu sheego magacyadooda markaa maqlaba madax xanuun igu qabto, let reading about what they write or about them.

[Jacaylbaro]

You don’t try to change the fundamental substance of an institution. You try to modify from within, keeping the good parts and adjusting the parts that aren’t working.

Sounds workable & effective ... this is what they call "slow but sure" ........

[Baashi]

My pal MMA, awoowe shax-shax. Living Dubai and working in Abu Dhabi. Life is good. Family is with me. Awoowe AlxamduLilaah. Awoowe ma guursatay mise wali ishaa falato baa ku jidhaa. Hal carabiyad ah ma kuu habeeyaa

 

David is thoughful political commentator. He is Republican -- liberal wing of Gran Ole Party (GOP). Good read I wanna share with you folks.

[me]

Baashi,

 

It's an OK read, however what do Burke and Paine have to say to Somalis today?

 

Apply it to the Somali context and then come back with it.

[Baashi]

Somali version of Potomac River politicking is like this Mr. me: from the big picture there are pragmatists and there are idealists.

 

In their political orientation pragmatists, in the Somali context, can be characterized as nationalists. They accept the reality of Somali social fabric as it is – tribal society at the core. They understand that the current conflict and its different political manifestations, such as unchecked regional autonomies, fiefdoms, secessionism, and anarchy, have its roots in negative tribalism.

 

They acknowledge the folly of the past leadership in both sides – government and the opposition. But they also advocate rather passionately the need for just and all inclusive political settlement through negotiations.

 

They are mindful about the regional power play and the role future Somalia should and must play.

 

They adamantly believe that looking forward the new leadership should take into account the nature of Somali society, the young history of the Somali state, past colonial injustices that was exacted against Somali nation in the region, current state of Somalis in the neighboring states, in any effort to resurrect the old republic.

 

The followers of this worldview understand that Somalis are Muslims and as such – if given the chance – will overwhelmingly support some sort of Islamic governance. They call for the foreign powers to respect the sovereignty of the nation and let things take their course.

 

As any other political platform, needless to say, there are variations within the followers of this worldview. But by and large they’re in line with Burke. They want to manage many challenges that Somalis face in a gradual and prudent fashion. Practical approach is their mantra.

 

On the other hand there are idealists. In their political orientation they can be characterized as liberals (in Somali context). They look at the Somali situation with disgust. They can’t stomach all the bickering that made Somalia synonymous with failed state. They promote new radical ideas – radical to the contemporary Somalis.

 

They want to see change for the better. Some of them advocate secessionism. To them that’s a change of the status quo. Radical but nevertheless a change!

 

Those who advocate for regional autonomy do so because they have no faith that strong republic will do justice to their concerns and sensibilities. Unlike the secessionist, they want to remain in the unitary arrangement but on their own terms.

 

Some in the south advocate 4.5 tribal formula institutionalized in the constitution the same way as Lebanon sectarian issue is handled in that country’s constitution.

 

Islamists are demanding an end to secular and tribal inspired governance.

 

All these idealists want to solve the Somali problem in a way that’s amenable to their base constituents. They are not amenable to persuasion. They are not ready to compromise yet they are not strong enough to sweep their opponents aside and implement their version of change.

 

Theirs is 'my way or the highway'! Most of them think the idea of compromise is a sellout – a betrayal to what their group stands for. They want to scrap status quo and start anew. They have little interest in their chances of success or whether they fail.

 

The latter group is to me what Paine is to David. They are Paine on steroids.

 

Ahem!

[Ducaysane]

First time I have ever seen Oodwayne responding a thread and not using "defeated Lot" phrase. congrts OOdka.

[Taleexi]

Oodweyne is getting it slowly but surely.

[me]

Baashi,

 

I expected so much fro you, but you missed the point, todays Somali Thomas Paine would be an Islamist.

 

 

The adherents of 4.5 or other clan based formula's such as the extreme regionalists in Puntland and the secessionists in the North West are just conservatives trying to save the old clannist system, by putting a new jacket on it.

 

 

So todays Somali Edmund Burke would be a secessionist or a regionalist.

 

Tribalism is conservatism.

 

Islamism is revolutionism.

[me]

The secessionist in this thread (who shall remain unnamed, has outdone himself and therefore deserves a worthy reply) rightly he has recognized, the conservative roots of the ideas justifying the regional admins in our country, he has also pointed out the similarities between the Islamists of today and the Jacobins.

 

However as usual, he is trying to justify his secessionist ideas, and is trying to give them legitimacy by placing them at the altar of British conservatism. ( There he remains true to his secessionist roots )

 

He also makes a crucial mistake, when he misses the point that the conservative ideas on which his secessionism is based, also provoke anti-secessionist sentiments in the neighboring regions, which also have their ancient nomadic liberties (as he put it)

 

Furthermore, Somalia is unique and the ideas of 18 century European thinkers, will not help us in the Hawd or in Hiiraan.

 

We need to come up with our own ideas, and try to better understand our own situation, instead of mirroring it with 18th century France or 19th century Germany.

 

Ps. If only this secessionist could overcome his secessionist handicap and use that brain of his to help us understand ourselves as Somalis, he might be a worthy son of Somalia. Instead of a cantrabaqash peddling, clan cyber-warrior.

[N.O.R.F]

BUMP

 

will read this wknd IA

 

Bashi, hope all is well.

[xiinfaniin]

Originally posted by Baashi:

 

Theirs is 'my way or the highway'! Most of them think the idea of compromise is a sellout – a betrayal to what their group stands for. They want to scrap status quo and start anew. They have little interest in their chances of success or whether they fail.

 

The latter group is to me what Paine is to David. They are Paine on steroids.

 

Ahem!

Well put, Baashi.

 

They are Paine without a pamphlet indeed.