I’ve found the exchange between View from the Right and the Inverted World to be quite interesting. I think it reflects, to some extent, the larger antipathy we see playing out between two important groups on the Center-Right in general. While I realize the debate between VFR and IW is not the larger factional debate I describe below, it made me reflect on the deeper issues I see playing out between these factions.
Many of the evolutionary biology conservatives have stumbled on to some of the great truths of Mother Nature. By contrast, theist conservatives sometimes condemn Sociobiology to the point of looking foolish. This causes many evolutionary biologist conservatives, who are often atheist or at least agnostic, to be dismissive of theist conservatives. Theist conservatives are viewed as naive at best by this camp, or even ignored entirely.
By contrast, theist conservatives hold the evolutionary conservatives as cold, biological reductionists at best. Theists believe evolutionary conservatives are unable to appreciate what Kirkeans call the “Permanent Things” and are lacking an appreciation of the gifts of wisdom and joie de vivre, which comes from our Creator. At worst, theists can peg evolutionary biologist conservatives as crypto-eugenics, who would go about sterilizing the “unfit” and engaging in all kinds of racist schemes as was done in the past.
Ultimately, these are damaging charges from both sides (“naive simpletons!” “Eugenic racists!”), and they help the Left. The evolutionary biology conservatives should be sensitive to the fact that the charge of “eugenic racist!” is probably the more damaging of the two charges that can be flung against them, especially coming as it does from many of today’s racially PC-sensitive religious conservatives. The NYT and other liberal outlets are only too happy to point out these kinds of internal disputes on the Right, thereby preventing the actual views of evolutionary biology conservatives from reaching a larger audience. Rather than ignore the views and concerns of religious conservatives, the evolutionary biologists could help their cause by taking them into consideration.
The only way forward is for both sides to acknowledge that each has something to offer. Sociobiologists can offer sophisticated arguments theist conservatives can adopt, which affirms traditionalist views on human nature, and negates whatever “Malleable Person” theory the Left continues to come up with. For example, the writings of E.O. Wilson on sociobiological differences between the sexes in the 1970s were devastating to feminists. This is why he was so despised by them. So too, nowadays, with the research done by J. Philippe Rushton, Richard Lynn, Michael Hart, and others and the hatred the multicultural Left holds towards them.
Simultaneously, an appreciation of the theist inspired writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, Milton, Dante, and so many others is needed to be pro-West. The great cathedrals, the art of Michelangelo, the music of Bach, Mozart, Mendelssohn, and others—all despised by ardent Leftists—is needed to understand, appreciate, and preserve the Occident. And as as C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien noted, even the pre-Christian myths and legends of Europe’s past held a theistic element to them, Surely some of these “religiously inspired” creations move (or at least command the respect of) even the most ardent Darwinian atheist beyond mere biological reductionism.
Each side offers something towards the preservation of Western Civilization and her people. While I haven’t gotten much from “Chronicles” or Thomas Fleming these days, years ago I think Fleming offered as good an approach as I had seen in his book “The Politics of Human Nature” (1993), where he attempted to blend the best aspects of Greco-Roman paganism, Judeo-Christian Scripture, and Sociobiology as a way towards renewal of the West.
When Fleming was writing this book, he had in mind a criticism of feminism with his inclusion of Sociobiology, not so much racial realism. Since he was unwilling to extend sociobiological insights into the realm of racial reality and civilizational demographics, his book had limited impact. However, there’s no reason the project he attempted couldn’t be extended into this realm, thereby bringing theist conservatives and evolutionary biology conservatives together in common cause.
Otherwise, we’re stuck with these two warring factions on the Right (who aren’t very large, alas), and with no prospect of ever coming together. The larger Republican types will want to stay away from the controversy altogether, not to mention the larger public in general.
If some kind of coalition can be forged, as the various aspects of the immigration reform movement have attempted to do through the years (the environmentalists, the patriots, economic types, the law and order types, etc.), there may be a chance for both to change the thinking and conditions on the Right, and eventually one hopes, the public in general.
Laura W. writes:
I disagree with Sam Raymond that conservatives can join in fruitful alliance with sociobiologists. Conservatives naturally align with psychologists who recognize the biological imperatives behind human behavior. Any branch of psychology that ignored these realities would be useless.
But, sociobiology makes no such modest claims. Instead, it is explicitly devoted to the notion that all of human behavior is a reflection of biological imperatives forged in hunter-gatherer communities. Sociobiology is not just amoral; it is immoral and dangerous.
It often appears a convenient ally to conservatives in, say, their arguments against feminists, who deny anything but anatomical differences between male and female. But, sociobiology’s friendship with conservatives here is deeply deceiving. There is no justification in the eyes of sociobiology for anything but mutual exploitation and treachery. It has stripped male and female relations of any conceivably transcendent quality. Besides sociobiology adds very little, if any, real knowledge to what has long been common sense about male and female natures. True, some of its claims are helpful in an age when so much of human nature is obscured by ideology. But, we could learn as much by reverting to folk wisdom as we do by any of the hundreds of expensive studies conducted by evolutionary psychologists that merely confirm the obvious.
If evolutionary psychology is to be of any use, it must become something far more restrained and conscious of its own limitations. In other words, it must become something that ain’t evolutionary psychology at all.