To my anarchist friends, and anyone else who cares to chime in....

[Origanalist]

We are Made for Cooperation

by Russell Kirk


By the conservatism of desolation, I mean the forlorn en*deavor of certain persons of conservative instincts to convince themselves that they are "individualists"—that is, devotees of spiritual and social isolation. The dreary secular dogma of in*dividualism is the creation of Godwin, Hodgskin, and Herbert Spencer, and it progresses from anarchy back to anarchy again. Any thinking conservative knows it for a snare and a delusion. The real conservative is all in favor of sound individuality; he is all against doctrinaire "individualism," the belief that we ex*ist solely in ourselves, and for ourselves, so many loveless specks in infinite time and space, like the unfortunate youth in Mark Twain's Mysterious Stranger to whom Satan reveals that noth*ing exists except the boy and empty space, and that his very informant is no more than a random thought of the desolate Self. La vida es sueño, y los sueños sueños son. Whatever we may say to Calderon, it is well to remember that the emanci*pated critic of Twain's novel is the Devil, or at least the Devil's nephew. Individualism was born in the hell of spiritual solitude. The conservative knows that he is part of a great continuity and essence, created to do unto others as he would have others do unto him. Godwin's and Spencer's individualism, literally applied, would destroy the whole fabric of civilization. It is nonsense in any age; but in our complex age, with all its appa*ratus of industry and urban life, it would bring a very speedy and very unpleasant death to almost all men.


We ought not to indulge such childish heroics. We do not really live for our selves, nor unto our selves. Burke and Adams knew that individuality, the dignity of personality and private rights, was a great good, and the product of elaborate conventions, developed by the painful experience of the human race over many thousands of years. They also knew that the doc*trine of individualism preached by their enemy Godwin was nicely calculated to wipe out the whole civil social order, should it get a hold upon the popular imagination. Burke was the most courageous opponent of tyranny and the improper extension of the powers of the state; but he knew that just gov*ernment is the creation of Providence, intended to enable men to live a life, through willing cooperation, which they could not possibly enjoy in a state of anarchy.



Some well-intentioned gentlemen whom I esteem as persons (I distrust not their hearts, but their heads) recently asked me to assist in the undertakings of a society of individualists, which is rather like being asked to subscribe to a philosophy of transcendental materialism. Now the stalwart conservative is not much afraid of his enemies, but he must often beseech Heaven to save him from his friends. I found that these persons had taken for their motto a remark of Cousin (extracted from its context) to the effect that nothing exists except the individual. Burke declared that society, after all, is simply individuals taken collectively, and that no policy which harms particular per*sons, therefore, can be good for society. But Burke would have been horrified at the declaration that only the individual exists. Several grand realities exist in addition to the individual. The greatest of them is God. Another is our country; and yet an*other is our family; and still another is our ancestry. We are not simply the flies of a summer. The true conservative, indeed, rejects Rousseau's misty and dangerous concept of the Gen*eral Will, and denies Hegel's cult of the abstract State; but he does not cut himself off from true community, his duties to*ward his neighbors and his ancestors and his posterity. We are made for cooperation, says Marcus Aurelius, like the hands, like the feet: "Does the eye demand a recompense for seeing, or the feet for walking? Just as this is the end for which they exist, and just as they find their reward in realizing the law of their being, so too man is made for kindness, and whenever he does an act of kindness or otherwise helps forward the common good, he thereby fulfils the law of his being and comes by his own."


These same gentlemen (who profess to be individualists, but really are conservatives in their impulses) cried up a pantheon of philosophers after their taste: Lao-tse, Zeno, Milton, Locke, Adam Smith, Tom Paine, Jefferson, Thoreau, John Stuart Mill, and Spencer. No thinking conservative would be much in*clined to pull these old chestnuts out of the fire for the sake of the commonwealth. I suggested that if they were to substi*tute Moses or St. Paul for Lao-tse, Aristotle or Cicero for Zeno, Dante for Milton, Falkland for Locke, Samuel Johnson for Adam Smith, Burke for Paine, Orestes Brownson for Ralph Waldo Emerson, Hawthorne for Thoreau, Disraeli for Mill, and Ruskin or Newman for Spencer, then indeed they might make dry bones speak, and kindle the imagination of the rising generation. But they will accomplish nothing otherwise. Were I an agent of red revolution, I should make haste to join myself to these well-intentioned gentlemen, with their confused attachment to obsolete anarchical and Utilitarian dogmas, and second them heartily, and butter them up; for the best possible way to discredit the conservative movement would be to repre*sent it to the world as a philosophy of cosmic selfishness.


The conservative, if he understands himself and his world, is no sentimental humanitarian; but neither is he a swaggering nihilist, jeering at the state, the duties of men in society, and the necessities of modern life. As a reaction against the grim and insensate collectivism that menaces us today, this flight to individualism is understandable; but it is consummate folly, for all that, and even more disastrous to the conservative cause than the policy of unprincipled trimming. There is an order which holds all things in their places, Burke says; it is made for us, and we are made for it. The reflective conservative, far from denying the existence of this eternal order, endeavors to ascer*tain its nature, and to find his place in it.


An excerpt from the chapter entitled Where are the Conservatives? in Russell Kirk’s excellent book "A Program for Conservatives."

 

[Fermli]

It's just a fallacy that anarchy is a chaotic world of dog eat dog, no cooperation, etc. He has no facts to back up his assertions. But if we take the argument that this is how anarchy would be, then how is it possible for such individuals to cooperate together to form a state that provides order for them?

Cooperation is a voluntary term. It means that both sides have chosen to cooperate. With a govt, there is always one side that is being forced to cooperate against his will. Liberals don't see the coercion when they advocate for govt solutions. Conservatives suffer the same problem when they advocate for govt solutions.

The author suffers from the illusion of statism. He strives to be part of a country that is greater than himself. This is just a collectivist, and religious argument.

he best possible way to discredit the conservative movement would be to repre*sent it to the world as a philosophy of cosmic selfishness.

Ayn Rand did a good job portraying the virtue of selfishness. And her books are some of the most widely read books in history.

The author is against collectivism, but all the arguments he puts forth about a limited state are collectivist in nature. Liberals argue that those who don't want the govt to care for the poor and elderly must want them to starve and die. In a similar manner, Kirk argues that those who don't believe in a state are against cooperation.

Kirk was no friend of libertarianism.

 

[Feeding the Abscess]

Fermli said it very well. Cooperation is essential in improving the lives of everyone, but it must be voluntary, or it is something else entirely. What Kirk is calling for and describing is compulsion, which is the destruction of cooperation.

 

[jllundqu]

Voluntarism and non-agression principles are the key.

 

[erowe1]

Notice that he nowhere defines this philosophy of "individualism" that he rails against. He just caricatures it.

Were he to get specific, I might agree with him or disagree with him. But as his essay stands, there's really nothing to agree or disagree with.

The title I basically agree with. And so, I think, would all those thinkers like Smith, Locke, etc. But if Kirke means to imply some sort of syllogism like, "Since we are made for cooperation, we should all live in communities where one group of people subjugates all the rest under its authority without their consent," then I can hardly see how anything he says leads in that direction.

Kirke can hardly honestly think that the image painted in Twain's Mysterious Stranger is intended to propound a political philosophy or that it bears any resemblance to whatever the people he so opposes think.

 

[Len Larson]

Of course, what Kirk was really talking about were those "individualists" who refused to compromise their principles for he and Buckley's hysterical anti-communism.
This is equivalent to the usage of "Fascist" by the left.

 

[osan]

We are Made for Cooperation

But not FORCED cooperation. Rational adults educated well to their environments are neither children, nor are they innately subservient to others, whether individually or in groups. There are only two conditions under which it may be otherwise; when the individual freely agrees to some form and degree of subservience or when he is forced, either under threat or actual physicality. There is no inborn obligation to which anyone may credibly and convincingly point that binds the individual to serve his "community". Such service may be obtained ONLY through voluntary choice, free of coercion.

Therefore, the properly constructed expression would be, "We are Made for Voluntary Cooperation" because this implies the freedom not to cooperate if we so choose.

by Russell Kirk

Don't know who he is, but I will say that while there are elements of truth in what he has written here, he does not do a good job of pulling it all together and his conclusions leave something to be desired. Perhaps a casual examination would be helpful.

By the conservatism of desolation, I mean the forlorn endeavor of certain persons of conservative instincts to convince themselves that they are "individualists"—that is, devotees of spiritual and social isolation.

Mr. Kirk has apparently failed to open a dictionary to the entry for "individualism". While it may be so that "certain persons of conservative instincts" are of such a mind, the author fails to cite any statistics whatsoever, much less credible ones to provide the reader with some idea of how many such people exist, either in absolute numbers or proportions of the whole of those who might be "conservative", the term here in quotes because he likewise fails to define the term, apparently relying on the reader to fill in the blanks as he might. This can at best be taken as sloppy journalism. A bit worse and we might assess it as inept. In a less flattering case one might infer a dishonest and latent agenda. I am tending toward the latter not to be unkind but because it is so overwhelmingly common, though inept writing is also found everywhere and far more commonly than is the adroit.

The dreary secular dogma of individualism is the creation of Godwin, Hodgskin, and Herbert Spencer, and it progresses from anarchy back to anarchy again.

This pretty well cinches it. Dreary? To whom? The vague implication is "everyone not conservative". This train is jumping the rails before getting out of the station.

Any thinking conservative knows it for a snare and a delusion.

Basis?

The real conservative is all in favor of sound individuality; he is all against doctrinaire "individualism," the belief that we ex*ist solely in ourselves, and for ourselves, so many loveless specks in infinite time and space, like the unfortunate youth in Mark Twain's Mysterious Stranger to whom Satan reveals that noth*ing exists except the boy and empty space, and that his very informant is no more than a random thought of the desolate Self.

Yes, "sound individuality"... good so far as the statement goes, but again Kirk fails to define the term. He does, however, come up with a nonsense term, "doctrinaire individualism", and defines it by implying it to be some socio-pathological mental disorder. Thus far, his writing is grossly inept to the point of being horrible and his honesty comes into ever greater question with each sentence. But let us go on.

Individualism was born in the hell of spiritual solitude.

Again a blindly unsupported assertion that the author apparently expects the reader to take as axiomatic and universal truth. Lame.

The conservative knows that he is part of a great continuity and essence, created to do unto others as he would have others do unto him.

Nice sounding, bu largely devoid of meaning. Again, OK so far as it goes, but no basis is provided to allow the alert and nominally intelligent reader to

Godwin's and Spencer's individualism, literally applied, would destroy the whole fabric of civilization.

Well, I am not familiar with these works (shame on me??) and therefore cannot comment specifically, but I can speak to his unfounded and so very mistaken presumption that all individualists pattern their beliefs on them. Given implied nature of those works, I serve as a contrary example, thereby disproving his assertion. Thank you for playing, Mr. Kirk, please try again.

It is nonsense in any age; but in our complex age, with all its appa*ratus of industry and urban life, it would bring a very speedy and very unpleasant death to almost all men.

Nonsense in any age? Really? There have been no lone individualists who have managed on their own? Ever?

We ought not to indulge such childish heroics. We do not really live for our selves, nor unto our selves.

This is now taking on an air of bald-faced hive-mind collectivism.

Burke and Adams knew that individuality, the dignity of personality and private rights, was a great good,

At least this I can agree with, unsupported as it may also be. A nugget of truth buried in what has so far proven a steaming pile of considerable proportion.

and the product of elaborate conventions, developed by the painful experience of the human race over many thousands of years.

This is utter and demonstrable bullshit. Individuality has existed since humans have. The advent of Empire was the "pain" to which Kirk refers, most likely unawares.

They also knew that the doctrine of individualism preached by their enemy Godwin was nicely calculated to wipe out the whole civil social order, should it get a hold upon the popular imagination. Burke was the most courageous opponent of tyranny and the improper extension of the powers of the state; but he knew that just government is the creation of Providence, intended to enable men to live a life, through willing cooperation, which they could not possibly enjoy in a state of anarchy.

Ignorant fop. This brand of ignorant stupidity is nauseating. Everything written here is pure innuendo. Kirk cleverly avoids saying much of anything of substance, apparently content to allow the readers' imaginations to run wild. Who, I wonder, could be his intended audience?

Some well-intentioned gentlemen whom I esteem as persons (I distrust not their hearts, but their heads) recently asked me to assist in the undertakings of a society of individualists, which is rather like being asked to subscribe to a philosophy of transcendental materialism. Now the stalwart conservative is not much afraid of his enemies, but he must often beseech Heaven to save him from his friends. I found that these persons had taken for their motto a remark of Cousin (extracted from its context) to the effect that nothing exists except the individual. Burke declared that society, after all, is simply individuals taken collectively, and that no policy which harms particular per*sons, therefore, can be good for society. But Burke would have been horrified at the declaration that only the individual exists.

It is at this point we are clearly dealing with a deluded ideologue who appears to be rather fond of speaking through his anus in tones of intellectually challenged pig-ignorance. And someone has referred to his book as excellent? Meth-amphetamine, anyone?

Several grand realities exist in addition to the individual. The greatest of them is God. Another is our country; and yet an*other is our family; and still another is our ancestry.

More unsupported opinion. Whatever...

We are not simply the flies of a summer.

I would say that this is precisely what we are, in the final analysis. We come into the world, hang awhile, then leave. Seems pretty summer-fly-ish to me.

The true conservative

Is this anything like the "true faith"?

, indeed, rejects Rousseau's misty and dangerous concept of the General Will, and denies Hegel's cult of the abstract State; but he does not cut himself off from true community

So those who in fact do cut themselves off from "community" (undefined) are... what? Non-conservative? His implication is that one cannot be conservative without community? WTF? Really? This guy seems like a rank idiot to me. That, or he REALLY needs to work on his writing style because thus far the only thing he succeeds at is embarrassing himself in some grand fashion.

his duties toward his neighbors and his ancestors and his posterity.

Which this lamer fails to enumerate.

We are made for cooperation, says Marcus Aurelius, like the hands, like the feet: "Does the eye demand a recompense for seeing, or the feet for walking?

Fallacy of false conflation. An eye is not a human being, nor a hand, nor a foot or kidney, liver, etc. Wow...

Just as this is the end for which they exist, and just as they find their reward in realizing the law of their being, so too man is made for kindness, and whenever he does an act of kindness or otherwise helps forward the common good, he thereby fulfils the law of his being and comes by his own."

More bullshit, similar reasons.

I won't waste my time on the rest as it is all the same rank stupidity.

 

[Austrian Econ Disciple]

This my friends is the best 'Conservatives' can muster (might I add, it is even worse today than twenty years ago). There's no need to say anything else since other's have expanded upon why this essay is so terrible. Caricature and strawmen aren't strong enough to hurl at this poor excuse of an essay.

 

[Origanalist]

I'm surprised it has only garnered this much negative response. I had visions of libertarians lining up to denounce it. Apparently it's so bad it's not worthy of response.