And yet all around is utter confusion
Fairy tales written may help you to see it
Do you understand about Lewis's Alice?
We fit all our lives into regular patterns
All that we really know is that we're really living
Moreover,
to be conservative is not merely to be averse from change (which may
be an idiosyncrasy); it is also
a
manner of accommodating ourselves to changes, an activity imposed
upon all men. For, change is a threat to
identity,
and every change is an emblem of extinction. But a man’s identity
(or that of a community) is nothing
more
than an unbroken rehearsal of contingencies, each at the mercy of
circumstance and each significant in proportion
to its familiarity. It is not a fortress into which we may retire,
and the only means we have of
defending
it (that is, ourselves) against the hostile forces of change is in
the open field of our experience; by
throwing
our weight upon the foot which for the time being is most firmly
placed, by cleaving to whatever
familiarities
are not immediately threatened and thus assimilating what is new
without it becoming
unrecognizable
to ourselves. The Masai, when they were moved from their old country
to the present Masaid
reserve
in Kenya, took with them the names of their hill s and plains and
rivers and gave them to the hills and plains and rivers of the new
country. And it is by some such subterfuge of conservatism that every
man or people
compelled to suffer a notable change avoids the shame of extinction.
It
is commonly believed that this conservative disposition is pretty
deeply rooted in what is called “human nature.”
Change is tiring, innovation calls for effort, and human beings (it
is said) are more apt to be lazy than energetic. If they have found a
not unsatisfactory way of getting along in the world, they are not
disposed to go looking for trouble. They are
naturally apprehensive of the unknown and prefer safety to danger.
They are reluctant innovators, and they accept
change not because they like it but (as Rochefoucald says they accept
death) because it is inescapable. Change generates sadness rather
than exhilaration: heaven is the dream of a changeless no less than a
perfect world. Of course, those who read “human nature” in this
way agree that this disposition does not stand
alone; they merely contend that it is an exceedingly strong, perhaps
the strongest, of human propensities. And, so far
as it goes, there is something to be said for this belief: human
circumstances would be very different from what they are if there
were not a large ingredient of conservatism in human
preferences. Primitive peoples are said to cling to what
is familiar and to be averse from change; ancient myth is full of
warnings against innovation; our folklore and proverbial wisdom about
the conduct of life abounds in conservative precepts; and how many
tears are shed by children in their unwilling accommodation to
change. Indeed, wherever a firm identity has been achieved, and
wherever identity is felt to be precariously balanced, a conservative
disposition is likely to prevail. On the other hand, the disposition
of adolescence is often predominantly adventurous and experimental:
when we are young, nothing seems more desirable than to take a
chance; pas de risque, pas de plaisir. And while some peoples, over
long stretches of time, appear successfully to have avoided change,
the history of others displays periods of intense and intrepid
innovation. There is, indeed, not much profit to be had from general
speculation about “human nature,” which is no steadier than
anything else in our acquaintance. What is more to the point is to
consider current human nature, to consider
ourselves.
Michael Oakeshott, On Being Conservative
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