Why There Can Be No "Conservative" Administrative State

Much of our current politics appears to be shaped by ideology when it is in reality shaped by the demands of the technological system. In this system, there can be no "conservatism."

The logo of the former Progressive Conservative Party of Canada

98. Why There Can Be No "Conservative" Administrative State

All political ideas, the stuff of ideology, of the think tanks and the policy makers which happen within the context of the administrative era are political ideas which happen within the context of the administrative state era. This means that they are defined by the technology that is the administrative state. Another way of saying this is that all policy is policy. Those who have read me for some time know that I hold to Marshall McLuhan’s maxim that “the medium is the message.” What this means is that the most important content of any media is the medium itself. The medium of the television is more important in terms of its effects on you than any one television show that you watch. The impact of the technology of the automobile on your life and on society is more important than any one trip that you or anyone else might take in a car. The medium of Twitter is more important than any one tweet that you might send. The impact and effects of the medium of the administrative state on society matters more than any one particular policy that may be enacted through it. All laws are laws and all policies are policies.

These mediums, these technologies, tend to operate in the background and we rarely think about them. People are more inclined, when standing around the water cooler — assuming the technology of the water cooler still has a significant impact on the life of an office — ask about whether or not you watched the big game or the new episode of everyone’s new favourite show. It is unlikely that you will hear someone inquire, “How did your use of the television affect your life this weekend?” Instead of asking about the trip we took to the beach on the holiday weekend, it is unlikely that they will probe us with questions such as, “Tell me, how did the use of the automobile influence you over the weekend?” You get the idea. Thus, in politics we are much more inclined to argue like we do over television — was Friends, Seinfeld, The Office or Big Bang Theory the better show? — which party has the better set of policies rather than the merits of the mechanism of the administrative state itself. We just assume that because these policies are from “our guy” that they must be somehow different and “better” than those of our opponent. And perhaps they are, in the way that watching Little House on the Prairie is morally better than watching Debbie Does Dallas. But you still must understand that in watching, regardless of which you choose, you are still a couch potato with a three second attention span. All television shows are, in the end, television shows. So what does the technology of the administrative state do? What are its effects?

In order to unpack this properly, we need to develop a rudimentary understanding of what life was like before the administrative state. We need to grasp what a truly “conservative” disposition might be. I am of the mind that the terms “conservative” and “liberal” are largely meaningless these days, especially once you understand that progressive liberalism is a mechanism used to “conserve” the power of the current ruling class. In this regard, I don’t use “conservative” to mean “preserving an older form of liberalism.” I am not looking to go “return” to the 1990’s, the 1950’s or even the 1770’s. Because of the nature of the technological society, we passed a tipping point along the way after which everything is shaped by the progressive nature of this society, including its institutions of governance. Prior to this inflection, much of the way that society was governed was through tradition and custom.

What does this mean? Custom and tradition are the unspoken ways of doing things that govern the day to day lives of people on the ground. They are the “way we doing things around here.” They are composed of stories, practices, morals, rules, customs, some of which persist even though the original reason for the practices have long since passed. As you grow up, you listen to the stories you are told by parents, family and community when your behaviours are out of line. Many of them have grown up over hundreds of years, perhaps longer. It is a stable order that has persisted over time. The basic social rules, the way of the world around you, has persisted and was largely the same for your great grandfather and it will be the same for your great grandson.

Because these customs are held in memory, there is a limit to the number and complexity of the rules within this social system, if someone were to take the time to sit down and enumerate them all and commit them to writing. And so, you will have a few principles that get applied in the moment to new situations. Perhaps a new situation will require a new solution. The community would likely then band together, the wisest offering input and then either a consensus would be reached or someone like the chief would make a decision and something new would be added to the collective memory. If significant enough, it might become a new story that then helps explain to future generations why they do this thing, or if a similar situation cropped up, the story and memory would guide future generations in their actions. Often these behaviours were shaped over time and modified and refined such that they become trusted by the people, reliable plans of action that have worked for time immemorial. Even if it was only one or two generations, they become part of “the way we have always done it.”

There is a stability to this over time. When written laws come into play in this regard, they do not need a long written case history that can be referenced. Memory and wisdom, the judgement of the elder, judge or ruler comes into play making a ruling based on some combination of the written law, convention or the memory of how it is generally understood and the uniqueness of the situation. There might be stories that surround the application of this law in the past. Some might even be written and recorded. But the decisive thing in the moment is the coming together of what is written, the past memory of the people and the personal wisdom, the judgement of the person or persons tasked with making a decision in the moment. There are always edge cases and unique situations that test traditions and customs, but these can usually be resolved by the use of sound judgement.

So what happened? There was cultural shift in modernity that began to look at these customs and traditions with suspicion in contrast to both reason and the emerging scientific method. The idea was basically this, that we should take these older traditions that have ordered society and test them against reason and with scientific rigor. These traditions were looked upon as constraining, narrow minded and prejudiced. They limited the pursuit of knowledge in society. There began a long process of examination in which the fundamental traditions and customs of people, their prejudices, were abstracted, rationalized and then supposedly tested by science and reason. Alongside of this there was a belief that we could draw “principles” from history that would allow us to solve many of the problems previous societies faced in governance.

The American Constitution was developed in this context. A group of men in a room who believed that they had reasoned out of history a series of principles that would then limit the power of government and preserve the liberty of the people. Because they are abstracting principles they believed to be operative down through history, they are able to think of it as being rooted in history, when in fact it represents a decisive break with the idea of customary law. Thus, everything today now has to be demonstrated by reason, that it conforms to some universal principle or that its “objectively” bad for society. You are no longer simply allowed to say, “Sorry, that is not how we do things around here. Its not happening,” and this should be sufficient justification and obvious to everyone.

Wade Stotts

put out an excellent video related to my topic here as I was getting ready to write it, illustrating how this shift between custom and tradition to that of reason and science works itself out in the American context today.

This transition to reason and science, as instantiated in the technology of the administrative state is fundamentally away from a conservative society that is based primarily in the social memory of a people, their stories, customs and traditions, supported by a written corpus of laws and religious texts primarily, to one that is primarily abstract and rational, that exists almost fully within the written codices of law and policy, supported by scientific study and research and instantiated in institutions. Rather than arising organically from within the people and their shared communal life, it is now imposed upon people from the outside by means of the system. It must be justified by outside sources that are considered rational or scientific. Your own judgement is permitted in fewer and fewer situations.

Before we proceed to discuss how this expresses itself in the technology of the administrative state, it is useful for us to briefly pause and meditate on the notion of biblical law. I can hear people arguing that God’s law is imposed from the outside by God. This is true. But in the formation of the old covenant, the formalization of God’s relationship with his people, and in the formation of the new covenant in Christ, both are beginnings. At the beginning, God says you will do things my way because I am your God and I am the one who saved you and made you into my people. So, you will live the way that I tell you to live. In the New Testament it is very explicit that we are commanded to make disciples.

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” Matthew 28:19

The discipleship process is one of active instruction in which the new believer is taught how to believe, think, act and behave as a Christian. In a sense, discipleship is a crash course, a kind of ongoing boot camp, that the believer goes through until the ways of being a Christian are so interiorized that functionally it is like they have always been a Christian. They now share in our stories, customs and traditions. They are one of us. The faith and the Way of life that it births are now second nature to them. They can be trusted to say, “this is how we doing things around here.” The thing that separates us from other boot camp type enculturation processes, is that this whole process is aided and directed by the Spirit of God. The ways of God in Christ are taught to you by men and by God himself, writing them on your heart and in your mind so that you have no need for the written law.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.” Galatians 5:22-25

This was always the intent of the old Mosaic covenant.

“I will give them singleness of heart and action, so that they will always fear me and that all will then go well for them and for their children after them. I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop doing good to them, and I will inspire them to fear me, so that they will never turn away from me.” Jeremiah 32:39-40

And:

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.” Ezekiel 36:26-27

And while it is true that these are both considered messianic prophecies that point to the new covenant in Christ, they reveal the intent of God for his people. You can see this in the way that Deuteronomy casts the relationship between parent and child as one that resembles what we might thing of today as “discipleship.”

“The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” Deuteronomy 6:4-7

This would explain why Jesus is so hard on the Pharisees for all of the extra rules and regulations that they added to the law as a way to protect the integrity of the law. By placing so much emphasis on getting the externalities of the law right, making sure to put into writing what to do in every possible conceivable situation, they were instituting a kind of early form of rationalized, managerial faith. Jesus taught us that the teachings of God and his ways should so live within us that it really doesn’t need to be written down anymore. This is the core of the work of the Spirit of God. This is what discipleship is really all about.

And this brings us to the point of the administrative state and why all policy is policy and there is no such thing as “conservative” policies.