Experts in Stupidity:
Conservatism and the Moral Intelligence of Society

The Democrats down here [in Texas] are really pretty conservative in the grand scope of things, but they can't win anymore because all the mega-churches (suburban) vote Republican.

Republicans have convinced the evangelical churches that they can't accomplish social change without the government taking care of it through legislation. Not just legislating "moral" issues, because murdering, stealing, etc have always been regulated. Now we regulate "taste" - non-essential issues that should not be debated in the state or federal governments. These matters of taste culminate in legislation like what my local political heros are getting close to passing - regulating the type of dancing that high school cheerleaders can do. If it’s too provocative, some government guy will be able to shut down the cheerleading program. And the "conservatives" are cheering them on.

I’m not quite sure why Mr. Crawford believes the state of Texas doesn’t have an interest in booty shaking cheerleaders. After all, the individual school districts are already heavily regulated by the state and any district who believes there is a constitutional right to Break It Down can simply refuse to accept money from the moralistic state legislature.

But aside from the parochial nature of this particular issue, I believe this example provides an opportunity to clarify a misunderstanding about conservatives and our attitude toward legislating issues of morality and “taste.” While resolving disputes over the locus of autonomy, responsibility, and sphere sovereignty of institutions is essential, conservatism isn’t, as is commonly misperceived, about “small government.”

When it comes to government, conservatives are admittedly somewhat clueless. Unlike libertarians, liberals, socialists, Marxists, and other advocates of utopian political philosophies, conservatism has no idea how to build a healthy social and political structure. We do know, however, how to recognize a sick one. Just as physicians define bodily health as the absence of sickness, conservatives view the absence of sickness as the primary gauge of the health of the body politic. Our political objective, therefore, is similar to that of medical doctors -- eliminating sickness.

The late media critic and educator Neil Postman used this same medical analogy in describing the proper role of teachers. In his essay “The Educationist as Painkiller”, Postman proposes that educators don’t try to make students intelligent, because we don’t know how to do that, but instead try to cure stupidity in “some of the more obvious forms, such as either-or thinking; overgeneralization; inability to distinguish between facts and inferences; and reification, a disturbingly prevalent tendency to confuse words with things.”

The physician knows about sickness and can offer specific advice about how to avoid it. Don’t smoke, don’t consume too much salt or saturated fat, take two aspirin, take penicillin every four hours and so forth. I am proposing that the study of education and practice of education adopt this paradigm precisely. The educationist should become an expert in stupidity and be able to prescribe specific procedures for avoiding it.

“Stupidity is a form of behavior,” adds Postman, “It is not something we have; it is something we do.” The presence of stupidity can therefore be reduced by changing behavior. As a guiding political philosophy, conservatism plays a similar role in society as Postman’s paradigmatic teacher. Conservatives, in essence, prescribe procedures for avoiding moral stupidity.

This is essentially what Russell Kirk was getting at when he outlined his six principles of conservatism. The principle of moral order (a belief in a transcendent moral order to which we ought to try to conform the ways of society), the principle of prescription (a reliance on the “wisdom of our ancestors”), and the principle of prudence (public measures should be judged by their long-term consequences) are all means of preventing moral stupidity.

This legitimate role, however, has strict limits. Just as doctors don’t go around slapping Twinkies out of people’s hands, conservatives don’t attempt to prevent every act of stupidity in society. We recognize that every individual and institution has a specific sphere of influence and sovereignty that is delegated by God. A teacher, for example, has both the authority over his classroom and the responsibility to ensure that his pupils receive an education. Both authority and responsibility as a teacher, however, are limited to the school and cannot legitimately be extended outside that particular sphere.

Other spheres, however, such as the role of a school board administrator or state legislator may legitimately overlap the role as teacher. A cheerleading coach, for example, should have the moral sense not to prepare his students for a future vocation in adult entertainment. But if the coach (or the school district) sees no harm in teaching a fifteen year old child sexually suggestive ways of degrading themselves in front of large audiences, then state legislatures (institutions who do have the proper authority to act) should step in and break it down for them. This type of act -- the prevention of moral stupidity by a legitimate agent – is, in fact, what should make conservatives cheer.