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Saturday, February 26, 2005
Sources Of Change
In an article by Jonah Goldberg that's brilliant even by his high standards, we find the following critical insight:
We have a tendency to assume that existing ideological categories are permanent. History is the study of the repeated debunking of such assumptions. The saddle, the stirrup, the moat, the locomotive, the telephone, the atomic bomb, the car, the computer, the birth-control pill: All of these caused tectonic changes in ideological arrangements, and all of them, save the last, were primarily innovations in transportation, communication, or war. The new earthquakes to come from biotechnology — "cures" for homosexuality, unimaginable longevity, real "happy pills" — could level all of the landmarks of our ideological landscape, even redefining the first ideology, conservatism.
Few persons think much, or terribly hard, about possible changes to our convictions and standing systems of interaction with the world that would arise from even a foreseeable technological breakthrough. Yet your Curmudgeon could name a number of developments which, all by themselves, changed the world beyond even the possibility of recognition by one whose life entirely preceded them:
- The machine gun permanently changed the nature of land warfare. Prior to the machine gun, an advantage in numbers was a killing edge that all but guaranteed victory. Machine gun emplacements, particularly in combination with entrenchment tactics, made striking the first blow and organizing the ground taken far more important than numerical superiority. Indeed, the change was so great that it took the next major development for a combination of states four times Germany's size to force her to concede World War I.
- The innovation of the mobile armored fortress, first instantiated in the tank, was required to overcome the advantage conferred upon a quick aggressor by the machine gun. A tank cannot be used to move a mass army, nor is it particularly good at destroying anything besides other tanks. But it is superb at breaking an enemy line of the sort that characterized the Western Front in World War I, which is why the next World War featured essentially no mass-army warfare. It is interesting to note that the bomber, the other weapon that characterized World War II, shares the tank's most important features, and adds another: the ability to wreak mass destruction on ground targets from the air.
- The development of food preservation technology, beginning with refrigeration and progressing through the various known methods for retarding spoilage and final ripening by chemical means, has eliminated the notion of "summer foods" and "winter foods" -- meaning the foods that were available to the consumer during those seasons -- from the Western household. Today the availability of foods with sharply limited growing seasons is almost continuous for anyone in contact with the West's network of food production and distribution. The related field of agrochemistry, the linchpin of the Green Revolution that's put Malthusian population theory to rest for good, has made it possible to banish hunger from the Earth; the remaining barriers to that goal are entirely political.
- Electronics preceded the transistor, but was of little importance before it. When "solid-state" transconductors and amplifiers made their appearance, a multitude of things and practices that were previously impractical for most became affordable, desirable, and eventually indispensable. The list includes everything from telephony to dozens of forms of packaged retail entertainment to the Internet and global networking.
- Finally, inexpensive, reliable, convenient methods of contraception have caused vast changes in the social structures of all Western nations. It's no longer expected of a woman that she arrive a virgin at her marital bed, nor is the stigma that formerly attached to a man who has sex with several partners before choosing one as a wife even a shadow of what it was in times past. That this change has had other consequences is undeniable, nor is there widespread agreement on whether any of the consequences have been good ones. Nevertheless, the huge transformation contraception has wrought, both ideological and social, is undeniable.
The above list could be extended; the items on it are merely the ones that strike your Curmudgeon hardest at the moment.
The true meaning of "conservative" is "resistant to change." Not utterly opposed to change, but stubborn, reluctant to give up that which has been proved good and workable until its candidate replacement has shown itself to be incontrovertibly better -- and better overall, at that. William F. Buckley's famous aphorism about the duty of a conservative -- "to stand athwart history's gates crying 'Stop!'" -- is an extreme over-dramatization of the role of the conservative mindset in managing a society.
If Goldberg is correct in focusing on biotechnology and bioengineering as the likely sources of the next transformative changes, it would behoove conservatives to think proactively about developments in those realms that would destabilize our existing order, such as it is, and introduce new uncertainties, both practical and moral, to bedevil the common man. Some possibilities are obviously ominous: human cloning; reproduction entirely outside the womb; the extension of human life to a span of two centuries or more. Others must be thought about for a while: high-reliability, convenient biometric identification and tracking; fully reversible sterilization; a science of alloplasty (the substitution of man-made components for human limbs and organs) that would permit risk-free anatomical reconfiguration at will. Still others seem entirely benign, at least at first blush: the ability to edit the chromosomes in a gamete or zygote; direct, high-speed transmission of knowledge into the brain; preventatives for cancer or AIDS. All should get thorough consideration by powerful minds before they burst upon us as did the breakthroughs of centuries past.
No man can sweep back the tide. Change is inevitable. As we lack the ability to throttle it, and admit it to our midst according to our own schedule, it's incumbent upon us to prepare for it as best we can -- and the form of preparation that offers the best prospects for coping with large changes is hard, sustained thought.
Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth – more than ruin – more even than death…. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man. -- Bertrand Russell
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