Conspiracy theories and serious conservatism

YOU aren’t a conservative if you believe in conspiracy theories. Before I defend this statement, I should say that as a general rule, I do not like statements that begin, “You aren’t a conservative if …” It’s not that I always disagree with such assertions. For instance, “You’re not a conservative if you think the state should seize the means of production and usher in a new age of socialism” strikes me as not just defensible but self-evidently true — at least if you define “conservative” in the traditional Anglo-american sense.

My objection is that when people say, “You aren’t conservative if …” they are usually confusing what is with what ought to be. Sure, conservatives ought to be (fill in the blank) pro-life, pro-gun, pro-free market, pro-this or anti-that. But that doesn’t mean they all are. And if they disagree on this or that issue, they might simply be wrong. Or they might put more emphasis on different factors or concerns.

So why are conspiracy theorists different? Well, for starters, conspiracy theories are almost always offered in bad faith because they are non-falsifiable. The moment you provide evidence disproving a conspiracy theory, the response is invariably to resort to an even deeper conspiracy theory.

For instance, Attorney General Bill Barr recently told the truth: There’s no evidence for the vast conspiracy theories President Donald Trump has belched out to explain his election loss. The response from many of Trump’s most ardent defenders was to insist Barr was in on the “deep state” plot to get Trump.

But the incompatibility of conservatism with conspiracy theories is more fundamental. One of the central tenets of conservatism is the idea that society is too complex to be easily controlled by a despot or even cadres of well-intentioned social engineers and bureaucrats, or what Edmund Burke, the founder of modern conservatism, dubbed “sophisters, calculators and economists.”

Burke’s argument was more about the nature of a just regime, but it rested on the belief that government planners, no matter how smart, cannot simply will into existence whatever they want the world to look like through raw intellect. This insight was fleshed out by Adam Smith, the Founding Fathers, Friedrich Hayek and scores of other conservative sociologists, economists and philosophers.

It’s central to every serious explication of conservatism and the free market and every critique of socialism, communism, technocracy and progressivism.

John Locke was arguably the first person to introduce the idea of the law of unintended consequences, which holds that planners cannot foresee all the ways their schemes will interact with real life. And ever since, conservatives have mocked how the schemers respond by redoubling their efforts.

And yet we’re supposed to believe that conspirators — globalists, the deep state, lizard people — can pull off whatever they want in total secrecy and with no formal power?

Here’s a simple fact: The more you know about how government works, the less likely you are to believe anyone is actually in control. The idea that secret cabals could blow up the World Trade Center or steal the election, with the active participation of hundreds or thousands of conspirators, is laughable when you consider that passing a budget is often beyond the capabilities of those “in charge.”

Conspiracy theories aren’t grounded in anything beyond the vaporous phantasms of paranoia. They can certainly be “right-wing.”

But conservative they’re not.