Conservers and Adapters
Partners in stability, enemies of extremism.
By avoiding such terms as Conservatism and Liberalism, we might find more agreement in today’s world. Perhaps we could substitute “preservation” and “adaptation.”
And when thinking about society, I wish we would recall the phrase “mystic chords.”
"The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." – Abraham Lincoln, March 4, 1861, from his first inaugural.
In our more “scientific” way, we call them the binding social forces that sustain a stable society.
We see their effect every hour of every day. There is a remarkable harmony to social life. People cooperate in myriad ways. And, while we need concede that “tooth” and “nail” were present in our long evolutionary development, or terrifyingly real in many parts of the world today, the norm has been, well, the “norms” —- i. e. the beliefs, values, laws, customs that have organized our common interests into what we call societies or cultures. These “ties that bind” are remarkably strong. They do not just unite families and lovers. They enable us to fulfill our shared interests. We live with gratitude for the myriad ways in which we are aided, guarded, supported and sustained by a deep framework of mutual obligations and fulfilled needs
They can be stable over long periods of time. Parents and elders pass on to children and young adults the “good ways of living.” Change of course occurs. But for most of human history it was gradual and accommodated. New foods, new tools—invented or introduced from other places, were assimilated into cultures.
Yes, there were upheavals. Disease, drought, flood, war…and cruelty
Some societies adopted; many perished. More often, though, truly disruptive change was slow moving, such as, the reduction of food sources as population increases put pressure on the productive capacity of the immediate environment. In reaction to such changes people moved to new locations or adopted new ways of meeting the necessities of life or succumbed to conquest or disease.
The commitments people make to each other, the interests that they hold in common, are the constants of all societies. Enforced to some degree, but accepted willingly, as far as our studies of surviving cultures and ancient civilizations are able to show.
And innovations have been integrated within the warp and weave of such societies, as “the preservers,” whose wisdom and judgment were relied on to remember and defend the traditions of the people were listened to and honored and themselves were able to accept new ideas.
What has changed? Today people across the planet live amidst far greater forces of change. We are far more in touch with other cultures and borrow readily. We have developed technologies that offer great benefits, if we are willing to change, and great dangers if we are not. Climate shifts and natural disasters are still present and apparently more radical or frequent. Populations expand, putting pressure on existing resources. Wars are more destructive and probably more frequent. We face ever larger threats, as ideas, wealth, and people surge across the earth, some to pillage others to survive.
Thank God, for those that help conserve our values and laws. Thank God, for those that provide innovative adjustments to the inevitable reach of change.
For us to survive we need both, the preservers and the adapters. And both are hard pressed to fulfill their roles.
To many in the United States and around the world, the changes we are now experiencing are threats that turn our “mystic chords” into tinkling noise.
Some preservers have turned to absolute truth and call on untethered leaders to unite us against “enemies,” to rally us against “invaders.” And some adaptors have turned revolutionary. They would blaze wholly new trails, over unknown ground.
Both tell us that we must systematically tear down and build again. They claim to be anointed visionaries or true conservatives. Their utopias are mistaken fantasies of the past or impractical imaginings of the future. Or so it seems to me.
I sympathize with their sincerity and recognize their intelligence. Great minds drink from lakes of inspiration. They claim to be true conservers or true adaptors. Their claims are tempting, if only because of how critical seem our present crises. They are, however, if such disguises are torn away, destroyers not builders. The actual reality of our time is ever more sharply defined by shared interests—the challenges of life in a world integrated by a common destiny and fragmented by many lines drawn in the sands of time.
This has made the task of all “preservers” more difficult. More of our future in the hands of “adaptors.” But what is really the alternative?
In Robert Bolt’s play, The Man for All Seasons, Sir Thomas More’s son in law, a 17th century radical wants More, the Lord Chancellor of England to go after a dangerous person even though he has broken no laws.
“William Roper: “So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!”
Sir Thomas More: “Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?”
William Roper: “Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!”
Sir Thomas More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!”
We are at a crossroad. As never before we need talented conservers and perceptive adaptors. We cannot return to an imagined past; we must not careen blindly into an unknown future. We must take up yet again the ancient truth of our survival: that the interests we have in common are far stronger than what would tear us apart.
Before us is still the possibility of sober, constrained progress, the hard work of relearning in each generation the art of living alongside each other. “The chorus of our Union.”