I can't disagree more with this thread. It viscerally angers me, like a picture of a young girl screaming at an old man, waving a little red book.

It shows a fundamental lack of understanding of core principles of conservatism, morality, social evolution.

So allow me to rant. https://twitter.com/BenWinegard/status/1297237825813962752

What is conservatism? The idea that we have an inheritance that needs to be conserved. That destroying is easier than building. But why is that, if not for evolutionary processes? If what you create from scratch can replace what evolved, then there's no need for conservatism.

And here we come to Gall's Law:
"A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over with a working simple system"

Conservatives take this seriously, and apply it to things like societies and moral systems. When people try to radically change these systems, we believe the result is a system that stops working, leads to chaos, and then leads to a deep loss of all the benefits we accrued.

And what is morality? Morality is how a society of different people can cooperate and thrive across many generations. It's not *obvious*. It's not subject to whiteboard speculation. It is given to us by the accretion of painful lessons, where strong societies displace weak ones.

When we say "honor your father and mother, that you may live long in the land", or "don't covet your neighbor's property", this is not a code invented by some college kid thinking of what seemed right to her. These are necessary building blocks needed for a society to survive.

This wisdom comes to us through evolutionary processes. Societies that believe moral progress is possible -- that children can be more moral than their parents, where the young try to teach new moral codes to the old -- can't last. They can't secure beliefs across time.

Similarly envy-based societies, where the masses think they have a right to equality -- can't last. They will fall into strife. Why do you think there is nothing in the 10 commands about charity? About giving to the poor? Only envy is prohibited. Why?

Charity, of course, is important. But the moment it becomes a commandment, it is no longer charity. Societies are stronger when the rich give to the poor than when the poor take from the rich. Charity-based societies outcompete envy-based societies.

All these moral systems, competing with each other, with stronger societies displacing weaker ones, give us an inheritance of moral codes.

Then there is an interplay between this (social) evolution and biological selection, so that one is fitted to the other..

Leading to a situation in which we are made for the law and the law for us. Both the genetic heritage of a people and the moral code that preserves them. The sum of this and more -- is the heritage conservatives defend. This is the essence of conservatism and of morality.

And there is no better way of advocating for this then by invoking darwinian principles. Nothing has provided more intellectual support to those who seek to preserve the accretion of both the traditions of a nation and its genetic stock than the works of Darwin.

Similarly we can look at architecture. Look how traditional societies used building materials available to them to solve the problems they faced. Why is traditional architecture so beautiful, why does it draw us? Small innovations accreted. with the bad discarded.

Now compare to blank page architecture. Where architects start with no connection to tradition, and do whatever they want. Yes, it's more freedom. Yes, it may look very beautiful on a coffee table, when it's just one building. But it's less successful at creating neighborhoods.

All of these -- and more -- are examples of evolutionary processes. If not for Darwin, we would be much poorer in trying to describe why these accretive processes can solve problems we don't even know we have. And why a blank page approach can never do that.

/finis