Principals are Fundamental

There are few topics as perennial on the political right as that of "principles." Sadly, that talk more often has less to do with what principles are and more to do with handwringing over who is abandoning them. If you don't see the irony there, I'll point it out: If you can't name your principles, you've probably lost them.

I've written many tweets, threads and emails about principles, mostly as replies. This post is my first attempt to organize them into one place, if not something coherent. Older posts as you go down.

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So many things called "principles" nowadays simply do not fit the definition. Perhaps that is why the word is subject to so many redundant adjectives: "first," "bedrock," "fundamental," "basic." All of these ideas are built into "principles," but people obviously need reminding.

To the extent that those professionally engaged in politics show any recognition of the proper sense of the word, you can be sure whenever they invoke "principles" that there is nothing underneath.

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Most of what such people consider "principles" are not, in fact, fundamental truths from which others are derived. I detect a lack of wit on their part. Because they cannot think of what might underpin decorum, restraint, or compromise, they think they've found the bottom.

They have forgotten the ancient song, "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven," which goes on to list such things as "a time to kill," "a time to break down," and "a time to refrain from embracing."

Not that I feel we have reached a time to kill, but we certainly have entered a time to refrain from embracing. Compromise with those who oppose our principles is compromising our principles. That is fundamental!

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On principles, there are two ways of looking at it.

One, principles are what the usual definition says. They are primary truths from which others are derived. This is why things like "decorum" aren't principles. Put that in the above sentence. "Decorum is a primary truth." Sure, it's grammatical, but it makes almost no sense.

Now consider something that might qualify as a primary truth, one that I hold: human nature is a constant. One may disagree, but placed in the above sentence it is a perfectly coherent idea, and one that informs ideas and decisions in substantive ways that "decorum" does not.

Decorum only tells me to act properly at all times without even telling me what that means. The threat of "decorum" as a principle is an imperialist forcing the natives to wear wool suits in the jungle. If, on the other hand, I take a principled view of human nature such as the above, it prompts me to see and respond to people, their manners and customs, as fitting responses to their unique situations.

The other way of looking at principles is that anything can be made into a principle. This viewpoint is important not because it is correct but because it helps to differentiate between true and false principles.

A true principle is any principle that doesn't get you killed. (see the wool suits) Put differently, even if everything placed atop a principle comes crashing down, but the principle remains, it is true. If, however, the principle itself collapses bringing everything atop it down, it is false.

Naturally, there are many gradations between these ends. There may even be principles so firm that nothing placed upon them can be toppled. This takes one to a somewhat philosophical place. Can a principle be so true that it upholds a lie? Or is it that a lie simply cannot be placed atop such a principle?

Leave it. The point is, for much of what columnists, politicians, and other hucksters push as "principles" they do so because they are too unimaginative to think of what might underpin those things, and for that reason, they think they've found the bottom. It's like getting to the frozen caramel layer in a pint of ice cream and thinking it’s the bottom of the cup.

Now, how does this inform politics? Well, in essence, politics isn't really the realm of principles, or at least not the sort of principles we mean when we speak of such things. "We're voting for president, not pope," is a perfectly valid principle in a domain that serves as a nonviolent proxy for civil war. Make no mistake, that is what politics in a representative republic are.

The thing about war is there are no rules. Oh, sure, we pretend that there are, but realistically, war crimes are only charged against war losers by war winners, with the occasional sacrificial goat to soothe the winners' collective conscious that they deserve to have won.

But what does "might makes right" look like in a war where there is at least the rule of nonviolence? Let me list some things and see how many I get…

1) Do as much and get as much as you can while you can. Political capital only depreciates when it is unused, and the only way to increase it is to spend it, so you may as well spend it.

2) Loyalty. It’s a funny world where the virtueless left can convince the right that loyalty is not a virtue. In certain times, there may be something to be said for backing the best man regardless of his party, but when one party is pushing a totalizing and exclusionary ideology, that is not the time. Besides, how can the best man have faulty alliances?

3) The only solution to gerrymandering is gerrymandering. Or as you said, political problems require political solutions. Or, embrace political ills. Decrying political "ills" is a trap to hand political decisions to something less accountable, like an appointed committee. As with war, we must accept things in politics that we would not tolerate elsewhere, lest those things crop up elsewhere.

4) In politics, voices are guns, minds are territory. An untold amount of damage has been done by conservatives dismissing media, entertainment, and education as fields worthy of entry. Instead of denouncing the Religious Right, the left should be kissing its collective feet.

The big project here is to unite conservatives and liberals against the socialist/progressive agenda. This means both conservatives and liberals must put aside the rivalries of the 80s and 90s under the realization that it is liberalism that needs conservation. This is a more fundamental principle than simply trying to get along with woke tribalists.

I also believe that actual liberals need to leave the Democrat party and join the GOP. That's not a my-team/their-team suggestion. I think the DNC is lost to Marxists. I think the GOP's best strategy is to reach out to Dems who feel they are now politically homeless. That's going to require coming together over core principles, and not just decorum from both sides.

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One could say the left is involved in struggle for struggle's sake while the right is involved in a struggle to find bedrock social/political principles.

The left wants to ensure the fight will go on while the right wants to ensure the culture will go on. Or something like that.

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A basic problem with the way “principles” are invoked is that they are invoked as rules rather than as the bedrock from which rules derive. They are the things upon which all else is built. If you get the principles wrong, you get everything wrong. 

A lot of self-proclaimed conservatives harp on "principles principles principles" but they're really stuck on pet etiquette.

Decorum is not a principle but a feature of people coming together over shared principles. In fact, principles have a tendency to make those who genuinely hold them impolite towards those who don't share them.

Neither is consistency a principle. Principles themselves are constant, people are not. A principled person must change themselves in accord with their principles.

Cultural institutions like the church, fraternal orders, and local government came apart because the right mistook self-determination as a principle unto itself. They thought they’d be hypocrites for imposing obligation on their children.

If you tell your children “avoid danger” but you won’t so much as cordon of the danger, your children will grow to see you as a hypocrite, and whatever “principle” you aim to preserve, they will trample beyond your most horrid imagination.

The belief that life is sacred is the driver of successful civilizations. Cultures that lose that belief ultimately crumble.

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I like this maxim that puts various subjects into the same form: “government exists to serve people,” “markets exist to serve people,” etc. This is much more like a principle than “Free markets are good,” or “government should be small.”

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“Trump is neither an ambassador for my values nor the articulate champion of my principles I would prefer. But he is a safe harbor in a progressive storm that seeks to both destroy my values and upend our constitutional republic.” 

—Erick Erickson, from: "Trump 2020?"

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There is a fundamental difference between justification, which looks backward, and principles, which look forward. Humans have a neat trick whereby they separate the decision from the deed in time and thereby substitute the former for the latter. It’s still a lie, tho’.

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In an ideal world, principles don't conflict. In the real world, they do. Or does the conflict point to a deeper principle? 

Consider the classic conundrum: Would you lie to a Nazi to protect a Jewish family? This situation suggests that "never lie" is a faulty principle.

What do we do? We can't throw "never lie" out entirely because of the problems associated with lying. Do we subordinate the principle? Or do we clarify it somehow?

The 10 Commandments don't prohibit lying, but bearing false witness against thy neighbor. Outing Jews to a Nazi implies that the Jews are guilty of a crime that the Nazi will assuredly punish. 

But being Jewish is not a crime, so lying to the Nazi upholds the truth by avoiding false witness. 

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Here is a mistake: While the left uses the right’s principles against the right, the right tries to save the left from the left’s principles.

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There's a lot of talk about principles and defending them and not abandoning them without much consideration as to what they even are. There's a general sense of principles as "the rules you play by" but that's not correct.

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At some point, conservative principles got watered down to “just don’t do what liberals do, especially if it’s effective.” Not only is this not a principle, it’s not a terribly effective rule, either.

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"Principles" is a word used by people who can't actually name their principles.

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Principles are something to stand on, not to hide under.

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It's great if people are willing to die for their principles, but the point of politics is so you don't have to.

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NOTE: The original post is deleted, so I have no idea what the jumping off point was, but what followed was a contentious conversation where I argued individuality as a sound principle and my interlocutor took up the mantle of plurality. Only my posts are reproduced, with minimal edits for clarity.

I think he means that the West's pride in multiculturalism, diversity, and inclusion is a weakness. Those who oppose those things can nonetheless exploit them to undermine the West. So, while they are important values, they cannot be bedrock principles.

If they are in fact the bedrock principles of Western civ, then the fix was in from the start. I don't believe that's the case. I think inclusion and diversity emerge from deeper values that hold the individual as intrinsically worthwhile. I don't see a conundrum at all.

By definition, bedrock principles cannot be undermined. If the West is undermined on the basis of inclusiveness—and it could be—that merely shows the West forgot its most basic principle and replaced it with something else.

We're saying the exact same thing in regards to bedrock principles. The question is whether pluralism is a sound bedrock. I say it is not, but also that Western civ. is built on something that is sound from which pluralism emerges.

That's not to say a whole lot of Western Civ cannot be upended if the bedrock is forgotten and pluralism is given to be the (false) bedrock instead. In other words, everything that rests atop pluralism may be toppled unless pluralism is anchored in the bedrock of individual worth. (Here I originally used "individualism," which is not what I meant.)

Without the individual, it is impossible even to regard pluralism. The individual must heed the plural but the plural need not recognize the individual. That does not mean pluralism doesn't consider individuals, only that it is not necessary for it to consider every individual. 

The Declaration of Independence asserts "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" as justifications for what follows. These are not pluralistic concepts by most standards, they ring of individuality. If the DoI doesn't point to founding principles, IDK what does.

My interlocuter then posted this about pluralism: https://science.jrank.org/pages/10751/Pluralism-Political-Pluralism.html 

The article you shared supports my assertion that pluralism arises from recognition of the worth of the individual. 

L'esprit de l'escalier: What purpose does pluralism serve but to enshrine individuality?