![]() ![]() “Our real enemy is not social institutions but the devil within us.” This is a lie. “Projects of reform must begin and end with the human heart,” wrote Russell Kirk. ![]() Conservative intellectuals say the fault isn’t in our institutions but in our individual characters. ![]() In this way, conspiracy theories have a lot in common with conservatism (or what we call “conservatism” anyway). It promises that what you were taught in eighth-grade government was true: that history has ended, that we have the ideal institutions and the freest possible society. “It’s not that our institutions are bad,” a conspiracy theory promises, “It’s that they have been infiltrated by bad actors or that bad actors, outside and above them, are pulling the strings in order to harm us.” Conspiracy theories promise that nothing needs to change, only that we get rid of these bad actors. Conspiracy theories are the last refuge of the status quo-its last line of ideological defense. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |