Herbert Butterfield and Original Sin
Peter Viereck once wrote that conservative political thought is essentially a secularization of the doctrine of original sin. In his view, conservatism stands on the basic thesis that human beings are flawed by nature rather than by social institutions. Any plausible moral or political theory must account for the fact that humans are selfish to a significant degree and will always have some inclination to commit evil.
Many conservatives have voiced such thoughts to distinguish their political outlook from the left's. They allege that leftists are utopians because they believe in the infinite malleability of human nature. In contrast, conservatives maintain a more realistic sense of what is politically possible, believing that society can only do so much to improve us.
Despite the importance of human fallenness for conservative thought, its consequences have rarely been spelled out in detail. In conservative theory there usually exists a vague sense that original sin rules out the possibility of crafting a perfect political order. But perhaps we can do a bit better, and fill out this argument with more care.
Herbert Butterfield (1900-1979) offers guidance. Butterfield was an English historian who concerned himself primarily with questions of historical theory and method, though throughout his long career he also wrote prolifically on politics, religion, and science. Much of his exceedingly rich political thought investigated the political implications of original sin. Butterfield derived a politics of compromise and toleration from the notion of human fallenness. Overlooked by much of the mainstream conservative tradition, he deserves to be read more widely.
Butterfield did not participate much in party politics, and did not think of himself as a conservative. Nevertheless, his work is filled with insights that speak to our moment. Butterfield's thought is both timely and untimely — untimely, given that our highly polarized era has been marked by almost no appetite for compromise and charity toward enemies; timely, because his politics of forbearance might be precisely what's missing from our current politics.
Conservative thought ought to instill in us a "patient belief in the necessary imperfection of mortal things," as Roger Scruton once put it. Butterfield helps us discern how we should orient ourselves toward the social world once we have seriously internalized the fact of human imperfection.
THE CONSEQUENCES OF ORIGINAL SIN
Butterfield's understanding of original sin was not strictly theological. Instead, he made a series of claims about how human beings characteristically think and behave. Even when raised in reasonably peaceful and virtuous environments, humans still have desires that conflict with the moral law. We seek power, pleasure, status, or sex, and are frequently willing to trample the interests of others in order to get them. Insofar as we do the right thing, it is often not because we care about the humanity of the other, but because we fear the social punishments that come with acting immorally — prison sentences, social ostracism, and the like.
Human behavior turns still worse when unchecked. People become unaccountable in two kinds of circumstances: when great power imbalances exist, and the strong can treat the weak as they wish; or when order breaks down, and neither the police nor the threat of social condemnation constrains us. Butterfield wrote that
once it becomes really apparent that men can steal or kill with impunity, then a lot of people whom the arrangements of society have hitherto kept on the rails, will run to crime — not just out of protest against their own poverty or against some injustice — but rather perhaps because we all have moments when we feel that we want to break windows; or else because men often love power for its own sake; or just because men commit unspeakable offences when they find that they can do this with impunity.
Butterfield summed up his attitude by writing that "down below there slumbers all the time the volcano that lies in human nature, and an unexpected cataclysm may bring it into activity." His politics and ethics aimed to accommodate this picture of human nature.
Utopia is impossible because any social order will have human rulers, and the privileged will always find a way of using their power to promote their interests at the expense of the common good. As Butterfield put it, "no man has yet invented a form of political machinery which the ingenuity of the devil would not find a way of exploiting for evil ends." This observation found confirmation in the experience of the 20th century, when various revolutionary movements promised utopia and delivered catastrophe.
The fact that human beings can be so terrible should make us grateful for whatever measure of peace, prosperity, and freedom we have managed to achieve in society. "It is difficult for people to count their blessings or to be thankful for the distance the world has moved out of the jungle," Butterfield said in a lecture. He allowed that the "existing order has its appalling features," but pointed out that "[a] different order of things would not destroy [human greed] but would only set [it] at a different angle. And the destruction of all order would merely put the weak more than ever at the mercy of the strong."
Butterfield laid out his political views most systematically in his 1944 book, The Englishman and His History. Written during World War II, the book attempted to vindicate the English mode of doing politics. Butterfield claimed that over the course of history, a Whig disposition triumphed in England. In the 18th and 19th centuries the Whig party stood for religious toleration, parliamentary government (as opposed to monarchical absolutism), and some measure of democratic participation in government. Their opponents to the right included those who wanted Anglicans to enjoy special privileges over members of other faiths, those who believed in a strong hereditary monarchy, or those who feared any popular influence in politics. Their opponents to the left included radical republicans and democrats, who sought to overthrow the monarchy and make the people supreme.
The Whigs were centrists of a sort. They agreed with radicals that the common man should have a say in politics, but shared the Tory anxiety about how changes to the basic structure of the state could have dangerous and destabilizing effects. Whigs appeared to be now mildly left wing, now mildly right wing, trying to balance demands for progressive reform with the importance of maintaining the integrity of the social order. For the Whigs,
ordered progress is to take the place of desperate conflict leading to revolutionary upheaval. It is assumed that there is much to be thankful for in the British constitution...and that this must not be jeopardized in order to forestall purely hypothetical dangers....Abuses are to be reformed — they must be removed at latest before they have provoked the injured or oppressed to a course of revolutionary action. But their removal is to be postponed if it would involve a great tear in the social fabric, or if it would provoke vested interests to desperate measures — even though such measures from the whig point of view were to be regarded as unjustifiable.
The English Whig mode of doing politics also absorbed useful lessons from Christianity. Above all, it retained a tacit belief in the reality of original sin. This belief helped England sustain a politics of moderation and compromise, where people assumed that their opponents had good reasons for their beliefs, that they were not wicked and bent on exterminating foes, and that even if they won the next election, they wouldn't drive the country over a cliff. Butterfield described such a moderate politics in this way: "Perhaps it is the case that democracy is only workable if one holds a [thought] to the effect that one must allow for the chance of the other man being right after all." When conceiving of everyone — including ourself and our chosen party — as morally flawed, it's easier to see politics as a give and take between imperfect parties, one of whose programs different people might happen to prefer.
In contrast, when we abandon the notion of original sin, we come to think that evil is concentrated entirely among our enemies, and that none of it lies in ourselves. By projecting all evil onto our opponents, we authorize ourselves to "treat the political enemy as subhuman, irredeemable." Political struggle then takes on existential stakes, becoming a war between the righteous and the wicked — with ourselves, of course, on the side of the righteous. In Butterfield's terms, "the conflict lacks some of the mitigations, the world lacks some of the fellow-feeling that it had when you began by saying that all were sinners — one touch of nature making the whole world kin."
Here is another way to formulate the consequences of original sin. In political life, certain ideas motivate people to crush their enemies and to pursue final solutions. One of them is self-righteousness; another is utopianism. Original sin refutes both. It tells the self-righteous: You are sinners too, so even if you won, there is no reason to think that all would be well. It tells the utopians: Your goal is unachievable, because at the end of your proposed social transformation, you will still have to deal with the same selfish creatures who designed the unjust old regime. Butterfield poked fun at those who call for such final solutions: "Just one little war more against the last remaining enemies of righteousness, and then the world will be cleansed, and we can start building Paradise."
PACIFISM AND QUIETISM?
One potential worry about Butterfield's political outlook is that it can lead to pacifism, a categorical rejection of violence; or quietism, a total withdrawal from politics. If society is bound to be unjust, and human beings will inevitably sin, why would we bother fighting for a cause or trying to reform our institutions?
Butterfield would reply that while we cannot make the world perfect, human nature being what it is, we can certainly make it better. Certain reforms, carefully planned and gradually implemented, can remedy the worst abuses in society and improve our quality of life. This is what the Whigs, and through them the English in general, came to believe.
The direst circumstances might even justify revolutionary action. Like Edmund Burke, Butterfield did not try to specify the precise circumstances that make revolution permissible. He instead cautioned against it, emphasized that it must be the last resort, and insisted that it be rare. "Revolutions are sometimes the only way of dealing with scandals and grievances," he wrote. "Even England had to have a revolution, and perhaps the best we can say is that at least a well-managed nation need only have one — one revolution in each country should suffice." One revolution is all it should take to wash away the main injustices of the past; this done, countries should strive to pursue their political development through peaceful channels.
Even if we must engage in violence — to fight a war, or to rebel against the established order — we should not forget the lessons of original sin. Indeed, it becomes more important in such exceptional moments to remember that we, too, are sinners. We need to check our natural impulses toward self-righteousness and hatred of the other, or risk becoming aggressors ourselves:
The rule is that we should judge all men to be sinners but treat all men as born for eternity. We are to love all men in spite of the fact that they are sinners, partly because we know that we are sinners ourselves. We are to love them even when they go on sinning — for otherwise how could Christ have loved us? We are to love them even if we have to fight them — we have to love our enemies and never treat them as subhuman or as children of the devil, even if they treat others so; for otherwise how would mankind ever be lifted above barbarism?
People often justify violence and cruelty against their enemies by emphasizing how violent and cruel those enemies are. They are ruthless, so we must be ruthless too. Butterfield warned that this sort of thinking can lead, not to the cessation of conflict, but to a spiral of violence and injustice. Stopping that cycle might involve taking violent action — but only with great restraint.
Butterfield is asking a lot of us psychologically, and many of us are probably incapable of living up to his suggestions. Can we really remember the humanity of our enemy, when that enemy is responsible for the murder of our friends and family? Is it reasonable to tell combatants to bear in mind the dignity of the other, even as they fight to the death?
Such a feat is amazingly difficult. Butterfield, however, would press us to consider the terrible alternative, which is to give into our natural instincts and rhetorically dehumanize our enemies, giving free rein to our hatred and scorn. He was not deluded: He did not think humans are likely to succeed in controlling their emotions in situations of desperate conflict. But he rightly identified the moral ideal we ought to strive toward.
Not all political change comes from great upheavals and violent conflicts. Our historical attention often fixates on spectacular examples of popular mobilization: the American and French revolutions, the civil-rights movement, or the agitation for women's suffrage. Butterfield did not deny that some good can result from great political movements such as those. Yet progress also comes in a more automatic way, as harmonious social relations extend over time, bind us closer together, and improve our condition. Butterfield said that we
do not sufficiently understand or try to bring into operation the healing effects of time; the great progress that comes from the gradual growth of reasonableness among men; and the benefits that accrue from long periods of peace and stability. We may have a mistaken picture of the war of right against wrong in history: for, though good may result from the victory of good men over wicked offenders, a richer good is often achieved — sometimes without the countervailing disadvantages — by something more like a cooperative effort of mankind, a spread of enlightenment, an advance of civilisation.
As an example of how progress can occur almost automatically or unconsciously, Butterfield pointed to the subtle influence of Christian teaching on Europe since the Middle Ages. Week after week, Christianity taught people that their fellow human beings possessed infinite value. It urged them to be humble and forgiving, to examine their consciences and pursue moral excellence. Over time, this moral education led to a certain softening of manners and a deeper grasp of the importance of other people. This progress happened peacefully; it resulted from a spread in education and enlightenment, not violence.
For Butterfield, a place remains for political action and progress. Sometimes revolution might be justified. But slow, targeted reforms can also yield social improvements, and even the passage of time (under peaceful conditions) can improve the way things are.
A POLITICS OF COMPROMISE
When speaking of polarization in America, we tend to focus on how the views of the two parties are getting further away from each other. Democrats move left on (say) race, economic issues, or immigration, while Republicans move right, so that it seems increasingly difficult to find compromises on policy solutions. People are also getting their information from different sources. It's not just that they can't agree on what society ought to do; they can't even agree on the basic facts.
These features of polarization are well known, and they are obviously worrying. It isn't easy to govern such a divided country. But from Butterfield's perspective, the most troubling aspect of polarization is the sheer contempt it generates. Right-leaning news sources often paint Democrats as America-hating totalitarian elitists who want to impose unpopular policies concerning race, transgender issues, etc., on ordinary people. Left-leaning sources in turn depict Republicans as irrational bigots — racists, sexists, and xenophobes duped by Russian propaganda and misinformation in general. Anecdotally, I have heard from partisans on both sides that the best explanation for the behavior of the other party is that they are evil and stupid. The media environments on both sides largely reinforce this message.
Thus far, party competition in America has remained largely peaceful — albeit with some shocking recent exceptions. Still, our media apparatus plays with fire every time it produces content that encourages hatred. It's not obvious how much strain our system can take, or how much contempt can be lodged in people's hearts before it manifests itself in broad-based action. More violence is not the only worry. Mutual contempt precludes a politics of compromise and leads to deadlock, which is unhealthy even when non-violent.
Without deluding ourselves about the power of ideas in the political process, we can modestly observe that one factor behind polarization has been the neglect (or the forgetting) of the doctrine of original sin. Obviously, widespread acceptance of this idea would not solve all our problems. But a renewed understanding of original sin would probably decrease the number of political actors who think that the enemy (however conceived) is the only obstacle standing in the way of perfect justice. Even if such actors remained, few would take them seriously — their message would not resonate with people aware of their share in humanity's universal sin. Widespread rage against liberal society would yield to a sober sense of how much worse everything could be. "Our free kind of world," Butterfield wrote,
is like the English landscape — we think it represents the mood of nature, and we only discover gradually with how much sweat and struggle the hand of human beings fabricated it. On the other hand, this free world — subtly combined, and precariously poised — could be destroyed in half a decade or whittled away by educational neglect and absent-mindedness. It is probably quite a dangerous thing for the liberal democracies to have their people too ignorant of the subtler factors on which their order of society depends.
Among these "subtler factors" is a humble recognition that sin and weakness reside in every one of us, and that the pursuit of political justice will require compromise rather than conquest.
