The Conservative Sensibility by George Will Despite the enormous number of excellent stories, vignettes, and memorable quotes about America’s history by George Will in this book, his essential message—that secular conservatives can, by reason alone, achieve the level of virtue and morality practiced by our Founders—falls short of the mark. In fact, most of the quotes he relates state the opposite with much more conviction. Here, for example, is Tocqueville as quoted by Will (page 485): “Religion is considered as the guardian of mores, and mores are regarded as the guarantee of the laws and pledge for the maintenance of freedom.” “Despotism may be able to do without faith, but freedom cannot…What can be done with a people master of itself if it is not subject to God?” And here is Einstein (page 491): “I’m not an atheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many different languages…The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn’t know what it is.” These amazing quotes, and there are many more, are ironically surrounded by a so-called conservative philosophy presented by Will that he claims is grounded in non-belief, a non-belief based on reason alone. In my opinion, George Will’s primary message suffers from a form of “presentism” (the belief that today’s secular values are the best) allowing only one view of the world, one absolute ideology stating that only science can explain reality. Will almost rebukes conservatives like Russell Kirk who insist that “external standards” of value are necessary for any democratic society, where “external standards” imply metaphysical values generated by our imaginative powers, such as humility and compassion, that accompany strong spiritual beliefs. Will’s ideas of a secular conservatism lead to, at best, an update and recast of the Stoic philosophy of Greece and Rome. This is a powerful philosophy, but one limited to the elites of society who are internally governed by their inherent natures and hardly suitable for widespread application throughout a society. Will also believes “It is astonishing that we do not live in a state of perpetual astonishment” (page 486-487) based on scientific discoveries and their application to daily life. In this he reminded me of the late, great Carl Sagan. But people do not find meaning in their lives by contemplating how insignificant they are relative to the awesome universe, or how their subconscious rules decision making, or how their imaginative minds are only a part of a physical body that has evolved with a particular arrangements of molecules, a cosmic accident. Contrast this with the imaginatively conservative views of the Apollo 8 astronauts Frank Borman and Bill Anders, who read from Genesis to intently listening masses on earth while coming home from a round trip to the moon on Christmas Eve in 1968. The Apollo astronauts, when they left earth’s gravity and viewed it from afar, saw the imaginative miracle of our planet, not only its scientific insignificance. Reason is a tool, a necessary one, but “reason alone” led us through the arrogance and excesses of the industrial revolution to the Titanic disaster and two world wars, the second ended by dropping nuclear weapons on the populace of two cities, the “reasoning” being that invasion would cost more lives than the bombings. Such “reasoning” as a tool for life requires focus and purpose, and traditional conservatives believe that purpose, by necessity, comes from “external standards” that limit our inclinations and desires. Unless one’s reason leads to an individual stoicism of virtue, a Sisyphean effort for the elite few, reason alone can just as easily lead the general populace to commit to what is most powerful in the material world; and that, as Hobbes tells us, is always a tyranny giving the illusion of security. George Will, grandson of a pastor, grew up immersed in a moral world created by his parents and grandparents. A little more humility would tell him that his reason, supposedly founded on non-belief, has been guided and given focus by both nature and nurture, a nurture full of conveyed spiritual values. Science of course necessarily corrects religion, but to the traditional conservative spiritual beliefs also compliment science. There is a difference between not holding to a specific religious dogma based on revelation and not having any faith; that is, between blind acceptance of rituals or practices and not having a sense of spiritual mystery and awe. Stoic conservatives like George Will always have a place in the conservative milieu, but they must not be allowed to define conservatism lest it decay and vanish. I recommend instead the imaginative conservatism of Irving Babbitt, who without a particular religious affiliation wrote in "Democracy and Leadership" (still in print): “The first characteristic of traditional conservatism is the fostering and development of virtuous leaders and effective democratic institutions,” and (page 28) “The idea of humility, the idea that man needs to defer to a higher will, came into Europe with an Oriental religion, Christianity.” Even the pessimist Schopenhauer directed us inward toward a higher will that disciplines and guides the lower. The essence of traditional conservatism is an inner striving toward virtue, excellence, compassion, and humility—a striving toward “external standards” as defined by spiritual values.