The conservatism of English philosopher Michael Oakeshott (1901-1990) was fundamentally about the skeptical temperament. Oakeshott's conservatism, his defense of liberal civil society and liberal constitutionalism, was based not on the notion that there are some rights of man that we can know for sure. It was not based upon the notion that a free society generates more wealth or power. It was simply based upon the notion of the limits of human understanding.

This radical defense of liberalism on the ground of skepticism stems from the reality that human beings do not know the consequence of their actions. They cannot see the future. Their information and data, based on what has happened in the past, is extremely limited.

Oakeshott's defense of small government is based upon the idea that we should do all that we can to prevent anyone claiming certainty from running our lives because no one has the right to that certainty. Keep the government small so it can do as little damage as possible. Alongside this he advocated a form of government, statesmanship, and politicking that deeply understands the limits of available knowledge and that moves forward with a sense of judgment, not certainty; by prudence, not conviction.

"The conjunction of dreaming and ruling generates tyranny," Oakeshott once remarked. Perhaps it is understandable that this tyranny has not taken root in America, a place where dreams are constantly remade. But of course, Oakeshott's point was precisely that the restlessness, vibrancy, enthusiasms, and zeal of Americans above all require the temper and restraint of cool prudence and limited government.

Societies require balance. There is in Oakeshott a deep Aristotelian sense of the balance of societies, which is why he was not an absolutist attacker of the welfare state. He was not an absolutist attacker of what we now call "one nation" conservatism or of "national greatness" conservatism. He just wanted to raise the possibility of skepticism to cast doubt upon them.

A society can be full of dreams, but its government should not be. It is the government's avoidance of dreams that allows its citizens to dream in their own lives and their own ways even more ambitiously. To live without certainty, to live with an eternal contradiction, is a rather terrifying prospect. Yet the only sensibility that could allow one to govern politics, and indeed to live life, is one that lets go of control over the future.

Conservatism in this interpretation does not seek to suppress change or to dictate the course of a story. It recognizes the mixture of tradition and possibility in events to conserve identity more fully in the face of it. Facing practical life with this attitude steadies the self.

Andrew Sullivan, whom I love so long as I am not reading his blog, which evidences every day how shallow his thinking and how intense his infatuation with Obama have become. Obamacons, hah! I almost fell for that one.