Genetics and Political Conservatism

Abstract

HE PRESENT-DAY INTEREST in political conservatism has led to considerable speculation concerning the social meanings of that political philosophy. A relatively neglected phase of this problem is the question of the relative importance to society of the innate hereditary characteristics of the individual in contrast to external environmental influences. In this paper, the principal purpose will be to show the relationship between the conservative philosophy and the inheritance theory of human development. In addition, the political and social attitudes which are associated with a genetically oriented conservatism will be discussed. But before proceeding to the heart of the question, it is important to clarify the meanings attached to the basic terms which will henceforth be employed. To be precise, inherited characteristics are those which are transmitted biologically from parents to offspring. These would include not only characteristics by which offspring resemble their parents but also characteristics wherein they may differ from their parents, provided, of course, that these, too, are products of biological inheritance. This would cover recessive characteristics as well as those which result from the interaction of multiple Mendelian factors. Perhaps the most meaningful way in which to conceive of inherited characteristics is in terms of traits that are inborn or native to the individual. In contrast, we find the environmental influences-all those which result from the impact of external causes, conditions and influences. It is this contrast between the impact of external factors and the innate characteristics of the individual that is basic to the heredity-environment dichotomy. For students of political and social phenomena, the problem of the relative importance of nature in contradistinction to nurture in influencing human social and psychological characteristics is pregnant with considerable significance. On the solution of this problem is dependent not only the general question of the effectiveness of social reform but also the related problem of the general direction which future reforms should take. Many writers have sought to settle this question by classifying human mental traits as the products of the mutual interaction of heredity with environment-an interaction so inextricable as to defy all attempts at separation of the factors involved. Apart from the problem of the validity of this position, the fact still remains that on the individual's relative emphasis as between these two categories will depend his attitude toward a wide variety of social and political questions.'