Conceived in sin: The Founders' view of human nature

The Federalist wrestles with the task of creating a government for a flawed and selfish creature: Man. It eschews revolutionary optimism and embraces a dark realism.

Written by Bo Winegard.

Like artists, revolutionaries often overestimate their ability to reshape reality. So enraptured are they by the beautiful creation they envisage that they disregard the limitations, the stubborn flaws and imperfections, of their material, believing that their own fervor and righteousness can, as it were, straighten the crooked timber of humanity. Sure, humans might appear rude, cruel, violent, impulsive, even depraved, but that is only because their innately noble characters have been corrupted by the artificial inducements and blandishments of a debauched society. After the revolution, a new human—and a new people—will arise without the stain of original sin.

Writing in 2024, one hardly needs to warn about the parade of atrocities that often follows this prediction of a paradisal future. We have the tragic and bloody lessons of the French and Russian Revolutions. We know that few things so reliably lead to ruin as the pursuit of paradise. Those of us who are conservative might also extract a more general though less poetic lesson from such social upheavals: Revolution itself is the enemy and ought to be avoided.