Michael Pollan, Burkean conservative?

You've read my lengthy American Conservative interview with Michael Pollan, yes? As I've said here before, the great Pollan was surprised to learn that there are conservatives who are right there with him (and he admits to being a traditionalist in culinary matters). Obsidian Wings takes note of the Burkean elements of Pollan's food writing. Excerpt:

What's interesting, though, about Pollan's argument is how fundamentally conservative it is. In particular, it seems to echo many of Edmund Burke's arguments in that it values the wisdom of traditional customs over the puny powers of Western reason.

To back up, the most powerful conservative Burkean argument has always been an epistemological one - that is, Burke is most persuasive when he's talking about the limits of human reasoning powers. (This will be familiar to old LF readers). Burke is skeptical about our abilities to determine "the good" from abstract thinking. Instead of trying to recreate a brave new world on paper, we should instead look to the wisdom inherent in customs and tradition.

Under this view, tradition isn't glorified for tradition's sake. Tradition is instead a giant laboratory that provides us insight into what works and what doesn't work. To Burke, we abandon these traditions at our peril when we opt for sudden change or revolution. (Admittedly, this view also justifies existing exploitative relations - e.g., slavery - but that's a different post).

Anyway, whether Pollan intended it or not, a lot of these Burkean themes run through In Defense of Food, including: (1) skepticism of modernity; (2) wisdom of customs; and (3) the harms of sudden change.

BTW, Michael e-mailed me a couple of weeks ago to say he was taking "Crunchy Cons" with him on vacation to read. I 'spect he'll come back all converted. Heh. Ain't you read it yet? All the cool kids have, you know. Heh heh.

(Via John Schwenkler.)