The Biden years (2021–2025) will be remembered not as an era of enlightened governance, but as the moment America surrendered its soul to a sterile, hyper-rationalist ideology, one that pretended to derive every social rule from first principles yet produced a suffocating conformity more oppressive than any medieval theocracy. From corporate dress codes dictated by "health authorities" to Silicon Valley's algorithmic speech police, the period exposed the fatal flaw in all rationalist projects: the more a society insists its order is logically airtight, the more it must crush any deviation to preserve the illusion. As Brian Cabana trenchantly argues, (link below), ideological societies, whether Marxist, Rawlsian, or Biden-era "postwar liberalism," are inherently totalitarian because their authority rests on the internal cogency of an abstract formula. One cracked premise, and the whole edifice collapses. Constitutional societies, rooted in pre-rational traditions, patriotism, faith, family, can tolerate contradiction precisely because they don't pretend to be mathematically provable.
This is not a plea for irrationality. It is a conservative warning: rationalism, untethered from the organic wisdom of a people, becomes a guillotine for freedom.
I. The Rationalist Trap: When "Correctness" Becomes Coercion
Every ideology is a system, a closed loop claiming to deduce the perfect society from axiomatic truths.
Marxism: History unfolds via class struggle; any counter-evidence is "false consciousness."
Rawlsian liberalism: Justice = fairness behind a "veil of ignorance"; any inequality is injustice.
Biden-era public health: "Follow the science" = obey the CDC's latest flowchart, even when it contradicts last week's.
The moment authority derives from the logical consistency of the system, dissent is not merely wrong, it is mathematically impossible. A single anomaly (Sweden's light lockdowns working; biological sex mattering in sports) threatens the entire equation. Thus, the ideological state must:
1.Suppress anomalies (censor, deplatform, "fact-check").
2.Manufacture confirming data (Lysenko genetics; "97% consensus" on climate; DEI "studies").
3.Expand control to every sphere, speech, thought, even pronouns, because one "incorrect step" unravels the proof.
This is why 2020–2024 saw:
Corporate HR departments issuing mask mandates with no statutory power.
Tech giants banning discussion of lab-leak theories before the FBI endorsed them.
Media monoliths running identical "disinformation" scripts within hours.
Not conspiracy, structural necessity. The ideology cannot admit error.
II. Constitutional Societies: Authority Beyond Proof
Contrast this with what Cabana calls a "constitutional society" — not a written document, but a shared Life World (Gadamer): myths, rituals, heroes, taboos. Authority here is pre-rational, like a father's over a child. It does not require justification; it is justification.
| Ideological Society | Constitutional Society |
| Authority = logical coherence of the system | Authority = sanctity of the tradition |
| Dissent = existential threat | Dissent = tolerable as long as it respects the sacred |
| Science = tool to prove the ideology | Science = tool to serve the people |
| Example: "Equity" mandates override biology | Example: "All men are created equal" coexists with sex-segregated sports |
Traditional societies could burn heretics yet tolerate tavern debates, because the core (God, king, family) was beyond question. Ideological societies tolerate no debate, because everything is up for rational proof.
III. The Totalitarian Endpoint of Rationalism
History is unambiguous: every rationalist utopia ends in terror.
| Ideology | Rational Promise | Totalitarian Reality |
| French Revolution (1789) | "Reason" will perfect man | Reign of Terror; 40,000 guillotined |
| Soviet Union | "Scientific socialism" | Gulags; 20 million dead |
| Cultural Revolution | "Continuous revolution" via reason | 2 million murdered; culture erased |
| Biden-era liberalism | "Evidence-based policy" | Censorship boards; corporate speech codes; "disinformation" ministries |
Why? Because rational systems cannot admit contradiction. The Marxist cannot allow a kulak to prosper; the liberal cannot allow a biological male to lose a women's swimming race. Reality must conform to the model, or be erased.
IV. The Conservative Alternative: Rooted Reason, Not Rootless Rationalism
Conservatism does not reject reason. It subordinates it to the given, the nation, the family, the faith that preceded us. This is Burke's "wisdom of the species," not Plato's philosopher-kings.
1.Preserve the Sacred Core
oNational identity (borders, language, history)
oFamily (marriage, parenthood, inheritance)
oFaith (Christianity's moral grammar, even for agnostics)
2.Allow Rational Inquiry at the Periphery
oDebate tax rates, school curricula, energy policy.
oBut never put the nation itself on the negotiating table.
3.Reject Universal Systems
oNo "original position" (Rawls).
oNo "historically inevitable" class struggle (Marx).
oJust the concrete duties of this people, in this place, at this time.
V. The Gray Mold of Pedantry: Rationalism's Cultural Suicide
Cabana's most chilling image: a nation of Neil deGrasse Tysons, reducing cathedrals to "carbon footprints," love to "oxytocin," heroism to "evolutionary signalling." Rationalism's endgame is not liberation but sterility, a world where:
Beauty is "subjective" (so tear down the statues).
Loyalty is "tribalism" (so open the borders).
Children are "genderless" (so sterilise them).
Traditional societies produced Dante, Bach, and the Magna Carta. Ideological societies produce HR training videos and pronoun mandates.
VI. A Call to Constitutional Revival
The path forward is not to abandon reason, but to re-embed it in the soil of a particular people. Conservatives must:
1.Defend the pre-rational — flag, family, faith — as non-negotiable.
2.Starve the ideological state — defund universities that teach "systemic oppression" as fact.
3.Restore localism — let Australia be Australia, Texas be Texas, Vermont be Vermont; no national "equity" algorithm.
4.Celebrate the mythic — parades, not PowerPoints; anthems, not apologies.
The Biden interlude was not an aberration. It was rationalism's logical conclusion. Only a return to the constitutional, for Australians and Americans, to the givenness of a people, can save us from the gray, suffocating future of the ideologue's dream.
"The rationalist thinks he can build a society like a bridge. The conservative knows societies grow like trees — slowly, organically, and only if you don't try to redesign the roots."
Let the ideologues keep their maths formulas. We will keep our flag, our families, and our freedom!
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/11/rationalism_not_all_it_s_cracked_up_to_be.html