Centuries Of Teaching, But No Learning

Well, I guess everyone can change his mind over time, but what a change the last column was from this (via Yglesias):

The Bush folks, at least when it comes to Africa policy [bold mine-DL], have learned from centuries of conservative teaching – from Burke to Oakeshott to Hayek – to be skeptical of Sachsian grand plans. Conservatives emphasize that it is a fatal conceit to think we can understand complex societies, or rescue them from above with technocratic planning [bold mine-DL].

So people in the administration are deeply immersed in the wisdom of the conservative intellectual tradition when they’re working on Africa policy, so they must just forget about it the rest of the time.  That makes sense, right?  Er, no.

Then again, maybe Brooks has a point.  There certainly never was any extensive “technocratic planning” done by this administration, and no one would accuse them of even trying to understand complex societies.  There are some who would love to attribute this to the mythical conspiracy whereby anti-government conservatives govern badly to prove that government can’t work, but it really is a case of this administration not knowing what they’re doing.  (It would also help this theory if there were a lot of conservatives in the administration.)