“We put great energy into our visions. We do
everything but think about them.”
Thomas Sowell
Russell Kirk argued that classical conservatism is
dead. Largely true, the idea is tied to monarchy, landed aristocracy, and state
churches, which were effectively abolished by the appearance of Democratic
Republicanism onto the scene. “Conservatives have been routed,” argues Kirk, “though
not conquered.” This is not a sentimentality. It reflects the truth that,
unless Hegel is right about history being an inevitable march toward “progress,”—and
if anybody is honest, they will admit the last ten years have demolished that idea—conservatism
will live on. Peter Vierick argued conservatism is little more than the
political secularization of Original Sin. Conservatism and leftism may change
over time but will never die because, to perhaps oversimplify things, they are
manifestations of ideas present in the Garden: God is God, and Man is God.
In 1955, William F. Buckley Jr. explained in the first
issue of National Review their standards, clarifying and centering American conservatism
for the next half century.
Among our convictions: It
is the job of centralized government (in peacetime) to protect its citizens'
lives, liberty and property. All other activities of government tend to
diminish freedom and hamper progress. The growth of government (the dominant
social feature of this century) must be fought relentlessly. In this great
social conflict of the era, we are, without reservations, on the libertarian
side. The profound crisis of our era is, in essence, the conflict between the
Social Engineers, who seek to adjust mankind to scientific utopias, and the
disciples of Truth, who defend the organic moral order. We believe that truth
is neither arrived at nor illuminated by monitoring election results, binding
though these are for other purposes, but by other means, including a study of
human experience. On this point we are, without reservations, on the
conservative side.
There is much to like about this statement. It is
against the levelling instinct and the Utilitarian monster, which spawned the
twin demons of Scientism and Marxism. It promotes freedom, respects tradition
and the mystery of life, and asserts Truth over majoritarianism, all good
things. In Matthew Continetti’s book “The Right,” he documents the congealing of American conservatism in the 50’s as
a response to communism and the Cold War. The movement was a three-legged stool
of strong national defense, fiscal responsibility, and traditional family
values. Because conservatives are for order and stability or they are for
nothing, Buckley purged the movement of lunatics and radicals like Ayn Rand,
Joseph McCarthy, the John Bircher Society, and George Wallace, arguing
apologetically that, despite Buckley’s rubbing friendly shoulders with racists
in the 50’s, neither racism, nor hatred of religion, belonged in the party of Lincoln.
When the Soviet Union fell, the three-legged stool wobbled. As the
Neo-conservatism of George W. Bush was partly discredited by flag-draped
coffins returning from Iraq, conservatives drifted back to their natural
positions of a more modest and isolationist foreign policy. As the culture unmoored
itself from religion, the power the Moral Majority enjoyed in the 80’s
shriveled. With the populist, nationalist, anti-globalist Trump, who could not
care less about timeless truths, conservatives and the right, which are not the
same thing, are still married but sleeping in separate bedrooms. This leaves thoughtful
conservatives in an uncomfortable position: As the nation itself has
splintered, so too, has our own movement. This is not necessarily to the
benefit of the left, for theirs is even more shattered. Many liberals have yet
to realize that their core values of openness and tolerance, still held by
American conservatives, are hated by illiberal progressives, and if progressives
had their way, they would, after the main course of traditionalists, devour
liberals for dessert.
Conservatives are asking themselves, “Who are we?” This
was never an easy question to answer. The American Revolution was drenched in
Calvinistic, Burkean conservativism. What is also true, is that a government wholly
rooted in the consent of the governed and individualistic Natural Rights had
never existed. This codification of inalienable rights, free markets, civil
liberties, and limited government, was not conservative; It was liberal.
It was a republic and not democracy, of course, (a word completely vandalized
by today’s left) as the founders distrusted the mob as much as elites, but in 1789,
the scepter of power was dispersed as never before. To this day, American
conservatives have the instincts of Burke, Toqueville, and Adams. What we are
trying to conserve, however, is in part, a form of liberalism. Would it last?
Many founders feared it would not. Conservative intellectuals, especially in
the 19th century, warned that all majoritarian and liberal roads
lead to despotism. The notion is unsettling because the only way for a
pluralistic society to exist is for an ethic of tolerance (liberalism) to rule
the hearts of its citizens.
Liberalism, quite focused on liberty until the late 19th
century, became enamored with radical egalitarianism and the likes of Hegel,
Rousseau, and Marx. Conservatives noticed. Being meritocrats, they believe in the indispensability
of a robust “gentleman class.” Yet, if you read Burke’s or Toqueville’s defenses
of aristocracy, what stands out is the aristocrats’ immense responsibilities
and duties to the people. If one had a title, a most shameful thing would be to
squander the gift on hedonistic pursuits, fallow the mind on trivialities, or allow
those in your sphere of responsibility to fall to hunger or poverty. The great
irony is that modern elites, while embracing radical and fashionable egalitarian
ideas such as Critical Race Theory and sexual liberation, seem stuporously oblivious
to the impact of those ideas. One man noted recently that when he searched
Tinder for a girl near an elite university, most were “polyamorous.” When he extended
the search 20 miles, most were single mothers. The near total conquering of the
elite class by leftism is recent. There is a generational realignment that is morphing
the Republican archetype from bankers and industrialists to cashiers and oil
riggers. Historically, conservatives on soapboxes shouted that perpetually increasing
democracy would destroy the ties that bind us. They would argue today it was
the very process of artificially equalizing power and resources, that stripped elites
of their abilities, their greatness, and their responsibilities to the rest of
us. While American conservatives distrust elites, a most democratic trait, we
would argue that we did not lose faith in them; They
abandoned us. Deep down, we know our salvation depends not on destroying
elites, but in having better ones
So how, more precisely, do American conservatives
depart from our ideological forebears? For one, we are not European blood and
soil tribalists. For another, while retaining old notions about God, property,
human nature, order, and stability, we embrace the democratic liberalism of
expanded and equal rights and reject fixed classes and aristocracy. We love
authority, but ours is a more conceptual love than a practical one. We love the
authority of God and the rule of law, not government. We exist to fight the
ruling class’s impulse to plan and control our lives. Modern elites and institutions,
the ones conservatives, by nature, want desperately to believe in, have been
corrupted and fighting their smugness, corruption, decadence, and pseudo-Marxism,
has become our raison detre. It is an ironic way to live, one that makes sense
to us instinctively, but confuses others.
Republicans are now poised to surge back into power
because of the inevitable results of leftist kookery. It comforts Omnipotentblog
little. With the confused, emotionally fragile, and deeply equalitarian younger
generations coming of age, will the institutions so necessary for stability and
order be reformed and reinvigorated? I am not optimistic.
