Conservatism -- It's Alive!
A short excerpt from a long piece in The New Republic that asserts “conservatism is dead”:
Many have observed that movement politics most clearly defines itself not by what it yearns to conserve but by what it longs to destroy—“statist” social programs; “socialized medicine”; “big labor”; “activist” Supreme Court justices, the “media elite”; “tenured radicals” on university faculties; “experts” in and out of government.
But, if it’s clear what the right is against, what exactly has it been for?
Isn’t that a strange couple of paragraphs? It’s as though the author imagines conservatives want to destroy these things as an end, rather than as a means of conservation. So one could say that conservatives want to “destroy socialized medicine” — or that they want to conserve free markets in health care, freedom of choice for consumers, and a federal government that limits itself to tasks delineated by the Constitution.
One could say that conservatives want to destroy “activist Supreme Court judges,” but that obscures the fact that their primary goal is to conserve the Constitution as understood by the Founders and the legislators who passed its various amendments, to conserve the right to bear arms, to conserve the safeguards we enjoy due to a federal system of enacting laws, etc.
Were I intent on framing matters as though liberals merely wanted to destroy things, I suppose I could write that they want to destroy prayer in schools, to destroy rights for the unborn, to destroy the ability of the rich to keep what they earn — but that would be silly, because it isn’t that liberals want to destroy those things, it’s that they want to preserve religious freedom, expand autonomy for women, and increase income equality and the status of the poor.
This is a rather elementary point in political discourse, and grasping how a flip in perspective changes things would seem to be a prerequisite for writing a lengthy magazine piece on political philosophy. That isn’t to say that there aren’t any conservatives who are motivated by a desire to destroy, or schadenfreude, or other malign motives — indeed I criticize those conservatives all the time — but the idea that all conservatives are so animated is the kind of misguided premise that might lead a writer toward the silly conclusion that conservatism is dead.
UPDATE: Russel Arbon Fox sums up the piece by saying its author argues that modern conservatism, “whenever it has attempted to be something more than an Oakeshottian disposition, whenever it has attempted to address modern life as a political ideology, has been troubled by capitalism. Which should be apparent to anyone who understands either the basics of capitalist economics or the fundamental meanings of words.”
After all, what kind of social order can be “conserved” in conjunction with a market economy that encourages the evolution of tastes, the invention of labor-saving devices, the expansion of opportunities, the shifting of investments, the move to mass production, and all the other elements of that “creative destruction” which bring about so much diversification and wealth (and corruption)?
Well, one kind of social order that can be conserved is the one established by the Constitution — a federal republic of enumerated powers, where matters not mentioned are reserved for the states and the people. It is a framework that at least conserves certain basic freedoms. Were conservatives merely assured that they could stay within the guidelines of the Founders — amendments included! — it’s a bargain many would accept.
Conor, you’re certainly correct that one could look upon the Constitution as itself constituting an order worth being conserved, and so far as that goes then, being “conservative” in modern America might well be a relatively straightforward proposition. (I’m personally doubtful that would fly in electoral terms, because we are social creatures, and invest our social orders with meanings and cultural significances that many of us think ought to be conserved and which go far beyond the bare bones of the Constitution’s social contract, but leave that aside for now.) The problem I would see with that definition working, however, is that “the guidelines of the Founders—amendments included,” when it comes to responding to the economic changes that modern capitalism regularly brings about, have been and will continue to be very broadly and very diversely interpreted, and then re-interpreted. Is Lochner “conservative”? Is the federal income tax? Is the stimulus package? If your answer is yes, then you’re making Andrew Sullivan’s point, which isn’t, I think, what Tanenhaus is really getting at: Obama’s a “conservative” because he’s smart and practical and careful, which means that conservatism is just a formal kind of legislative or tempermental prudence. If your answer is no, though, then you still have to address the central argument of Tanenhaus’s piece: if conservatism must mean the preservation of social order which admits federal action in response to economic change in only a very limited sphere, then almost no one is going to be a conservative, because just about everyone votes “socialist” with their feet. (And, I would argue, reasonably so.)
— Russell Arben Fox · Feb 4, 02:08 PM · #
“…you still have to address the central argument of Tanenhaus’s piece: if conservatism must mean the preservation of social order which admits federal action in response to economic change in only a very limited sphere, then almost no one is going to be a conservative, because just about everyone votes “socialist” with their feet. “
The central argument of the piece was that conservative political and governing philosophy – as a “movement” – is dead.
To answer your question: it’s the very broad and diverse (otherwise known as “liberal”) interpretation of the Constitionality of federal government policy invtervention on economic grounds to which conservatism must take its stand. Maybe these open interpretations have been, and will continue to be, used to justify federal economic policy. That doesn’t mean they are RIGHT.
A political movement and/or an electorally-succesful party may not be able to sustain this message. However, those people who seek to conserve Constitutionally-bound economic principles (e.g. sound money) still have a powerful voice in our republic.
— mattc · Feb 4, 05:30 PM · #
Note, I’m not a conservative, but if I were working through the points, I think a Burkean would take issue with your conception of conservatism as “that which conserves the constituition,” as another poster made. I think a Burkean con would argue that the Constitution makes no mention of marriage, of the right to raise children, the right to form relationships of trust, friendship, love, culture, society, and makes no moral, ethical, or religious prescriptions (Burke might have also added it creates no King, something our government doesn’t have but our culture clearly has). A Burkean would then probably argue that all of these things are antecedent and essential to everything the Constitution stands for, and that, as the TNR article states, the Constitution is the “fruit” of a lot of civil society and tradition. If you permit an interpretation of the Constitution to undermine these things, then the Constitution loses its power. And further, if a Constitution permits such things, it’s probably a bad Constitution and should be rewritten (or politely ignored).
Now, I’m not a conservative, so I’m pretty skeptical of a lot of this apparatus — I think a Burkean con would be required to conclude that only freeholding males should have complete voting rights, because that’s traditionally where power resides (regardless of the artifice you might strap to the top of your culture) and what compelling reason is there to change? — but I see the point in all this and it’s clear that whatever the Republicans were doing for the last 20 years, it wasn’t particularly “conservative” and all the contradictions have rained down on their heads.
You might see the “destructive language” of Republican politics as a sort of liberal slander, as if we on the left invented it to make conservatives look reactionary, but that’s not how we see it. For us it’s watching the work of our previous two generations of politicians systematically disassembled, not even because it didn’t work (and some of it didn’t, I grant), but because the Republican party was simply giving a pitchfork mob whatever the hell it wanted, damn the consequences to our culture and society, in exchange for votes. Where a conservative might have called Social Security “tantamount to Communism,” it clearly isn’t, and most liberals (and most of the contemporaneous culture) saw it as merely decent and the minimum a civilized people can offer its elderly. What’s so conservative about old people having to eat cat food to survive? I understand the philosophical arguments about why it’s wrong to give people SSI, and they’re good, but no one should starve on account of a philosophy. That’s not very conservative either, and while starting social security or welfare isn’t very conservative, actively restricting it to make an essentially moral point is even less conservative.
So, when I hear a conservative writer call for “conserving the constitution,” my experience tells me this means “continue the legal roll back to 1920.” It might help some of us over here understand the project better if you were to phrase it in terms that didn’t instantly make us Constitution-haters for disagreeing with you ;)
Sorry I went too long.
— jamie · Feb 4, 07:26 PM · #
“Were conservatives merely assured that they could stay within the guidelines of the Founders — amendments included! — it’s a bargain many would accept.”
Yup.
And we would still be a slave nation.
Thanx but no thanx, Conor.
— matoko_chan · Feb 4, 10:57 PM · #
And conservatism is dead or nearly so.
Nat’l health care and Obama’s plan to use the faith based-initiative to bricolage churces into local welfare engines will kill it off.
You thought you were for small government because that is doing “teh right thing”?
Lol…..large government aka teh welfare state kills religious belief.
Look at the secualrization of Scandanavia, Britain and Europe.
Even Oz has the secular disease.
Like I said, this election was the political equivalent of the extinction event at the K-T boundary.
Conservatism is already dead….you just can’t admit yet.
This is all just campfire songs.
lol.
— matoko_chan · Feb 4, 11:05 PM · #
Jamie, your description of a “Burkean Conservative” fits me to a tee. It’s not at all clear to me that capitalist economics allows the possibility of defending the constitutional order. The Bellocian Servile State doesn’t let some silly piece of paper get in the way of helping out those poor needy folks that depend on its largess.
That said, I wouldn’t necessarily favor a constitution that is explicitly pro-family and pro-community over one that merely allowed for the flourishing of that order and derived its mechanisms from the health of that order (e.g. by restricting the franchise to household heads, as you mention).
— Ethan C. · Feb 5, 03:59 AM · #
“[O]ne kind of social order that can be conserved is the one established by the Constitution” I don’t think that a successful constitution establishes a social order. Social order precedes and informs successful constitutions. A constitution that attempts to establish a social order risks conflagration along the lines of the French Revolution. And constitutions that cannot accommodate the inevitable changes in a social order are doomed in the long run. I think this quote hints at precisely the diseased sort of conservatism Tanenhaus describes.
— Greg · Feb 5, 05:59 AM · #
While I take the hint w/r/t the “mere scrap of paper,” I’m not crazy about the idea of people staving to death on account of a philosophy (The Wealth of Nations is a piece of paper just as much as Section 8 is). And I think my broader point stands, that constitution freedoms are meaningless if you live in a society that tolerates people starving while others have plenty. Clearly there’d be a contradiction here if you believe everyone has a ironclad and inalienable right to their property, and thus government forcing you to feed the starving was a ‘taking,’ which is why I don’t really believe in an ironclad right to property, thus I’m a eevil librul.
If you’re a conservative, the problem as far as I can figure it is you have to be able to believe that all of the rights and obligations of our constitution remain intact for all men, regardless of their wealth and if they are able to sustain their needs of survival. I don’t suspect people work this way, and if there were no… what is it called… “safety net” the only people with substantive rights would be people who have money, and wealth would offer a playing field on which people would compete for exercise thereof, and while I can see the arguments in favor of this thing, it isn’t very classically liberal or classically democratic.
You could write one like this — the current Russian constitution goes on for pages about the right of a mother to have a child, the rights of families — it’s all short-circuited by executive authority but that’s beside the point. My question for the conservative is “Why not restrict the franchise to freeholders?” Owning land indicates that a person has made a true commitment to his community, and isn’t just some drifter with his own crazy ideas; sure we all have human dignity and rights, but do you need to be able to vote in order to secure these? Conservatism spent the last three centuries answering this last question with a “no,” and I can comprehend the argument in favor of this, and I don’t understand why they all suddenly changed their mind between the ends of the two World Wars. Is the long-standing and durable tradition of the wealthy land-owners acting as conservators of the interests of the poor no longer valid, or has has it merely become unfashionable? And while they speak of equality and liberty for all, they just do what they always did, and tip the scales in favor of property = political power over ideas = political power.
I’m not questioning any one conservative’s commitment to universal human liberty, just saying that I see a big schism in the philosophical workings of the thing when it comes to property and power.
Sorry I went too long again.
— jamie · Feb 5, 09:15 PM · #
My take meshes pretty well with Jamie’s, but my quick, pithy response to Conor would simply challenge his use of the word “conserve” to describe efforts to re-establish a legal and moral order that no longer exists by tearing down the institutions that replaced it.
In a purely literal sense of each word this type of politics would more accurately be described as “reactionary” rather than “conservative”, and there would need be a fairly substantial amount of “destruction” in order to achieve such ends.
This ties back into the increasingly common conceit that “liberals” are the Burkeans of the Welfare State.
All of which is to say that a movement which promotes slashing federal programs, overturning court decisions, etc., may be conservative in spirit and driven by misty-eyed devotion to tradition… but in practice it advocates radical change. This is the contradiction that has lurked in the conservative movement since the Goldwater era. And the more radically the movement has advocated for reactionary change, the more it has alienated average Americans who are generally inclined to conserve the actually existing institutions of their society.
— LaFollette Progressive · Feb 5, 10:14 PM · #
It seems to me that the pure basis for the conservative movement is to provide a bulwark against cultural evolution.
Which is simply a doomed and futile effort only capable of tactical successes when democracy funtions as a mob rule by conservatives.
— matoko_chan · Feb 5, 10:35 PM · #
check this Conor.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2009/02/godless_watch_continued.cfm
money quote—
The goal of this office will not be to favor one religious group over another – or even religious groups over secular groups. It will simply be to work on behalf of those organizations that want to work on behalf of our communities, and to do so without blurring the line that our founders wisely drew between church and state.
Doomed as doomed could be.
;)
— matoko_chan · Feb 6, 03:09 AM · #
“My question for the conservative is “Why not restrict the franchise to freeholders?””
And this conservative answers, “Why not, indeed?” :)
Actually, the reason why it might not be a good idea to restrict the franchise is because it could deprive the poor and disadvantaged of a tool to better their lot. We certainly would never want to do such a thing. However, I’m with the agrarians and other localists in generally thinking that governmental power is an awfully bad tool for bettering the lot of the poor, and often ends up doing them (the poor in particular, not just “society as a whole”) more harm than good, or giving them only a phantasmal sense of freedom, with their political enslavement being masked by material security.
A just society is possible without imperial government only if there is a strong alternative forum for the assignment of political power and economic opportunity to the poor. This requires consciously and deliberately protecting certain institutions from the marketplace—which, incidentally is exactly what a constitution does.
The trouble with democracy is that, by itself, it does not actually protect the political rights of the lowly from the market. It actually tends to simply serve as a mechanism by which the votes of the poor can be more efficiently sold to the highest bidder. Representative democracy and a constitutional order try to mitigate the dangers of democracy by partially shielding the process from the marketplace, but that order can only survive as long as people value it.
— Ethan C. · Feb 6, 06:02 AM · #
LaFollette Progressive:
Suppose a cuckoo lays its eggs in the nests of two different birds. When the first cuckoo chick hatches, the first bird raises it as its own, feeds it, keeps pace with its insatiable hunger by bringing it more and more food, until finally the cuckoo chick is strong enough to push the bird’s other chicks out of the nest and get all the food for itself.
The second bird pushes the cuckoo chick out of the nest as soon as it hatches.
Which of the two birds was conserving its own chicks?
— Ethan C. · Feb 6, 06:11 AM · #