Setting Priorities
There’s been a fun back-and-forth between Ross Douthat and Daniel Larison about whether and how paleoconservatives could become politically relevant (Larison’s latest is here and from there one can work backward to Ross’s original column).
It seems to me that what Ross is really saying isn’t that paleos are too ideological but that they do not intelligently set priorities. That is to say: while in some quarters (certainly Larison’s would be one) there’s an understanding that compromise is necessary, there’s no general agreement about what should be compromised: about what is the relative order of priorities.
Thus, Larison is right that The American Conservative is characterized by an encouraging intellectual eclecticism – and Ross is also right that paleos are quixotically both devoted to a “no enemies on the right” philosophy and to arcane squabbles over ideological purity. Both are characteristics of an intellectual tendency that does not lend itself to being a political movement – which was Ross’s point in the first place.
I think it would be interesting, if presented with a poll of choices, how paleoconservatives would actually rank their policy preferences? Assuming that there’s a significant bloc of paleos who oppose a confrontational policy with Iran; who oppose abortion; who oppose race-conscious legislation such as affirmative action; who oppose legislation that restricts gun rights; who oppose Executive branch encroachments on civil liberties such as the right to detain designated enemy combatants without trial; and so forth – assuming one could construct such a list, how would paleos prioritize these items as political matters? What is central and what is peripheral? What is pressing and what can be deferred? Is there even a consensus about what the list should consist of?
What I suspect is that, for a significant number of self-identified paleos, the priority list would be wildly at variance with Larison’s priority list, and that this variance would go some way towards explaining both the “no enemies on the right” perspective and the tendency towards purity tests and such. But we’d have to see the data to know for sure.
I suspect that, for Larison, the most important issues relate to foreign policy, with civil liberties a distant second and both social and economic questions further back in the back. That is to say: his top priorities line up better with the priority list of a left-wing critic of the Obama Administration like Glenn Greenwald than with his fellows on the right, even if the larger intellectual framework and much of the stuff further down on the list would be stuff where he and Greenwald would strongly disagree.
If I’m right, and if most paleos agree, then there’s a basis for cooperation with the Greenwalds of the world, and a clear way that a paleo tendency could make itself relevant. But what if a significant bloc of paleos is concerned primarily with questions of race and identity? Or with some other issue – abortion, opposition to Federal regulation, gun rights – that sits comfortably within the existing Republican coalition? Then the basis for making that tendency politically effective is much less obvious.
I think you might be underselling the importance of inertia and tribalism, especially in that last paragraph.
For many people, I think, one’s views on issues are determined not from some set of a priori beliefs, but out of allegiance to the choices one’s team has made. The deficit is important now even though a few years ago deficits didn’t matter ; the government can’t be trusted to administer regulations, but should be able to recreate the Middle East in our image, etc.
Team GOP has institutional advantages over paleocons. That, more than prioritized views on issues, accounts for paleocons’ failure to win elections.
You’re right that a government skeptic like Larison could make common cause with Greenwald on civil liberties issues— Kucinich and Paul spoke highly of each other during the ’08 campaign, even though they are often dismissed as the outer fringe of their parties. But right now, Larison is writing about a particular candidate, hoping for the first paleocon in the Senate since Reconstruction. Or Taft, or whenever. Larison has the unfortunate uphill battle of defending someone whose views are ethnocentric and poorly considered , but it is perfectly defensible for him to hope to elect someone who will vote in the way he’d prefer in the Senate more than two thirds of the time for the first time in his life.
— Elvis Elvisberg · May 26, 04:58 PM · #
You can sum up Ross’s original column in one undeniable sentence: People who express unpopular views tend to be unpopular.
On the other hand, Ross’s assertion that unpopular people are unpopular because they are unrealistically principled seems only partly true. There are many people who are widely hated for their realism. For example, I constantly read people vomiting up the most hateful things to say about Charles Murray, but almost none of it is related to Murray’s self-identified (but quite limited and realistic) libertarianism. Instead, they are viciously angry toward Murray for his years of careful empirical research.
Similarly, there have been long term rages against scientists of moderate political views, such as James D. Watson (a lifelong moderate Democrat), Edward O. Wilson (a self-identified New Deal Democrat), and Arthur Jensen, not because of their ideology (the only thing I know, for example, about Jensen’s politics is that he has been an admirer of Gandhi), but because of their realism.
— Steve Sailer · May 26, 11:34 PM · #
Noah writes:
“If I’m right, and if most paleos agree, then there’s a basis for cooperation with the Greenwalds of the world, and a clear way that a paleo tendency could make itself relevant. But what if a significant bloc of paleos is concerned primarily with questions of race and identity?”
Everybody is concerned with questions of race and identity. The President of the United States, for example, spent years writing a huge book wholly devoted to his own personal “story of race and inheritance.”
My personal political dream is that the American public develops a sense of humor about who has power over discourse in our country. When Tom Friedman or Joe Lieberman or David Brooks or Martin Peretz or whomever starts ranting about how America has to bomb Dirtbagistan to protect our national security or has to let in zillions of illegal immigrants because of Ellis Island, I want average Americans to roll their eyes and be unable to suppress their giggles.
— Steve Sailer · May 27, 12:05 AM · #
“You can sum up Ross’s original column in one undeniable sentence: People who express unpopular views tend to be unpopular.” — Steve Sailer
And some people, they’re unpopular because they’re smug, provincial mediocrities obsessed with race.
That’s you, Steve.
Kudos though on your abandonment of Saturday Night Live catch-phrases from the early 80s. Granted, you’re still a self-satisfied yokel, but the prose is a bit less excruciating these days.
— Oh, the Sailer Boy · May 27, 02:41 PM · #
Speaking of Obama…
“And some people, they’re unpopular because they’re smug, provincial mediocrities obsessed with race.”
Sums up the empty suit / rube that is our President pretty well.
— tomaig · May 27, 04:06 PM · #
I think shutting this down had better be your top priorty.
AOS has passed into Total Troll Control, where the percentage of griefer, mobie, and troll content has passed 50%.
This is happening (like being blindsided by the teabagger meme) because geek culture is impenetrable to conservatives. Not only are your websites built by techno-luddites, the right is wholly cultural-luddites anymore.
You can’t do web-based memetic engineering without geeks…the right needs geeks worse than hispanic conservatives.
AOS is infested with engineer-moties at this point.
— matoko_chan · May 27, 04:36 PM · #
for chet—
<3
the AOS site has passed TTC (total troll control), where more than 50% of content is generated by trolls, mobies, and griefers. What this means in Mote Space is that the geek-engineer-moties have taken over AOS, and it will have to be nuked from space.
— matoko_chan · May 27, 04:45 PM · #
There’s been a fun back-and-forth between Ross Douthat and Daniel Larison
this kinda stuff just drives me crazy.
no one cares about this “fun” intellectual back-and-forth about who’s the real conservative, Noah.
that isn’t who you are anymore…..you ARE is your base.
And your base is in real trouble, and its your fault.
— matoko_chan · May 27, 05:04 PM · #
I can never comprehend the teabagger impression of Obama – simultaneously a Chicago insider and a scary foreigner; a Machiavellian socialist supervillian and a moron who gets played by everyone.
It’s clear that they’re throwing anything they can and seeing what sticks. (So far, nothing.)
— Chet · May 27, 07:31 PM · #
What about criticisms from the left?
— Keid A · May 27, 08:09 PM · #
Sailer Boy beat me to it on Sailer. True, E.O. Wilson isn’t racialist or worst, but, the other ppl Sailer tries to defend? All have one certain issue, or rather, bigotry problem, in common.
— SocraticGadfly · May 29, 06:06 AM · #
It seems our country’s government in Washington and at the state levels can’t prioritize what needs to be done first. We have our hands on too many problems and we never get anything done. I have to go back to my childhood when I finally realized I couldn’t get anything done because I had too many things going on and finally in the long run none of it got done. There is so much in fighting between the parties and this nevers gets anywhere or even helps. This country needs jobs and we should all be working towards that happening because just because you have a job does mean you can’t lose that job. We are so worried about the rest of the world we can’t even look at our own situation and realize we are more screwed up than most continents. For example Katrina, the Oil Spill, Poverty, these are all high priorities and should be addressed and number one should be creating jobs. Without jobs revenue and taxes can’t be paid people are on unemployment or welfare longer and this just makes it harder to apply that money to education, emergency staff, military and the list goes on. I watch the local channels with Congress and the Senate argueing over stupid things that take time. They should throw all the bull away and work on something really important like jobs….
The government really needs to learn how to prioritize!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
— Wayne · Jun 8, 01:32 AM · #
I can never comprehend the teabagger impression of Obama – simultaneously a Chicago insider and a scary foreigner; a Machiavellian socialist supervillian and a moron who gets played by everyone.
Aren’t you the person who wrote, based on nothing but crazy voices in your head, “to you, spitting on a Congressman and calling him a “nigger” just because you don’t his vote is “self-respect.””? You have a lot of cleanup to do in your own mind before you start on teabaggers.
And when you do get your own house in order and have some basis for critiquing others, you might want to discuss individual teabagger viewpoints, and not some vague all-encompassing summary that you made up. It might get you somewhere.
— The Reticulator · Jun 8, 05:46 AM · #
I have no idea if I’m a paleo-conservative or not, though based on your checklist it almost sounds like I could be one. But why should all paleo-conservatives have the same set of priorities? Politics is a messy business, with constantly shifting alliances between different interests, and adjustments to new events, etc. It doesn’t really lend itself to a neat set of priorities. My own top priority would be the repeal of ObamaCare and replacing it with real health care reform. I’d like that to be the top priority of everyone else, too. But I’m not sure it would be healthy for any political faction to be in great agreement about the top priorities.
— The Reticulator · Jun 8, 05:57 AM · #