A Postmodern Conservatism? Part III
A Postmodern Conservatism? Part I
A Postmodern Conservatism? Part II
Conservatism – the negation of ideology, the political secularization of the doctrine of original sin, the cautious sentiment tempered by prudence, the product of organic, local human organization observing and reforming its customs, the distaste for a priori principle disassociated from historical experience – partakes of the mysteries of free will, divine guidance, and human agency by existing in but not of the confusions of modern society, as it offers no framework of action, no tenet, no theory, no article of faith. Nature will not be possessed, nor overcome: happiness (forever elusive when the individual or the “will of the people” as organized by the state is the base unit of society and the chief agent of freedom, as opposed to the family and the Communion the family reflects) absent virtue is temporary and fleeting. It must be consonant with the purpose and limitation of nature. How, then, might a postmodern sentiment work toward the good in the seeking of more permanent things?
Much of the problem of modern morality is evidenced by the unstable status of the good. It is very difficult to choose what will make us happy, for how can happiness be found? The world is full of noise and confusion, quite a lot of it glittering yet in the end false. Christ calls us to wisdom and to Himself through the Greatest Commandment, which is to love the Lord God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself. The pursuit of wisdom, goodness, and permanence outside of this call is a source of restlessness and artificial happiness – a diversion to nothingness. The drive to conquer nature should be associated with the inability to live well, as the impulse swells into the vacuum of status-seeking, inevitable in its failure due to sin….and only to be met with inescapable death.
Christians must affirm that humans do possess the ability to live well. Postmodernism, in its acceptance of the sentimental imagination as a conduit of appreciation for the inexpressible, laments that the altar of rationality and ideological construction too often works to separate humanity from historical existence. The modernist push (rooted in Enlightenment liberalism) against mediating structures so as to better support abstract rights cannot easily tolerate smaller groups from which individuals come together to create and share meaning: nature instead exists in itself as an extension of human personality, and cultures develop from such norms. The root of its danger is a rationalist reordering of the undesirable. Yet the postmodernist and the conservative recognize that ordered societal explanations of totality is to be avoided not only because we cannot access them, but because it is not wise to human nature to try – the totalitarian temptation is far too well established.
Postmodernism need not abandon all attempts to find foundational meaning or truth. There is simply recognition that philosophy has limits, and a recognition that rationalism – perhaps the most consistent underpinning of modernist projects – can never eradicate the inherent mysteries of existence. Any totalizing theorist, therefore, especially those partaking in the universalist and abstract, rejects the mystery that is a synonym for the human creation (avowed and self-identified postmodernists thinkers included). The intersection of Christianity, conservatism, and postmodernism is the understanding and acceptance of the unknowable, internalized so as to scorn promises to unlock the mysteries that have and will always endure.
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- A Postmodern Conservatism? Part IV « Vox Nova
- A Postmodern Conservatism? Part V « Vox Nova
- A Postmodern Conservatism? Part VI « Vox Nova
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I second your intersecting postmodernism and the Christian understanding of mystery. Indeed, it was Catholic writers of mystery, such as Gabriel Marcel and Flannery O’Connor, who ushered me down the road towards a postmodern approach to philosophy.
I heartily endorse the project of rapprochement between Christian thought and the better elements of postmodern theory; the aversion of so many Christian intellectuals to this project is, I am increasingly persuaded, a reflection of an anti-historicist – and thus, ideological – tendency in Christian/conservative thought that is stultifying to the best insights of both. Frankly, with an encrusted, ideological pseudo-conservatism having received an electoral rebuke this week, I should think these points rather obvious.
Very well written!!!
There is simply recognition that philosophy has limits, and a recognition that rationalism – perhaps the most consistent underpinning of modernist projects – can never eradicate the inherent mysteries of existence.
Of course, this conservative postmodernism is ok just as long as it only applies to the “modernist projects” of liberals. Considerations about “the inherent mysteries of existence” goes out the window when conservatives are in a position to make the rules.
Antonio
I agree. I really don’t see Jonathan really having engaged the basic post-modern writers. If he did, he would see they tend to be of “the left.” More importantly, the notion that conservatism is anti-ideological is absurd. It’s nature IS to preserve and conserve the ideologies of the past. It’s to me as anti-post-modern as possible.
Henry,
Respectfully, I do not believe that anyone familiar with the very near-consensus founder of conservatism, Edmund Burke, would state that its nature is to “preserve and conserve the idologies of the past.” In fact, Burke was a fierce advocate of change and reform – in India, in the American colonies, in parliament, in his own constituencies….What writers did you have in mind with such a statement? In what works? Conservatism as the negation of ideology is affirmed by many very prominent writers – all of the British ones certainly, from Coleridge to Scruton. You could maybe make a case for Willmoore Kendall and von Kuehnelt-Leddihn as ideologues, but I’d be curious about reasons.
Antonio,
I made and will make no policy or political statements in this series. You are reading something into the post that is not there. The term “modernist project” refers to anything that assumes the individual is the fundamental unit of society, because I use modernist as a synonym for Enlightenment. Your criticism strikes me as partisan and shallow.
I really don’t see Jonathan really having engaged the basic post-modern writers. If he did, he would see they tend to be of “the left.”
Aside from the criticisms of modernity, it strikes me as difficult to generalize about postmodern writers. And that most are of the political left (criticial theory, granted, certainly would be a strange fit for the political right) may be true but is not terribly relevant to thinking through how conservatives might utilize some of its critiques and methodology.
Conservatism, at least that of Edmund Burke and Russell Kirk, aims to conserve thinking and practice that have been worked out and developed over time. Conservatives are anti-ideology in that they oppose making thought and practice – things intimately rooted in time and place – into bloodless abstractions uprooted from reality. They prefer and trust more that which has been repeatedly shown to work, but not because some new idea must be false or because time-tested wisdom is absolute truth itself.
Both conservatism and postmodernism recognize that we are situated in time and place and that whatever we produce in time and place cannot be divorced from our temporality. The ideologies opposed by conservatives and the meta-narratives opposed by postmodernists attempt to do just that: make the temporal into the eternal, the developing into the absolute, truth into Truth.
Kyle
Most of the post-moderns I know deconstruct those very notions which conservatives have tried to conserve, and point out the problems of said traditions. Look, for example, at the so-called conservative affirmation of capitalism. While many might try to suggest they follow Kirk or Burke, they have gone beyond them, as well, so to recite them while ignoring such changes, imo, is self-deception.
Most of the post-moderns I know deconstruct those very notions which conservatives have tried to conservem, and point out the problems of said traditions.
Yes. In this way, I think postmodernists help conservatives by keeping them honest, reminding them that the traditions they conserve are limited and problematic and shouldn’t be made into idols. Conservatives aid postmodernists by reminding them that there are things worth conserving, even if they are flawed.
I think postmodernists help conservatives by keeping them honest, reminding them that the traditions they conserve are limited and problematic and shouldn’t be made into idols.
Yes, good point. And as far as capitalism goes – especially in its big government, big business, crony form – Kirk was very much against it. On economic questions – insofar as he thought about them, as a literary-minded fellow – he seems to have admired Chesterton, the Southern Agrarians, and Henry George ect. He lamented liberalism in both its market and its individualized forms.
Notice, Jonathan, how I pointed out modern so-called conservatives go beyond Burke and Kirk. There is a reason for this; while they will use elements of both, they will ignore others, especially in regards to economics (among other areas). The problem I see is most conservatives name drop, with some out of context quotes, without understanding the situation in which the quotes were said, because often it would lead to an opposite position than they now take. And this can be seen in how selective they are in reading the conservatives of the 19th century.
The conservative movement in America has always been a loose coalition with internal contradictions (quite like most movements looking to advance causes in the political sphere). Burke and Kirk have quite a lot of influence, but they will always be ignored by many, just as the Austrian economic school or Wilsonian foreign policy schemes are ignored by many. All, however, work in the same loose coalition.
Political movements of the left are no different. In fact, Wilsonianism is IMO a movement of the left, given its strong roots in the progressive era and in the social gospel theories of government action.
I made and will make no policy or political statements in this series.
You are reading something into the post that is not there. The term “modernist project” refers to anything that assumes the individual is the fundamental unit of society, because I use modernist as a synonym for Enlightenment. Your criticism strikes me as partisan and shallow.
Since you seem to apply your notion of mystery and indeterminacy only to what you call ‘modernist’ projects, how else can your idea of conservatism be construed?
Any other interpretation would lead one to question the legitimacy of any institution’s right to be the exclusive arbiter of reality. I can’t believe that was your intent (nor can I can see the magisterium buying into that any time soon).
As to Modernism, while it may be a product of the Enlightenment, it is not synonymous with it. As Kant said:
Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance from another.
…
Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why so great a proportion of men, long after nature has released them from alien guidance…nonetheless gladly remain in lifelong immaturity, and why it is so easy for others to establish themselves as their guardians.