Any regular reader of Vox Nova (who can tolerate me!) knows that I get irked by the frequent use of lazy labels like “liberal” and “conservative” given that these terms are typically devoid of all meaning. With that in mind, I enjoyed Sam Tanenhaus’s recent essay entitled ”Conservatism is Dead”. It’s worth a read, and you find echoes of what I and others have been saying all along about the modern American pseudo-conservative movement. Tanenhaus’s basic argument is that what Americans deem conservatism has become completely unmoored from the traditional understanding, and that:
“What passes for conservatism today would have been incomprehensible to its originator, Edmund Burke, who, in the late eighteenth century, set forth the principles by which governments might nurture the “organic” unity that bound a people together even in times of revolutionary upheaval. Burke’s conservatism was based not on a particular set of ideological principles but rather on distrust of all ideologies. In his most celebrated writings, his denunciation of the French Revolution and its English champions, Burke did not seek to justify the ancien regime and its many inequities. Nor did he propose a counter-ideology. Instead he warned against the destabilizing perils of revolutionary politics, beginning with its totalizing nostrums.”
Tanenhaus argues that what calls itself conservative in the United States today is replete with these very “totalizing nostrums”. Burke and his followers did not believe in a static society, but in progress guided by prudence, and specifically that “governments were obligated to use their powers to meliorate intolerable conditions”. Tanenhaus appeals to the experience of Benjamin Disraeli who “became an innovative reformer, partly to outflank the Liberals, partly to keep the Conservative party viable in a time of dynamic upheaval, but also because he came to see that, in the modern age, conservatism required an activist government that guarded the interests and needs of the entire population”. (In Ireland, Disraeli took an approach called “killing home rule by kindness”– the meaning here is pellucid). One of the people who noticed this American disconnect from an early stage was Arthur Schlesinger who pointed out with great insight that once:
“they [Kirk and others] leave the stately field of rhetoric and get down to actual issues of social policy, they tend quietly to forget about Burke and Disraeli and to adopt the views of the American business community….Disraeli with his legislation on behalf of trade unions, his demand for government intervention to improve working conditions, his belief in due process and civil freedom, his support for the extension of suffrage, his insistence on the principle of compulsory education! If there is anything in contemporary America that might win the instant sympathy of men like Shaftesbury and Disraeli, it could well be the school lunch program. But for all his talk of mutual responsibility and the organic character of society, Professor Kirk, when he gets down to cases, tends to become a roaring Manchester liberal of the Herbert Hoover school.”
Schlesinger hits the nail on the head, and what he says rings as true today as in the 1950s. For the American pseudo-conservative tradition is really just another branch of liberalism, rooted in the American constitutional tradition, and imbued with aspects of cultural Calvinism. The free market is deemed to inculcate moral virtue, and political strategy is crafted in an “us versus them” mentality that appears peculiar even in democracies with greater internal divisions than the United States. Here is Tanenhaus again:
“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.”
Tanenhaus argues that this is due to a Marxist influence as many who traveled the path toward pseudo-conservatism started out as Marxists:
“In place of the Marxist dialectic they formulated a Manichaean politics of good and evil, still with us today, and their strategy was to build a movement based on organizing cultural antagonisms.”
I think this argument is a little un-nuanced, for I believe the dualism comes more from the very American culturally Calvinist and/or Gnostic religious traditions that paints the world in stark “us versus them” terms. For Americans tend to see themselves as standing apart from other democracies, somehow above them, somehow more virtuous and “free”. Too many Americans see the role of the American military machine as imposing its own particular values on the rest of the world, blind to any historical or cultural context (from Wilson to Dulles to Bush). The pseudo-conservative movement has imbibed this way of thinking, from economics to foreign policy. Conservative, it is not.
But Tanenhaus is right to draw parallels with Marxism, and these parallels seem almost eerie today. The “movement” that Tanenhaus studies has now taken complete control of the rump Republican party, and this group seems to be adopting a Leninist strategy of destroying the system from within, a strategy that is the very antithesis of true conservatism. We have Republicans talking proudly about adopting the tactics of the Taliban, and Rush Limbaugh expressing his hope that the fiscal package will fail in the midst of the most profound economic slowdown in seventy years (I will stop taking Limbaugh seriously when the movement stops doing so). In other words, he sees a catastrophic economic calamity as the price worth paying for a return to power. And nobody says a word against him. This is the ethos of revolution, very Marxist in tone.
There is certainly a place in the American polity for an authentic conservative movement, one guided by prudence and sobriety, one that makes judgments based on expected outcomes rather than ideological preconceptions (especially with regard to the free market and necessary government interventions). Twinned with this would come respect for subsidiarity, the natural law, and the role of religion in the public square. It would not be afraid to push for “big government” in certain areas–both social and economic–while stepping back from other areas, again social and economic. Prudence over ideology. Respect for knowledge over populist nostrums. There is an opening for such a movement, though perhaps it is too “utopian” to wish for such a thing!
For the American pseudo-conservative tradition is really just another branch of liberalism, rooted in the American constitutional tradition, and imbued with aspects of cultural Calvinism.
Amen, amen, amen, brother!
And let those right-wing American Catholics who will immediately start railing here against your own (and my) definition of “conservatism” understand that that perfect examplar of it, Benjamin Disraeli, although a Jew, was the greatest defender in the Nineteenth Century of the English monastic system that Henry VIII overturned in the 16th. And for very good reason: it makes perfect sense, because Disraeli would have indentified with the decent, Christian “wet Toryism” of Edward Heath, and would have despised the amoral Toryism of Thatcher.
Tanenhaus makes similar arguments in his book on Chambers and I expect in his new book on Buckley. It was a good article in which he got a lot of things right.
There are many differences between the conservative intellectual movement and various political movements, which necessarily operate under an Enlightenment freedom and liberty umbrella. The problem for voters of the first movement, however, is that since the embrace of (hyper, in my opinion) social liberalism between 68-72, one political movement has been far friendler to the possibilities of influence than the other.
I hope the Democratic Party becomes open to many more Heath Schuler types.
BTW, “conservative Leninists” makes little sense and I don’t think S.T. or any “paleo” critic of movement policies would use the term. “Conservative Trotsky-cons” would be far more accurate. This is the sort of thing that conservatives who share my politics, such as Pat Buchanan and Daniel Larison, would criticize as utopian influenced:
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-schwartz061103.asp
they [Kirk and others] leave the stately field of rhetoric and get down to actual issues of social policy, they tend quietly to forget about Burke and Disraeli and to adopt the views of the American business community
I’m guessing that neither Tanenhaus nor Schlesinger is familiar with Burke’s Thoughts and Details on Scarcity.
Any regular reader of Vox Nova (who can tolerate me!) knows that I get irked by the frequent use of lazy labels like “liberal” and “conservative”
I don’t suppose the same could be done for ‘Calvinist’? ;-)
Good catch, blackadder, just as I was updating.
Kirk didn’t leave the “stately field of rhetoric.” I should do a post on that. Burke surely did, though. On the business point, the left-liberals are waaaaay “friendlier” to big business than is commonly realized. Wilson and FDR and Johnson and (IMO) Obama (look at his cabinet and many of those who do and will benefit from the “stimulus”) quite often made/make large businesses very happy, and government is quite happy to use and be used by them. This is still a two party enterprise (look at our farm and energy subsudies), but the notion that mean old conservatives are the best friends of the “American business community” is false, unless you wish to exclude large business. One important backbone of the current Republican Party is family and small business, and its been that way for several decades.
The issue is not so much Burke’s views on every subject (which were firmly rooted in his own time) but the idea of progress through evolution over revolution. The kinds of free market nostrums espoused by many of today’s pseudo-conservatives involve tearing down much of the agreed-upon economic framework of the last 70 years or so, and place ideology over practical solutions and prudence.
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.”
An equally tendentious (but equally accurate) statement could be made about your political bedfellows (whether you want to call them “liberals” or not). “The left is defined by what it wants to destroy: traditional marriage, educational choice, industries that emit carbon, the original meaning of the US Constitution, and any restriction on killing human fetuses or experimenting upon them.”
The kinds of free market nostrums espoused by many of today’s pseudo-conservatives involve tearing down much of the agreed-upon economic framework of the last 70 years or so, and place ideology over practical solutions and prudence.
True, and very much true of their political antagonists. Let’s complete the point. This something that traditionalist conservative Rod Dreher writes of frequently:
The American Left, especially on cultural issues, is firmly and deeply determined to impose their ideology, often in ways very, very, very undemocratic and I would argue harmful to the exchanges of the public square. This is especially true with regard to abortion and “gay marriage,” but we see it in a whole host of other issues.
Dreher has a good column on this here: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/02/obama_wont_end_the_culture_war.html
See also Ross Douthat, who writes very insightfully on this point, for example here:
http://rossdouthat.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/02/the_end_of_the_culture_war.php
jonathanjones02 writes “one important backbone of the current Republican Party is family and small business, and its been that way for several decades.”
This is true. But it does not follow from this that the policies of the Republican party can be said to favor families and small businesses. Just because a constituency supports a party does not mean that the party supports that constituency.
The kinds of free market nostrums espoused by many of today’s pseudo-conservatives involve tearing down much of the agreed-upon economic framework of the last 70 years or so, and place ideology over practical solutions and prudence.
When I read a claim like this, I’m tempted to quote Bagdad Bob: “I regret to inform you that you are now too far from reality.” For all the talk about “laissez-faire restored” when you look at the policy changes over the past generation what you find is (1) Airline and trucking deregulation (by Carter), (2) NAFTA (by Clinton), and (3) Welfare Reform (also by Clinton). That’s about it.
But it does not follow from this that the policies of the Republican party can be said to favor families and small businesses. Just because a constituency supports a party does not mean that the party supports that constituency.
True. Remember, though, that all political figures in a republic or democracy fail their constituency.
Well, don’t be so hard on Republicans. The GOP enables families to come together for wonderfully orchestrated military funerals.
Of course, Obama just commandeered 17,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. While it is a particularly Republican thing, it is in general an American thing to wage war ad infinitum.
“Liberal” and “conservative” within the American context doesn’t differ all that much. Americanism is overarching. Democrats are to the right of Austria’s conservatives. Not having health insurance or mandated minimum vacation, paid maternity leave etc. would be viewed as contemporaneous with “Manchester Liberalism”.
I’d distinguish American vs. EuroCanadian. San Francisco is a EuroCanadian city. So is Seattle. Basically, there are two Americas. The differences within this country are far more pronounced than in Western Europe. Needless to say, you want to live in the EuroCanadian counties of the US.
(unless you’re vewy vewy scared of “The Gays” and their unholy desire to get married, that is)
Tanenhaus’s article struck me as interesting, but in many ways very ideologically self serving. He praises what he claims is a Burke/Disraeli patterns of conservatism in which government management of some services is not rejected out of hand, but in which the suspicion of revolutionary political and social change is retained. Yet he blasts Kirk and other conservatives of the 50s and 60s precisely for opposing the revolutionary changes in public programs (such as the Great Society) which he admits ushered in vast social changes. His justification for this is an insistence that this “true conservatism” does not attempt to radically roll back changes which have already become accepted. He’s in part right on this. Principled conservatives do not (contrary to his assertion and your echo of it) advocate suddenly abolishing vast government programs which people have come to rely on as a life assumption — though they may well advocate reshaping their structure or growth in such a way as to focus their efforts and gradually wean people off dependency. But the way he formulates it, he puts conservatives in a catch-22. He commends them for opposing radical change, yet blames them for actually opposing any particular change (or wanting to move away from some recent change) with the charge that they are either unwilling to use government programs where they do work or that their proposed changes are too radical.
It’s all very well to assert:
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 what he misses here is that these objections are often made as holding actions rather than calls for sudden abolition. When conservatives denounce “socialized medicine” they’re attempt to keep from being newly imposed a radical change in a major sector of the economy which affects all of our common welfare, not attempting to abolish something which has become a standard social and economic assumption. Similarly, cries against “activist judges” are generally attempts to keep seeing more legislation from the bench.
As such, Tanenhaus’s overall approach strikes me as somewhat dishonest.
Finally, a minor side note. You say, “I will stop taking Limbaugh seriously when the movement stops doing so.” You’re of course entitled to do this if you so please, but it would seem to leave you totally open to people attempting to hang comments from Daily Kos or Al Franken or what have you about your neck with claims of, “I’ll stop taking them seriously when the progressive movement stops taking them seriously.” Intentionally taking the people who are known to be more populist and less reasonable within a large group as indicative of the group as a whole may work as a rhetorical ploy, but you might want to consider whether you want it used against you before you use it against others.
Interesting a big government control freak would be interested in finding “proof” that “conservatives” are leninists…
I’d really like a discussion of Ayn Rand on this blog. I think it would be very interesting.
[...] in what this group sees as a “war”, using tactics that are almost Marxist in tone. As Sam Tanenhaus described the modern American pseudo-conservative movement: “In place of the Marxist dialectic [...]