To those who insist on calling me a liberal: Here is the reason I am not.
During my routine listening to 610 AM radio this afternoon, I caught the recap from Rush Limbaugh’s first hour. He summed it up this way: “Liberalism is a bunch of lies.” And, truth be told, I agree.
The problem is that both parties are decidedly committed to liberalism. They may vary in certain degrees; there are pre/anti-Rawlsian classical liberals of many libertarian stripes on the one hand, and social democratic progressives of all kinds that seem to take the point of Rawls’ Theory of Justice (or Marx, as the case may be) seriously on the other, but, make no mistake: There are no real conservatives out there today.
Many will want to accuse me of word-switching here, but I do not think that is the case. Let me give two very simple—and historically accurate, as far as I know—summaries of liberalism and conservatism.
Liberalism is the idea that birthed the socio-political climax of the Enlightenment: the modern nation-state. This idea varies, but comes out of a historical fatigue of religious, state conflicts and others similar things like the divine right of kings articulated by notables like John Locke and John Stuart Mill. The articles of faith of this idea come in two myths: 1.) the notion of state neutrality, or secularism; and 2.) the notion of individual autonomy as the basic unit of value in this secular state.
Conservatism is not the mere converse of this view. It is not a pure resistance to change. Instead, it articulates two different views of its own: 1.) the notion of a divine will or natural law—or some ontic primodiality in general—as the inescapable, fundamental source of any state or non-state; and 2.) the notion that the person cannot be reduced to anything but personhood; the whole cannot be viewed in its mere parts. It holds it historical roots in the critique of the Enlightenment and its political consequences, most vividly, of course, the French Revolution.
I find First Samuel (chapter eight) to be a striking example of the contrast between liberalism and conservatism. In that passage, Israel asks for a King; and God is a bit confused and annoyed by it all. The basic argument from the people of Israel is something like: Everyone else is doing it! God, of course, appoints Saul to be their King. But he isn’t happy about it.
If we look at this from the view of liberalism vs. conservatism we can see that God, in First Samuel, is radically conservative. What makes him this way is not so much that he is resistant to change—after all, God is the very essence of change itself—but, rather, that he finds the sudden, present “need” for a nation to be silly and, perhaps, even dangerous.
So too, with the Enlightenment. Burke’s opposition to liberalism is not unlike the earlier warnings against the Enlightenment from Pascal and others who are not seeking “holy” war or some kind of Luddite (im)morality, but, instead, articulate a legitimate fear of jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. And, if anyone cares to read what they say, they come up with alternatives that could require the imagination to destroy the frying pan from within—like the lesson of First Samuel, to re-imagine the very state apparatus itself, from the ground up.
So, when Limbaugh asserts that “liberalism is a bunch of lies,” I agree with him wholeheartedly. The “neutral,” secular state is a lie. The atomistic individual and the corresponding notions of autonomy and rights are all lies. These lies of liberalism are all too often ignored by liberals and so-called conservatives alike. Even with the update that Rawls offered liberalism this past century, these lies remain. Together they constitute a powerful mythology that seems impossible to overcome.
For this very reason, this very impossibility, the authentically conservative imagination is much more radical than the one of status quo liberalism. To imagine conservatively is not to resist change, but to question the very idea that change can be resisted or pushed along by the myth of progress and individual autonomy.
Sadly, Limbaugh believes many—if not all!—of the lies of liberalism. His only axe to grind is against other forms and degrees of liberalism. Worst of all, perhaps, is that Limbaugh (like so many others) doesn’t seem to know what liberalism and conservatism mean historically or otherwise. Democrats and Republicans alike are all liberal in their allegiance to the articles of faith of liberalism that come out of the Enlightenment and Secular Age, as Charles Taylor puts it, of modernity.
What is even more strange than Limbaugh’s obvious confusion is the occasional, if not frequent, confusion of this very issue by the Church. Nonetheless, if I was to be offered one or the other, as I seem to always be lately, I would take conservatism in a heart beat.
As I have said before: I am something of a post-structural conservative. And this is some part of why.
Sam
You really need to take the time to read De Maistre and Pobedonostsev sometime; while I find faults in both (no one is perfect), they still provide an example to the way of thought I think we both look toward.
Sam,
Just make sure they have a copy of that book in english! That name doesent sound very english or American to me?
It seems that the terms “liberal” and “conservative” as in general use in the US today have as their reference a span of time and place a lot shorter than what you want to use to define your terms in some truer sense.
Could you perhaps make your point(s) in some way that defers to the common use of these words here and now, rather than trying to show people how wrong they are in the way they use a couple of words?
And what’s to be done based on your analysis here? Who should I vote for? Should I not vote?
I get tired of pointing out that the particular ideology that Americans call conservatism is as liberal as you get – idolization of the individual, idolization of the nation state.
MM
One of the things I like about Sam — he is a conservative in my lineage (in so many ways). A true post-modern conservative!
I wouldn’t call all of those things lies. Rights, for example, may be a useful fiction, an invention of the Enlightenment, but they give expression to an aspect of our dignity.
So, when Limbaugh asserts that “liberalism is a bunch of lies,” I agree with him wholeheartedly.
No, you don’t agree with him, because he and you mean two different things.
Henry: I do need to read those things, but not before I give birth to this dissertation! And you are too kind…
Dusty: Hey buddy! What book, exactly?
David: Ahistorical approaches to politics are themselves a serious problem, I think. While the meaning of the terms has evolved (something I recognize, in part, in Rawls’ update), they still find themselves within that literature and history. In fact, much of the new discourse of neoliberalism is largely mistaken, in my mind, for the very same (ahistorical) reasons.
About what to do, I think the suggestion is clear: Be less liberal and more conservative. How that affects suffrage should also be clear, namely, vote for those who seem to have less of the former and more of the latter. Or run yourself on those same principles.
Either way, the challenge of conservatism, as I put it here, goes beyond mere deliberation: it forces us to consider a better world altogether, I think.
MM: Yes, me too.
Kyle: There are some useful fictions, but they become dangerous when the cease to be fiction. David was the King of Israel, a very useful fiction, but became less-than-King when he forgot that he was NOT King, and acted like it.
Rights, in my mind, articulate a present intuition like ‘dignity,’ but leave behind a residue of individualism and things-that-are-owed-to-me. This may not be so useful. Why not be simpler and just argue for the nonsensical and beyond-jurisprudence aspect of dignity and personhood?
David: Or course I do. I agree with his grammar, easily proven by my use of it in this post. As you note, though, I also disagree with his meaning—as I said here, I think that he has no idea what that grammar means historically or otherwise. He uses it more like what I mean when I say “Go Longhorns!” or “Boo, Aggies!” or something meaningless like that.
Hence the subtitle: Why Rush Limbaugh is Right About Being Wrong.
Thanks for the article, Sam. Much food for thought here. I’d like to see you apply your definitions of liberalism/conservatism to the fiscal policies and programs of our present federal government.
The words have not completely switched meanings. Most modern conservatives including Limbaugh would agree with this article’s first concept of conservatism, that there is an objective truth or natural order from which the state derives its right to exist. The modern conservatives’ understanding of that idea is decidedly populist. They believe that the natural law is more likely to be protected by the masses than the privileged. That argument is not necessarily true, but it’s been true in post-1968 America.
Mr. Holder: Thank you for the kind words and the suggestions for a fiscal application. I fear that I tend to mangle economic considerations out of my ignorance and overall obtuseness to the subject. Nonetheless, you are right; that would be a very worthwhile thing to do. Maybe, as an exercise in humility, I’ll give it a try one of these days. Thanks again.
Pinky: You raise a very important and valid point. To a certain degree, the idea of “objectivity,” as you put it, is something that seems continuous in today’s self-proclaimed conservatives. However, I do not want to make too much of this for several reasons:
1. Liberals are hardly the converse, they are not relativists. Only the really stupid articulations of liberalism tend to be that way and, as you know, even those articulations fail the test of outright relativism—relativism is utterly impossible to practice. But many liberals can tend to be non-absolutist absolutists, or something like that.
2. Limbaugh et al, frequently invoke secularism—i.e. the neutral state that has no source but in the collective will derived from individual autonomy of its parts—when they find it convenient. This makes me think that they believe in a groundless, secular state, until it seems inconvenient. Kind of like a bully who enjoys fighting until he gets beat up by the quiet new kid.
3. The fetishes from these so-called conservatives over the Christian essence of the US nation-state is mostly exaggerated, I think. Especially when we consider that, unlike the French Revolution (or the one in Tutor England), this liberal experiment “worked,” or has endured thus far. It should not be a shock to anyone that the secularism inherent in that experiment has progressively shown its head more and more.
4. Finally, this “ontic primordiality” articulated by a divine will or natural law does not suggest to me something “objective.” If anything, it makes things more slippery and in need of more rigorous examination. (Take God for example, things don’t get much harder to discern than this.)
This is where the post-structural (or postmodern, as Henry put it) element comes into play.
So, in sum, I would argue that while you are quite right to point out that, at first glance, there seems to be a similarity in my first principle and present-day conservatives, I think that when we look closer we find that it is mostly a false alarm.
This is very apparent in the decidedly populist tone of the “conservative” movement today that you mention. Its roots are with the complaints of the Tribe of Israel in First Samuel, not the other guy.
If samrocha is right about what “conservatism” is, then I surely am a “conservative,” too.
You seem to accept Burke as an example of the “true conservatism” which you think that modern American conservatives lack, however:
1) Adam Smith cited Burke as perhaps the only thinker with whom Smith always found himself in agreement. (Unles, of course, you would also consider Smith to be an example of true conservatism, in which case MM may have a thing or two to say to you.)
2) Modern American conservatives actually read and cite Burke a great deal. (Though, of course, you can maintain that they fully misunderstand Burke.)
3) Burke expressed a fair amount of support for both the American Revolution and the founding principles of the US — which would seem to cut against your thought that American conservatism has no connection with “true conservatism”.
Sam,
If true liberals and true conservatives are as you describe them, what are “moderates”? Wouldn’t they have to be people who are inexplicably comfortable making a mishmash of two incompatible philosophies?
Sam, I think there are two possible interpretations for modern conservatism’s relationship to populism. One is a kind of belief in the absolute authority of the people. That’s what you suspect Limbaugh of, I gather. The other is a belief in the “democracy of the dead”, which is what I’ve mostly seen among conservatives. The first idea implies that the people (Volk?) create truth; the second, that history reveals truth.
That second understanding is usually implied. I might be more sensitive to it than most conservatives because it resonates with a Catholic understanding of Tradition. But we’ve heard people expressing it explicitly in the discussion of same-sex marriage.
Why wouldn’t conservatism be more explicit about the divine origin of truth? Mostly for political reasons. (The Founding Fathers had to walk this same fine line in order to keep the Deists and Anabaptists from throwing tomatoes at each other.) It’s a concession to the atheistic liberty-fanatics.
Anyway, interesting discussion.
DarwinCatholic: Good points. If I made too much of Burke in my post, then, mea culpa.
You are right on all three points, of course, and in regard for your first one (“first one” is a redundant yet amusing expression, isn’t it?), I do think that Smith’s “Wealth of Nations” proposing a “system of natural liberty” shows an aspect that goes unaccounted for in this slash-and-burn essay that would require another figure: Namely, Rousseau and the question of freedom.
Back to Burke.
Burke’s position is not a simple one and I fear that my use of him here is too simple. But the point remains: If we take Burke’s basic stance as something like Pascal’s against Descartes (another simplistic but useful view), then, I think we find the cautionary tale of conservatism that has been ignored and, perhaps, forgotten in today’s liberal climate.
That forgetting has, in my mind, largely been because of the odd duck that American liberalism is—something like political trash-can punch: a combination of Locke, Hobbes, and Rousseau (and more!)—but is also because of your final two points that depict the ability of the liberal nation-state ideology to consume the political imagination to the extent at which anything but itself becomes folly, and must be reinterpreted accordingly, including Burke.
David: I think that I probably have something like an incompatibility thesis going on in my head regarding liberalism and conservative, in principle. So, I do not think that such a mish-mash is possible. It might appear that way, as we see in the pre/anti-Rawls camp and the Rawlsian liberals, but, in the end they are liberals nonetheless.
So, I guess that I am arguing that there is no moderation, in principle, between believing in a secular nation-state (or any nation-state, as the case may be) and an autonomous individual, or not.
Pinky: Interesting distinction. Thanks!
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