Comments on: The Pedigree of the Conservative Mongrel

By: Karl

Karl — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 13:14:08 +0000

Responding to Joel’s comment (the beginning of it, anyway, where he quotes a response to the Gettysburg Address), I think that conservatives need to adopt a clear, uniform understanding of what is meant by “equality,” or at least an awareness that there are many definitions in use. I have never met a conservative in real life who claimed to disagree with the Gettysburg Address version of equality, but many conservatives (apparently including Russell Kirk) criticize a different kind of equality, without distinguishing what they are criticizing from the Gettysburg Address version. It should be no surprise that conservatives would disagree with a more socialist definition of equality, but it has to be made absolutely clear to other conservatives and to non-conservatives that we agree with the kind of equality that includes political equality, equality in the judicial system, equality in treatment by the police and all government officers, and that rejects social inequality based on race. (Actually, what I just described is two different understandings of equality that we should support simultaneously.) If we assume that someone who claims to support “equality” believes that a CEO and a janitor should receive the same pay, we will be speaking a different language from a lot of people — we won’t understand them, and they won’t understand us.

By: Joel Betow

Joel Betow — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 18:23:28 +0000

With respect to number “5″ I note the following quote from the Chicago Times regarding Lincoln’s Gettysburg address:
“How dare [Lincoln], then, standing on their graves, misstate the cause for which they died, and libel the statesmen who founded the government? They were men possessing too much self-respect to declare that Negroes were their equals, or were entitled to equal privileges.”
I have a somewhat natural tendency to agree with all six of the “canons of conservative thought.” And yet I recognize that through Christ, God seeks to bring radical change and to create society anew.
I would suggest that movements to end segregation, to give women the right to vote, and to extend the franchise beyond property owners were ideals founded in truth that would trump the general logic of numbers “two” and “four.”
The idea that there is neither “gentile nor Jew, slave nor free, male nor female” certainly doesn’t comport to “gradual change.” Nor does the truth that there is neither “circumcision nor uncircumcision.” Or that “the first shall be last and the last first.”
At its broadest, number “one” is turned by many conservatives from relating to God’s purposes to a simple restatement of “survival of the fittest” in which the notion of “agape” is tossed aside.

By: DMD

DMD — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 14:09:49 +0000

This is good stuff Zach.
Re: Nick’s point about the incompatability of conservatism and capitalism, my Marxist grad school buddies made that point all the time. They’re probably right about absolute libertarianist free markets, which knows no loyalties to family, place, culture, or tradition, but I think capitalism tempered by conservatism can serve the public good.
Or, to paraphrase Jesus, free markets were made to serve man, not man to serve the free markets.

By: JohnS

JohnS — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 11:10:20 +0000

Those are some very good principals. I would suggest that they may have been misapplied a few times. It has been the thankless job of conservatism to temper aspects of our groundbreaking national experiment since its inception. But conservatives fell down on the job when they embraced Wall Street/Corporate America instead of small business/family farms, and liberal intervention/American Empire over the Republic. They veered from America First to accusing Truman and the Democrats of not being ardent enough in their attempts to thwart Communism abroad and build a National Security State at home! (Eisenhower saw what was happening and warned against it, but that went nowhere.)
Conservatives did take a principled and brave stand against the (popular) welfare state and the hippie/drug culture. They were less than successful, and that may have led to a lot of anger and bitterness on their part. Less principled and brave has been their support for inequality for blacks, women, and gays. (Some of Bill Buckley’s early writings in defense of racism/segregation are shocking by today’s standards.) And that has perhaps led to a lot of anger and bitterness on the other side.
That’s my 2 cents. Anyway, it’s good to see the soul searching going on.

By: Dave S.

Dave S. — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 02:38:18 +0000

I add a lamentation to Zach’s depressing column:
Why did the foam at the top of the conservative wave yield such a horrible mess of a Presidency and Congress?

By: Dave S.

Dave S. — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 02:34:49 +0000

Logic chopping is rarely correct
By that comment, Mr. Anonymous, did you logically chop ideas into those that logically chop and those that do not.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 01:13:48 +0000

Logic chopping is rarely correct but perhaps a better way (since you went back to 1953) would be to look at Burnam’s analysis found beginning on page 125 of his Suicide of the West. He is discussing then what he perceived as liberal beliefs, “But, in order to know what a thing is, we must understand what it is not.” He then tosses off 19 elements of the liberal syndrome and we can imagine that conservatives then and now would not partake of them.

By: Nick

Nick — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 13:17:16 +0000

2. social continuity, with value given to the gradualness of change
3. prescription, faith in tradition and a consciousness of the limits of reason
4. prudence, a recognition of the complexity and fragility of society and the disastrous consequences of seeking to construct society anew

It occurs to me that these features of conservatism are in tension with, and perhaps completely incompatible with, a modern technological/capitalist society. Capitalism fosters rapid technological advancement, and new technology inevitably changes society. Rapid technological change = rapid societal change.
If that’s correct, then conservatism is an endangered species, maladapted to modern society and probably doomed to extinction. On the other hand, libertarianism might be more like a brown rat: not very elegant but good at adapting to change.