Secular Right
John Derbyshire, Heather Mac Donald, Razib Khan, and friends have launched a new blog for the non-religious Right. There’s an old and deep tradition of skepticism on the Right, dating back at least to Robert Ingersoll and William Graham Sumner in America and to David Hume across the Atlantic. But believers no less than skeptics ought to welcome this new site, since the conflation of religious conviction and political conservatism has usually been to the detriment of both. To give but one example, George W. Bush may (or may not) be a godly man, but he never had anything like a prudent, conservative philosophy of government. The same can be said about much of the religious Right, particularly in its Christian Zionist manifestations that seek to subordinate American foreign policy to bad Biblical exegesis.
Speaking of bad exegesis, however: contrary to Secular Right, H.L. Mencken was not an atheist, at least by his own lights. Disciple of T.H. Huxley that he was, whenever the question was put to him directly, Mencken professed himself an agnostic.
The principle reason Mencken is remembered as an atheist is that he mocked the mockable and was funny.
Oh, not this crap again.
Every time the Republican Party loses an election, we hear about how the party has to become less conservative and less religious in order to win again. I’ve heard it after every blown Republican election since 1992 (the first one I clearly remember), and I’m sure I’ll be hearing about it for many years to come. It never gets any truer, and it never goes away.
But beyond that, the idea of a non-religious conservative movement is nonsense. Without religion – and specifically Christianity – no real argument for traditionalism or conservatism can be made. What, for example, explains Derbyshire’s clinging to Victorian attitudes towards homosexuality? Christians, Jews, and Muslims can at least claim that it violates the rules of their holy books. One may agree or disagree with that reason, but at least it is a reason. I’ve never heard Derb give a “rational” atheistic argument for his views, and frankly I don’t think there is one.
You see, without God – without a superior being – there really is no way to objectively prove that my moral views are superior to yours, or vice versa. Thus, the most conservative form of government one could justify having without God is a sort of Randian libertarianism, in which only those things that cause physical injury or demonstrable property damage are illegal, and there is no place in the public square for any talk of morality otherwise. That may be great, or it may be terrible – but one thing it isn’t is conservative.
In other words, the leap of faith required to be an atheist conservative is one more insensible and unsupportable than any religious belief. Derb and the others should call their blog “The Godless Delusion”.
Negrol, I don’t think that Derbyshire and MacDonald want a less conservative right. In fact, both have been more willing than most to be farther right than is generally allowed by the “mainstream.” (Now Frum, Brooks, etc. certainly do.) But I mostly agree with you.
“since the conflation of religious conviction and political conservatism has usually been to the detriment of both.”
Daniel, I don’t think there is an American conservatism without Christianity. Sincere paleos disagree to what extent America was intended to be a “Christian Nation,” but it unarguably was Christian in a particularistic sense just as it was Anglo/Celtic in a particularistic sense, for example. You can not seek to conserve (or restore) the Old Republic without wanting to conserve that Christian particularity. The country and the right (particularly among the intellectuals) has always had its share of skeptics, but I don’t see what people think they are conserving if they are hostile to Christianity or think it is a detriment rather than foundational.
The much criticized Christian Zionism has made some people lose perspective. Christians need to be convinced that that is bad theology or if it is correct theology that it doesn’t necessitate a particular foreign policy. They do not need to be cast overboard. Evangelicals are to some degree part of the problem with the modern right, but there will be no restoration of the Old Republic without them.
Thanks for your comment, Red. My point is not that America’s Christian patrimony shouldn’t be defended, but rather that being a good Christian does not necessarily make one a prudent conservative, and vice versa. Moreover, mass movements of politicized Christianity — abolitionism, Prohibitionism, World War I-vintage Christian nationalism, and today’s megachurch Christian Zionism — have historically had little respect for prudential and constitutional limits on state action. In a word, they have not been conservative.
There is overlapping ethical territory between politics and religion, but neither sphere can be reduced to the other.
As a Muslim on the Right, I have mixed feelings about this. One thing I love about the United States is that religion is alive and thrives unlike other Western democracies. Hence, the acceptance of religion and religious practice in our society is at a much greater level than other Western countries. We also are not ashamed to base the entire foundation of American classical liberalism – and this is from both those on the mainstream left and right – in the natural law presuppositions of the Founders, especially in the Declaration of Independence. Thus, no matter where one is on the American political spectrum, people are not shy to admit that our rights come from the Creator and are inalienable, even if they disagree about the extent of such rights and such liberties.
Yet at the same time, I do think we need some kind of secular Right. As a deeply faithful Muslim, I am so happy to see so many on the right as deeply faithful Christians and devoted to the common good and moral order, and all that goodness. Yet the Religious Right has been a cancer on the Republican party. They may have good intentions, but the Right now seems to be only home for Christians, especially evangelicals. Jews, Muslims, and even Catholics are being turned off from the Right, all three groups voted democratic in big numbers this election.
It is interesting. In 2000, Republicans took the overwhelming majority of the Muslim vote. In 2008, Democrats won the Muslim vote by over 80% according to some studies. This is a huge reversal, as with Hispanic Catholics which supported the GOP with atrocious margins this time.
I think the Right can be a movement for “order” and “morals” and natural rights from natural law, and liberty and justice, without being a religious sect or movement. Thus, yes, it should be a secular movement, not a laicite movement, but a ecumenical movement. Mickey Edwards said this in his book on the GOP earlier this year. I am just as angered as the other guy when people say we shouldn’t base our public policy choices on religious convictions (for a good argument against this, by surprisingly a liberal, see constitutional law scholar Michael J. Perry’s “Under God?”) or that we need to actively go AGAINST religion in the public square. Yet, at the same time, these organizations such as the “Moral Majority” and the Family Values Coalition are overwhelmingly Christian, overwhelmingly Evangelical, and even have problems with Christian groups such as Mormons not to mention Jews and Muslims.
We can advocate positions of the right – all wings of the right – whether libertarian, traditionalist, conservative – such as federalism, limited government, civil liberties, or even Religious Right principles such as family values, but in a “big tent” no-religious-test secular ecumenical way. There are social conservatives who are not members of any religion – George Will and Michael Barone for instance. The purpose of parties in presidential systems are to create coalitions BEFORE elections (unlike parliamentary systems) and hence it would be the GOP’s interest to reach out to all different religions, and even the secular, without diluting its core message.
P.S. to Negrol. Of course one argument for prohibiting such practices does come from religion, and religious texts alone. There are theological schools in Christianity and Islam, the Ash’arite school in Sunni Islam in particular, which argue that reason cannot know good or bad without the aid of Divine Revelation and thus the only defense of any human rights or “moral order” would be through religion. Yet there are also schools of theology within Christianity and Islam which find that the human intellect unaided by revelation can know at least some moral truth from the Creator – “natural law theory,” such as the Thomists in Christianity and the Maturidi school of Sunni Islam. Hence although some are non-religious, or even atheists, natural law theory, the absolute truth that our Creator (or for atheists – they can say “nature” if they so desire) has endowed upon us certain inalienable rights – can bridge the gap and get those who do believe in such conservative principles on our side.
There are some non-religious people who reject postmodern moral relativism and give secular reasons for supporting “social conservatism” – such as Barone and Will in particular – such as tradition, or sometimes utility, or sometimes social cohesion. We may agree or disagree with their arguments for such ends, but as long as they are on the boat with us, why not just let them in? In the end if someone is voting against socialized medicine, or abortion in some state because it was in the Bible or Koran, or because they believe in a moral order and tradition, or because traditional marriage is more efficient, who cares as long as it gets social conservatives their votes?
“…being a good Christian does not necessarily make one a prudent conservative, and vice versa.”
We agree on that although I would probably remove the good modifier. Being a Christian does not make one a prudent conservative. I think a good Christian in Atheist Land would
be a revolutionary radical. A good Christian in America should want to conserve what we had to a greater or lesser degree.
The Bible tells us that there is a wide path and a narrow path. Because of this there have always been skeptics on the right. It would be very unusual if there weren’t. (I think I would make a distinction between a skeptic and a secularist.) But there seems to me to be a difference between a self identified secular rightist and a rightist who happens to be a skeptic.
The modern self conscious secularist is not ambivalent about Christianity? They view it as irrational and unnecessary at best and as a negative force at worse. Note the post at Secular Right against the social utility of religion argument for example.
It could be argued that the notion of a Secular Right is virtually oxymoronic. If we go back to the origin of the terms left and right, modern secularism is clearly a product of the rationalistic Enlightenment thinking that characterized the left.
AbuHatem, your invocation of “natural rights” is clearly a product of the left as well, and has more in common with the universalism of the Straussian neocons than it does with classical/traditional conservatism. (Whether grounding “inalienable rights” in God somewhat rescues the humanistic notion of “natural rights” is for another day.)
Totally unrelated to this conversation, but why was the post “Deconstructing Barry” removed from the site?
George: I think there’s a gremlin in the system. We were having some problems with mysteriously disappearing comments yesterday, and now an entire post has gone missing. I’ll get our technical guys to look into it. Apologies for the inconvenience.
Ingersoll was a great many things, particularly Secularist.He was not, however of the Right. His social thinking these days would be grouped either with the “Classical Liberal” or libertarian, or with the Socialists. Such things were not considered antithetical in his day. At any rate, he was as far from Conservative as it was possible for him to be.
Red: “Left” and “Right” are symbols, not be taken as having the same literal meaning now that they had in the French Legislative Assembly of 1791. Very few right-wingers in the U.S., after all, are attempting to restore the French ancien regime. Moreover, in historical Anglo-American terms, dissenting Protestants (from whom the bulk of the religious Right descends) were also of the left. By that standard, a Secular Right is no more oxymoronic than a (dissenting Protestant) Religious Right.
But that’s a false standard, at least as applied to the American context. Our political tradition has been heavily informed both by dissenting Protestantism and by deism, which leads ultra-traditionalists to declare that there can’t be an American conservatism or American Right. If there is such a thing as an American Right, however, its views on the basic questions of political action — war, taxation, the relationship of the state to society — can be predicated upon any of several grounds, religious or nonreligious. Politics is a practical art, not a thing of pure theory.
That extends to the practice of regulating the relationship of religion to the state. The duty of the American Right, both Secular and Religious, is properly to keep the peace between the many Christian sects, other religions, and deist/rationalist/secular elements in society, to preserve the negotiated settlement that the First Amendment has come to represent. I don’t think the Secular Right transgresses on that settlement by making arguments that may or may not persuade anyone — that’s no different from the freedom that religious sects enjoy to proselytize. If the Secular Right were to get behind efforts to use legal power to change the customary role of religion in American life, that would be a different matter.
“Our political tradition has been heavily informed both by dissenting Protestantism and by deism, which leads ultra-traditionalists to declare that there can’t be an American conservatism or American Right. If there is such a thing as an American Right, however, its views on the basic questions of political action — war, taxation, the relationship of the state to society — can be predicated upon any of several grounds, religious or nonreligious. Politics is a practical art, not a thing of pure theory.”
I agree. I think the right can find value in “religion” and the “religious” – and I certainly agree with Alexis De’Tocqueville that religion is of fundamental importance to the maintenance of liberty in a polity. And I understand, as a Muslim, that the main religion in this country is Christianity, and hence I in fact do appreciate attempts by Christians to work against politically correct secular fascism in the taking away of civil liberties and civil rights.
However, if we look at the history of this country and the Founding Fathers, and we look at non-Protestant Christianity, there was much criticism of the American project as being based in heresy. For instance, see the Tories who moved to Canada after the revolution such as for instance Quaker minister Joseph Stansbury who in his work “The Loyal Verses of Joseph Stansbury” attacks the revolution and says that although he is living a life of ugliness and hardship in Canada, he realizes that he is obeying the natural law and God by escaping disloyalty to the British crown.
If you look at the Catholic Church in Quebec during the American revolution, they were disgusted by what they saw. In fact, after the French revolution, they found themselves to be the only true French in the world for following traditionalism.
If we also look at the Civil War for instance, we find the Catholic Church would later turn against slavery and take an anti-slavery theological position, while American baptists claimed that slavery was theologically sanctioned. This is all discussed in the book “The Civil War as a Theological Crisis” which compiles American opinions on the subject.
If we are to talk about America’s religious heritage, then that is one thing. I completely love how America has a religious heritage and is religious to this day, even if it is not a religion that I am a part of. However, such celebration of heritage only becomes sectarian when we begin to “excommunicate” others from conservatism and patriotism and heritage if they don’t share our same sect. This country was founded on the basis of religious freedom. There are many non-protestant Christians in this country. There are Catholic Christians who were never the majority. There are Mormons who are not part of such a “heritage.” There are Jews who are not part of such a “heritage.” Ditto for Muslims.
Culture is something important, but cultural conservatives must not take cultural conservatism to mean nativism or xenophobic sentiments. There are many different races and religions which are equally American and equally protected by the constitution. That doesn’t mean that all cultures are equal or we should accept all values or any of the politically incorrect nonsense that comes from the hard postmodern left. Yet, at the very least, the GOP needs to reach out to all corners, and realize that the Right or conservatism is not a RELIGIOUS SECT, it is a political movement. We need all of the religious – Protestants, Catholics, Mormons, Orthodox, Jews, Muslims, whatever – to feel like they can become free and coequal members of this political movement.
Abu/Red;
The problem is not necessarily that what Derbyshire et al. want as public policy is something I disagree with, but that without religious guidance they are foundationless and unsupportable. Of course, much of what the left wants as public policy – specifically charity and pacifism – is also foundationless and unsupportable without religious guidance, but that never stopped them.
As for “natural rights”, that is nonsense. Nature gives gazelles the right to be ripped to shreds by a lion. Watch some nature shows and see what “natural rights” really mean. Part of the problem with atheists (especially the irreligious left) is that they have spent 150 years trying to find a way for scientific Darwinism to not logically lead to social Darwinism, and have mostly covered their failure by punting. At least Ayn Rand, for all her faults, didn’t attempt to dodge that question.
Again, without religion, all you can really hope for is either Epicureanism or Objectivist libertarianism. Nothing else can be made to make sense – to have a solid foundation and be internally consistent. then again, a solid moral foundation and internal consistency has never been of much importance in a place where the man who wrote:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”…
While looking out the window at the slaves he owned laboring in his fields.
Secular conservatives? I’m all for them, but if they aren’t pro-life, then I don’t see how they deserve the title.
Conservativism is about valuing individual rights, but placing them within the context of the responsibilities dictated by our traditions.
I don’t see any way how the traditional concepts of the family and the community can be joined to the “it’s my body, it’s my choice” school of feminist thought. The two simply cannot mix.
Daniel, American conservatives don’t support reestablishing the ancien regime in America per se. America has never had an ancien regime to reestablish. But left and right are more than symbols. They carry a certain identifiable meaning (even if sometimes murky) that should still have something to do with the sides in the French Revolution. Otherwise the terms are meaningless. That rationalistic secularism is a product of the left seems hardly a disputable assertion.
As I have often pointed out to my Catholic friends, while there were liberal and extra-Biblical (IMO) elements of the radical Reformation, the Reformers did not see themselves as rebelling. Rather they saw themselves as restoring a more authentic New Testament Christianity from a Church that had corrupted it. So this was at least arguably a conservative impulse. As they saw it, it was not progress but regress/restoration.
AbuHatem, you make some good points about how there is arguably no conservative tradition in America. I don’t agree with this, but I understand the argument. But the religious pluralism you are celebrating is obviously of the left as is secularism. You hurt your credibility by throwing out the Cultural Marxist boogie words nativism and xenophobia. There is nothing more inherently conservative of a nation than restricting immigration, and nothing more revolutionary than mass immigration.
Thanks for all of the thoughtful replies.
To Nergol,
It is fine if you do not believe that human rights and permanent moral truths are accessible by reason via natural law. This is a religious question, and there are many religious sects which claim that the only source of knowledge of God-given rights and Divine laws is through scripture. The Ash’ari school of Islam is one, and the Calvinist school of Christianity is another. It is not my point to debate this, and I am definitely not a fan of Ayn Rand.
As for saying that religious pluralism is of the left, I respectfully disagree. The Founding Fathers of this country protected religious liberty in the federal constitution through the first amendment. There is also no religious test for office. A good discussion of this is Michael J. Perry’s book “Under God?” where he writes that although we all have the free exercise of religion, we may legislate against things even if from a purely religious motive and this is not prohibited by the Establishment Clause. For instance, if someone wanted to ban gay marriage or abortion only because of religious reasons this would not be unconstitutional. For this argument see this article by Perry: “Is Religion a Constitutionally Legitimate Basis of Lawmaking in the United States? Herein of the Nonestablishment of Religion.” http://www.law.emory.edu/fileadmin/templates/CSLR_Media/PDFs/MJP-_Religion_as_the_Basis_of_Lawmaking.pdf
All I am saying is that when we come to political movements, we are asking a simple question – what should the government do and what should it not do? If you are talking about social conservatism, and your answer to the question is that government should ban things which are morally harmful (not a fully agreed upon proposition on the Right) whether on the state or to some conservatives the federal level such as homosexual marriage, then this policy position can be taken up by numerous religious sects.
I am not saying to take religion out of conservatism. I am saying that all religions should be permitted to be conservatives. Muslims overwhelmingly voted for Obama in California, and who can blame them with the GOP implications that Obama was a Muslim and that this was “un-American.” Yet, at the same time, they overwhelmingly voted for Prop 8 to ban homosexual marriage.
And I don’t think it is cultural Marxist to complain about nativism and xenophobia. It is cultural Marxist to impose a certain standard upon people and MAKE you follow it. It is cultural Marxist to teach people that tolerance of everything means acceptance of everything. I am not a cultural Marxist, and I don’t blame supporters of tighter immigration for nativism and xenophobia. But true nativism and xenophobia needs to stay out of the Right.
If we begin to have a “religious test” for office on the Right, then basically all non-Protestant Christians have to be kicked out of the movement, because Protestant Christianity is the overwhelming basis of America’s cultural and religious heritage. Nobody is saying for a cultural Marxist “All cultures are equal,” mentality. Of course Catholics will believe Catholic culture is superior to Protestant culture. Muslims will believe Islamic culture is superior to Christian culture. The religious will believe that religious culture is superior to atheist culture. Or else they wouldn’t be a part of their groups.
Yet, this does not mean, if a Jew or a Muslim republican who was black or red or green, ran for office upholding traditional conservative values, we wouldn’t support him. Or even an atheist. We may severely disagree with such people – and I abhor atheism and secular fascism – but if they agree with our political views we should consider voting for them. Any conservative who would vote against for instance an Arab Muslim conservative running for office, just for that reason, WOULD be a nativist, xenophobic, and ungodly racist. That is my point.
I am not a “secular conservative” in the definition Derbshyire uses. I do have a religious, as well as rational, motivation for my political views. Yet, I am not going to kick people out of the conservative movement for anything other than POLICY. Anything else would be very UN-religious.
Abu;
If you think there are such things as “natural rights”, then please show me where those rights can be found in nature. Personally, I cannot find them. Deer do not get a trial by jury before they are devoured by wolves. No hyena ever presented a search warrant before searching a cave for a wild boar to have for dinner. There’s a reason they call it “the law of the jungle” you know.
Human history doesn’t have much better news in it. Even at its pre-Christian high points – Athens and the Roman republic – you had rights if you were a citizen, and if not, well, too bad so sad. So too for the American republic which modeled itself after the Roman, and Thomas Jefferson, who wanted to be Aristotle when he grew up.
And the issue isn’t “kicking the non-religious out” of the conservative movement. It’s that irreligiousness can’t really get you into it in the first place. As I’ve said before, cold, hard, godless logic can’t get you to conservatism. It may be able to get you to Objectivism or libertarianism or anarcho-capitalism, and these might be movements that can be broadly classified as being on the right, but it can’t get you to conservatism. Anyone who can get from there to conservatism is somewhere along the way fooling themselves. Most often this seems to manifest itself in being a “cafeteria conservative”, but in ways that are bizarre and insensible. Again, why does Derb defend legal abortion but rail against the iniquities of homosexuals? Does other people’s sexual behavior pick his pocket or break his leg?
And then there’s attitudes towards Israel. Let’s be plain here – if there is no God, then the claim of the Jews to Israel is a massive fraud based on a forged deed signed by somebody who doesn’t even exist. For this, we should piss off a fifth of the human race – a fifth known for combativeness, and which controls the lion’s share of a resource without which our civilization comes to a screeching halt? Where is the logic in that? The only way that not throwing Israel under the bus in order to maintain general good relations with the Arabs makes any sense is if one believes that God willed the Jews that land. Without that belief, supporting Israel is self-defeating and irrational. And yet the secular right never seems to waver in its support for Israel. What can one call a willingness (even a passion) on the behalf of someone to take sides in a conflict between one religion they don’t believe in and another religion they don’t believe in other than bizarre and irrational?
But I digress. The point here is that conservatism without faith is a house of cards, easily blown over by the slightest breeze. I have as little time for Derb’s delusions as he has for what he sees as mine.
Social and Fiscal conservatives can coexist in perfect harmony with libertarians.
http://rightklik.blogspot.com/
Jason,
What would make you think that? Most libertarians are in no mood whatsoever to coexist with social conservatives. Go on Reason.com/blog and try to sell it there, you’ll quickly see what I mean. There’s a libertarian streak within conservativism, because we have liberty ingrained in our traditions, but the opposite is not exactly true.
The more practical question to me is whether the blog will be of use. From a perusal (for example, a post on religious affiliation in dangerous areas) it appears it will simply be another tedious forum for unbelievers to inveigh against the meaningless abstraction of “religion.” The notion that Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism and Christianity have anything in common is utterly ridiculous. Lumping them together in a purported “analysis” is the sort of tripe that emanates from our “institutions of higher learning.”
Until the “secular Right” actually comes up with something useful and original to say (that is other than simply stripping Christian justifications from conservative positions), I can’t see the point of it. (Admittedly, I think Mencken is overrated as a social commenter.)
And, whether one wishes to assert that American is a “Christian nation” (it is not as I understand the Faith, but that is a theological judgment, not a sociological one), we certainly must admit that, when speaking of religious influences on American ideas, we are discussing Christianity and, specifically, Anglo-Protestant Christianity. Other religions (Judaism, Islam, etc.) are irrelevant to this discussion and it is only PC platitudes that cause them to be mentioned (such as the fiction of “Judeo-Christian values”–as opposed to “Gentile-Christian values”?)
[...] Angle“). Daniel McCarthy and commenters discuss this site at The American Conservative (“@TAC”). Among others from whom we’ve drawn notice in recent days: science writer Ken Silber’s [...]
I am late to this thread. But referring back to its genesis, Derbyshire is a self-absorbed reptile. I see his byline on NRO and I move directly to the next entry.
I even invented a verb for that avoidance tactic, to “derbyshire”. I employ it when encountering any self-absorbed reptile who has nothing interesting to say like Andrew Sullivan, Frank Rich and Garry Trudeau.
A conservative secular blog may have merit. (Although I can’t see them discovering an off ramp on the expressway to nihilism that they are traveling on with their secular pals on the Left.) But no matter, Derbyshire damages the initiative’s legitimacy because he has none of his own.
It’s an interesting discussion. We say we are conservative, but just what exactly are we trying to conserve, and can one separate politics from one’s deeper beliefs? I consider myself a conservative, because I believe that civilization stands on the traditional family and its ability to spawn civilized persons. My religious beliefs support my belief in the utility of the traditional specialties of matriarchs (to nurture and to teach) and patriarchs (to protect and to provide). The logic of the moral principles that buttress my faith seems sound enough that I could be convinced of the traditional family’s utility, but without a sense of religious duty that family becomes- for me at least- just another choice, rather than the right choice. If we are free to make that choice without eternal and personal consequences, would enough people choose to continue civilization? If not, civilization (or something like it) will likely not continue without another structure beyond the individual. I think this is why people who are convinced that morality is relative (or that God is dead) fear a society that is not controlled by a powerful state.