From an interesting interview with the British conservative commentator Charles Moore, in The European:

The European: You already mentioned the idea of shared assumptions. Could it be that neither the Left nor the Right know what assumptions to appeal to? Religion has lost its grip on public discourses, but the idea of social democracy has also been tarnished. If anything, there seems to be a broad consensus that political parties have disappointed the voters.
Moore: The success of a society depends on traditions that politicians can hardly change but easily harm. That has happened. The Right tended to win the economic arguments, and the Left tended to win the social arguments, even though they ran against established traditions. Indeed, there seems to be an unholy alliance between international greed and Leftist ideas about personal fulfillment and liberation. And here is the problem balancing tradition and change: As soon as you start to consider things as alright, you become negligent until they are not alright any longer. When people began to speak out against marital oppression, the reaction was a certain indifference to marriage. It turns out today that when fifty percent of the population are not married, a large majority will actually be married to the welfare state. Yet fifty years ago, it was assumed that the state did not have to advocate marriage, that churches and friends would help to raise children, et cetera.

The European: It seems to me that during the last decade, conservatives were particularly out of touch with public opinion on social and cultural issues. American conservatives now question the validity of science and evolution – as if the Republican party had been commandeered by the reckless and the clinically insane.

Moore: One thing that happens when things go wrong is that some people become too extreme in their reactions. On some issues that are discussed in the US, I take the conservative view. But I am surprised by how extreme the debates seem. I am opposed to gay marriage, but that issue will not dominate all my thinking. It is a pity that the question of abortion has become a shibboleth that decides everything. That kind of discussion is too polarizing. The trick of conservatism as a disposition is that it should have pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the world.

The European: A sentence that comes from a Marxist…

Moore: Right, Gramsci. Most ideas for human improvement are very laughable. But that does not mean that you should be filled with anger and despair; rather, you should work quietly to make things better. Conservatism can be tempted into rage, but that is a useless emotion. President Obama is doing pretty badly, but the criticism he faces is misplaced in tone. Republicans who portray him as the devil are doing him a favor, because that simply does not make sense. But our problems here in Britain are a bit different, aren’t they? British conservatives are not driven into a corner from where they shout. They don’t quite know where they stand at all.

Read the whole thing.