The Rout Of Traditionalist Conservatism

By Rod Dreher • September 24, 2012, 11:33 PM

In his new column, David Brooks cites this blog’s link to Russell Kirk’s Ten Principles of Conservative Thought, and reflects on how American conservatism has left Kirkian traditionalist conservatism in the ditch. Excerpt:

The economic conservatives were in charge of the daring ventures that produced economic growth. The traditionalists were in charge of establishing the secure base — a society in which families are intact, self-discipline is the rule, children are secure and government provides a subtle hand.

Ronald Reagan embodied both sides of this fusion, and George W. Bush tried to recreate it with his compassionate conservatism. But that effort was doomed because in the ensuing years, conservatism changed.

In the polarized political conflict with liberalism, shrinking government has become the organizing conservative principle. Economic conservatives have the money and the institutions. They have taken control. Traditional conservatism has gone into eclipse. These days, speakers at Republican gatherings almost always use the language of market conservatism — getting government off our backs, enhancing economic freedom. Even Mitt Romney, who subscribes to a faith that knows a lot about social capital, relies exclusively on the language of market conservatism.

It’s not so much that today’s Republican politicians reject traditional, one-nation conservatism. They don’t even know it exists.

Read the whole thing. Obviously, I agree with it completely, especially Brooks’s observation that “the Republican Party has abandoned half of its intellectual ammunition.”

On that point: I posted the Kirk piece the other day in response to a friend’s request that I explain what I think a healthy

Russell Kirk

conservatism would look like. If you find yourself frustrated with the intellectually moribund state of the GOP and movement conservatism, I urge you to buy a copy of the historian George H. Nash’s “The Conservative Intellectual Movement In America Since 1945.” It’s a highly readable, deeply knowledgeable account of American conservatism over the last few decades. It may shock readers who think conservatism began in 1980 to learn how deep and varied the various schools of conservative thought was — especially Kirk, Viereck, and the Traditionalists. They have all been eclipsed, as Brooks says.

I blame my tribe on the Religious Right for some of this. We allowed the greater part of what we had to offer to the broader conservative movement to consist of making demands about abortion and homosexuality. These were, and are, very important issues, but the idea that Christianity has little to say to contemporary conservatism, and to American politics, beyond strong opinions on these two issues — well, the impoverishment of that vision is radical. That, plus the incorrect assumption that free-market capitalism is always and everywhere agreeable to Christianity and social conservatism has contributed greatly to the rout of traditionalists.

The fusionists — that is, the people who forged the coalition between economic conservatives (many of whom tended to be libertarians) and traditionalists — understood that American conservatism stood for ordered liberty. Not simply order, and not simply liberty. Freedom and virtue were meaningless without each other. Virtue, in a political sense, had to mean something more than the sum total of free individuals behaving well. Virtue had to come from strong families and communities. Robert Nisbet saw all this in the 1950s, and wrote about it in The Quest For Community (see Patrick Deneen’s short essay on the value of Nisbet’s contribution).

Ever read that book? Ever read Kirk’s The Conservative Mind? Weaver’s Ideas Have Consequences? These are treasure troves of traditionalist conservative thought and insight — all of it now so alien to what conservatism has become that to read them is like meeting a long-lost ancestor, a rich uncle who offers you an inheritance you didn’t know you had.

Turn off talk radio. Turn off the cable. Quit buying books from flashy Republican Party publicists. Take up the old traditionalist masters — Kirk, Nisbet, Weaver, and their philosophical school — and read. One day, their wisdom may revive American conservatism from the sterility and sloganeering of Conservatism, Inc.

Posted in Conservatism. Tagged conservatism, David Brooks, George H. Nash, Peter Viereck, religion, Richard Weaver, Robert Nisbet, Russell Kirk, traditionalist conservatism.

43 Responses to The Rout Of Traditionalist Conservatism

Lord Karth says:

September 25, 2012 at 12:08 am

Mr. Dreher writes: “Freedom and virtue were meaningless without each other. Virtue, in a political sense, had to mean something more than the sum total of free individuals behaving well. Virtue had to come from strong families and communities.”

There’s one small problem with your analysis, Mr. Dreher. Kirkian traditionalism doesn’t sell well, electorally speaking, and hasn’t sold well since that cultural disaster we refer to as “the Sixties”. It’s not “hip”. It’s not “cool.”

Kirkian traditionalism is, as you point out, a matter of “Virtue”. Virtue, in today’s mental/moral/emotional environment, is simply screamingly irrelevant to the lives of most people today. “Strong families” have been long since eclipsed by the culture of cheap sex, “hooking up” and universal, subsidized contraception. (Even cohabitation is being increasingly replaced by serial sexual partners; it is increasingly common among the lower orders for households to be composed of a woman and three or four children, with said children being by 3 or 4 different fathers—and no one finding it worthy of comment.) Prudence is replaced by mass credit and resultant debt, Faith is replaced by NFL Sunday Football and Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, and Dame Discretion has been displaced by Dude Reality Television.

“Strong communities” have also been eclipsed by mass advertising, widespread mobility (recall that the immortal Dr. Kirk once characterized the automobile as “a mechanical Jacobin”), atomizing social media (honesty to ON: exactly how many of you have more Facebook “friends” than real-world friends ??) and mass media, particularly television.

Electoral politics cannot help but follow this. Consider this, Mr. Dreher; when was the last time you heard about a successful political candidacy based on support for restricting divorce, the return of “the family hour” on television—or even cutting State subsidies for any activity ?

Under these circumstances, sir, I would say to you that while reading in and being knowledgeable of the Traditionalist writers and their works is certainly useful, it does not and will not—and by now, after three generations, cannot produce anything even vaguely resembling electoral success.

About the only consolation that I can offer is this: the Permanent Things will reassert their primacy in Human life—but only after this whipped-cream culture we live in is blown apart by the weight of its own insanity.

Let the Countdown….to the Meltdown….roll on.

Your servant,

Lord Karth
Dan Phillips says:

September 25, 2012 at 12:18 am

Brooks is making a false dichotomy, and you have fallen for it. Calls for small and limited government are not simply economic. He insinuates that traditionalist conservatives (real ones that is) would be just fine with larger government as long as traditions were being preserved, but this is clearly false. It is false both theoretically and observationally. Traditionalist conservatives by definition value tradition, and in America constitutionally limited government is supposed to be our tradition. A large government traditionalist would be no traditionalist at all. What tradition would he be upholding? Not the American tradition (as it was intended). Observationally, and this is a point Grover Norquist has made, social conservatives (not the same thing entirely as a traditionalist conservative but there is much overlap) are very reliable economic conservatives. Moderates in one area tend to be moderate in both. (Someone could argue that America hasn’t actually done a good job limiting it’s government, so there could be an American tradition of big government to embrace, and he would be correct. But people who embrace that tradition don’t call themselves either conservatives or traditionalists. They call themselves liberals and progressives.)
Nathan says:

September 25, 2012 at 12:23 am

This weekend I’ve been going back and reading Ideas Have Consequences for the third or fourth time. Every time I’m impressed with the arguments–not so much about the root of the problem, where I don’t buy Weaver’s neoplatonism, but definitely about the instances of the problem. Most of Weaver’s writings are the kind of thing that make more sense the older I get and the more I think about them.
Aaron in Israel says:

September 25, 2012 at 12:29 am

Yeah, I read Ideas Have Consequences. Wasn’t impressed. The only part I thought was good was the part about the “stereopticon,” but I don’t think even that was original at the time. Otherwise, it was mostly just ranting, “Return to the great Plato!”

My unsolicited advice to conservative readers: Read fewer conservative books. Read more nonconservative books. Conservatives – the ones who read “serious” books, at places like TAC, Commentary, Takimag, National Review, etc. – are mostly stuck within this very narrow, closed, conservative (or “true” conservative or right-wing or whatever) library.

Same advice, mutatis mutandis, to lefty readers.
Darth Thulhu says:

September 25, 2012 at 12:53 am

The fork in the road that Traditionalists took, to their discredit and peril, was to become subsumed within and subordinate to the apparatus of a single political party. The theocons became Pharisees in every meaningful sense, and continue to reap the consequences of that governing orientation.

The reason for a wall lf separation between Church and State is to protect the Church from being corrupted by the State. It is to let the Church speak Truth to the power of the State without a financial conflict or a compromised moral authority. Instead, the Traditionalists have gleefully spent a decade trying to bend the State to their partisan ends, to their ever-more-complete corruption and increasingly-vast-irrelevance.

Rather than accomplishing anything plausibly Christian for most of their neighbors, the religious “Traditionalists” have become so complicit and co-opted in their un-Traditional and outright heretical, Randian “Prosperity Gospels” and spectacular displays of wealth that they have lost most reason to trust their prudence, wisdom, and humility. The Gospel admonition about the rich and entrance to the Kingdom and the narrowness of the eye of the needle is not only forgotten but outright inverted.

Rather than accomplishing moral improvement through private counsel and public moral suasion, the “Traditionalists” have poured tens of millions of “charity” dollars into referenda and Republican election campaigns to impose the viewpoints of their most rigid, fundamentalist members onto everyone else in society by force of law. Needless to say, this causes a growing reluctance in the younger and less fundamentalist to continue to charitably contribute to these Churches.

Rather than assume a position of humility and willingness to engage their fellow citizens on the facts as equally-flawed children of a loving God, the “Traditionalists” have embarked on ever more extreme anti-science purity tests not only for their own congregants but for anyone wishing to interact with them. Molestation by authority figures is swept under the rug, evolving science about sexuality and climate is dismissed out of hand, and ever-more-often do the Traditionalists presume to lecture presumptuously about the One True Way to everyone around them, independent of the witness of those people’s experiences and facts.

All this prideful, avaricious blindness drives people directly away, or course. Few wish to listen to, let alone take direction from, self-righteous wealth-seekers who arrogantly presume to speak directly for the Almighty. And when those “infallible” mouthpieces of God show themselves to be flawed, weak human beings instead, more fixated on Dogma rather than Truth, more interested in Power rather than Caritas, it is no surprise that almost no one wishes to respect their Tradition or support its continued tax-exempt status.

In lying down with, cohabitating with, and tying their fortune to a single reactionary political party, the Traditionalists have largely squandered their moral authority, corrupted their faith, and crippled the future of their Church in this country. “Thou shalt not carry God’s name vainly” is still an enforced Commandment.
Charles Cosimano says:

September 25, 2012 at 1:25 am

I was never impressed by Ideas Have Consequences either but then I find it difficult to take seriously anyone who takes Plato seriously. (He was run out of Syracuse for good reason.)

The fact is that Kirkean Traditionalism never really had a cultural foothold in the US and probably never will. It is an idea without foundation in the reality of experience. It is not generally remembered now, even by his followers, that Kirk was a very good fantasy writer. The problem is that is notions of conservatism seem to have been another example of it.
Fran Macadam says:

September 25, 2012 at 1:31 am

Conservatism, being suspicious of change for change’s sake, can all too easily slip into being reactionary, becoming a political force opposing needed reforms to the status quo – even truly conservative changes. It’s not that the hyper-capitalists were ever conservative, it’s that they were able to buy their way into conservatism, and by that financial influence make the appeal to the public that resisting their policies was anti-conservative.

That’s how evangelism, once a potent force for social reform in the 19th century, was similarly captured by the robber barons in the 20th – through their financial support of strategic ministries. It’s a rare person who can find the courage to criticize the source of his paycheck, especially when it seems to have God’s imprimatur. That’s where those of us who were “the Religious Right” had our zeal put to unseemly ends despite our sincere intentions.

Liberals may have Borked a Supreme Court nominee, but we were Borg’d.
RH says:

September 25, 2012 at 3:55 am

I think the problem is that in the cultural realm liberalism was so completely triumphant that there was little left for the Russell Kirk conservatives to conserve. Religion is laughed at, pride in western heritage and traditions “hate speech”, the cultural, ethnic, and moral homogeneity required for strong social bonds at the national level are gone.

Brooks writes that “are very few willing to use government to actively intervene in chaotic neighborhoods, even when 40 percent of American kids are born out of wedlock.” What kind of intervention does he suggest? Bible camps in inner city neighborhoods to encourage traditional morality is politically unthinkable. Any funds provided for such a program would quickly get hijacked to support liberal causes, if the law is not struck down as unconstitutional.
JonF says:

September 25, 2012 at 6:07 am

Re: Kirkian traditionalism is, as you point out, a matter of “Virtue”. Virtue, in today’s mental/moral/emotional environment, is simply screamingly irrelevant to the lives of most people today.

Then how to explain the fact that the upper half of the income distribution lives fairly well-ordered, even “conservative” lives, with fewer divorces, fewer abortions, fewer teen pregnancies and so forth. To be sure finger-ranting rants about virtue, or bigotry tarted up in drag as virtue, do not sell- and shouldn’t. But virtuous living (including occasional instances of hypocrisy paying tribute to such) remains popular enough– for those who can afford it.
JonF says:

September 25, 2012 at 6:12 am

Re: A large government traditionalist would be no traditionalist at all. What tradition would he be upholding?

Outside the South there’s a tradition of energetic government going back to before the founding. Here we see yet another case of neo-Confederate ideology trying to tamp down any discussion of our alternate traditions. Appomattox should have ended all that. At moments like these I find myself thinking a whole lot more real estate should have been put to the torch in the Late Unpleasantness and the necktie party they held for Henry Wirz should had quite a few more guests of honor to get the point across.
Gilbert Berdine says:

September 25, 2012 at 7:32 am

I have two points to make. The first point was a question I asked in your thread defining Conservatism. What tradition do you want to conserve? The individualism and right of secession in 1775? The tradition of a central government with explicit limitations of 1792 which retained the 1775 notion of separate States that could go their own way at any time? The tradition of 1865 that changed These United States to The United States? The tradition of 1918 with a new mission to make the world safe for Democracy funded by the income tax and a legalized counterfeit operation? The tradition of 1936 with nationalized industry and government support of trade unions? The tradition of 1979 with Wage and Price Controls, Whip Inflation Now, gas lines and an economic establishment pushing Phillips Curves despite the simultaneous double digit inflation and unemployment? If all you want to do is preserve the status quo, then you are lost, because every so often you will start defending what you railed against during the prior era.

My second point is to challenge an assertion: “That, plus the incorrect assumption that free-market capitalism is always and everywhere agreeable to Christianity.” Free market capitalism combines capitalism with free markets. A free market is when two people voluntarily make an exchange. Both people believe they are better off from the exchange. Capitalism is a theory about savings leading to more round about yet more productive means of production. What, exactly, is hostile to Christianity here? Government, by definition, is a forced taking from one person to give to another person. One group is the looter and the other group is the looted. What, exactly, is Christian about that arrangement?

Why don’t Conservatives try to persuade rather than demand. Let free market capitalism generate the savings, then persuade capitalists to be charitable with their savings. If you are going to demand that savers “donate” to your priorities without regard to the priorities of the savers, then you are a socialist and there is nothing Christian about that. Christ fed the 5000 with donations rather than a tax.
Cliff says:

September 25, 2012 at 7:42 am

Aaron, I endorse your advice — this is why I subscribed to TAC in the first place. I haven’t been converted to conservatism but I’ve encountered many ideas that would never have come to me otherwise. And I’ve also come to a better understanding of conservatives and their thought, and found some surprising areas of agreement.
Turmarion says:

September 25, 2012 at 8:28 am

From the thread, “The Fruits of the Earth”:

Jaybird: I’m not trying to be hostile, but it really seems like sex-issues are at the top of your list of What’s Wrong With The World Today. And maybe they are.

Rod (in response, emphasis added): They are, because the main difference between the two political parties is over culture, and specifically over the sexual revolution.

Rod (on this thread, emphasis added): I blame my tribe on the Religious Right for some of this. We allowed the greater part of what we had to offer to the broader conservative movement to consist of making demands about abortion and homosexuality. These were, and are, very important issues, but the idea that Christianity has little to say to contemporary conservatism, and to American politics, beyond strong opinions on these two issues — well, the impoverishment of that vision is radical.

So which is it? You see how you appear to be contradicting yourself, right? I mean, to acknowledge that harping on sexual issues is a problem of the traditionalist Right, and to implicitly admit by so doing that it’s not all the fault of the Eevul Libruls’ obsession with sex, and then turn right around and harp on it if it’s about SSM or hookup culture or whatever—aren’t you contributing to the problem?

Karth, I don’t know what you specifically mean by the “Meltdown”. If you mean something like the Great Depression redux, then traditional values may well reassert themselves. If you mean a complete societal collapse–wars, rioting, secession, power plants go offline, trade is disrupted–Fall of Rome type stuff, in short; if you mean something like that, the traditional values that will be reasserted will be those of peasant farmers or hunter-gatherers (if anyone’s left alive); or the values asserted will be the non-traditional ones of Mad Max.

That kind of barely-contained glee over the Coming Apocalypse That Will Make All Those Libruls, Hippies, and Our Whole Trashy Culture Sorry really irks me. If we really are in a place where civilizational collapse is imminent–and I mean collapse, with millions of dead, wars in the streets, starvation, and general Hobbsean anarchy–then that’s nothing to get gleeful about or about which to think “The other side is gonna get theirs!” If such a true collapse is imminent, we need to stop it, if possible; or if not, then pray fervently and move out to Colorado and go subsistence farmer.

On the other hand, if we’re “just” talking “Special Period” Cuba or post-Soviet Russia or Weimar Germany, then we’re talking difficult and transformative (although the Weimar Republic did not transform in a good way), but we need then to be clear-eyed, figure out how to meet it, and quit gloating about the impending ruin of the Left/Hollywood morality/hippies/whatever. The Weimar Republic, for one, sure doesn’t seem to have been any more traditionally moral than its predecessor, btw–remember Cabaret?
Frank OConnor says:

September 25, 2012 at 9:23 am

I have recently been reading for the first time (I was all my life a NR Buckley-following conservative), and I think we can find here the problem of current conservatism. When it dumped the Old Right and went in for messianic anti-communism it abandoned any pretence to being anti-statist.
As for the religious right and its fixation on abortion/homosexuality , its hypocrisy or moral blindness to the military-industrial state and it “perpetual wars for perpetual” peace” exposes their claim to be “pro-life” as just so much hooey. Whatever happened to the “seamless web”? Pro-life was interpreted in RR foreign policy as being killing infidels, be they atheistic communists of Islamist upstarts.
Here’s a slogan the religious right should bring into the public square debates if it should want to be taken seriously as a pro-life force in American politics: “If war is right, then Christianity is wrong.” (Theodore Parker.
Frank OConnor says:

September 25, 2012 at 9:25 am

The writer I have been reading, that I carelessly omitted from my post, is Murray Rothbard.
Rod Dreher says:

September 25, 2012 at 9:25 am

So which is it? You see how you appear to be contradicting yourself, right?

No, I don’t see it. You seem to believe that either one says that sex-related issues (abortion, gay marriage, out of wedlock childbearing, etc.) are a big deal, or other things are a big deal. My position is that a) these things are a big deal to social and religious conservatives, and b) they shouldn’t be the only things we care about as social and religious conservatives.
Cbalducc says:

September 25, 2012 at 9:33 am

AmConMag’s bigwigs basically define conservative as anything anti-Republican. Y’all probably consider Vito Marcantonio a real conservative!
Matt in TX says:

September 25, 2012 at 9:34 am

I think the strongest part of Brooks’ column is the last line, when he points out that the Republican Party “appeals to people as potential business owners, but not as parents, neighbors and citizens.” I don’t think conservatives have been hurt by their social issue positions, even if I don’t agree with all of them. I think they’ve been hurt because they tend to talk as if everybody out there wants to be an entrepreneur (example A, their convention). There’s little recognition that humanity is made up of a number of different types, and that the businessman (or -woman) is a small minority. Human nature is not infinitely fungible, and we do not all aspire and cannot all be made to aspire to be our own boss with two new locations opening every year.
Matt in TX says:

September 25, 2012 at 9:42 am

No, I don’t see it. You seem to believe that either one says that sex-related issues (abortion, gay marriage, out of wedlock childbearing, etc.) are a big deal, or other things are a big deal.

Ah, but you snuck in “out of wedlock childbearing” there. That totally changes things, don’t it? Look at what you wrote in above: “We allowed the greater part of what we had to offer to the broader conservative movement to consist of making demands about abortion and homosexuality.” Superficially, that seems right. Add out of wedlock children, though, and suddenly conservatives seem more comprehensive and coherent. But have they been? What demands can you claim the Republicans have made regarding out of wedlock childbearing?

I mean, look at what you wrote: “beyond strong opinions on these two issues”. But now you’re introducing a third issue! Slippery, Rod, slippery.
Clare Krishan says:

September 25, 2012 at 10:05 am

As noted under the ‘el bulli’ post (above) he who ‘conserves’ is long gone down the memory hole of QE3… here’s more on the amnesia in the collective echelons of US power, from the Telegraph:
” A recent study by Deloitte, the accountancy firm, concludes that America’s debate on the nation’s finances is largely superficial and the debt crisis far more severe than business leaders, policy-makers and the public realise: “The US,” it says, “is on track to spend at least $4.2 trillion in interest payments over the next decade.”…[w]ith nearly half of publicly-held US debt in the hands of foreigners, the borrow-to-consume game is almost up… “
Clare Krishan says:

September 25, 2012 at 10:06 am

missing citation
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/us-politics/9562007/Barack-Obama-shrugs-but-the-debt-keeps-mounting.html
Irenist says:

September 25, 2012 at 10:07 am

Weaver us quite right that ideas have consequences, and that from the turn to nominalism, it’s but a short tumble down the slippery slope to the likes of Peter Singer. What this tells me, though, is that the focus on near-term electoral politics is misplaced. I suspect that the work that Oderberg and Feser are performing to make Thomism respectable in the academy again is liable to be of more enduring importance than today’s electoral squabbles between Randians and New Dealers. And considering that those are our two factions, there’s little left in our politics to conserve: ordered liberty must be rebuilt, one private Christian life at a time. “New St. Benedict” and all that. From that work, politics is a corrupting distraction.
Jim says:

September 25, 2012 at 10:13 am

Meh. The one part of this whole criticism that really resonates is paid a very short passing mention by Brooks: federalism (which he references correctly as subsidiarity).

It drives me crazy to see conservatives in state houses and city government to react in a knee-jerk fashion to state and local taxes. If some small municipality wants to pass a 50% earnings tax and deliver a fifth of scotch and fresh-cut flowers to every household every evening with the proceeds, then it should knock itself out. That’s a frivolous example of course, but hopefully you get my drift. We are a big, diverse country, and the more control that a federal government assumes, the less responsive it can be. And perhaps more importantly for this debate, the more roles that the federal government fills, the less room there is for other institutions to take the lead: state government, county and municipal government, school boards, churches, families, parents, etc. Those smaller societal units ought to be better than a bureaucrat in Washington at curing society’s ills.

Look at the school lunch phenomenon lampooned by those kids in Kansas. Are American kids too fat, generally speaking? Sure. But that doesn’t mean that the federal government should mandate a one-size-fits-all solution to the problem. Then you get absurd situations like kids who work on the farm in the morning and play football in the evening trying to subsist on 700 calories a day.
Mentor says:

September 25, 2012 at 10:16 am

Aaron in Israel said: “Read fewer conservative books. Read more nonconservative books. “

Sound advice. Not only is conservative wisdom often found in books not obviously conservative, but the most compelling lessons are often learned while meditating one’s own experience – literary culture that turns bookish risks pathology.
Rod Dreher says:

September 25, 2012 at 10:18 am

I mean, look at what you wrote: “beyond strong opinions on these two issues”. But now you’re introducing a third issue! Slippery, Rod, slippery.

I introduced the third issue as a nod to why I care about it so much on this blog. The thing that interests me most, and that I consider so fundamental to our culture and polity, is the formation and maintenance of strong families. At a national level, the contribution of the Religious Right has been primarily about those two issues, but there are other obviously related issues. When you think “Religious Right” and “politics,” you think of abortion and same-sex marriage, because those have been the focus. I would remind you as well that these have been the focus of the activist secular left as well.
knoxharrington says:

September 25, 2012 at 10:32 am

Real conservatism understands limits. David Brooks with his “big government conservatism” where he champions government undertaking “big projects” is not conservative in the least. The problem is not a lack of social conservatism or an emphasis on market conservatism – the problem is that the neoconservative vision of an activist government both abroad and at home is not truly conservative. The Republican Party as the standard bearer of conservatism is not really a conservative party at the top – it is a neoconservative party that rhetorically must “act” conservative so that real conservatives will vote for it. Actions speak louder than words and the actions of the Republican Party post-2000 are not anywhere nearing being conservative. As for Russell Kirk, I was fortunate enough to get to meet him at an ISI conference in the summer of 1992 and a kinder, gentler man I have not met. Kirk was a real conservative – thus he opposed the first Gulf War and would likely have opposed all the foreign interventions since. Rod, you asked how the Republican Party needs to change in a post the other day and the answer is simple it needs to mean what is says and say what it means. Mirroring the Democrat Party will not work. Half-measures avail us nothing. Nothing less than a full embrace of real conservatism (which in my mind is libertarian which is a subject for another time)is the only way forward. The population, when told the truth, can handle. It is time for unvarnished truth telling about the current state of affairs.
Irenist says:

September 25, 2012 at 10:42 am

“literary culture that turns bookish risks pathology.”

We Catholic traditionalists certainly have this problem. Some wag online once dubbed Chesterton “the patron saint of men who sit around reading and never actually do anything.”
False to Chesterton, all too fair to us his epigones.
Will in Mississippi says:

September 25, 2012 at 11:01 am

Brook’s offers a fair critique of the loudmouth tendency and a solely economic view of man, but his alternative failed in the 1960s and 70s. The idea that technocrats and social scientists can refashion communities to strengthen families doesn’t go very far any more. A lot of exurban sprawl and the flight from public spcace and institutions have been an effort to escape that blend of the managerial and theraputic state. How much money has been spent in working around various schemes? What impact has it had on family and community life?

These efforts at social engineering have nothing to do with interventionist tradition of Alexander Hamilton and Henry Clay, but rather owe their provenance to decadent American progressives of a later era and various European theorists they copied. Building bridges, railroads and canals is not quite the same as breaking up neighborhoods and transforming schools to transform public attitudes.
Will in Mississippi says:

September 25, 2012 at 11:06 am

If the programs of which Brooks things so highly work so well, why is it that he and others who might in Massachusetts be called “Brookline Liberals” insulate themselves and their families from it. Fine to impose social engineering on the townies, but the affluent, educated and professional get separate treatment for their communities. Brooks’ University of Chicago background with tied to the Straussian concept of “noble lies” and a guardian class of philosophers raise the stink factor. But then I don’t think it right to treat people as bricks and mortar to be shoveled about at whim.
Edward Hamilton says:

September 25, 2012 at 11:06 am

Since Rod’s post yesterday, I’ve been mulling over an expanded social conservative agenda that would both go beyond “box checking” the old standards like abortion and gays, and would be philosophically unconstrained by Randian free-market dogma. Let me say in advance, though, that just because there’s some value in disentangling traditional conservatism from laissez-faire capitalism, we should still be smart enough to spot when the two causes legitimately overlap. Having government programs that displace the need for fathers in households is a pretty good example of where “pro-family” programs can have perversely unintended consequences. Would-be Christian Democrats should take those kinds of critiques seriously, particularly when they are coming out of hard sociological data, and being presented by pragmatists instead of predictable ideologues (i.e., a Moynihan, instead of just the usual Pauls).

Here’s the results of some brainstorming, a list of expanded agenda options for religious conservatives that would have useful crossover appeal for Democrats:

1. Enhanced compensation and social status for workers in child-oriented professions. This would include elementary teachers and day care workers. It’s dismaying that we live in a world where day traders are regarded by the economy as more valuable than early childhood educators. If the free market is trying to tell us that, then the free market needs to shut the hell up and stop interfering in our better moral reasoning.

2. Tax fairness, which I think will frankly involve embracing positions that currently belong to Democrats, but justifying the support in ways that are more explicitly conservative. If investing in people (families, children, marriages) is more important than investing in artificial financial instruments than derivatives, then we should be giving a lower tax rate to those who invest in the former. If anything the tax rates for income and for capital gains should be reversed. Obviously you can carve out savings vehicles for family investment (like Roth IRAs), so that families don’t get burned themselves when they try to save. But at the very least, tax rates shouldn’t be biased against real investments in communities, in favor of investments in incomprehensible securitized debt instruments. I mean, never mind the fact that we just about ruined the entire economy by virtue of confusing ourselves with those sorts of artificial investments. This is just a matter of basic moral judgment.

3. Sensible terms of military service. With the military functioning as a popular alternative for the employment of children from low-income families, it makes sense for religious conservatives to go back to their own scriptural tradition to develop some principles for how soldiers ought to be treated. Deuteronomy chapter 20, in addition to containing all the stuff about captives and war spoils that atheists use to embarrass exegetically unsophisticated Christians, also contains a fairly restrictive set of guidelines for how much military service should be allowed to interfere with family life. Parents of young children should not be allowed to throw away their lives in senseless warfare in distant countries; taking care of their own children is too valuable, and the interests of the country in fighting wars do not rise to the same level of importance. Either give them safe desk jobs, or non-military service options, or else downsize the military entirely. The Judeo-Christian tradition is full of reminders of how having a smaller and less professional army (a militia that doesn’t depend on overwhelming manpower and technological might) is a matter of national virtue. Why isn’t this reflected in our approach toward national defense? Our military operating policy reminds me more of empires like Egypt and Assyria, rather than anything in the Mosaic law tradition.

4. Family and medical leave. Again, this is an issue where Republicans have just been wrong, and centrist Democrats deserve credit. We want people caring for their own children, and (increasingly) caring for their own parents. We need to make this as easy as possible. If that means more regulatory complexity for businesses, then businesses are just going to have to deal with that. Give them tax breaks as compensation, but make sure that we’re creating a culture where home life is valued above the workplace.

5. Nutrition and wellness. These are basic quality of life issues for families, and Christians (at least) have a tradition of regarding the body in a sacramental way, as a “temple”. Rod has spoken eloquently enough about how we need a unified approach toward sexual ethics and food, so I won’t elaborate on his critique. But we need to recognize that feed ourselves irresponsibly (junk food) is a reflection of one of the seven deadly sins that lives next door to lust. If we oppose sexual promiscuity, we need to oppose dietary promiscuity using the same language and for the same reasons. These are unified themes in the Mosaic law, often with passages weaving back and forth seamlessly between exhortations for dietary purity and for sexual purity. That tradition shouldn’t be neglected.

6. Environmental policy as a matter of intergenerational equity. Religious conservatives need to restructure environmental causes into concern about what we pass along to future generations. This is happening already at the level of an invitation (think of E.O. Wilson’s “open letter” to religious conservatives to care more about biodiversity), but it needs to be accepted by a broader consensus of conservatives. That probably means disconnecting the “global warming” debate from other causes, and focusing more on less contentious local issues that relate to land management, resource conservation, and balancing the economic concerns of developing nations with the preservation of wildlife habitats. Why do we think of medical care as explicitly under the umbrella of “missionary activities”, but not care for the natural world? There’s a failure of imagination here. This also relates to issues of violence and war (finding oil reserves can create more tension and bloodshed in developing nations), and the equitable distribution of wealth arising from resources.

Note that none of these suggestions is a replacement for advocacy on prolife or marriage issues, and I don’t think that they should be – even if social conservatives are fighting a losing battle on those fronts, they should still look for what portion of their tradition they can still reasonably protect. But a broader agenda would help to market the religious “right” as being an independent third perspective, rather than a “leg” of someone else’s increasingly wobbly stool.
Patrick says:

September 25, 2012 at 11:08 am

There is an inherent conflict between economic liberalism and “traditionalists”. Capitalism doesn’t seek to preserve *anything* – it attempts to make as much money as quickly as possible no matter what the social consequence.

I don’t think a country that is fundamentally Protestant, anti-authority, and built on “make as much money as possible” can ever have a real “traditionalist” conservatism.
J says:

September 25, 2012 at 11:10 am

The fact is that Kirkean Traditionalism never really had a cultural foothold in the US and probably never will. It is an idea without foundation in the reality of experience. It is not generally remembered now, even by his followers, that Kirk was a very good fantasy writer. The problem is that is notions of conservatism seem to have been another example of it.

It’s worth remembering that liberal thinkers of the time decided that there wasn’t enough of adult substance to Kirk’s thought to be worth strong critique. Being predicately God-fearing and cautious of all and skeptical of Other People and highly tribe- and family-centric, de facto uncreative, and giving great weight to the opinions of the dead…that’s average people at ages four and eighty-four.

Conservatism works nicely in works of fiction, that’s true. A little better than in reality, where insanity and creativity have a way of dominating our time and attention.
Uncle Vanya says:

September 25, 2012 at 1:07 pm

A reread Kirk’s book every couple of years, always discovering nuance I hadn’t noticed previously.

“The Conservative Mind,” is a must-read for everyone who thinks of himself as a conservative and for anyone who would be a serious student of political science.
djf says:

September 25, 2012 at 1:48 pm

Since when is David Brooks a Kirkian traditionalist? I guess he’s an “aesthetic” traditionalist, kind of like Martha Stewart and Ralph Lauren.
Dan Phillips says:

September 25, 2012 at 2:20 pm

“At moments like these I find myself thinking a whole lot more real estate should have been put to the torch in the Late Unpleasantness and the necktie party they held for Henry Wirz should had quite a few more guests of honor to get the point across.”

“At moments like these I find myself” knowing that JonF is a bloodthirsty idiot who has just disqualified himself from having anyone take anything else he says seriously.
Josh McGee says:

September 25, 2012 at 2:58 pm

This is fair and reasonable criticism. Reading Kirk a few years back in my early to mid-20s made me realize I’m not really nor have I ever have been a modern conservative. Yet, in most ways, especially socially but also economically, I’m more conservative than most of the conservatives I know. It’s strange.

The only thing I might add is that Kirk spoke frequently about voluntary community vs. coerced community. There is nothing voluntary about the Obamacare mandate, or even Social Security or Medicare for that matter. There’s nothing voluntary about the diets being imposed on schools from the federal level. There’s nothing voluntary about the HHS regulations towards religious institutions. In other words, there are points where traditional conservatives like myself still draw the same conclusions as modern economic conservatives and say, “Enough is enough, this is becoming rampant statism and it has to stop.” In other words, this may not be Russell Kirk’s conservative movement anymore, but modern liberalism also doesn’t bear much resemblance to the liberalism of 1-3 generations ago either. It, too, is far more rigid and narrow. My point being, even traditional conservatives reach points where they ask, “How do I compromise with this?”

Russell Kirk and Richard Weaver was still operating in a culture that was mostly Christian (at least nominally) in its basic ethical and moral inclinations on both the left and right. Yes, it was fading – but it hadn’t been replaced with anything. But many on the left (and even on the right, depending how Randian one becomes) not only are not Christian in their ethical framework anymore – they now consider Christian ethics themselves to be the source of (at least some) evil. Well, once that happens, it becomes impossible to find common ground from which to operate. There are people that believe I am motivated by hate for merely holding to a 2,000 yr-old Christian view of marriage. Well, I’m not sure even Russell Kirk could produce sound policy under those circumstances.

Yes, folks like me seemingly have nowhere to turn in politics. And I agree with your assessment of modern conservatism and appreciation of the writers / works you mentioned. But we have to remember that a growing number of people consider the things they wrote about and believed not just to be bad policy but morally wrong, motivated by hate, etc. This causes me to doubt whether that group of writers could have been any more effective in this environment. (Obviously they weren’t even all that effective in their own environment or they wouldn’t have been rejected/forgotten the way they have been).

P.S.
Just to clarify…I agree with the basic line of thought. Those conservatives you mentioned are also the conservatives I admire. I’m right there with you. I just don’t believe they could have been effective today. They too would have been maligned for their ‘hateful’, ‘cold-hearted’ views about Christian ethics and voluntary community. And it’s quite possible (likely?) they would have reached a point where they too said, “Enough is enough, we can’t be expected to compromise with this.)

As always, really enjoy your writing and perspective.
Lord Karth says:

September 25, 2012 at 3:41 pm

Turmarion writes: “I don’t know what you specifically mean by the “Meltdown”.”

I’ll keep it short:

Phase One: Debt-driven economic collapse, courtesy of massive central- and provincial government spending, followed by

Phase Two: A new Great Depression, characterized by a collapse (through repudiation) of the Entitlement system. No more Medicare, no more Medicaid, followed by

Phase Three: A breakdown of the central government’s authority, largely based on an inability to distribute benefits and resultant loss of legitimacy. Possible secession of at least five provinces. (Not that this will help much, as you will see below.)

A strong (greater than 50 %) possibility of

Phase Four: Widespread terrorism in the US mainland, using biological or chemical weapons. Killing of local administrators as “hoarding” or “keeping food from tthe People”. Sabotage of the machinery of necessities (e.g. water supplies in Southern California and the Southwest, supplies and chemicals to the mechanized farms of the Midwest), leading to the overextension of the domestic military. Producing

Phase Five: Collapse of the central and provincial bureaucracies, along with the breakdown of command and control of the domestic military. Functional dissolution of the State under pressure to distribute inadequate food supplies (see Phase Four) after the collapse of mechanized agriculture.
Serious potential for cannibalism, mass starvation in more populated areas.

End result: something along the lines of S.M. Stirling’s “Dies the Fire”, early post-Change. If we’re lucky. (Remember, unlike in Stirling’s scenario, guns will still work very nicely.) Bear in mind that the US is a major agricultural exporter; collapse our farm system and the entire world economy falls. Then try feeding seven to nine billion people. Nota bene: missing seven meals can make a man desperate enough to kill.

The survivors will almost certainly envy the dead. After eating them.

Your servant,

Lord Karth

P.S. I would dearly love to avoid such a scenario. I have children. But given the sheer idiocy, ignorance and simple rising immaturity of Americans—commoners and elites alike !—I am finding it increasingly difficult to see how we avoid it, at least without major and very unpleasant changes to the current social setup.
Ed says:

September 25, 2012 at 5:01 pm

The divide between conservatism and progressivism is one that functions within the larger reality of modernism.
In order to establish a genuine traditional conservatism requires a medieval or pre-modern context. Since that really is not possible, it really doesn’t matter what Russell Kirk and Richard Weaver think. The cultural conditions have changed.
What contemporary conservatives and progressives have yet to realize is that the cultural conditions for their preeminence are in decline, they will be replaced. By what, that is the question that we should be discussing. When Corporate Capitalism and Global Progressivism collapse, will this be the apocalypse or a return to a more primitive time?
Church Lady says:

September 26, 2012 at 12:13 am

“It’s not so much that today’s Republican politicians reject traditional, one-nation conservatism. They don’t even know it exists.”

There’s a reason for this. Economic conservatism, and genuinely traditional social conservatism (and by that I don’t mean the abortion-gay-rights anathema blathering, but the actual living of a traditional life free of the market-driven values of the modern life) are simply incompatible. So one of them has to go.

You can see how most economic conservatives have given the heave-ho to genuine social conservatism. Sure, they support a few issues like pro-life sentiments (not much in the way of action, to be sure, but at least sentimental agreement). Some of them will even oppose SSM, but not with much fervor. But they really can’t fully get on board with it, because the true agenda of the traditionalist is against the whole program of unregulated, unrestricted free market capitalism.

Likewise, it seems like traditionalist such as Rod are getting wise to this, but rather than actually oppose the whole free market economic program, they just lose interest in economics altogether. In part, this is so they don’t upset the conservative bargain. But the effect is the same, of choosing one or the other of two incompatible political agendas, and letting the other lapse.

This is at the heart of the incredible cognitive dissonance of the GOP. It has literally driven most people in the party insane, from the traditionalists to the economic conservatives to the militant neo-cons. Everyone is screaming in an effort to make themselves heard, and everyone is pretending to hear and respect one another, when that is the furthest thing from the truth. And yet, like some giant dysfunctional family, they all smile and pretend to love one another, and that they will honor and never leave, and then they turn around and completely forget everything they just said and pursue their own agenda.

It might actually work if these agendas were compatible, but they aren’t. Not without a lot of corruption to grease the wheels, at least. And that corruption just eats away at the party. Economic conservatives support the neocons as long as they get to make a bundle off the military industrial complex. Neocons support the social conservatives as long as they give universal and unwavering support to Israel and wars in the middle east. And social conservatives support the free-marketers as long as they oppose abortion, which they do as long as it doesn’t mean their daughters have to give birth to out-of-wedlock babies. But none of this actually works. They just pretend it does, to avoid the corrupt reality.
Turmarion says:

September 26, 2012 at 9:46 am

Thank you for your specific and explicit reply, Karth. I, too, hope that such a scenario does not come to pass. We’ll see, I guess.

Rod, I’d reiterate what you said. When it was suggested that to you, “sex-issues are at the top of your list of What’s Wrong With The World Today,” you said, “They are.” More than economics, pollution, peak oil, endless warfare, the Perpetual Security State, etc.? You’ve also said you’d like to see a socially conservative party, and that you feel more comfortable with Republicans, despite all your disagreement with them, because they are the party of “your people”. You even seem to be half-heartedly trying to work up some enthusiasm for Romney in yourself, from some of your recent posts.

At the same time you acknowledge that you blame your “tribe” (which you use unironically–see why we so often say that you think from your guts with “the tribe”?), the Religious Right, is responsible for the impoverishment and decline of conservative thought, and you admit that it’s precisely because of one-sided harping on sex issues.

I mean, you never answered this on the other thread, but consider: if all the economic, political, foreign policy, labor-related, and other problems facing us could be solved totally but at the cost of allowing SSM, and in general of letting the current sexual mores continue, would you take that deal?

I supposed you’d say that the social and sexual issues cause the others, and there’s probably some truth in that; but it’s also likely that the other issues cause the social dysfunction to a very large extent. My view tends to be that politics is not about telling people how to order their lives but about running a country; and therefore I’m wary of socially conservative or socially liberal parties. Obviously you can’t totally disentangle social issues from politics: e.g., should SSM be allowed? I’m really more in favor of dealing with that at a state level, but it is what it is.

My view is that I don’t look at politicians as “my people”–they are my employees, and, with a nod to Mitt, I’d really enjoy firing a whole bunch of them on both sides. I refuse to work up one single iota of sympathy or preference for “my” side just because of my party registration or because the vibe I get from a candidate is good or because I’d feel more comfortable among members of that party. That’s just emotional manipulation. I might like a mechanic, but if he can’t fix my car, I’m not going to let him work on it.

I guess social issues aren’t really a huge concern to me in comparison with everything else going on. I think it’s bad that the GOP has become an ersatz, default “socially conservative” party (though it really isn’t), and vice versa with the Democrats. It causes everything to become Manichaean, moralistic crusades instead of political debate; and that, IMO, is bad for all of us.
Noah172 says:

September 26, 2012 at 8:16 pm

Turn off talk radio. Turn off the cable. Quit buying books from flashy Republican Party publicists.

Similar advice for American Christianity:

Turn off the televangelists. Walk away from the megachurches. Quit buying books from Lifeway (full stop), quit buying trashy apocalyptic “Christian” lit (Left Behind, Jerusalem Countdown, et al), and have a healthy skepticism for books published by Zondervan (a division of Murdoch’s News Corp.) and similar non-independent “Christian” publishers.
Turmarion says:

September 26, 2012 at 9:14 pm

I have to say, Noah, that here you’ve said something with which I can enthusiastically sign on 100%!
Raymond Billy says:

September 30, 2012 at 4:30 pm

I agree, Rod. I’ve always had conservative sensibilities, but there was a time when I aligned more with liberals and Democrats — in part because I didn’t think conservatism had anything to offer me. It seemed too corporatist and militarist for my taste, for starters. When I began to read conservatives like Buchanan, Kirk and you, I realized that what mostly passes for conservatism today is not conservatism at all — the best term I can think of to describe the GOP is corporatist-Christian statism. With few exceptions, conservatives have abandoned their rich localist, traditionalist heritage.

On a related note, here’s a column you might be interested in that ties together two of your favorite topics: Russell Kirk and Louisiana:

The Quasi-Kirkean Conservatism Of Louisiana
http://resonatenews.com/newscolumns/369-the-quasi-kirkean-conservatism-of-louisiana