Principled conservatism has taken its own life in an act of suicide terrorism to destroy the state and bring in an authoritarian dictator who professes conservative values while having no values of any kind. In the aftermath of suicide it's customary to allow survivors to be angry at the pepetrator of a senseless act, and to not inflict upon them epitaphs on how awesome the departed was.
I'm definitely angry too. Sad, but also angry. I'm perhaps even more angry because all these people should have known better. Their principled rejections of revolution alone should have warned them about exactly this kind of thing. Alas.
Conservativism hasn't conserved very much. Gun rights, I suppose. Opposition to wage/price controls sorta. A volunteer army? (or was that the libertarians). You can't even say conservatives defeated communism, because when the Cold War ended the errors of Russia continued to spread until the found a welcome home in the US. When failure upon failure piles up, standing athwart history and yelling stop gets you about nothing. Thus, new generation of conservatives (a throwback to paleo-conservatives really) just returned to what their ancestors knew, that politics is, and has always been, about "who get's what" (Laswell). In short, they are using power, something their opponents were never afraid to do.
I have a post coming next week (fingers crossed) on exactly this point. Once principles fly out the window (on both sides) politics always reverts back to power. That puts us in a zero sum space, which isn't good for governing or for decent outcomes.
I'll have to think more about whether principled conservatism really hasn't conserved anything. That may be true on the national level, but on the local level I know a lot of conservative communities that are wonderful places to live, with principled people living good and meaningful lives. I'm not sure we can call it a total failure as long as people are still living the principles in meaningful ways.
Thank you very much for your account of principled conservatism. I think you do an excellent job of laying out what's attractive in this philosophy, particularly impressive in that you don't fully embrace the beliefs yourself (though you do respect them, and that comes through). I was inspired (and I'm not a conservative either).
Some thoughts:
- I think the title is an unnecessary exaggeration and provocation (e.g. there were many epitaphs written about the 'death' of populism in America when Trump lost in 2020) - perhaps better something in the spirit of, "Would the Principled Conservatives Please Stand Up and Be Counted"?
- It's also, to my mind, exaggerated to say that 'principled conservatism' has been tainted for a generation. I think the populace is perfectly capable of distinguishing MAGA from principled conservatism. There were (to many) two unpleasant alternatives on offer last November, neither of which was principled conservatism; a plurality, wisely or not, chose as they did.
- Excellent work in identifying where current action falls short of principles (often profoundly) - the contrast is illustrative and powerful.
- The 'move fast and break things' approach has been targeted, one can argue, not at time-honored norms and traditions, but rather recent excesses, deeply unpopular (whether this is being appropriately done is eminently contestable, but I think it's a little much to claim as 'traditions' many things of very recent introduction, revolutionary in their own turn).
- The appeal, such as it is, of the MAGA movement is the belief that a rot has set in that needs to be extirpated, and that half-measures won't be sufficient. That the system must be gutted to restore it to health. It does mean that plenty of good will be sacrificed in the process, in the interests of establishing a healthy foundation. There's much to be said about whether this is being effectively done, or even appropriate, but if there's no recognition that that rot exists (a belief that many hold, including many not sympathetic to MAGA), the analysis seems, to these eyes, unbalanced.
But thank you - I really enjoyed the piece, and your defense of principled conservatism.
Thanks for the comment, TRoy! I hope I am exaggerating, but I worry. The college students I teach are pretty average members of the populace and the vast majority of them have had no exposure to principled conservatism. Most Americans don't think along ideological lines in this way either.
But you're right that there's still hope. There are groups working to preserve principled conservatism for a post-Trump world and my hope is that there's enough of them to keep it going.
To your last point, I've long been a critic of what could be called "rot" in government. I agree that drastic changes are needed. I wish there had been a bi-partisan recognition that things were bad. Instead, neither side was interested in actually governing, being more interested in scoring points off each other or being manipulated by the most extreme parts of their bases. So here we are.
A few names (off the top of my head): Edmund Burke, James Madison, Russell Kirk, William Buckley, Irving Kristol, Thomas Sowell, Antonin Scalia, Mitt Romney, Liz Cheney, and many others. You don't have to agree with them on principles or policy, but I think all of them believed they were doing the right thing and acting from deeply held principles of right and wrong and concerned about how to build a flourishing society. That list is much more expansive, of course. But what's happening now, which is that politics has been reduced to "gotcha" moments and point scoring, isn't governance at all. At least some conservatives did care about governing. Some progressives too. It doesn't feel like that's the case anymore.
Principled conservatism has taken its own life in an act of suicide terrorism to destroy the state and bring in an authoritarian dictator who professes conservative values while having no values of any kind. In the aftermath of suicide it's customary to allow survivors to be angry at the pepetrator of a senseless act, and to not inflict upon them epitaphs on how awesome the departed was.
I'm definitely angry too. Sad, but also angry. I'm perhaps even more angry because all these people should have known better. Their principled rejections of revolution alone should have warned them about exactly this kind of thing. Alas.
Conservativism hasn't conserved very much. Gun rights, I suppose. Opposition to wage/price controls sorta. A volunteer army? (or was that the libertarians). You can't even say conservatives defeated communism, because when the Cold War ended the errors of Russia continued to spread until the found a welcome home in the US. When failure upon failure piles up, standing athwart history and yelling stop gets you about nothing. Thus, new generation of conservatives (a throwback to paleo-conservatives really) just returned to what their ancestors knew, that politics is, and has always been, about "who get's what" (Laswell). In short, they are using power, something their opponents were never afraid to do.
I have a post coming next week (fingers crossed) on exactly this point. Once principles fly out the window (on both sides) politics always reverts back to power. That puts us in a zero sum space, which isn't good for governing or for decent outcomes.
I'll have to think more about whether principled conservatism really hasn't conserved anything. That may be true on the national level, but on the local level I know a lot of conservative communities that are wonderful places to live, with principled people living good and meaningful lives. I'm not sure we can call it a total failure as long as people are still living the principles in meaningful ways.
Hi Lauren,
Thank you very much for your account of principled conservatism. I think you do an excellent job of laying out what's attractive in this philosophy, particularly impressive in that you don't fully embrace the beliefs yourself (though you do respect them, and that comes through). I was inspired (and I'm not a conservative either).
Some thoughts:
- I think the title is an unnecessary exaggeration and provocation (e.g. there were many epitaphs written about the 'death' of populism in America when Trump lost in 2020) - perhaps better something in the spirit of, "Would the Principled Conservatives Please Stand Up and Be Counted"?
- It's also, to my mind, exaggerated to say that 'principled conservatism' has been tainted for a generation. I think the populace is perfectly capable of distinguishing MAGA from principled conservatism. There were (to many) two unpleasant alternatives on offer last November, neither of which was principled conservatism; a plurality, wisely or not, chose as they did.
- Excellent work in identifying where current action falls short of principles (often profoundly) - the contrast is illustrative and powerful.
- The 'move fast and break things' approach has been targeted, one can argue, not at time-honored norms and traditions, but rather recent excesses, deeply unpopular (whether this is being appropriately done is eminently contestable, but I think it's a little much to claim as 'traditions' many things of very recent introduction, revolutionary in their own turn).
- The appeal, such as it is, of the MAGA movement is the belief that a rot has set in that needs to be extirpated, and that half-measures won't be sufficient. That the system must be gutted to restore it to health. It does mean that plenty of good will be sacrificed in the process, in the interests of establishing a healthy foundation. There's much to be said about whether this is being effectively done, or even appropriate, but if there's no recognition that that rot exists (a belief that many hold, including many not sympathetic to MAGA), the analysis seems, to these eyes, unbalanced.
But thank you - I really enjoyed the piece, and your defense of principled conservatism.
Thanks for the comment, TRoy! I hope I am exaggerating, but I worry. The college students I teach are pretty average members of the populace and the vast majority of them have had no exposure to principled conservatism. Most Americans don't think along ideological lines in this way either.
But you're right that there's still hope. There are groups working to preserve principled conservatism for a post-Trump world and my hope is that there's enough of them to keep it going.
To your last point, I've long been a critic of what could be called "rot" in government. I agree that drastic changes are needed. I wish there had been a bi-partisan recognition that things were bad. Instead, neither side was interested in actually governing, being more interested in scoring points off each other or being manipulated by the most extreme parts of their bases. So here we are.
A few names (off the top of my head): Edmund Burke, James Madison, Russell Kirk, William Buckley, Irving Kristol, Thomas Sowell, Antonin Scalia, Mitt Romney, Liz Cheney, and many others. You don't have to agree with them on principles or policy, but I think all of them believed they were doing the right thing and acting from deeply held principles of right and wrong and concerned about how to build a flourishing society. That list is much more expansive, of course. But what's happening now, which is that politics has been reduced to "gotcha" moments and point scoring, isn't governance at all. At least some conservatives did care about governing. Some progressives too. It doesn't feel like that's the case anymore.