Larison on the fall of conservatism

Good stuff from Larison on that Packer piece:

Movement conservatism has become stale, uncreative and in a lot of ways uninteresting because it no longer seems to take account of the real world. What do I mean by that? I mean that in the political sphere movement conservatism, on the whole, seems to have forgotten its basic lessons about the corrupting influence of power, the dangers of concentrating power in too few hands, the limits of what government can accomplish and the bedrock principles of constitutional republicanism. It wants credit for being sober, prudent and responsible, but does not want the discipline or the vigilance that these things require. At home it has been and, unfortunately, continues to be all to ready to serve as a defender for executive usurpation and misrule, and it has tied itself so closely to Iraq that it will have to spend several decades rebuilding credibility on national security with the public beyond the true believers.

Daniel points out earlier in his item that movement conservatism is in trouble because it tied itself too closely to the Republican Party. You hear that a lot among conservatives; I remember a somewhat discomfiting conversation I was party to a few years back in which several older conservative academics very politely read me the riot act about how National Review, my employer, was not the magazine they'd fallen in love with back in the day, when (they said; I'm young to know) conservatives could argue over their clashing ideas in its pages. Their complaints came down to, "Your magazine is the house organ of the GOP, and is more concerned with setting the political line than exploring ideas." When I hear these charges that conservatism became swallowed up by Republicanism, this prickly conversation is what comes to mind.

I'm not sure what it means beyond the complaint (a valid one) that conservatives were too uncritical of the GOP, and too often confused their interests with the party's. What were movement conservatives supposed to do? Keep our ideals unsullied by trying them out in the world of politics? I wonder if liberals, in their years in exile, complained that the problem with their movement was that it was too closely tied to the Democratic Party.

I think Daniel is headed in the right direction here. He seems to be saying that conservatives, having tasted power, became more enamored with holding and extending it, and less interested in the principles that were supposed to guide their conduct and legislation. It's human nature. I am tempted to counsel conservatives to redirect their efforts from politics and toward building cultural institutions. In fact, I'm not just tempted to do that, I think it is the most important thing they (we) can do. But I also need to watch that I don't allow my disgust with how we conservatives and Republicans have blown the opportunity voters gave us to convince me that we should despair of politics altogether. That is as unrealistic in its way as thinking that working in politics is the most important thing a conservative can do to change the world.