Patrick Deneen says traditionalists ought to understand that the kind of conservatism on offer today really aspires to nothing greater than conserving market liberalism, not the things that matter most. Excerpt:
Growing numbers of social traditionalists (let's not call them "conservatives," lest we confuse the issue) are realizing that the coalition they joined was a devil's bargain. While communism was successfully combated, market capitalism did its work undermining most of the traditions that held together communities, folkways and customs. Communities were undermined by multinationals while elite universities scoured the land for any talent that could be strip-mined from localities and turned into productive material in the international market system. If you weren't a winner in the cosmopolitan, meritocratic sweepstakes then you deserved some kind of welfare and re-education; the norm of success was defined by one's distance from traditions and culture. The conservation of liberalism has accelerated the demise of the viability of tradition's claims. Thus, I, for one, have a jaundiced eye toward the old bargain being offered in some circles: rather, it seems likely that it is time to fight battles with erstwhile allies (even as new alliances are formed with some on the current Left, e.g. those with localist or somewhat healthy environmental views which stress conservation over techno-optimism) rather than sign back on to a lousy bargain that offers to allow us to "conserve" an anti-conservative "tradition." The place to start - difficult as it will be - is to reject the various "isms" being offered in return for electoral success. After all, what could be more conservative than opposition to an "ism" - even, dare one say, "conservatism"?
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**The place to start - difficult as it will be - is to reject the various "isms" being offered in return for electoral success.**
and
**It is time to "land our intellectual marines, in little magazines" as W. H. Auden put it.**
Indeed. What we need is a sort of Gramscian movement from the right instead of the left. Go at things culturally rather than politically, along the lines of what Sam Francis called Middle American Radicalism. There are certain areas where populism and conservatism overlap (a distributist/agrarian economic tendency might be one of them) and conservatives can hit those areas hard.
Many people in the middle class know they're getting hosed by the upper 10% of the population and their minions in the lowest 10%, but don't know what to do about it. A true conservatism would truly appeal to these folks.
Forget "conservatism," please. It has been Godless and therefore irrelevant. Secular conservatism will not defeat secular liberalism because to God both are two atheistic peas-in-a-pod and thus predestined to failure. As Stonewall Jackson's Chief of Staff R.L. Dabney said of such a humanistic belief more than 100 years ago:
"[Secular conservatism] is a party which never conserves anything. Its history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation. What was the resisted novelty of yesterday is today .one of the accepted principles of conservatism; it is now conservative only in affecting to resist the next innovation, which will tomorrow be forced upon its timidity and will be succeeded by some third revolution; to be denounced and then adopted in its turn. American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward towards perdition. It remains behind it, but never retards it, and always advances near its leader. This pretended salt bath utterly lost its savor: wherewith shall it be salted? Its impotency is not hard, indeed, to explain. It .is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It intends to risk nothing serious for the sake of the truth."
Our country is collapsing because we have turned our back on God (Psalm 9:17) and refused to kiss His Son (Psalm 2).
John Lofton, Editor, TheAmericanView.com
Recovering Republican
JLof@aol.com
Mark, us leftists will "tolerate" the social conservatives who do not personally get gay married, have abortions, or partake in rampant sex. Just, you know, in return do try to tolerate the leftists who do those things.
Alas, I fear that opposition to abortion will prevent the soc-cons from departing the econon-cons.
So The Conservative Movement™ sold America a big lie. So nu? Been that way for 30 long years, what took y'all so long to see it?
Miss the "wake up call" or something?
Ahh, so you're a socialist after all, but want limits on abortion and religious based restrictions on commerce.
Got it.
Why on EARTH you would sell your soul to government to regulate markets and commerce for political purposes, just to stick a finger in the eye of the guys that built the country, I cannot imagine.
But, since I've been reading this blog, you've gone from a mostly conservative writer, to a near socialist, you've abandoned all notions of free market economics, don't believe in individual choices, don't believe in free enterprise, and now you're starting to talk about how economic policy should be based on doctrine.
Frankly, I can see NO aspect whatsoever of "conservative" in anything you've been saying, doing, or promoting here. Not culturally, not economically, and not socially. It's more like "religious socialism". I oppose that kind of self-righteous "any deviation from my ideas is sin and evil" nonsense just as much as I detest the liberals accusing all conservatives of being of evil motive and intent, to avoid discussion of the validity of their ideas.
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