The 2006 and 2008 elections were, at least in part, rejections of the extreme individualism of American conservatism in favor of a more collectivist approach to governance.
As a libertarian conservative, I value individual liberty above all else. But I also recognize that social order is a fundamental necessity if liberty is to thrive.
Absolute freedom is anarchy, and anarchy inevitably subverts individual freedom to the tyranny of the strong and the ruthless. What good is your absolute liberty if you’re oppressed by others who will inevitably abuse theirs?
Absolute freedom is not perfect freedom; far from it.
In its original conception by Edmund Burke, modern conservatism had at its center the wisdom inherent in tradition. Social traditions evolve out of social order; that which works to create and maintain order wins out over that which destroys or erodes it. Over time, traditions may change, but their essence always tends towards the maintainance of order.
To the Burkean conservative, society is conceived of not as a collection of individuals, but as a single organism, as in Herbert Spencer’s sociology.
In the West, a tradition of individual liberty and individual responsibility has nonetheless produced a dynamic and relatively stable civilization. Liberty unleashes the most innovative and creative human faculties. The French and American Revolutions (which Burke strongly criticized at the time) produced a paradox: a high degree of individualism can lead to a thriving and prosperous, well-ordered social organism.
Individualism and social order aren’t opposed to each other, but rather depend on each other. Still, there are limits, and over the last sixteen years, the limits of individualism have been stretched to the breaking point. The reckless and selfish indulgences of Bill Clinton, while damaging to the presidency, were, compared to the policies of the Bush years, superficial distractions from an otherwise relatively centrist administration.
The character and politics of both Baby Boomer presidents were formed in the social turmoil of the sixties, but with very different results. The Great Irony of post-Reagan conservatism is that the sixties generation so famous for its leftist radicalism has produced a kind of conservatism so undisciplined, and so self absorbed, that the label is nearly meaningless. If sixties leftism made a fetish out of progress, contemporary rightism has made a fetish out of self interest.
While he has plenty of company, most notably Rush Limbaugh, George W. Bush is the poster child of this undisciplined, shallow, idealistic conservatism, which has no intellectual roots, little knowledge of its history, and a poor understanding of the singularity of circumstance. Neoconservatism as practiced by Bush isn’t conservatism at all. It’s far too radical and far too rigid, rejecting the vital center—social, cultural, and political—so brilliantly elaborated in the sociology of Edward Shils.
Neoconservatives, and to a lesser degree Republicans in general, act as if self interest is all that is needed to maintain social order. What Burkean conservatives understand is that enlightened self interest undergirds social order, while merely crass, atomistic self interest erodes it. In addition, Burkeans understand that social order evolves slowly, step-by-step and institution-by-institution, with every society unique, every circumstance singular. To attempt any radical change in a society is to invite unintended consequences, and to ignore the latent virtues that exist in traditional, socially centrist institutions like marriage.
This is why on the economic front, Bush and Limbaugh’s ideology has brought such disastrous consequences. The current crisis is largely the result of unregulated and unenlightened self interest, of naked greed masquerading as virtue, of an “I’ve got mine” attitude that isolates the individual from the traditional social context so necessary to true human liberty. Gated communities and McMansions, much like the sky-scraping commercial fortresses of our cities, where the affluent are insulated from the realities of the larger society, are sad, lonesome icons of the times.
On the foreign policy front, the Bush agenda has been an equally tragic disaster. The naive and idealistic notion that American-style democracy can be transplanted into the Middle East makes as much sense as the hope that one can chop down a fig tree and expect a cherry tree to spring up in its place. Does anyone really believe that if China were the world’s hegemon, she could impose communism on America by force? Iraq and Afghanistan can’t be transformed by brute force or good intentions. To attempt to do so was the height of arrogance, and of ignorance.
The more intellectual conservatives—George Will, Pat Buchanan, David Brooks, the late William Buckley—realized early on that Bush is no conservative, at least not in any sense that retains the essence of conservatism. Similarly, intellectual conservatives, like those at The American Conservative magazine and (sadly, less and less so) National Review hold their noses while their powerful ally, Rush Limbaugh, sacrifices far-sighted traditionalism on the altar of short-term individual self interest.
Imagine Limbaugh, who quite literally advocates gluttony and ridicules frugality in our use of oil, trying to explain to Burke (or to future generations) how maximizing consumption of natural resources, rather than conserving them, is conservative!
Buckley put it this way:
Mr. Bush faces a singular problem best defined, I think, as the absence of effective conservative ideology — with the result that he ended up being very extravagant in domestic spending, extremely tolerant of excesses by Congress. And in respect of foreign policy, incapable of bringing together such forces as apparently were necessary to conclude the Iraq challenge.
The reaction to President Obama’s stimulus plan illustrates the crisis American conservatism faces as it attempts to balance individual liberty with social order. The same congressional Republicans who slathered bill after bill with pork during the Bush administration are suddenly aghast that Obama is spending hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars in order to stabilize the economy they helped to devastate.
Hypocrisy reveals self indulgence and a lack of intellectual discipline, as when the same Rush Limbaugh who celebrates imprisoning marijuana users was found out to be a narcotics addict. Now, Limbaugh would rather see Obama’s social policies fail, with all the damage that would do to the greater society and the world, than see them succeed and discredit even slightly the extreme individualism of the contemporary far right. Conservatism is by its very nature center-ist, if I can coin a word, not radical or extremist.
Earlier this week, Rick Santelli of CNBC went on an on-air rant about how unfair it is that some citizens who made poor financial decisions may be bailed out by those of us who made wise ones. But wouldn’t a true conservative understand that sometimes circumstances demand some sacrifice by the few to maintain the social order necessary for all? To whine about necessary, albeit perhaps overreaching, solutions to a social crisis because you might lose a few dollars yourself is short-sighted and selfish, not conservative.
The conservative American Issues Project condemns the $787 billion stimulus package in a TV ad that shows the three wise man as the narrator says, “Suppose you spent $1 million every single day starting from the day Jesus was born — and kept spending through today. A million dollars a day for more than 2,000 years. You would still have spent less money than Congress just did.” The upshot of the ad is that Jesus would oppose the stimulus… But what true conservative actually believes that Jesus, the champion of the poor, would oppose taxing the prosperous to protect those who are at risk in a communal crisis?
David Brooks, as usual, gets right to the heart of the matter. While he bemoans the irresponsibility of those whose greed and dishonesty led to the economic crisis, Brooks accepts, in “Money for Idiots”, that the stimulus package is, from the perspective of social order, a necessary evil. He begins,
Our moral and economic system is based on individual responsibility. It’s based on the idea that people have to live with the consequences of their decisions. This makes them more careful deciders. This means that society tends toward justice — people get what they deserve as much as possible. Over the last few months, we’ve made a hash of all that. The Bush and Obama administrations have compensated foolishness and irresponsibility.
But unlike all but three Congressional Republicans, and Limbaugh, Santelli, and the American Issues Project, Brooks is able to put rigid ideology and his own self interest aside and think about what’s best for the social order. He concludes:
The responsible have been punished along with the profligate….(But) it makes sense for government to try to restore some communal order. And the sad reality is that in these circumstances government has to spend money on…people who have been idiots.
The nation’s economy is not just the sum of its individuals. It is an interwoven context that we all share. To stabilize that communal landscape, sometimes you have to shower money upon those who have been foolish or self-indulgent. The greedy idiots may be greedy idiots, but they are our countrymen. And at some level, we’re all in this together. If their lives don’t stabilize, then our lives don’t stabilize.
I don’t relish the advance of socialism under the Democrats. But after eight years under Bush, maybe we need to turn left to get right.
And as conservatism demands, ideology must not trump the contingencies of the moment. The natural enemy of conservatism is radicalism, not liberalism. Part of the genius of the American system is that the people, that reservoir of traditional wisdom, can choose leaders suited to the circumstances of the day.
Excessive individualism subverts social order, which in turn threatens individualism itself. Freedom requires order. Until American conservatism learns that lesson, it risks being increasingly marginalized.
American conservatism must return to First Principles. We must reject the pop culture conservatism of Rush Limbaugh and the neoconservatism of George Bush in favor of the philosophical roots of conservatism: Edmund Burke’s traditionalism, Herbert Spencer’s organicism, and Edward Shils’ center-ism.
Newsprism
Posted by prestoncoleman 
Posted by prestoncoleman 
Posted by prestoncoleman 
