I am Sick and Tired…
Written by Mark Harris on June 21st, 2007of arguing with people who claim to be conservatives who have yet to read “Reflections on the Revolution in France” by Edmund Burke. So hereby, my new rule on intra-movement arguments is I will ask them if they have read Reflections first and only argue with them if they have. Its just a travesty that anyone could claim to be a conservative and not have read this foundational treatise of our movement.
22
AM
Since when did one book alone by a determine a conservative or not? Furthermore, don’t you find it a bit ironic that one of Burke’s major criticisms of the French Revolution is its obvious lack of pragmatic thinking in regards to the world in which the revolution took place - and you guys constantly on this website seem to believe in (almost dogmatically) the “principles” of conservatism? Seems his criticisms almost bite you in the butt…
22
AM
Sorry, made a typo or two…
22
AM
I would argue that the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers are even more important to understanding the specific kind of classical liberalism that we have in America.
There are aspects of Burkean liberalism that are borderline elitist and that rubs me as a Jacksonian conservative the wrong way. Burke would be shocked at what the American political system has become in this country, but he did not (to my knowledge) lay out a workable system for deciding who and who should not have the vote in a Republic. I would come to respect Burke much more than I already do if he could answer this question of who in a free society should have the vote and what this would mean for the concept of social mobility that we cherish.
22
AM
Human Action by Ludwig Von Mises - another forgotten classic of conservative literature.
22
AM
Yeah, well I am not from the Jacksonian heritage but I do think that still fundamentally at the heart of conservatism is the politics of the practical. Dealing with the world as it is not as we wish it was, and that was the blessing that Edmund Burke left us. While he defended the aristocracy against the radical leveling of the French Revolution he also supported the rights of Catholics in the UK against discrimination and of the rights of American colonists against the usurpation of their rights.
His big thing was ordered liberty and he believed that in order for true liberty to exist the social structure had to remain in tact. What happened in America was that ordered liberty survived a new social structure, but one that unlike the French, was created over a hundred years not over night.
I think Burke today would admit that a strong royal stock is not necessary for liberty but certainly when he was writing there was no evidence that liberty could survive without aristrocratic defense so to attack him for that seems a little bit unfair.
What I believe makes Burke particularly aplicable today is the understanding that you can not create culture our of whole cloth. It is an intricate, complex, and diverse thing and that attempts to create it through government program or military force misses the point entirely.
22
AM
” . . . I do think that still fundamentally at the heart of conservatism is the politics of the practical. Dealing with the world as it is not as we wish it was . . .”
That is also the politics of Machiavelli (that is not a criticism coming from me), to deal with the world as it is, not as it could/should be. At the heart of it totalitarians, facists, communists and socialists are all utopians.
“. . . certainly when he was writing there was no evidence that liberty could survive without aristrocratic defense so to attack him for that seems a little bit unfair.”
Perhaps I don’t understand your point, but the American Revolution was very anti-royalist in some quarters. A radical redistribution of land and capital formly belonging to Loyalists occured as well as a great many lynchings. Was our revolution extremely unjust and bloody? No of course not, but it wasn’t exactly a movement that respected a man’s title or blood either. America had no aristocratic stock (unless you are thinking of middle-class Hamilton or Adams) to speak of after the war. There was of course the very wealthy, but many of them supported the Democrat-Republicans lead by Jefferson, himself a very wealthy man.
“What I believe makes Burke particularly aplicable today is the understanding that you can not create culture our of whole cloth.”
Very true. Politics and policy are downstream from culture, which is the force that sets the tone for how a nation is to be governed. The story tellers of a society (the MSM, Hollywood, blogs, talk radio, authors, the clergy) heavily influence culture to the point that our grandparents barely are at home in the world of today.
22
AM
Before we get into Burke specifically, I think there’s some accountability to be had for the original post. I don’t want to lose focus on the statement “I refused to engage in arguments with conservatives who haven’t read Burke’s writing…”
You obviously understand Burke’s basic premise (pragmatic political change is preferable to radical political change), so I question why you’d make a statement that in and of itself is extremely radical and sets an unrealistic expectation for fellow conservatives to meet.
Burke’s entire prediction (correctly) is that the result of radical change is tyranny; there is no difference in the way you presented your statement. Think about it like this. 1) You are a conservative. 2) Your belief is that all conservatives who have not read this Burke piece are unable to understand what “conservatism” is really about. 3) Your action therefore is to exclude them from the discourse. 4) Your consequence is acting in the fashion of tyranny.
In any case, this is how I perceive the statement. 1) You had a conversation with another conservative who hadn’t read Burke, frustrating you because they couldn’t “understand” your point. Maybe it didnt’ go down exactly like that, but the basic idea is someone frustrated you. In any case, you made the statement you did, which is probably not good if you want to build a broad base of conservatives to help support your efforts as a budding young public servant. Or, 2) you really believe what you said, creating a discursive environment where you are the oppressive authority and your subjects (those you banish from your discourse about conservative issues) are made to suffer. The consequence of this being you alienate your supporters - and it essentially falls short of Burke’s advocacy of pragmatic political action.
Better than to exclude those folks, educate them about such important works of intellectual thought.
22
PM
In Mark’s defense, I believe his main point is that many people who claim to be a part of the conservative movement are completely ignorant of classical writings, history and philosophical foundations upon which the conservative movement is based upon. This is a tragedy in my opinion.
22
PM
Respectfully, there is one key problem in claiming Burke as our champion. Burke had a traditional aristocracy and culture to defend. The “establishment” in 18th century Britian identified with the nation, and was worth defending against revolutionary movements.
Here, the establishment, broadly speaking, IS the problem. The Chamber of Commerce, the GOP leadership, and the ultra-rich (as exemplified by George Soros) are post-American and post-Western. They are the real threat to the survival of Western Civilization, not some scattered left wing freaks who come out once in a while to bitch about George Bush. I think we are approaching a point where we need a revolutionary movement of the Right if we are serious about actually saving this country and not just screwing around and making ourselves feel important. I don’t pretend to have an answer as to what shape that should take exactly, but I don’t think just being reactionary is plausible much longer.
James Burnham and his intellectual successors like Paul Gottfried and the late Sam Francis have more relevant insights into our current situation and what we might do about it.
That said, if we actually had a system of education in this country, reading Burke would be mandatory. Right wingers in general can never have enough Kirk and Burke.
23
PM
To what degree must someone be “educated” about being a conservative? More importantly, why are you an arbiter of what literature makes an educated conservative or not.
It’s a dangerous idea creating Ivory Tower Conservatives (the people I guess you would call “Movement Conservatives”) that look down upon others who are “uneducated” about the “movement.”
This has nothing to do with Burke specifically, but rather is an indictment of this idea that “intellectual legwork is necessary” to be a conservative. My Pops is a conservative, and a damn strong one at that; to suggest that he’d ever read classical or modern “conservative” thought is ridiculous. The man doesn’t read, but I’d be remiss to say he’s any less of a “qualified” conservative than any of you.
24
PM
Even though I haven’t read Burke, Smith, etc. in their entirety I do think I have an understanding of their principles and I do have to agree with Mark. Part of the problem in the conservative movement is that we’ve gone from being anti-elitist to anti-intellectual. In some ways the movement was better off in the late 70’s and early 90’s when we could concentrate on actual ideas not on how mistaken the liberals are.
Take for instance the incident in the 2000 Iowa caucus debate where the candidates where asked “What political philosopher or thinker do you identify with and why?” and Bush answered Jesus Christ. I’m convinced this is either he wasn’t familiar with any actual conservative or even classical liberal philosophers (which would explain ‘compassionate conservatism’) and/or he realized that even politically active Republicans wouldn’t know Locke from Hobbes. This isn’t intended to be an attack on Christian but no one thinks of Jesus as their favorite political philosopher anymore than they think of Him as their favorite carpenter. If someone did Alan Keyes and Gary Bauer would have used Him as their answer first. Instead all of the other candidates changed their answers to Jesus. In fact if the debate occurred today and a candidate answered John Locke the same Republican audience would think the candidate was referring to the character from Lost.
Is it any surprise that by replacing the classical authors with Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter that the concept of limited government has been replaced with ‘conservative’ federal government programs like No Child Left Behind while federalism and fiscal conservatism (not just tax cuts) withers away?
25
AM
I think the “anti-intellectual” comment is something that is applicable across the board, though. Liberals and leftists have certainly lost touch with their own brand of intellectual thought, too.
Now, having said that, the important point to recognize is that’s almost a by-product of the world in which we live (harking back to Burke a bit), making generalized statements that say “I refuse to acknowledge any ‘intra-movement’ argument without these intellectual groundings…” dangerous and counter-productive. The world we live in is quicker, faster, and complex than even a decade ago - and doesn’t show signs of slowing down. People simply don’t have the time and patience to read through esoteric, dense, rambling classical writings like Locke or Burke anymore. It’s not a fervent “anti-intellectualism;” it’s the reality of having bills to pay.
Point is this (and this answers Alex a bit from earlier) - don’t make such generalized statements like the original one Mark posted - it’s an ugly argument and far different from what you said a day or two ago. Conservatives need not a grounding in classical “conservative” literature, they need an understanding of modern interpretations of those pieces of literature.
Basic inter-personal communication and education skills are what I think have broken down…
…I still don’t know what “intra-movement” arguments are, by the way…
…and as for Bush, that’s a bad example. He’s facing an insurgent McCain, and he’s trying to solidify his hold on the conservative Christian base. I’d say it was a smart answer. One lesson I always try and teach to young high school and college debaters, and something I always used to say on the debate team myself, is that there is a huge divide between the “right” thing to say and the “correct” thing to say…