Neo-conservatives aren't the only ones who drew philosophical sustenance from the liberal rationalist assumptions embodied in the Declaration of Independence.
Recently, I wrote a column in which I delineated what I perceived to be some of the key contrasts between “neo-conservatism” and “classical conservatism.” In response, a reader suggested that on my analysis of the former, it seems to follow that America’s “Founders” were the progenitors of neo-conservatism. While it would be profoundly anachronistic to ascribe this label to a generation of people from whom we are over two centuries removed and for whom the label “conservatism,” much less “neo-conservatism,” was unknown, the reader’s comment is well taken. The assertions of its opponents notwithstanding, neo-conservatism is not some novel yet sinister variant of Machiavellianism that threatens to affect a radical disruption in the flow of the American political tradition. Rather, the basic theoretical presuppositions of neo-conservatism in terms of which its identity as a distinctive political persuasion is largely (even if not solely) defined, are not without precedent in our history.
This should come as no surprise considering that America became an independent nation during the eighteenth century, arguably the zenith of the Enlightenment. I had argued that neo-conservatism isn’t really a version of conservatism at all but, rather, a manifestation of Enlightenment liberal rationalism. Its trans-historical conception of an unencumbered Reason, as well as its equally timeless principles-oriented conception of morality, are ideas that dominated the Enlightenment liberal mind. Many of our nation’s “founders” were men of the Enlightenment, and in no instance was this more the case than in that of Thomas Jefferson, the author of that quintessential Enlightenment document, The Declaration of Independence. The Declaration knows no rivals for the succinctness and clarity with which it gives overt expression to the characteristically rationalist ideas of reason and morality that figured so prominently in the 1700’s.
From this, are we to infer that our “founders” were the first neo-conservatives, as the aforementioned reader accused me of inadvertently implying?
This would be a mistake. Neo-conservatives aren’t the only people to draw philosophical sustenance from the liberal rationalist assumptions embodied in the Declaration. In fact, it is, unfortunately, not with exaggeration that it can be said that the rationalism of Jefferson’s day has come to pervade the political spectrum to such an extent that only its ubiquity prevents it from being recognized. Leftist proponents of the welfare State, including those who unabashedly identify themselves as Marxist, as well as most “libertarians” and even some “paleo-conservatives,” appeal to the “self-evident truths” of the Declaration no less frequently than their neo-conservative rivals. There is indeed a significant sense in which it can be said that the battles that ensue between each of these groups, however intensely bitter they may become, are ultimately internecine, for collectively these groups constitute one big, even if unhappy, rationalist family. Thus, it would be no more accurate to say that the founders were neo-conservatives than to say that they were socialists.
The main point that I was concerned with making in my last article, but which, quite possibly, I failed to make, is that modern conservatism — conservatism since the eighteenth century — originally emerged and subsequently developed as an alternative to the political rationalism that was then just proceeding to sweep Europe and its offshoot societies. To this day, I maintain, the only legitimate alternative to a rationalistic style of politics is classical conservatism. Since neo-conservatism is a rationalistic political style, it is not a genuine kind of conservatism.
There are some other points that I believe it is worth our while to consider.
When neo-conservatives and others speak of “the founding” of America, that they invariably speak of it as having been founded upon an “idea,” “ideal,” or “proposition” gives us insight as to what they have in mind. America, they suppose, was founded in 1776 when the colonists declared their independence from Britain. The “idea” or “ideal” or “proposition” upon which it was founded is, essentially, a notion of “equality” expressly proclaimed in the Declaration: All human beings, irrespective of the circumstances of time or place, are equally endowed by “nature’s God” with the same fundamental “unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” There are two things to bear in mind here.
First, while “the founding” of America as an independent nation can certainly be said to have occurred at an identifiable moment, like July 4, 1776, say, or some years later with the defeat of the British and the end of the Revolutionary War, America’s actual “founding,” if we insist on calling it that, was a process that began long before that time, at least as early as the first settlement at Jamestown. That is, by the late eighteenth century, America had long been its own country, although legally it still belonged to England.
Second, the position that the members of the Revolutionary generation understood themselves as “founding” a country on an “idea” or “proposition” is difficult to sustain. Though they composed anything but a philosophically monolithic group, I believe it is accurate to say that they were highly conscious of their English, Protestant heritage, and were concerned with conserving and furthering the political tradition of their forbears. While some of them were aware of the culture-specific character of their liberties — “the rights of Englishmen” — there were, admittedly, others who at times indicated that they were not. But even if all of the fathers of the American Revolution were too close to the scene to see that the Declaration of Independence, like John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government written well over a century earlier — the chief source of inspiration for the former — was not the product of rational discovery, but the abbreviation of a historically specific centuries-old English tradition of which they were heirs, their conduct frequently enough revealed the contingent character of their situation. That there was deep and widespread concern over the immigration of Germans — white, Christian, North Western Europeans — to the United States is one such example that brilliantly highlights their acute consciousness of their distinctive circumstance as English men. Another example is their virtually unanimous opinion that blacks and whites could never co-exist in American society as social and political equals (an opinion, by the way, that remained just as widespread long after the Founders had died, and one that Lincoln himself held). Perhaps the best example, though, is the United States Constitution. It is not for nothing that it was the Constitution, not the Declaration, the Founding Fathers decided to make the law of the land.
Given the abstractness of the Declaration’s principles and the even greater abstractness of the “ideals” that they affirm, it offers us little if any guidance for navigating our way through the sea of problems of which political life consists. That the rights asserted in the Declaration are inexhaustibly invoked by mutually antagonistic partisans on virtually every major contemporary moral-political issue should be more than sufficient to establish this. In other words, it is one thing to know that everyone has “a right to liberty.” To know what this means for these people in these circumstances in this place and at this time, is something else entirely.
Just as there is no “Humanity,” but only human beings, so there is no “Liberty,” but only liberties. “Liberty” is general and uniform, liberties specific and varied. The only “Liberty” in our acquaintance consists of the liberties located in the interstices of the Constitution’s enumeration of powers. That is, in the Constitution’s decentralization of power, it provides us with our liberties.
If the Declaration is the prototypical child of Enlightenment liberal rationalism, the Constitution is the posterity of what I have called classical conservatism. From Burke onward, classical conservatives have been well aware of the fact that a wide distribution of power is necessary to securing “the Liberty” of a people.
An excellent and thought-provoking piece; I would like to ask the author, though (or any who’d care to comment) what he thinks of the seeming contradiction in his contention that the rationalist 18th century Jeffersonian-Lockean concept of our individual rights coming directly from “Our Creator” is in conflict with what he calls the “classical conservative” position that our rights are a consequence of our constitution. It appears to me that this would be the purely rationalist position – not the Jeffersonian invocation of God.
It my estimation there has always been a profound, if subtle, difference between the ideals of the continental (French) Enlightenment and those of its Anglo-American cousin: the continentals appealed to pure reason without recourse to the Divine, while we always acknowledged God as the source of our liberties. In this spirit it seems Jefferson and the Declaration of Independance fits nicely in the Classical liberal (modern conservative/libertarian) camp which includes Aquinas and Burke, among many others.
I apologize, however, if I have mis-interpreted your essay.
“It is not for nothing that it was the Constitution, not the Declaration, the Founding Fathers decided to make the law of the land.” The author needs to document that the Declaration was ever intended to be the “law of the land.” The Declaration is at first a grand statement of the turths of existence, then after that is a detailed list of grievances against the Crown. How could it ever be considered a candidate for the “law of the land?”
Since it is not a political road map, one would not expect that it would offer “guidance for navigating our way through the sea of problems of which political life consists.” The Declaration is not a legal treatise.
“…in the Constitution’s decentralization of power, it provides us with our liberties.” I disagree. Our liberty (and liberties) pre-date the Constitution. The Constitution is a document of law, defining the powers and limits of government. The Constitution has nothing to say to the individual except tangentally as it deals with what government can and cannot do.
If a document grants rights, a revision of that document can take them away. Therefore, rights are not rights at all, but are privileges dependent upon the whim of pop culture.
The Declaration acknowledges pre-existent rights, and the Constitution limits government so that those rights can be secured (made safe).
Jeff, good point. I am very hard on modern day “Declarationists” because they attempt to read modern sensibilities into a > 200 year old document. And I in general agree with the substance of Dr. Kerwick’s article. I do think, however, that the Declaration is not the pure unadulterated Enlightenment liberalism document that some of its paleo/classical conservative critics and all of its liberal proponents believe. Primarily because it doesn’t really means what a lot of people retrospectively think it means. More on that later.
But the concept of God given “inalienable rights” vs. purely reason based natural rights is perhaps an important distinction, and I do think it represents in part a distinction between American Enlightenment thinkers and Continental Enlightenment thinkers. Now ultimately inalienable rights are reason based because while appealing to God they do not really appeal directly to Revelation and the Bible. In a sense, God is just window dressing. The concept is nowhere to be found in the Bible and, in fact, the Bible is arguably hostile to the notion. Clearly the first 1700 or so years of Church history is hostile to the idea. But the concept of rights deriving from God does put at least some break on some of the silliness that emerges with unencumbered natural rights. The “Founders” were mostly overt Christians and those that weren’t were less hostile than their Euro contemporaries. So the DoI is not the quintessentially Enlightenment document, but it does contain far too much Enlightenment and Lockean idiom for any classical or paleoconservative. (Traditional Catholic paleo wags would point out that the largely Protestant Americans could afford to be less hostile because indifference was an option more available to them than to Catholic Frenchmen. This point is partially conceded, but many of the Founders do appear to be genuinely devout.)
I would appreciate Dr. Kerwick’s thoughts on the matter of God given inalienable rights vs. purely reason based natural rights.
Dan:
Glad to see you could tear yourself away from writing that article you promised us back in August 2007 where you would show us all how to apply paleoconservative principles to the details of actual, real world policy prescriptions(like immigration.
I realize that 8 months may be too short a time to translate the political rhetoric you constantly cite into something approaching an actual policy, and thus relate it to the world we actually live in, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
Phil, perhaps you could read Dr. Kerwick’s article and his last one, “Neo-conservatism v. Classical Conservatism,” and think about them long and hard. After that, you might want to tell us in one of your articles again how your “Enlightenment liberal rationalism” is actually conservatism.
But I ask you not to clutter up Dr. Kerwick’s thread with our little dispute. Thanks.
Dan:
Sorry. Our last conversation didn’t end. It was put on hold at your request so that you could actually tell us something of substance instead of popping off every once and a while with slogans disguised as policy. I said I would keep reminding you of this every time you spouted off, and I am nothing if not a man of my word.
Eight months ago I said that paleoconservative philosophy is just a bunch of empty slogans that is incapable of being translated into specific policy proposals without exposing the true underpinnings of those beliefs (see “How to Fix a Problem”). We all remember your comments, Dan, about your belief in a kith and kin-based “natural hierarchal social order”. To which I asked, exactly what does this mean for US immigration policy, as one example? End it completely? End it for non-Europeans only. Send back all non-Europeans already in the country, etc?
You’re very good at offering slogans, but absolutely refuse to tell us — from a practical policy perspective — just how to put these slogans into effect. And when you are confronted with the charge that “You have no guts to state your case forthrightly,” as I confronted you back in August 2007, you responded as follows:
“I am going to write an article on what I think we ought to do about immigration. It is a very long and complicated issue and deserves an in depth treatment.” Comment by Dan Phillips | September 3, 2007
Well, we’re now eight months later — five months into a brand new year — and you’ve still refused to accept your own challenge to do more than offer empty meaningless slogans.
Until you actually do what you said you would, I see no reason why I or anyone else should treat anything you say seriously, since all you are doing is shooting off your mouth.
Or, to again summarize my reply to your September 3, 2007 comment when you said you’d actually give us a practical policy analysis: “Dan, when you write your article … could you find your way to actually offering a real world policy instead of regurgitating your belief that paleoconservatism is the True Conservatism, that everyone else is acting unconstitutionally, that neocons are unprincipled, that you reject liberal baseline assumptions, and that the natural order demands only one course of action which we should all infer from the above, because you still haven’t gotten around to telling us what we should actually do? Or are we just going to be treated to another long preamble about what you believe philosophically, rather than what the nation ought to do in concrete practical terms?”
It’s been 240 days and counting since YOU volunteered do this to shut me up, and still you can’t do anything but offer more slogans. I can’t say I’m shocked. I for one am not surprised that you’re apparently incapable of producing anything of real substance.
this guy needs to emulate Hemingway
Aside from the hostility of the varying hyphenated-conservative camps against one another, I think part of the problem here is that each side defines their hyphenated-conservative beliefs differently than the other side defines them. “Paleo”/”Classical” (new one on me, but we’ll go with it) -conservatives seem to have invented the term “Neo”-conservative as a pejorative for anyone whose “conservative” beliefs are based on reasoning in any way deviating from their own. “Neo”-conservatives I don’t think even realized they were “Neo”-conservatives until it was brought to their attention by the self-described “Paleo”/”Classical”-conservatives. Here’s the problem though: it isn’t the prefixes, it’s the root. “Conservative” and “liberal” are relative terms. You are either “conservative” or “liberal” relative to some standard – whether it is an overarching philosophy that dictates your world view, or your concept of ideal government, or a particular policy or set of policies. For “Paleo”/”Classical”-conservatives, the yardstick by which the term “conservative” is measured usually long predates the founding of this country – possibly going back millennia, depending on whose definition you use. For “Neo” or unhyphenated conservatives, the yardstick is present time, or relatively recent time; a century or two at the most. That’s why these arguments are so fruitless, pointless, and absolutely mind numbing. You have two groups of people each approaching the same topics from completely different historical perspectives.
To be perfectly accurate, America was NOT founded in any way, shape, or form on principles that were considered “conservative” at the time of its founding. In fact, these concepts like inalienable rights, republican federal government, distribution and limitation of government power, and free market economics are what is now known as “Classical” *liberalism*. These were new, “progressive” and radical concepts at the time. Those ideas and concepts became “conservative” when newer “progressive” and radical concepts, like Marxist socialism, collectivism, and centralization were advanced. The dreaded “Neo”-conservatives, and the poor dupes who didn’t know they had to apply a prefix to the word “conservative” when describing their political allegiance, use the standard of Classical liberalism, embodied in the founding ideas and ideals of the United States of America, as the relative concept by which to measure the terms “conservative” and “liberal” in the modern context – those favoring the Classical liberal ideas of the founding being “conservative”, and those advancing other ideas “liberal”. In the strictest sense, the “Paleo”/”Classical”-conservatives are entirely correct – modern “conservatism” is entirely unrecognizable from conservatism, say, 300 years ago. And the conservatism of 300 years ago was quite different from the conservatism of 500 years before that. If “Classical” or “Paleo”-conservative means the opposite of “Classical” liberalism, then most of the foundational principles of the United States are not “conservative” at all. Therefore, those who espouse those principles are not conservative either. This is essentially the position of the modern “Paleo”/”Classical”-conservative. That is why “Paleo”/”Classical”-conservatives view the United States as essentially illegitimate in its founding, and approach political problems from the context of philosophy and abstract ideals – not from the context of the founding documents or concepts or ideals of the United States of America. The problems of the “Paleo”/”Classical”-conservative are problems with the founding of America, and they wish to rectify those problems before addressing newer ones (first in, first out). The “Neo” conservatives do not view the founding of the United States as a problem to be addressed. Quite the contrary, they see the founding concepts of the United States as the ideal toward which to strive.
Patrick:
I’ll take your comments one step further. Ignoring, for the moment, the question of whether one “conservative” philosophy gets to define all the other “conservative” philosophies, and ignoring the excellent point you raised about the principles upon which the country was founded, for the past two years I’ve been trying to get a straightforward answer to a simple question.
Namely, rather than the paleocons telling us that paleoconservatism is the only True Conservatism, that everyone else is acting unconstitutionally, that neocons are unprincipled, that paleocons reject liberal baseline assumptions, and that the natural order demands only one course of action which we should all infer from the above, I’d just like to know what actual, specific POLICIES these philosophies produce. If a kith and kin-based “natural hierarchal social order” is the only basis for forming a government, then what exactly should we do about all the people who don’t fit the preferred genetic profile who are presently in the United States (legally, as well as illegally)?
All I’ve ever seen from discussions of paleoconservatism by the paleos themselves is an endless series of platitudes. From this I can only conclude that (a) the paleos are incapable of moving beyond rhetoric into policy; if so, these discussions are just a bunch of hot air that have no practical relationship to the world we live in and the actual choices we face. Or, (b), the proponents of a paleo-inspired kith and kin-based “natural hierarchal social order” know exactly what kinds of policies these so-called principles would produce, but don’t have the guts to state them forthrightly.
Of course, if the only purpose in discussing paleoconservatism is to pontificate about whether Lincoln was a tyrant, and offer silly, one-dimensional platitudes disguised as deep thought, then there’s no point in pursuing the matter. But I’ve been told that paleoconservatism is capable of inspiring specific policy proposals on a subject like immigration, so I continue to wait. (And for those paleos looking in on the discussion, “stop immigration” is a slogan, not a policy action. Policy involves such questions as “how” — End it completely? End it for non-Europeans only. Send back all non-Europeans already in the country, etc?”)
[...] is another good article by Dr. Jack Kerwick who I am really starting to like. He clearly gets it. Neo-conservatives [...]