While the "mega-mosque" may signify for the Muslim the triumph of Islam over the Infidel, for the leftist it marks a decisive victory in the storied campaign to "fundamentally transform" our civilization into the post-Christian, post-"capitalist," "multicultural" utopia that he longs for it to be.
Given the steadfast refusal of the proponents of the controversial "Ground Zero" mosque to accommodate the wishes of most of their fellow Americans by abandoning their project, it should be obvious that "reconciliation," "healing," "assimilation," and other such goals for the sake of which the mosque is allegedly intended are smokescreens designed to conceal the real reasons underlying it.
Many, including and especially many on the Right, have expressed shock over the virtually unadulterated sympathy that leftists invariably extend to Muslims. On its face, at any rate, there is more than one good reason for this shock.
First, among the characteristics that distinguish the leftist from his rightist counterpart is his insatiable penchant for "change," an appetite that is the obverse of an incessant restlessness informed by a belief in the evanescence of imperfection. The leftist doesn't just want "change"; he believes in it. He endorses exactly those constellations of beliefs that the religion of his ancestors long ago condemned as heretical, Pelagianism and Gnosticism: he is a Pelagianist by reason of his faith in the power of human beings to achieve salvation by their own works, unaided by Divine grace; and he is a Gnostic insofar as he is convinced that the secret to salvation is accessible to only a few enlightened souls — namely, those who think as he does. The leftist is an idolater, and his supreme idol is himself, but because even he has not yet succeeded in extricating himself fully from the influence of the Christian religion of which his civilization is the product, to escape the semblance of pride, he offers his utterances and deeds as homage to, not human beings, but a lifeless, bloodless abstraction that he calls Humanity.
Second, the leftist tends to have a largely distrustful, and even antagonistic, disposition toward Christianity, the dominant religion of the West. Christianity he indicts for all manner of the world's ills, from the Crusades to the Inquisition, from Salem witch trials to slavery, from European pogroms to Jim Crow discrimination and segregation. Christians — to whom in the contemporary American context he derisively refers as "the Religious Right" — the leftist believes, are "racist," "sexist," and "homophobic," to say nothing of hypocritical and hubristic. The leftist views the average Christian as hostile to science, the arts, and "Enlightenment" generally, a troglodyte who spares no occasion to resort to "superstitious" rhetoric so as to impede "progress." Hence, the leftist labors tirelessly to weaken the Christian's influence over the culture to which his imaginative genius and piety gave rise, alternating between invocations of the fiction of a so-called "separation clause" in the Constitution, on the one hand, and preachy declarations concerning the lie — a species of wishful thinking on the leftist's part — that "America is no longer a Christian nation," on the other.
It would, though, be a mistake to conclude from this that the leftist is necessarily or intrinsically hostile to Christianity; he is not. Moreover, there is nothing in his disposition that precludes him from even embracing it. However, what must not be lost upon us is that, like Midas who transformed all that he touched into gold, so too does the leftist have a way of conscripting all that he touches into the service of his rationalistic, universalistic, utopian ideology. Thus, while it may be unfair to say of his brand of Christianity that it isn't a genuine brand at all — Christianity, after all, being a "historical" religious tradition, is continually assimilating to itself ideas from the host cultures in which it has become incarnate — there is no denying that when the leftist shows any partiality toward it, it is always a preference for a Christianity liberated of the supernatural "myths" with which generations of oppressive misogynists and homophobes saddled it, and in the place of which he injects Marxian and neo-Marxian myths of his own.
Finally, given the conduct that it requires of its adherents, and the treatment that it demands of the non-Muslim, the woman, and the homosexual, Islam strikes us as the last religion that would elicit sympathy from the leftist, by whose lights it couldn't but appear as the specimen par excellence of his caricature of religious bigotry: "intolerant," "sexist," and "homophobic," Islam, we would think, exemplifies all that the leftist believes is wrong with "organized" religion.
But we would be mistaken. So why is the leftist as friendly as he is to Islam?
For all of his differences with the fundamentalist Muslim (what, in the "Politically Correct" jargon, is usually called an "Islamist," "Radical Muslim," "Islamo-Fascist," "Islamo-Nazi," or "Islamic Extremist"), they are eclipsed by a special bond that the leftist shares with him: they share a common enemy, the Christian West.
Again, the leftist need not despise either Christianity or the West. But by "the Christian West" I refer to what we may, for convenience's sake, call the traditional West, Western civilization as it continually understood and re-understood itself from the time of Homer until the advent of the "Politically Correct" millennium that currently threatens it. It is the traditional West, the civilization that for the better part of 2,000 years recognized its character in the religious faith that defined it — it isn't for nothing that what we today call "the West" was for centuries known by both its inhabitants and neighbors as Christendom — that is the object of the leftist's scorn, and until every last residual trace of that civilization has been eradicated — by whichever means necessary — the leftist will not rest.
Doubtless, the leftist will resolutely eschew, and quite probably resent, my characterization of him. But, we may ask of him, on what grounds can he do so? After all, the leftist is nothing if not the self-sworn nemesis of all manner of "oppression," and knowing not any "necessary evils," he perceives no "injustice" with which he isn't willing to do battle until the bitter end. Yet bearing this in mind, it should be noticed, first, that the only injustices that the leftist spares no quantum of energy decrying are those that he associates with Western civilization and, secondly, these — "racism," "sexism," "homophobia," "colonialism," "imperialism," "xenophobia," "classism," "ageism," "specieism," and (now)"Islamophobia" — he treats as the worst of all transgressions.
Moreover, it isn't just that the leftist attributes this litany of mortal sins to the Christian West; he sees the history of the civilization and religious faith of his ancestors as essentially the history of one unspeakable cruelty piled upon another. Since the leftist regards the classical Christian imperative to "hate the sin, love the sinner" as a moral snow job, so to speak, a transparent veneer under which contemporary Christians seek to disguise their "hatred" for homosexuals, racial and religious minorities, feminists and, simply, everyone with whom they differ, he rejects as morally irrelevant any proposed distinction between the person of an Oppressor and his deeds.
That is, insofar as he believes the history of the Christian West as not just a, but the definitive history of "Man's inhumanity to Man," as it were, and inasmuch as he loathes cruelty, the leftist can't but loathe the Christian West.
This brings us to his affinity for Islam.
It is true that, in principle, Islam is a racially-inclusive religious tradition. However, in fact, the overwhelming majority of the planet's Muslims are non-white, "people of color" who, from the leftist's perspective, have labored for centuries under the yoke of Western oppression in one form or another. From the Crusades to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and every manifestation of Western/Islamic hostilities in between, the leftist shares with his Islamic fundamentalist counterpart the conviction that Islam is always the victim. To put it another way, the Islamic fundamentalist, like the "ghetto" black, whose patience in the face of a millennia of suffering has finally terminated in an explosion of justifiable violence is a character that fits seamlessly into the anti-Western melodrama of the leftist's imaginings.
Of course, because of both the Islamic fundamentalist's lust for Western blood as well as the leftist's painful recognition that that blood is his, we must not fool ourselves — even if the leftist is content on fooling himself — that his sympathy for the Muslim, co-existing as it does with no small measure of raw, undifferentiated fear, is far from pure. Yet Islam's militancy inspires awe no less than fear in the leftist: while the leftist and the Islamic fundamentalist alike repudiate in no uncertain terms the "Militarism," "Imperialism," and "Capitalism" of the West, only the latter succeeded in doing so in a way that promised to arrest the attention of the entire world.
The United States is "the jewel," the apex of Western civilization, and the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were, to the leftist as well as the Islamic fundamentalist, the most visible and potent signs on all of the Earth of the West's economic and military supremacy, respectively. More specifically, the one symbolized "the inequalities" engendered by "capitalism," while the other was a symbol of "the slaughter of indigenous peoples" inevitably accompanying "imperialism."
In short, the leftist and the Islamic fundamentalist hold in contempt the same things.
The aforementioned considerations, I suggest, explain the leftist's seemingly paradoxical — and often excessive — apologies for the Islamic fundamentalist. And although the average leftist suffered just as profoundly as the rest of us on 9/11, the proposition for which I have been arguing is that the logic of his ideology, if not his own personal and idiosyncratic proclivities, powerfully intimate, if they don't demand, the sympathy that we observe him exhibiting for the Islamic fundamentalist (and Muslims generally, of course).
There is one other feature common to the leftist and the Islamic fundamentalist that may account for the former's partiality toward the latter: both must do their best to conceal from Americans their respective visions for the country. The leftist is fully aware of the fact that in spite of having spent his entire life in America, there is a real sense in which he is no more of it than the Islamic fundamentalist, for like the latter, he views America as it has been traditionally constituted — overwhelmingly white, Christian, "capitalistic," etc. — as an object of contempt to be overcome. Although he is not literally an alien living in America, as the Islamic fundamentalist usually is, that lamentations over "the alienation" allegedly endemic to modern existence in the West spring inexhaustibly from the leftist's tongue reinforces his sense of otherness, of homelessness in America and, hence, his oneness on this score with the Islamic fundamentalist.
It is practically a foregone conclusion that the leftist, by virtue of having been born and raised in America, is going to be more skilled than the Islamic fundamentalist at exploiting the rich repertoire of conceptual resources, of the idiom and values, that it has accumulated over its lifespan so as to advance his agenda: the leftist, though not the smartest of creatures, is certainly the most coy. Indeed, matters couldn't be otherwise, lest the leftist die, for he sees himself as living in an enemy territory that he can escape only remaking it to his liking.
It should then be unsurprising that the leftist favors the construction of "the Ground Zero" mosque. In the heart of the financial district of the world, in the place where the grandest monument to the West's "greed" once stood, an edifice no less symbolic than the World Trade Center itself will be erected. Yet while this "mega-mosque" may very well signify for the Muslim the triumph of Islam over the Infidel, for the leftist it signifies a triumph, for sure, but the triumph of a new America (and, by extension, a new West) over an old one. It marks a decisive victory in the leftist's storied campaign to "fundamentally transform" our civilization into the post-Christian, post-"capitalist," "multicultural" utopia that he longs for it to be.
How can he not be in favor of it?
Very good! Although I still can’t quite understand the contradictions, this is helpful.
“How can he not be in favor of it?”
1. 9/11
2. GULAG
3. Jesus Christ
Just to name a few.
Reply to Dr. Kerwick,
Kerwick creates something of a strawman in the leftist who is alleged to be pro-Muslim. Virtually all of the fawning over Islam on the Left is really explainable more easily. The Muslim world is the last bona fide part of the Third World that can get the juices going for many leftists. Muslims are the current holders of the “wretched of the Earth” label, exploited by global capitalism and culturally dominated by the vulgar West. Thus, virtually any barbarism committed by Muslims is given a free pass by this part of the Left. This is the same Left that seeks the destruction of Israel, which plays the role of a proxy Western white nation of capitalist oppressors. Against such targets, any means of assault is legitimate.
Of course, like most writers on IC, Dr. Kerwick confuses these leftists with liberals, and so slanders liberals who do not praise Islam, who regard its barbarism as a danger to the West, and who understand, correctly, that between sharia and Western liberalism there can be no compromise.
I would add that an American conservative icon like Russell Kirk could and did praise the Iranian regime of Ayatollah Khomeini shortly after the revolution that brought him to power. Kirk, like the arch-leftist icon Michel Foucault, admired the Islamic revolution for its attack on excessive modern individualism, its strong sense of religious tradition, and its ability to generate a strong sense of solidarity in society. IC writers in general appear to know absolutely nothing about the part of conservatism that rejects modernity pretty much across the board. That’s why, every now and again, I need to remind them of it, and of its centrality to conservatism, rightly understood.
For a start in the Right direction, conservatives should become aware of the marvelously nasty little book, “Liberalism is a Sin,” written by Fr. Dr. Don Felix Sarda Y Salvany in Spain in 1886. If a conservative is a Roman Catholic, this, plus the Syllabus of Errors, should be enough ideological ammmo for a lifetime of firefights against liberals.
Gestell
Just a couple of observations.
The liberalism of 1886 is quite different from liberals or leftists of today. Originally liberals were small government/free market/personal freedom exponents. I suppose we should also say that not all Democrats are liberals or leftists. It’s about like equating house cats, bobcats, and saber-tooth tigers. Even in the 20th century Democrats did not resemble today’s Pelosi/Reid style of politics. My father and all of his associates were dyed in the wool Democrats, but they were not pro-affirmative action, pro-feminist, anti-Israel, pro-homosexual, or socialist.
Gestell,
“…like most writers on IC, Dr. Kerwick confuses these leftists with liberals, and so slanders liberals…” Aren’t you making the same error by stating; “IC writers in general appear to know absolutely nothing about the part of conservatism that rejects modernity pretty much across the board.”?
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity while some oppose modernism and seek a return to ‘the way things were’. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism
Notice the definition says ‘some’ not all as you imply in your statement.
Modern Conservatism, on the other hand, combines elements of both traditional conservatism and libertarianism. Kirk was one of the critics of Roosevelt’s (arguably one of politics most successful progressives) New Deal policies.
I really don’t think you may call all conservatives ‘anti-modernists’ just as you don’t believe we can call all liberals leftists.
reply to Mr. Wavering:
I conceded that there are aspects of conservatism that do not reject modernity across the board in the very sentence you cite from my post. However, I do contend that such rejection is, and has been, a part of the doctrinal core of conservatism. Of course, conservatives in any generation are free to forget what they once held dear, although why they can still call themselves conservatives eludes me. Conservatives have opposed each and every change that liberals regard as good–expansions of the right to vote (to industrial workers, women, Jews, blacks, etc. depending upon time and place), expansions of civil liberties (represented, for instance, by civil rights courts decisions and legislation in the US), and have fought hard to maintain prevailing social customs that allow for discrimination against and harm to whatever part of society is regarded (and these vary)as inferior, immoral, etc. Because this history of resistance is real, I’m often amused when conservatives try to latch onto some liberal accomplishment as if they had something to do with it. At best, if I want to think charitably, then I regard conservatives as playing ‘catch-up’ with modernity–and many still haven’t gotten used to the idea that the earth is really, really old. The recent acrid exchanges over how much conservatives think they should be able to say ‘nigger’ with impunity provides another scrap of evidence.
As for Kirk, he was critical of modern individualism. He despised the ‘new rich’ elevated in Britain and the US by the free market, and had no use whatever for modern science. He lamented the fact that other influences besides those of the British Isles had ever come to be important in the US. So, quite consistently, he wished that Scottish-Irish ballads had prevailed over jazz and blues in American culture. He was also opposed to precisely the sort of technical/scientific/business emphasis in higher education favored by many libertarians. For him, a major part of civilization went down the tubes when college graduates no longer had to learn Latin and classical Greek.
So, there’s much more to Kirk’s conservatism than the usual small town businessman’s opposition to the New Deal.
The recent acrid exchanges over how much conservatives think they should be able to say ‘nigger’ with impunity provides another scrap of evidence.
It’d be nice to think you were being disingenuous with this comment rather than downright stupid, but considering your previous comments it’s difficult to make the distinction. And either way, the result is the same. Your seriously-constructed arguments are more ridiculous and unintentionally funny than your caricature of “conservatism”.
“Of course, conservatives in any generation are free to forget what they once held dear…” this is just a variation of a discussion we’ve had before. Both political ideologies evolve over time. Forcing a conservative to forever be against progress is almost as foolish as forcing a liberal democrat to always be racist because they opposed Civil Rights legislation in the past.
This is how we end up at loggerheads most of the time. As far as you are concerned the only side of the debate allowed to re-think a position is yours. The other side must always embrace the most restrictive, narrow minded, definition that has ever been applied to it. It would be highly unfair of me to consistently say that since progressives embrace ‘social’ programs they are all closet Stalinists. I don’t think you’re capable of killing a single individual, let alone 20,000,000. Or, at least I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt here.
reply to Mr. Wavering,
Thanks for your vote of confidence. I’ll return the kindness by saying that I don’t think you’re capable of lynching anyone.
Our differences are evident because I keep trying to get you, as a conservative, to affirm traditional conservative principles. It’s not the case that I do what you claim I do, as in your sentence: “The other side must always embrace the most restrictive, narrow minded, definition that has ever been applied to it.” No, what I try to do is to base my comments on what noted or influential conservative thinkers have actually written and said. And I assume that a serious present-day conservative finds these utterances and positions persuasive and true.
Of course the present-day conservative will have his own ideas, but how far can he go before his positions simply don’t belong under the heading of conservatism any more? Conservatives who embrace “equality” as a value, for example, have stepped well beyond traditional conservatism. “Equality” is one of the modern errors or heresies that conservatives have attacked for over two centuries now. If today’s conservatives don’t understand this, then they have embraced some version of liberalism.
There are conservatives who do understand their own heritage. One is James Kalb, whose book, “The Tyranny of Liberalism” (ISI Press, 2008) is an outstandingly clear traditionalist attack on liberalism and virtually all modern political and moral doctrines. Here’s an online source for him: http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles4/KalbConservativism.shtml
Conservatives face (or many fail to face)a serious question: how far can or should they go in accepting any essentially modern idea? Where do they draw the line? And when? 1900? 1930? 1960? Some other year? I put it this way because when conservatives say they are trying to preserve ‘traditional’ values, they are saying something vacuous unless they can be very specific. If they say they want to maintain ‘American values,’ they need to give the rest of us some idea of what sort of society they have in mind, and when they think it existed in the US. It’s not enough just to say,”We’d like people to be respectful of Christian beliefs, be moral in their behavior, oppose the existence of government social programs, etc.” A traditional conservative wants today’s America to resemble closely some specific configuration of social structures, beliefs, institutions, and values that has actually existed in the past. So which configuration does the conservative have in mind?
Dr. Kerwick,
I have posted your comments on my remarks as you requested.
Dr. Kerwick: “I have repeatedly had problems trying to post comments on IC, so I have given up. Besides, if I am going to write anything of any length, given the time constraints under which I currently labor, I choose to do so in the way of an actual article. I respond to you now, though, because you have greatly misunderstood the position for which I argue in “The Ground Zero Mosque: Part III.” If you wouldn’t mind, I would appreciate it if you could post this in response to your remarks.
(1) I have not confused “liberals” and “leftists” as you charge most writers for IC of doing. You can look back at every single thing I have ever written, whether for IC or any other site, and no where will you find anything that can so much as remotely be construed even a subtle identification of “liberalism” with “leftism.” I consider myself a liberal of a sort, a “conservative-liberal,” if you will, a classical liberal of the kind that Burke, Hume, Kant, Oakeshott, Hayek, and an assortment of other great thinkers and champions of genuine liberty represent, and I steadfastly refuse to describe anyone left of America’s political center as a “liberal.” It is one thing to acknowledege that there are significant differences in emphasis among leftists and, thus, varying degrees of leftism; it is another thing entirely, however, to deny that there is continuity between those who you regard as “liberals”–i.e. “progressives” or “welfare statists”–and those, like Foucault, who you rightfully concede are leftists.
(2) Interestingly, your explanation for the leftist’s sympathy for the Islamic fundamentalist or Koranic literalist detracts not in the least from mine, and yet you offer it as if it were an alternative to what I have written.
(3) I am very much aware of the multifaceted texture of the conservative tradition; it is precisely because I want for others to achieve a similar awareness that I write what I do.
(4) You invariably identify yourself as a “liberal,” i.e., a “non-conservative.” And maybe you have no affinity with what I have frequently referrred to as “classical conservatism.” But neither do you sound very much like your average “liberal” (except, perhaps, when you speak to race-related issues). Perhaps you aren’t as clear as to your own ideological identity, to say nothing of the identities of the traditions that you reference, as you think.-”
My replies to Dr. Kerwick:
(1) I see continuity where you see rupture in the history of liberalism. You refused to regard as a “liberal” anyone you see as left of center in American politics. If this is the case, you are a very un-representative conservative. Most of those who post on IC have no difficulty characterizing everyone left of center, extending out to Communists and Maoists, as ultimately indistinguishable from liberals. You designate yourself as a “conservative-liberal” or classical liberal, and align yourself with a batch of political thinkers. I’ll grant you Burke, Hume, and, allowing for his fervent libertarianism, Hayek, but Oakeshott and Kant raise questions about the clarity of your self-definition. Oakeshott’s affinities for Hegel, made evident in “On Human Conduct” and visible in many other places in his work, would be apt to raise the hackles of most conservative intellectuals, for whom Hegel is simply the ancestor of Marx and thus of Communist totalitarianism. Oakeshott, moreover, regarded conservatism as a “disposition” and not a propositional doctrine. He also severed conservatism from Anglicanism and royalism; if this exercise of his is applied to American conditions, it would require that conservatism be severed from evangelical Christianity.
It’s Kant, however, who seems most problematic. Kant, after all, is the principal source of the modern notions of moral autonomy so hated by most conservatives. He is the modern philosopher who claimed that nothing resembling traditional metaphysics is possible, and defenses of such metaphysics are nearly universal among conservatives. He is the philosophical godfather of Rawls and is often treated by historians of political thought as a crucial figure in the genesis of precisely the “modern” or “welfare” liberalism you dislike. As the author of “What is Enlightenment?” he is a militant defender of Enlightenment progressivism against custom, tradition, and dogmatic religion. In his political writings he argues that enlightened rulers should bring about “revolution from above” to improve the lot of the poor and uneducated, and this is surely not allowed for conservatives.
“Modern” liberalism or (for the Brits) “New Liberalism,” was a 19th century development by such philosophers as T.H. Green of ideas from Hegel and Kant, applied to the emerging social problems generated, it was believed, by industrial capitalism. A linking philosopher here is J.S. Mill: “On Liberty” identifies the “tyranny of the majority” (borrowed from Tocqueville) as the new sort of problem liberalism must address, now that government infringement of individual liberties has been (largely) controlled. In his influential economics textbook, “Principles of Political Economy,” which went through many editions, he moves from strict laissez-faire (in early editions) to near-socialist recommendations (in later editions).
Continuity between classical and modern liberalism is visible, given the emphasis on conditions for individual freedom. Classical liberals believed that only government was a threat to individual freedom, while modern liberals argued that there were many social conditions that also threatened individual freedom. The belief that it is good for individuals to have opportunities for development and improvement is one common linking moral theme.
In the US, Progressives are, to some extent, parallel to British New Liberals, believing in both the reality of the social problems of industrialization and urbanization and the possibility of generating and employing knowledge of society to attempt to deal with these problems.
(2) It seemed to me that in your contribution, you were suggesting that leftists actually have some sort of belief in the rightness or goodness of Islam. My point is that, on the far left, Islam the religion is irrelevant; Muslims are simply the latest role-players in the far left’s search for what Communists used to call the “revolutionary vanguard;” the part of society most oppressed and thus most potentially revolutionary. Old-fashioned Communists pick the industrial workers for this starring role, while in the 1960s, New Leftists, influenced by people like Herbert Marcuse, shifted between blacks and (incredibly) college students to step into the role. Now Muslims get their chance to audition.
(3) I certainly applaud any effort to clarify the conservative tradition. Too few conservatives see any need to do so, a phenomenon which continues to puzzle me.
(4) Since you have put some of your own cards on the table, I may as well do the same. I am a ‘modern’ liberal and think that governments are performing badly when they do not attempt to address the issues of their societies in the present-day. Having said this, however, I am not a perfectionist; grandiose schemes to “end poverty” or eliminate all human suffering, or produce some sort of complete equality (even if anyone could figure out what that might mean) are doomed to failure, and efforts to implement them are likely to produce all sorts of unanticipated consequences. Human beings cannot be perfected by any political ideology or form of government. The mark of the political idealist is the belief that social, economic, and historical reality can be molded according to one’s wishes.
However, I object to conservatism because I see in it the notion that inaction (or perhaps prayer) is the only right response to human problems. So, as I like to put it, state-sponsored and enforced racial segregation in the US could only be ended by the back-breaking power of the modern liberal state. Nothing less would have worked. And I cannot generate any sympathy for defenders of the old Southern way of life. It rested on profound evil, no matter how lovely it might have been to its beneficiaries.
I’m not sure what sort of ‘average’ liberals you read or listen to. My own views are fairly common for the breed: pro-choice, pro gay marriage, pro environmentalism, etc. However, none of these positions will bring about an end to all the conflicts human beings have. This is one reason—the other is some knowledge of the relevant sciences—why I don’t believe that all global warming is generated by human beings. AGW is pretentious; Al Gore doesn’t know what he thinks he knows. While I think peace is a great idea, I have no problem acknowledging that Islam (and not just a few evil Muslims) is an enemy of Western civilization. I recommend British conservative philosopher Roger Scruton’s marvelous book “The West and the Rest” (ISI Press, 2002) which shows the vast gulf between Islam and the heritage of Western Europe.
If I wanted to give a label to my intellectual orientation, I’d call it something like ‘historical realism.’ Cicero in “De Oratore” gets it right: “History indeed is the evidence of the times, the light of truth, the life of memory, the teacher of life, messenger of antiquity..” I see no reason why a liberal cannot be as saturated with history as the conservative should be. I don’t think anybody, any ideology, any form of government, any philosophy, religion, or ethical code leads to the perfect society, although I think I can pick out some of those that lead to very bad societies. A big part of why we think our own society or government is good is ultimately because it’s our own. I don’t need a transcendental justification for this, and get very suspicious of anyone who believes they have produced one.
I keep trying to get you, as a conservative, to affirm traditional conservative principles.
“Conservative principles” as defined by you. “Conservative” and “liberal” being relative terms, we’ve had many discussions here at Intellectual Conservative about just what exactly it is that “conservatives” wish to “conserve”. And the answers are very widely varying. Your definition of “conservative” is basically “reactionary” and is a simplistic caricature of what most modern “conservatives” believe. The closest thing to an actual political philosophy in modern America that your concept of “conservative” describes would be what is called within right wing circles “Paleoconservatism”. Essentially, this is conservatism relative to the 18th and early 19th centuries. But it must be noted that in the 18th and 19th centuries, the ideas of the American founders were decidedly NOT conservative. This is where the relativity of terminology kicks in. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, the American founders were considered very decidedly liberal. The term “liberal” originally embodied concepts like individual rights, laissez faire capitalism, private property, and democratically representative government. Since “conservative” and “liberal” are relative terms, the term “liberal” developed a new meaning (some would say it was co-opted) starting in the 20th century. “Liberal” started to mean social justice, collectivism, positive rights, group rights, and economic protectionism. When the term “liberal” changed meaning, naturally the term “conservative” did as well. Modern “conservatism” is more closely aligned with Classical Liberalism than with “conservatism” relative to the 18th century, just as modern “liberalism” is now associated with Social Liberalism and has divorced itself virtually entirely from the Classical Liberalism of the 18th century. When most Americans who self-identify as “conservative” use the term to describe themselves, they usually intend the term “conservative” to be relative to the United States constitution or to the general principles embodied in the document rather than to the reactionaries of whatever period of time you prefer. That is why pigeonholing someone’s ideology based upon a self-concocted definition of a term that more closely resembles the prevailing attitudes of 200 years ago than today is a rather poor substitution for an actual argument, and why very few “conservatives” you encounter will defend their positions using your definitions of their ideology. It would be roughly analogous to defining “liberal” as “child molesting psychopathic communist” and then rejecting any of your arguments that do not conform to the ideology of a child molesting psychopathic communist.
Another problem you’re liable to run into by forcing people who self-identify as “conservative” to conform their arguments to your concept of conservatism circa 1750 is that many if not most people tend to synthesize several more general ideological concepts in order to reach their own personal political philosophy. So you’re likely to encounter, for instance, Christians who call themselves “conservative” who are tolerant of a welfare state, but want to entirely restrict abortion and believe that the United States is divinely ordained. Or secular people who call themselves “conservative” who are tolerant of abortion and don’t believe in divine providence, but believe in smaller government and less taxes. Or so-called neo-conservatives whose conservatism is relative to FDR’s New Deal, but doesn’t extend as far as Johnson’s Great Society. All the way to almost-libertarian types who still identify as “conservative” because they cherish particular cultural values that orthodox libertarianism does not emphasize (I suspect this is the end of the spectrum where you would find your nemesis Bill Wavering). Not all of these people neatly fit into a convenient Burkean or Lockean synopsis.
Continuity between classical and modern liberalism is visible, given the emphasis on conditions for individual freedom.
Quite the contrary, modern liberalism concerns itself with the needs of the collective at the expense of the individual if necessary and therefore has abandoned any notion of genuine individual liberty. Your definition of “liberal” is meant to reflect an oxymoronic synthesis of libertarianism with socialism which is probably emblematic of your own personal political views rather than what most practitioners of “modern liberalism” actually believe. Contrasted with your unflinchingly rigid definition of “conservative” circa the mid 18th century, your definition of “liberal” is decidedly more open-ended, to the point that it can include everyone from neo-Marxists to orthodox libertarians.
Gestell,
“Conservatives who embrace “equality” as a value, for example, have stepped well beyond traditional conservatism.” Wouldn’t that depend, once again, upon the context? For instance; I don’t believe conservatives have a problem with ‘equality’ as it pertains to opportunity. However; if ‘equality’ is defined as affirmative action due to race (the statistical number of blacks in America must be reflected in every aspect of society job, home ownership, education, etc.) these are clearly set-asides and as such have no basis in equality of opportunity.
This may be your basis for believing conservatives to still be racist, because they believe that preparation is required in order to take advantage of opportunity, while liberals believe that skin color is the only measure of who should get the opportunity. Conservatives define affirmative action as the bigotry of low expectations. It is telling the other races; “We must offer you advantage, because we believe it impossible for you to compete head-to-head.”
As to your comment of “stepping beyond traditional conservatism”; why should that be so difficult to perceive? I’m re-reading “The Conservative Mind” by Kirk and he outlines a plethora of unique types of ‘flavors’ of conservatism; traditional conservatism being only one type of flavor. Once again by insisting that there are several varieties of liberal, but forcing all who oppose your posts into the ‘traditional conservative’ box, you’re denying your opponent the ability to evolve. I guess that’s one way to try to succeed in debate; if you can’t successfully argue the position, you can always pigeon-hole your opponent. Much easier that way.
Replies to Mr. Mulligan and Mr. Wavering:
First, to Mr. Mulligan: “Modern” liberals usually believe that there are various social or economic conditions that restrict or even prevent individuals from exercising their freedom. “Classical” liberals believe that only government can impose such obstacles and so concentrate primarily or even exclusively on controlling government. The focus for both sorts of liberals remains, at bottom,
individual freedom. “Modern” liberals often propose what conservatives regard to be “collectivist” policies and solutions, but what most of us think we’re doing is identifying a group of persons (which, after all, is a collection of individuals) whose common situation requires redress. Thus, “modern” liberals identify racism, gender discrimination, discrimination against the disabled, etc. as “problems,” which a pure “classical” liberal would not do.
For Mr. Wavering: Elsewhere you mentioned that you were re-reading Russell Kirk’s “The Conservative Mind.” Here are some lines from his 5th principle of conservatism: “For the preservation of a healthy diversity in any civilization, there must survive orders and classes, differences in material condition, and many sorts of inequality. The only true forms of equality are equality at the Last Judgment and equality before a just court of law; all other attempts at levelling must lead, at best, to social stagnation.” http://www.kirkcenter.org/kirk/ten-principles.html If the only “true forms” of equality are those mentioned by Kirk, then even equality of opportunity isn’t really a conservative principle. Instead, those in higher classes have more opportunities than those who are not so fortunately situated. Kirk’s sort of conservatism has absolutely no room for any efforts to reduce any of the sorts of discrimination liberals oppose. More to the point, a Kirkian conservative must endorse such discrimination.
“Modern” liberals usually believe that there are various social or economic conditions that restrict or even prevent individuals from exercising their freedom. “Classical” liberals believe that only government can impose such obstacles and so concentrate primarily or even exclusively on controlling government.
That’s because of a fundamental difference in the conception of rights of the modern liberal, or more appropriately and accurately, the social liberal. Positive rights describe obligations of others in society to do or provide something for you, which negates individual rights and subjugates them to the “greater good”. Positive rights are the foundation of social liberalism and its consequent collectivism. Negative rights describe obligations of others in society and of government to not do something to you, which elevates the rights of the individual to supremacy over any other consideration. Negative rights are the foundation of classical liberalism and its consequent laissez faire approach to economy and society. These fundamentally incompatible concepts of the nature of rights so differentiate classical liberalism from social liberalism that the two cannot and should not be said to share any commonality, except to the extent that they are both political philosophies. It is analogous to saying that Marxism is a compatible extension of capitalism because they are both concerned with the allocation of capital in society. It is true to say that Marxism, as a critique of and response to capitalism, wouldn’t exist were it not for capitalism, but that is the extent of their commonality.
Gestell,
As you say; “”For the preservation of a healthy diversity in any civilization, there must survive orders and classes, differences in material condition, and many sorts of inequality. The only true forms of equality are equality at the Last Judgment and equality before a just court of law; all other attempts at leveling must lead, at best, to social stagnation.”
I consider this to be a fairly accurate statement. ‘Differences’ in material condition do indeed exist. People move through classes and exchange positions within classes all the time. For example; I earn quite a bit more now than I did in 1985; but my skill set is significantly improved over 1985 as well. Looking back on my personal history, my peak earning years were in the early 90’s, but my debt level was also much higher then. Now I don’t’ earn nearly as much as 20 years ago, but my debt level is significantly less.
Persons constantly migrate between classes and experience changes of status as they acquire education, skills, years of experience, and wealth. There are some however; that stagnate. Another example; I have a relative who is a waitress. I believe that any honest work is good work. Her challenge is that she has remained a waitress since she took her first serving job when she was eighteen. She is now forty-eight. One would think that with thirty years on that career path that she would at least be managing a restaurant by now, if not owning one outright. What can you do? Horse, water, drink and all that. Some people just don’t ‘advance’ down the path of success as quickly or as far as others. That doesn’t mean they own the privilege of a percentage of my income. It also doesn’t mean that a truly ‘limited’ federal government should have the ability to place a gun to my head and require I donate to her cause either.
I certainly believe that equality of opportunity is a conservative value. No where in that quotation does it say anything about any ‘outside’ entity (government included) that sets itself up as the selector or arbitrator of which person goes into what economic class. There is also no authority (government included) limiting the movement of anyone between classes, up or down.
I began my working life (after military service) making $3.25 an hour; in my peak earning years, @ $85,000 annually, now @ $40,000 per year. This is, I believe the same ‘movement’ between classes one may reasonably expect over a working life. The opportunity is there for all, some, in my mind, just refuse to participate; or spend their time trying to get others to sympathize with their condition and ‘give’ them things.
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