Another Set of Conservative Principles

While I'm trying to define the basic principles of genuine conservatism here is an attempt to do something similar by one of the most famous of the New Conservatives of the 1950s, Russell Kirk; click here for his "Ten Conservative Principles."

While I don't have much problem with his ten conservative principles I do believe Kirk took positions, under the influence of Goldwater, Buckley and others, that were contradictory to a genuine commitment to his abstract principles. For example, Kirk says nothing here about what has been justified in the name of American nationalism, 'defense' and 'security.' But many of the things advocated by pseudo-conservatives would significantly conflict with at least these Kirkian principles:

the conservative perceives the need for prudent restraints upon power and upon human passions.

conservatives are guided by their principle of prudence.

conservatives uphold voluntary community, quite as they oppose involuntary collectivism.

As Claes Ryn demonstrates repeatedly in America the Virtuous, there are no apparent restraints upon the nationalistic passions of most of today's so-called 'conservatives'. And 'involuntary collectivism' is enforced by the Patriot Act, NSA spying, and attacks upon the 'patriotism' of any who disagree with the increasingly dictatorial George W. Bush administration.

What Does 'Conservative' Really Mean?, Part 3

In Part 1 and Part 2 I've tried to present a serviceable definition of genuine conservatism, as opposed to the witchs' brew of contradictory beliefs that William F. Buckley and his colleagues pasted together in the 1950s and arbitrarily decided to call 'conservatism'; the latter should be labelled, as Peter Viereck did, pseudo-conservatism. In this post I continue to cite Claes Ryn's views of conservatism as presented in his America the Virtuous. In Parts 1 and 2 I mentioned two essential elements of modern conservatism: 1) the recognition of baser human motives and the imperative need to exert self-control and social control over them; 2) the emphasis upon the importance of local, face-to-face groups like the family, church, and local community; where local leadership is the fundamental basis of social organization as opposed to distant, centralized authorities which drain localities of their power.

A third key component of conservative belief is an emphasis upon the importance of historically evolved, concrete, existing social institutions which are held to represent the wisdom of ages; since they have developed slowly over many years they are believed to serve real concrete human needs. Ryn wrote (p. 45): “For Burke, a civilized society is the result of a slow, protracted, and often painful process of selection and accumulation.” Favored terms conservatives use to capture this are 'rooted', 'historical', and 'concrete.' Conservatives, harking back to Edmund Burke's critique of the French Revolution, are quite suspicious of ‘human reason’ in the sense of “the old urge to replace historically evolved societies with an order framed according to abstract, allegedly universal principles, notably that of equality." It is important to note that conservatives do not oppose all social change; as Edmund Burke wrote: “A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.” Rather genuine conservatives advocate small, prudent, moderate, evolutionary changes as specific needs manifest themselves as felt by members of society. Ryn wrote (p. 45): "It is necessary, Burke argued, to approach historically evolved society with respect and humility as well as a critical eye and to be cautious in making changes. Innovation may do damage that the reformers in their preoccupation with their own favorite abstract ideas are not able to foresee.” It is precisely this principle that put the 'conserve' in 'conservatism.' Without a priciple such as this no belief system deserves the name 'conservative.'

This is perhaps the stress of conservatism which contains the most potential for mischief. It is often true that existing social institutions were established and continue to serve the needs of privileged groups within a historical society, and as such they deny many of the needs of the least privileged groups. Certainly some American conservatives have recognized this, e.g., Clinton Rossiter, and if reasonable freedom from exploitation is to be built into a society the means of change would have to include channels through which the least privileged groups could effectively make their needs known and achieve reasonable social changes. The conservative's emphatic respect for existing institutions could easily facilitate the will to power, domination and even tyranny that another conservative principle--the imperative need to control such base human motives--wants to minimize and avoid. This is perhaps the central contradictory tension within conservatism.

Finally, at least according to Ryn, conservatism endorses a modest patriotic pride in one’s countries achievements but it opposes excessive nationalism (p. 79): “Nationalism, by contrast [to patriotism], is an eruption of overweening ambition, a throwing off of individual and national self-control. Nationalism is self-absorbed and conceited, oblivious of the weaknesses of the country it champions…. Nationalism recognizes no authority higher than its own national passion. It imagines that it has a monopoly on right or has a mission superseding moral norms. The phrase ‘my country right or wrong’ sums up this attitude…. Nationalist politics is inherently intolerant, tyrannical, and expansionist. It bullies and creates ever new enemies.” It is in large part this ambitious, self-absorbed, intolerant, tyrannical, belligerent, expansionist, bullying nationalism, as best exemplified by so-called 'neo-conservatives' like William Kristol, Richard Perle, Elliott Abrams, Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, et. al., that led Ryn to write about what he calls the New Jacobinism.

This is something I intend to pay close attention to in my further readings on genuine conservatism: what is authentic conservatism's relationship to hyper-nationalism and just plain nationalism. Certainly Peter Viereck recognized the danger of what he called "thought-control nationalists." I believe that American nationalism, as aggressively represented by the pseudo-conservative American right, may well lead to the decline and fall of American civilization. I fear crazed nationalists like William Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, Dinesh D'Souza, William F. Buckley et. al. are leading us into a ditch out of which we may never emerge. I see this nationalistic fervor that considers America always the force for Good in the world that must use its power to dominate and control the rest of the world as perhaps the single most dangerous and suicidal trend in American life. To a large degree it is just this remarkably crazy nationalism that explains why pseudo-conservatives can't do foreign policy.

How a Genuine Conservative Differed From Pseudo-Conservatives

I continue here about Peter Viereck whom I've previously posted about here, here, and here. In Conservatism Revisited (Revised and Enlarged Edition, 1962, Collier Books, pp. 149-51) Viereck commented on how he thought true conservatism differed from the William F. Buckleys of the 1950s. Speaking of Russell Kirk, Buckley and the rest of their 'new conservative' group he wrote in 1962 about

that whole inconsistent spectrum of Goldwater intellectuals and right-radical magazines. Most of them are so muddled they don't even know when they are being 19th-century liberal individualists (in economics) and when they are being 20th-century semi-fascist thought-controllers (in politics). Logically, these two qualities are contradictory. Psychologically, they unite to make America's typical pseudo-conservative rightist.... [Kirk] and perhaps half of the new conservatives are bankrupt.... How can one attribute bankruptcy to a growing concern? Indeed, this new American right seems a very successful concern. On every TV station, on every mass-circulation editorial page, the word 'conservatism' in the 1960's has acquired a fame, or at least notoriety, that it never possessed before.... Which is it, triumph or bankruptcy, when the empty shell of a name gets acclaim while serving as a chrysalis for its opposite? The historic content of conservatism stands, above all, for two things: organic unity and rooted liberty. Today the shell of the 'conservative' label has become a chrysalis for the opposite of these two things: at best for atomistic Manchester liberalism, opposite of organic unity; at worst for thought-controlling nationalism, uprooting the traditional liberties (including the 5th Amendment) planted by America's founders.

These are points I have made myself: what I've called the 'witch's brew' of pseudo-conservative beliefs are in fact anti-conservative and mutually self-contradictory; the Buckleyites were simply successful in packaging this mess of contradictions and branding it as "conservatism."

Peter Viereck, A True Conservative

I'm discovering more about Peter Viereck, who died May 13 of this year at 89 and was an authentic American voice of conservatism. Viereck, to our great misfortune, was shouted down in the 1950s by the hateful, extremist rhetoric of William F. Buckley and his band of right-wing radicals. Viereck published the first book of the New Conservatism in 1949, Conservatism Revisited.

In a 1962 preface to a reissue of Conservatism Revisited Viereck wrote of himself and Clinton Rossiter (author of Conservatism in America):

we broke with the majority of current self-styled American conservatives (pseudo-conservative radicals of the right, in our view) over... issues of nationalist thought-control. The same pseudo-conservative rightists who discriminate against Negroes, despise the groping new governments of Asia and Africa, and stir up authoritarian nationalism against U.N. internationalism, these same thought-control rightists are also avowed disciples of Burke.... But Burke held a freedom-loving central position... [he] fought against the Negro slave trade and against imperialist oppression of India.

Viereck's mention of "pseudo-conservative rightists who discriminate against Negroes" is a reference to the probably no longer remembered fact that William F. Buckley wrote consistently in favor of a states' rights defense against racial integration. In the August 24, 1957 National Review Buckley wrote (John Judis, William F. Buckley, Jr., 1988, pp. 138-9):

The central question that emerges...is whether the white community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not predominate numerically. The sobering answer is Yes--the white community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race....

Viereck's charges of 'thought-control nationalism' (McCarthyism) and 'authoritarian nationalism against U.N. internationalism' hit the bullseye; it is these baneful influences, aggressively fostored by the radical right, which have too much dominated U.S. political discourse since World War II and have unerringly led us to the 'thought-control nationalism' of the George W. Bush administration. Oh how much better off we would have been had the saner beliefs of Peter Viereck prevailed.