Call Them "Radical Right", NOT "Conservative"

Most of the posts I have written here address the issues of why most of the people chronically labeled "conservative" by our main stream and corporate-owned media are utterly mislabeled by this term. I have suggested that they are more appropriately labeled "pseudo-conservative" following the original use of that term in the classic book "The Authoritarian Personality" and in Richard Hofstadter's writings from the 1950s and 1960s. However, there is another term that comes from the 1960s that is also a more accurate label for many on the American right and that is "Radical Right". I recommend that these two terms can be used largely interchangeably and that just as the Radical Right has used its powers of redefinition to turn the term "liberal" into practically a dirty word and refused even to honor the long chosen and essentially accurate name of "Democratic" Party, insisting on calling it the "Democrat" party, those of us on the libertarian left and right should stop unconsciously parroting right-wing propaganda by continuing to mislabel the pseudo-conservative radical right as "conservative".

Read Glenn Greenwald's "Great American Hypocrites"

Glenn Greenwald's new book "Great American Hypocrites" very effectively argues a number of the kinds of things I have proposed in earlier posts to this blog. While he is primarily focused on the Republican Party's hypocrisy this underlines how those who claim to be "conservative" are not. Here is how he puts it on p. 237:

There has been a long line of decidedly unconservative actions by the Bush administration that have been almost uniformly cheered on by the right wing--from exploding discretionary domestic spending to record deficits, to an emergency convening of the federal government to intervene in one woman's end-of-life decisions, to attempts to federalize marriage and medical laws--all of which could not be any more alien to what has been meant by conservatism for the past forty years.

Greenwald is very effective in providing evidence of how Republican ideologues are, in their actions and lives, precisely the opposite of what they say they are. Read Greenwald's book and let us put a stop to the mammoth hypocrisy they have been getting away with for at least the last 28 years. As he puts it on p. 2:

those who playact as powerful Tough Guys and anti-terrorist Warriors and Crusaders for the Values Voters have lives filled with weakness, fear, unbridled hedonism, unearned privilege, sheltered insulation, and none of the "Traditional Masculine Virtues" they endlessly tout.

In his Chapter 1 he shows how that model of Republican Tough and Patriotic American, John Wayne, actually lived his life. In Chapter 2 he describes how the establishment media enables Republican hypocrites to get away with their hypocrisy. Chapter 3 deals with the more general tendency of Republican males to swagger around pretending to be tough guys in their "Tough Guise" while in fact being the opposite. Chapter 4 concerns Republican shamming of being morally superior examples of family values.

Chapter Five examines what has perhaps become the most transparent Republican myth of all: that it is the party of small government, limited federal power, and individual liberty.

In his final chapter Greenwald focuses upon John McCain's hypocrisies. This is an excellent book.

'Conservatism' as Unprincipled Opportunism

I am currently reading John W. Dean's Conservatives Without Conscience. Let me reveal some of my own mistaken biases: since I'm old enough to have been aware and politically active in the Watergate era I thought, "Oh John Dean, that Blind Ambition guy who was in Nixon's White House; he's just an ex-politico, what can he know?" Well, I was wrong. John W. Dean is an excellent researcher and thinker and Conservatives Without Conscience covered a lot of the ground I've been writing about myself. This guy Dean is a very serious thinker. (Why he's just got to be smart if he's writing about what I'm writing about!) I highly recommend his books.

But let me here develop an idea that he only hints at in his book. He writes at length about how so-called conservatives themselves so very frequently argue that there is no way to define 'conservatism'; they go so far as to revel in this supposed fact and celebrate their right to contradict themselves. Of course it IS difficult to give a definition of a belief system like conservatism or liberalism, there is no question about that; but when you get so MANY so-called conservatives opining that they cannot define their own belief system (see Dean, 2006, pp. 2-10) you should really begin to think about this.

It is hugely convenient for so-called conservatives to take this position. If you trumpet the fact that you cannot define what you stand for and you make an asset out of being able to take contradictory positions--what are the consequences of this stance? It allows you to be unprincipled and opportunistic in your pursuit of a coalition of followers as well as in your pursuit of political power. And it is precisely this that has occurred since Buckley and his colleagues created modern American 'conservatism' in the post World War II era. I have commented upon this earlier calling it the "witch's brew" of pseudo-conservatives (if you wish to see these search in my blog under "witch's"). So-called conservatives have been given a huge pass here by allowing them to mix the most contradictory elements and yet get away with giving the whole mess a single label.

They are for "limited government" but they support the Reagan-Bush-Cheney theory of the unitary executive! (On this see Charlie Savage's Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy; Savage won a Pulitzer for his articles about signing statements and is a very thoughtful, careful fellow.) They revere the great American Constitution but support the dismantling of its checks and balances. They are defenders of "individual freedom" but will rush back to Washington to pass special legislation telling Terry Schiavo's relatives how to manage her feeding tube. They support a "culture of life" but, unlike the Catholic Church which also opposes abortion, they are big supporters of the death penalty. They are the champions of small government but never met a defense department or national security budget increase they didn't like. They support bringing "freedom and democracy" to the rest of the world, just not where it is inconvenient as in the case of the democratically elected Hamas government. They are most emphatically Christians but seem to have 'forgotten' Christ's teachings about feeding the hungry, caring for the sick, and sheltering those without shelter. They revere the Ten Commandments including the sixth, "Thou Shalt not Kill", except when it comes to Pat Robertson calling for "taking out" Hugo Chavez. They are absolutely against government interference in the economy except when it comes to passing legislation which weakens labor unions.

They are indeed a mass of blatant contradictions which truly reduces itself to an unprincipled, opportunistic grasping for popular and political power. And their strategy has been remarkably successful in America, especially since Reagan.

Be Sure to read "The Authoritarians" by Bob Altemeyer

I have just finished "The Authoritarians" a free online book written by Bob Altemeyer who has been researching this topic for 40 years. Apparently he is close to retirement and this book gives a summary of the many studies he has run over 40 years. This is a must read for anyone interested in understanding the American Radical Right today and why the term "pseudo-conservative" was first prominently used in a book called "The Authoritarian Personality" almost 60 years ago. Altemeyer also distinguishes 'conservatism' from 'authoritarianism' and I believe that authoritarianism is in large part what I refer to as pseudo-conservatism. It is important to understand that Altemeyer is reporting what he has found with scientific studies conducted over four decades and not, like me, just presenting opinions based on my own reading and thinking. I heartily recommend this book!

Barbara O'Brien's Mahablog Has Interesting Posts on Pseudo-Conservatives

I want to direct people to a series of very interesting posts by Barbara O'Brien's The Mahablog concerning the whole topic of pseudo-conservatives and authoritarianism. You can start with today's post or search her blog under relevant terms. This whole topic of pseudo-conservatives being best understood as authoritarians is central, I believe.

Answer to a Question About 'Conservatism'

Steven Andresen recently asked a question about how to define 'conservatism' as a comment to my Why Pseudo-Conservatives Are Not 'Conservative' post and since my reply is longish I thought I'd add it as a new post.

I believe the term 'conservative' has been hijacked by right-wing extremists in the US and thus tends to mean what ever they want it to mean even if what they believe contradicts the dictionary definition of 'conservative' and even if the principles they say they espouse are self-contradictory. Could I direct your attention to the four part series of posts I wrote called "What Does 'Conservative' Really Mean?" that starts here?

So-called "Christian Conservatives" are usually right-wing extremists who come closer to qualifying as fascists than anything 'conservative'. I do not use the term 'fascist' lightly. Robert Paxton recently published a really excellent book called "The Anatomy of Fascism" which very carefully examines the appropriate uses of this term. Paxton is a historian at Columbia and has spent many years teaching, writing and thinking about fascism. Here's his definition (p. 218):

Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in an uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of
internal cleansing and external expansion.

While we have not yet realized a state of full-fledged fascism in the US Paxton demonstrates that movements can approximate fascism and there can be precursors. I suggest that the Christian right's preoccupation with 'moral decline' in America, it's preoccupation with seeing itself as the butt of a war on Christianity (let me know if you want an example), it's culture war against liberals, it's development of a compensatory cult of 'purity', it's mass-based militant nationalism ("America: Love It or Leave It"), it's collaboration with the traditional elites of the Republican Party and many in the corporate and military elites, the gradual but constant abandonment of democratic liberties under the Bush administration, the redemptive violence against abortion doctors and clinics, the goal of internally cleansing "secular humanists" and an external expansion that apparently knows no bounds (see Chalmers Johnson's "The Sorrows of Empire" and "Nemesis"--all of these elements are precursors of American fascism.

Sinclair Lewis is reputed to have said, "When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross." I suspect this came pretty close to being an accurate anticipation and if Lewis said it his statement was made in the 1930s.

William Kristol's Revealing Slip of the Tongue, Transcript

See my prior post for more explanation. Kristol is being interviewed by Robert Siegel on NPR's "All Things Considered" about John McCain's current candidacy and asks Kristol what McCain's advantages are over other candidates. In part of his reply Kristol states:

"... but ultimately this is going to be a wartime election [2008], this is the first post-9/11 primary among Republicans, 2004 was a post-9/11 election but obviously Bush wasn't challenged, and I do think it will be a foreign policy election--that will be McCain's claim, that he can lead this country through the wars or through the difficult challenges [embarrassed chuckle as he says the word "challenges" correcting his slip "wars"] that we face."

That this warmonger-ideologue is still being so frequently interviewed on radio and TV unfortunately demonstrates that pseudo-conservatives have NOT been so embarrassed by their patently horrendous advice leading us into the Iraq War that they are discredited; one wonders: 'what will it take?'

Now Here's a True "Must Read"!

I am just beginning a very unusual book, When Corporations Rule the World, By David C. Korten. Both the author and his writing style are very unusual. The author is a 70 year old with an MBA and Ph.D. from Stanford's Graduate School of Business, who taught and did research at Harvard's Graduate School of Business and has thirty years of field experience working in Asia, Africa and Latin America for the Ford Foundation, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and a number of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). With a background like this one does not expect to read a book like When Corporations Rule the World!!! Moreover, his writing is remarkably honest and extremely clear--one cannot mistake what his values are and what he is saying; this in itself is an unusual blessing. Here's an excerpt that gives the flavor of the book (pp. 9 & 12):

[T]he systemic forces nurturing the growth and dominance of global corporations are at the heart of the current human dilemma.... These forces have transformed once beneficial corporations and financial institutions into instruments of a market tyranny that is extending its reach across the planet like a cancer, colonizing ever more of the planet's living spaces, destroying livelihoods, displacing people, rendering democratic institutions impotent, and feeding on life in an insatiable quest for money.

But let me point out how the author is an authentic conservative as opposed to pseudo-conservatives such as William F. Buckley. Here is Korten's description of his "values" (a much-abused word in contemporary America):

With regard to political values, I remain a traditional conservative in the sense that I retain a deep distrust of large institutions and their concentrations of unaccountable power. I also continue to believe in the importance of the market and private ownership. However, unlike many contemporary conservatives, I have no more love for big business than I have for big government. Nor do I believe that posession of wealth should convey special political privilege. I share the liberal's compassion for the disenfranchised, commitment to equity, and concern for the environment and believe that there are essential roles for government and limits to the rights of private property. I believe, however, that big government can be as unaccountable and destructive of societal values as can big business. Indeed, I have a distrust of any organization that accumulates and concentrates massive power beyond the bounds of accountability.

OK, here's the essential kernel that separates the sheep from the goats: However, unlike many contemporary conservatives, I have no more love for big business than I have for big government. This is what separates many authentic conservatives from pseudo-conservatives. The latter chatter incessantly about the horrors of 'collectivism' inherent in 'big government'; but they are stone silent about the 'collectivism' that is only too obviously involved in the growth of the modern corporation since 1865 in the United States. Korten is a very unusual fellow in that he is consistent on this point.

Actually, I've just been thinking about the meanings of "conservative" and there is a strain within conservatism which says that rule by the rich and well-born is best and that the 'mob' cannot be trusted. (John Adams believed this.) If one takes that seriously then people like William F. Buckley could be labelled 'conservative' in the latter sense because they certainly do support the powers that be. However, in this case Buckley is simply a liar because he does not honestly state that he distrusts the people and thinks the rich and well-born (like himself) should rule; rather he uses a variation of classical liberalism like that of Milton Friedman to rationalize his views and identify himself as a defender of 'liberty'. He attacks the state but is an ardent defender of business and the corporation.

Robert Nisbet on U.S. War Preparation

In The Present Age: Progress and Anarchy in Modern America, conservative American sociologist Robert Nisbet wrote his opinions regarding why war and preparation for war have become such powerful influences on American government and on the American people (see my earlier post). He argued first that America's participation in World War I had a large impact upon us. However, when addressing why the defense budget and preparation for war loomed so large in the 1980's when he was writing he noted that the Cold War would not do as a complete explanation even though it was the explanation to which observers most often resorted. He wrote (for a book published in 1988) that there were two forces that "would surely continue to operate even if the Soviet Union were miraculously transformed into a vast religious convent [p. 24]." The first of these forces was the military-industrial complex against which Eisenhower warned us. This included a huge government defense bureaucracy and the "militarization of intellectuals" and "intellectualization of the military." The latter involved the universities which had become so addicted to the money flowing from defense expenditures and the " 'terror experts,' 'strategy analysts,' 'intelligence consultants,'" and others who manned institutes and think tanks and regularly appeared on TV. Nisbet wrote (pp. 28-9) quite presciently:

Even if there were no Soviet Union or its equivalent to justify our monstrous military establishment, there would be, in sum, the whole self-perpetuating military-industrial complex and the technological-scientific elite that Eisenhower warned us against. These have attained by now a mass and an internal dynamic capable of being their own justification for continued military spending.... Take away the Soviet Union as crucial justification, and, under Parkinson's Law, content of some kind will expand relentlessly to fill the time and space left.

This prediction proved true in just 5 years during which the Soviet Union did disappear and 'neo-conservatives' stepped forward to argue that the U.S. must take full advantage of this "unipolar moment" to make sure that no other power would be able to challenge the U.S. again. And, indeed, it was these 'neo-conservatives, the Krauthammers, Kristols, Feiths, Ledeens, et. al. who pushed us to spend yet more on the military and who provided the justification for invading Iraq.

The second force to which Nisbet referred was "the moralization of foreign policy" that began perhaps with Woodrow Wilson but continued up to today. Indeed, the so-called 'neo-conservatives' unite both forces in their rhetoric, they are huge cheerleaders for American military might and perhaps the most extreme moralizers of our foreign policy ever. It is these so-called 'neo-conservatives' who trumpet America's remarkable 'exceptionalism' and virtues and advocate using military might to bring 'democracy', 'freedom' and 'free market capitalism' to the rest of the benighted world. The majority of these individuals are also aggressively pro-Israeli and frequently pro-Zionist, and they support the far-right within Israel as well as in the U.S.

Here Nisbet merits the label 'conservative' because he breaks with pseudo-conservatives like William F. Buckley in noting the swelling of central government by the military and in maintaining some skepticism about "America the Virtuous." You cannot stand for small central government AND huge military budgets and an evangelical foreign policy, as people like Buckley and Reagan tried to do.

Very Important New Article by Richard Falk

In the first number of the International Journal of Contemporary Iraqi Studies there is a must-read article by Richard Falk on the Bush administration/neo-con/Israeli strategy to dominate the entire Middle East. (You can get a free PDF copy of the article by registering.) This is one of the best articles I've read because it ties together the neo-con, pro-Israeli right's plans--by emphasizing the 1996 Clean Break document as well as the Project for the New American Century document of 2000--with the Bush administration's war in Iraq and current threats toward Iran and Syria.

There REALLY is a plan by extremist neo-cons who are rabidly pro-Israeli (not just pro-Israel but aggressively supportive of the most expansionist right-wing Likud agenda) to see the US and Israel dominate the Middle East and get rid of any Middle Eastern governments of which they disapprove. As Falk points out the Iraq War was to be merely the first step in this strategy. Falk writes that even though the Iraq War has gone catastrophically these people have not at all given up and the Israeli attack upon Lebanon last summer was another step in this strategy which now turns to trying to drum up support for some kind of attack upon Iran. I suspect that the saber rattling of the Bush administration toward Iran in the last few days shows that they are trying to set the stage for either an American attack upon Iran--justified as part of 'hot pursuit' of alleged Iranians across the Iraqi-Iranian border--or an Israeli attack upon Iran's nuclear plants. As Falk writes:

But rather than abandon geopolitical ambitions, it appears from recent developments that Israel is testing the waters for an all-out regional war, with strong encouragement by the US government taking a variety of overt forms: a public build-up of deployed air strike forces backed by war plans for the destruction of up to 10,000 targets in Iran (See Plesch 2006); unconditional diplomatic support for Israel’s responses, including blocking for several weeks in the UN Security Council and elsewhere widely favoured calls for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon; and the undisguised provision to Israel in the midst of the war of large quantities of aviation fuel and a rushed shipment of additional bombs.

This, unfortunately, is an EXTREMELY SERIOUS matter to which too few Americans are paying attention. Given what I know about the extremism of Bush and Cheney and their extremist pseudo-conservative advisors I believe there is a very significant chance that Bush/Cheney will either do something to initiate war with Iran or support the Israelis in attacking Iran. As Falk says, this risks the chance of a regional Middle Eastern war which could have devastating consequences domestically (oil prices and our whole economy) and internationally.

Robert Nisbet's Conservatism

American sociologist Robert Nisbet (1913-96) wrote a book entitled Conservatism: Dream and Reality, which was published in 1986. Nisbet was a widely read, erudite fellow and the book adds some things to other writings on conservatism, at least it articulates some conservative principles in a fresh manner. However, there are several things that bother me about the book. One of these is Nisbet's giving far more words to criticism of the French Revolution than he does to the Industrial Revolution. On p. 64 Nisbet wrote:

Yet another aspect of the conservative philosophy of property in modern history is found in the frequent criticisms of capitalism, together with its industrialism, commerce, and technology, by conservatives. As I have stressed above, conservativism is almost as much a response to the industrial as the democratic revolution at the end of the eighteenth century.

I have several problems with this statement: 1) my reading suggests that it is not true that his emphasis has been almost as much on the industrial revolution; as I read him criticism of the French Revolution gets far more attention and always is mentioned first, while the critique of capitalism and industrialism appears as second and something tacked on after fulsome criticism of the French Revolution; and, 2) this "democratic revolution at the end of the eighteenth century" must, in large part be a a reference to the French Revolution and it is at least questionable whether that Revolution was primarily 'democratic' as it had significant elitist elements. In general, I think Nisbet and other conservatives use 'democratic' somewhat loosely. He certainly approves of the republican, representaive system articulated in the U.S. Constitution which was certainly democratic in some sense even if not absolutely so.

His secondary emphasis on the Industrial Revolution and capitalism is important because it seems to me likely that these forces have had far more profound influence upon the modern world than the French Revolution. Certainly this is utterly true of the United States; the U.S. Constitution and federal government were already in place when the French Revolution occurred and although the latter was a topic of heated debate in the U.S. it had minimal influence upon U.S. institutions. However, the only true social revolution the U.S. has undergone is the Industrial Revolution. I believe American 'conservatives' like Nisbet are less consistent in the application of conservative principles to the Industrial Revolution because that would be a bit too non-conformist in the USA. The American Ideology pretty much holds capitalism and the Industrial Revolution in the highest regard for their contribution to American consumer abundance. Nonetheless, I believe it is inconsistent and timid to hold certain principles and yet soft pedal their application where it is politically inconvenient.

Nisbet makes it clear that the revolutionary social change, the destruction of local groups and authority and 'massification' of modern urban capitalist life, the crass materialism, and the individualism of American industrial capitalism are thoroughly repugnant to a genuine conservative philosophy; yet glorification and protection of American industrial capitalism are a major tenet in the pseudo-conservatism of William F. Buckley, et. al. from the the 1950s until today. Under the pressures of political ambition and will to power, actual conservative principles have been jettisoned by American pseudo-conservatives.

Militant Pseudo-Conservatives and Israel Are Leading Us Toward Armageddon

Many opined that after the fall of Rumsfeld and the Democratic Party sweep in the last election that so-called 'neo-conservatives' had been defeated. If you believe that you are endangering yourself and your loved ones. 'Neo-con' and American Enterprise Institute staffer Frederick Kagan is the author of the 'new' troop buildup plan Pres. Bush announced last night. Bush is still thoroughly influenced by and agrees with these American Enterprise Institute extremists.

The London Times revealed Sunday that Israel is planning to carry out an attack upon Iran's nuclear sites with the first nuclear weapons to be used since 1945. The world's craziest right-wingers are still in the saddle. The U.S.'s blind, knee-jerk support for almost anything Israel wants to do in combination with the radically pro-Israel 'neo-conservatives' in this country appear to me to be dragging the world toward confrontations in the Middle East with extreme and unpredictable consequences. This is the path that led us into Iraq: wild, extremist actions, without any plan or apparent concern about what the consequences will be are the modus operandi of these right-wing extremists. We may be treated to an 'experiment' in which we get to see what happens when Israel uses nuclear weapons against a muslim country. The crazy, extremist right is the best recruiting agency the Muslim extremists ever had.

In my original post I pointed out how irresponsible William Kristol was re Iran:

Claiming that Hezbollah, a group supported by Iran but with its own extensive political and social base among the 40% Shia population in Lebanon, is identical with Iran, Kristol suggested that either the United States or Israel “consider countering this act of Iranian (sic) aggression with a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. Why wait? Does anyone think a nuclear Iran can be contained? ... Yes, there would be repercussions—and they would be healthy ones, showing a strong America that has rejected further appeasement.”

William Kristol and his pseudo-conservative ilk are not one iota less crazy than the most extreme ravings of the French Revolution's Jacobins.

How Did the US Lose "Community"?

In recent posts I've pointed out the central value that genuine conservatives place upon local, face-to-face, decentralized groups: family, school, church, local government, etc. These are what make up a true sense of "community." Robert Nisbet (1913-96) was an American sociologist and conservative who was invited by President Reagan to give a prestigious lecture in the late 1980s as recognition of his conservative contribution. I haven't read enough Nisbet yet to determine if I'd categorize him as a genuine conservative or pseudo-conservative but I'll be reading more soon. Probably his most famous book was published in 1953 as The Quest for Community which he later republished as Community and Power (1962, Oxford UP). As I said in a previous post:

Usually such analyses [of the loss of face-to-face community] (see Robert Nisbet’s The Quest for Community, first published in 1953) have emphasized the state as sucking up the powers of localities and creating the mass society. I suspect this is because in America it is relatively rare to read mainstream academics who are willing to criticize American industrialization leading to huge centralized corporations as a primary factor in creating atomized ‘mass’ individuals whose primary function is to consume in a self-indulgent fashion.

Let's examine what it was in American life that led to the loss of face-to-face community? In 1957 American historian Samuel P. Hays published a rather popular book entitled The Response to Industrialism: 1885-1914. This is an excellent look at this period. Hays' (pp. 1-2) opening paragraphs stated:

The history of modern America is, above all, a story of the impact of industrialism on every phase of human life. It is difficult for us today fully to imagine the implications of this change, for we did not know an earlier America firsthand.... Looking backward scarcely more than forty or fifty years, [the American of 1914] fully recognized that his country had changed rapidly and fundamentally.... Seldom, if ever, in American history had so much been altered within the lifetime of a single man.... Formerly, perhaps, he had resided in the intimate surroundings of his town or rural community. If he remained there in 1914, he had encountered with some fear the expansion into the countryside of a new urban culture that threatened the familiar order with strange, even dangerous, ides. Or moving to Chicago, one of the nation's rapidly growing urban centers, he had experienced the indifference of city people toward each other, which contrasted sharply with the atmosphere of the small community from which he had come.... If he had been especially sensitive to personal values, he would have looked with horror upon the way in which the impersonal forces of industrialism seemed to place one at the mercy of influences far beyond one's control. In such an atmosphere how could personal character count for anything; how could anyone exercise personal responsibility?

And these are from the first two paragraphs of a 193 page book. I find it difficult to understand how writers like Nisbet can blame the centralized government for the atomization of local communities into mass urban societies where local authority based upon small face-to-face groups has been lost. Industrialization in the 19th century created a 'social revolution' possibly comparable at least in part to the French Revolution. However, since our social values are so partial to business, economic progress and industrialization, I think some writers pass over this because it would seem to attack the very foundations of American values; rather it is so much easier to blame it on the central government because anti-government feeling is almost equal to pro-business feeling in the American ideology.

I am NOT saying that we ought to roll back the clock to a pre-industrial age or any such thing. My point is a descriptive one: if we are trying to understand the breakdown of local 'autonomous' social groups and the trading of local community and local authority for modern atomized 'mass society' then let's be accurate about what the primary cause was; it was industrialization.

Examining Genuine American Conservatism

In my continuing attempt to define conservatism and to clarify what 'conservatism' means in an American context I am currently re-reading Clinton Rossiter's Conservatism in America (Second Edition Revised, 1962). This is a wise and important book that deserves more attention 45 years after this Second Edition appeared.

But let me remind why this whole definitional project is necessary. If one goes back to my first post, Why Pseudo-Conservatives are not "Conservative", you can see that it is essential that I carefully define what 'conservative' actually means. This is necessary preparatory to showing that most of those Americans usually referred to today as "conservatives" or "neo-conservatives" are in fact not 'conservative' at all but are radicals pressing programs of extreme change in American life which, if they continue to be successful, will probably lead to the decline and fall of what has been admirable in American life and values. To a large extent this is the brunt of Claes Ryn's identification of "the New Jacobins" in his America the Virtuous.

Let me briefly sketch some of Clinton Rossiter's main points. First, he distinguished "Conservatism" with a capital 'C' from small 'c' conservatism, and he did so for an excellent reason. Conservatism (capital 'C') is the tradition of socio-political philosophy going back to Edmund Burke (1729-97). Rossiter rightly claims that since America was founded upon a basically 'liberal' tradition that emphasized, reason, progress, individualism, democracy, liberty and equality, and since nearly all Americans subscribe to this basically 'liberal' philosophy, that Burkean Conservatism is not prominent in America's primary traditions. Remember that Burke's founding of Conservatism was a reaction to the first truly social revolution in modern history, the French Revolution. The French Revolution was a truly social revolution because it aimed at society-wide overthrow of most of the foundations of France up to that time: it aimed to overthrow the monarchy as a system of government and replace it with a republican form of government, it aimed to overthrow the higher social orders of nobility and priesthood as privileged rulers of society, with the priesthood it aimed to overthrow the existence of an Established religion and replace it with Reason as religion, and it aimed to overthrow what remained of a feudal economy with one based more on freedom of enterprise (see William Doyle, Origins of the French Revolution, Second Edition, 1988).

In comparison to the great French social revolution against which Burke inveighed, the so-called "American Revolution" is really more appropriately labeled a War for Independence; it was certainly not a social revolution. Perhaps this is why Burke was relatively sympathetic to American colonial complaints. After the War for Independence America was socially, politically, and legally nearly identical with what it had been prior to that War. Thus, America was founded upon English constitutional liberalism and, since it never had a feudal nobility, a local monarchy or an established religion, it never needed a social revolution; it has been based upon a liberal philosophy from its inception.

So American conservatism must always be seen as existing within this essentially liberal tradition. That is why I quoted Peter Viereck in a prior post so prominently: :

…romanticizing conservatives refuse to face up to the old and solid historical roots of most or much American liberalism…. In contrast, a genuinely rooted, history-minded conservative conserves the roots that are really there, exactly as Burke did…. American history is based on the resemblance between moderate liberalism and moderate conservatism…. The Burkean builds on the concrete existing historical base, not on a vacuum of abstract wishful thinking. When, as in America, that concrete base includes British liberalism of the 1680’s and New Deal reforms of the 1930’s, then the real American conserver assimilates into conservatism whatever he finds lasting and good in liberalism and in the New Deal…. [I]n America it is often the free trade unions who unconsciously are our ablest representatives of the word they hate and misunderstand: conservatism. The organic unity they restore to the atomized ‘proletariat’ is… providential…. So we come full circle in America’s political paradox; our conservatism, in the absence of medieval feudal relics, must grudgingly admit it has little real tradition to conserve except that of liberalism—which then turns out to be a relatively conservative liberalism.(last emphasis added)

Point: Rossiter, like Viereck, shows that American small 'c' conservatism has to be seen as based within an essentially liberal tradition and thus won't be precisely the same as Burkean capital 'C' Conservatism. Indeed, as Rossiter wrote on p. 96:

even in [America's] most conservative moments, when we most want to be at rest, we come to rest on a tradition--the famous Liberal tradition--that speaks out loud and clear in the language of liberty and equality, democracy and progress, adventure and opportunity. This is the reason that no one, neither the foreign observer nor the American himself, will ever quite understand what the American says and does. The American, like his tradition, is deeply liberal, deeply conservative. If this is a paradox, so, too, is America.

However, Rossiter made a point that I believe is fundamental to understanding a force within the American experience that really does come closest to meriting the label "revolutionary": the force set free by American capitalism in the latter part of the 19th century, the force of the Industrial Revolution. Although it is frequently a subordinate point in Rossiter's book, he nonetheless notes that the Industrial Revolution was probably the major revolutionary force in American history (at least, I would argue, until the 20th century). Rossiter (p. 16), when recounting "important events for the rise of conscious conservatism" mentions the French Revolution and Burke's critique of it and then adds "the Industrial Revolution, which made change rather than stability the essential style of the social process...." On pages 94-6 Rossiter enlarges on the significance of the American Industrial Revolution in a passage I consider extremely important and which I here quote at length:

we must... [make] the distinction between change, a transformation of values or institutions in which government plays no direct part, and reform, a transformation... through the conscious use of political authority. Industrialization, which puts children to work in factories, is change; child-labor legislation, which takes them out again, is reform. When men build railroads or invent assembly lines or convert atomic energy into power, thus transforming the lives of millions of people, that is change. When other men pass laws to regulate railroads or raise wages of men on assembly lines or license producers of atomic power, that is reform. Now, if we look again at our history, we find that many of our so-called conservatives, the "wise and good and rich" on the American Right, were in an important sense not conservatives at all. While they could always be counted on to oppose reform, they were casual or at best ambivalent about change. In point of fact, they had an immense stake in social change--specifically, in the transformation of this country from a predominantly agrarian-rural to a predominantly industrial-urban society.... [T]hey worked vast changes in every part of our system. They were, indeed, among the most marvelous agents of social and moral change the world has ever known, and it does them something less than historical justice to classify them simply as conservatives.

The liberals, on the other hand--the great progressives like Jefferson, Jackson, Bryan, La Follette and Wilson--were deeply troubled by the restless, untamed surge toward the Hamiltonian dream of busy factories and bustling cities. Each of these men, in his own generation, saw the order he knew and loved being weakened by the rapid advances of invention and technology. And each, in his own way, looked to reform to chasten change and mitigate its worst effects....

After the Civil War, when at last it became apparent to both sides that government was alone equal to the challenge of change, the progressives shifted their attitude toward political authority from hostility to sympathy, while the men of the Right, who were willing to use government to their own ends but not to see others use it against them, moved into a posture of determined opposition to reform. The paradoxes in the American experience had come to full flower: the agents of change were opposed to reform, the opponents of change committed to it. Small wonder that words like liberalism and conservatism lost much of their meaning for Americans, especially since both sides in the struggle were now arguing in the language of full-blooded Liberalism.

What Rossiter came close to saying here is that it is persons known as 'liberals' and 'progressives' who have been most concerned to 'conserve' the values they saw in American society at its founding and before industrilization and urbanization so profoundly changed it.

Let me just add a note to clarify what I meant above when I said that the Industrial Revolution was the most socially mutative force "at least, I would argue, until the 20th century." I suspect that there have been two forces in American history that have wrought changes coming closest to meriting the term 'revolutionary', the Industrial Revolution that began in the 19th century and the rise of American imperialism that began shortly before the end of the 19th century (see Stephen Kinzer's Overthrow). It is precisely the present-day pseudo-conservative's knee-jerk allegiance to protecting the power of those who run and benefit from huge corporations made possible by the Industraial Revolution and this same pseudo-conservative's thoroughly unbalanced and belligerent support for contemporary American imperialism and world domination that makes the pseudo-conservative the most powerful voice for extremism and radical change on the contemporary American scene. "Conservative" indeed!

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.

What Does ‘Conservative’ Really Mean?, Part 2

As I said in Part 1 I wish to describe the basic themes and concerns of a genuine, authentic conservatism. My previous efforts at this have been too brief and sketchy. Perhaps some will be surprised to learn of the key tenets of genuine conservatism, especially if you've become used to the pseudo-conservative ideology successfully sold to Americans since the 1950s under the misappropriated terms ‘conservatism’ and ‘conservative.’ The primary concerns of modern political conservatism hark back to Edmund Burke’s critique of the French Revolution first published in 1790; Burke is named by most as the father of modern, self-conscious conservatism. In this post I will present some of the views of Claes Ryn’s book, America the Virtuous.

As I stated in Part 1, perhaps the primary belief of conservatives is that human beings are possessed of base impulses and these need to be controlled if we are to have a civilized society. Such impulses include arrogance, pride, a desire for power over others, selfishness and self indulgence, belligerence, ruthlessness, etc. Conservatives see religion, morality and traditional social institutions as teaching and encouraging control of these baser motives. A morality emphasizing self-control is seen as essential to civilized life. In America the Virtuous Claes Ryn, whom I consider an authentic American conservative, wrote (p. 18) that Enlightenment writers like Rousseau, through a “denial of a darker side of human nature—what Christianity sometimes discusses in terms of ‘original sin’—undermined the ancient belief that checks, internal and external, must be placed on individual and collective action.” Much of modern conservatism is highly critical of the positive view of humans expressed during the Enlightenment and is especially critical of Rousseau. Ryn argued that the Founding Fathers who fashioned our representative, constitutional democracy were for the most part conservatives in this sense. “Constitutional democracy assumes a human nature divided between higher and lower potentialities and sees a need to guard against merely self-serving, imprudent, and even tyrannical impulses in the individual and the people as a whole (Ryn, p. 50).”

Ryn continued (p. 55): “In the West, the decentralized society is deeply rooted in Christian ideas of community and virtue, which are akin to earlier Greek ideas…. The individual’s primary moral responsibility is to make the best of self and to love neighbor. This is a demanding notion of virtue, for nothing is more difficult than overcoming one’s own selfishness and behaving charitably toward people of flesh and blood at close range.” Ryn is distinguishing the latter charity from an abstract commitment to the betterment of people who live at a great distance and are not experienced personally like ‘the downtrodden’, ‘mankind’, ‘the proletariat’, or ‘the poor.’ Ryn wrote that (p. 57): “the effect of the old morality of character is to build self-restraint and respect for others… and to reduce the danger of conflict. The emphasis on curbing arrogance, greed, and other types of self-indulgence increases the chances for harmonious relations.”

Frankly, it’s difficult for me to see how this premise of conservatism can be denied, i.e., the base impulses described definitely do exist and are strong in humans; civilization does require control of such impulses. Perhaps some might differ about precisely which institutions are best able to teach such self-control, but the need for it should not be controversial.

A second prime value of conservatism emphasizes the importance of concrete, local, face-to-face groups such as families, small groups, and local communities. Ryn wrote that (p. 52): "Constitutional democracy assumes a decentralized society in which the lives of most citizens are centered in small, chiefly private, and local associations, what the late Robert Nisbet called ‘autonomous groups.’ These can exercise independent authority. In the decentralized society there are many centers and levels of power. Political authority is widely dispersed, enabling regional and local entities to decide for themselves…. People tend to define their own interests not as discrete individuals but as members of the groups that they most treasure, starting with the family and other associations at close range. By the ‘people,’ then, constitutional democracy does not mean an undifferentiated mass of individuals….”

This is an important and possibly little known conservative tenet. In the 1950s there were a great number of social analyses published heralding the coming of a ‘mass society.’ This was a society where small, local, face-to-face relationships were eroded and replaced by centralized authority that was distant from and less influenced by individuals and their small, primary groups. As the natural authority of small, local, ‘autonomous groups’ was eroded, society was said to be “atomized” and individuals had fewer and fewer local ties with one another; they became more and more an undifferentiated mass. With the spread of urbanization and the consequent shrinkage of locality accompanying a less rural society it is hard to deny that this is true to some considerable extent. Usually such analyses (see Robert Nisbet’s The Quest for Community, first published in 1953) have emphasized the state as sucking up the powers of localities and creating the mass society. I suspect this is because in America it is relatively rare to read mainstream academics who are willing to criticize American industrialization leading to huge centralized corporations as a primary factor in creating atomized ‘mass’ individuals whose primary function is to consume in a self-indulgent fashion. My guess is the two primary motives to growth in the central government in America have been (1) the growth of huge corporations in the late 19th century requiring central government as a 'countervailing power' and (2) the huge increase in government due to a more and more massive 'defense' and 'security' presence (the latter probably due in significant part to the growth of American imperialism beginning in the late 19th century, see Stephen Kinzer's Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq).

Okay, this post is getting too long! I'll continue in Part 3.

On Confusion Concerning the Term 'Conservative'

Claes Ryn's book, America the Virtuous, presents some interesting remarks on the contemporary American confusion surrounding the term 'conservative.' On pp. 193-4 we find:

A particularly striking example of intellectual bewilderment and helplessness are intellectuals who think of themselves as conservatives but who are unthinkingly embracing much of the heritage of the French Revolution. Another example are putative conservatives who assume that a conservative is someone who is more inclined than others to use military power or bullying against other countries.

Again on p. 210 Ryn wrote:

with regard to present political-intellectual discussion, some widely used terms have changed meaning. Some of them have become useless or, worse than useless, perniciously confusing or deceptive.... Much is not at all what it seems.

It is pseudo-conservatives like William F. Buckley who have confused and deceived us about the meaning of 'conservative.'

Ryn also wrote (p. 21):

Paradoxically, in the United States the new Jacobinism also finds expression among people called "conservatives" or "neoconservatives." This is a curious fact considering that modern, self-conscious conservatism originated in opposition to the ideas of the French Revolution. The person commonly regarded as the father of modern conservatism, the British statesman and thinker Edmund Burke (1729-97) focused his scorching critique of the French Revolution precisely on Jacobin thinking.

Schumpeter on Roman Imperialism, Does This Sound Familiar?

In his book, America the Virtuous, Claes Ryn cited (p. 196) a great quote from Joseph Schumpeter's essay on Imperialism. Does this sound at all familiar? Try substituting 'America' for 'Rome' and 'American' for 'Roman'.

There was no corner of the known world where some interest was not alleged to be in danger or under actual attack. If the interests were not Roman, they were those of Rome's allies; and if Rome had no allies, then allies would be invented. When it was utterly impossible to contrive such an interest--why, then it was the national honor that had been insulted. The fight was always invested with an aura of legality. Rome was always being attacked by evil-minded neighbors, always fighting for a breathing space. The whole world was pervaded by a host of enemies, and it was manifestly Rome's duty to guard against their indubitably aggressive designs. They were enemies who only waited to fall on the Roman people.

This is the kind of world presence the pseudo-conservative hawks, what Ryn calls the New Jacobins after the French Revolution's Jacobins, are convincing Americans to uphold. As Ryn wrote (p. 191):

Neo-Jacobinism is the main factor behind the quest for American world supremacy.... There are grounds for suspecting that, upon gaining a further hold on power, the new Jacobins will gravitate in the direction of more despotic methods. They are already employing systematic demonization and ostracism of their critics.... As the constraints of American constituitionalism continue to deteriorate, military or other emergencies will provide neo-Jacobin leaders widening opportunities for silencing their opponents as well as for imposing general restrictions on civil liberties.

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."