The American Conservative Mind: Where We Are Now
By Jeffrey Hart | Tuesday, November 22, 2005
Editors' Note: The following is excerpted from Professor Emeritus Jeffrey Hart's new book, The Making of the American Conservative Mind: National Review and Its Times, published this fall by ISI Books.
In The Conservative Mind (1953), one of the founding documents of the American conservative movement, Russell Kirk assembled an array of major conservative thinkers beginning with Burke and, virtually anthologizing long passages, made a major statement. He proved that conservative thought in America existed, and even that such thought was highly intelligent, a demonstration very much needed at the time.
Today we are in a very different and more complicated situation. Nevertheless, it is impossible to attempt a synthesis based on what National Review has achieved, and left unachieved—and also based on how the magazine was interacting with history since 1955, the history as documented in these pages. The political philosopher presiding over the synthesis will be Edmund Burke, the founder of modern conservatism, but a Burke interpreted for a new constitutional republic and, today, for modern life. This synthesis, needles to say, is my own and itself can be assessed as it attempts to cover the facts.
Over its fifty-year history, National Review has taken many a political position but also, and more lastingly, has taught conservatives how to think. Here, debate within the magazine has been the necessary condition, argument meeting with counter-argument, a refining fire. Any political position is only as important as the thought by which it is derived. Throughout its history, National Review has been tempted from time to time by a politics of wishing, or utopianism. Its mistakes have been instructive. That is, even the magazine's mistakes have assisted in the achievement of a normative conservatism, described by Buckley as the "politics of reality" that made National Review over the years the most interesting magazine of its kind in the United States. And so we proceed to my attempt at a synthesis.
- Hard Utopianism. During the twentieth century, National Socialism and Communism tired to effect versions of their Perfect Man in the Perfect Society. One of National Review's most noble enterprises from its beginning was its informed anti-Communism. As Pascal had written, "Man is neither angel nor brute, and the misfortune is that he who would act the angel acts the brute." In abstract theory was born the Gulag.
- Soft Utopianism. Both hard and soft utopianism ignore flawed human nature. Soft utopianism believes in benevolent illusions, most abstractly stated in the proposition that all goals are reconcilable, as in such dreams as The Family of Man, World Peace, Multiculturalism, Pacifism, and Wilsonian Global Democracy. To all of these the Conservative Mind objects. Men do not all desire the same things: domination is a powerful desire. The phrase about the lion lying down the lamb, adapted from Isaiah, is commonly quoted; but Isaiah knew that his vision of peace would take divine intervention, not at all to be counted on. Without such intervention, the lion dines well.
- The Nation. Soft utopianism speaks of the "nation-state" as if it were a passing nuisance. But the Conservative Mind knows that there must be much that is valid in the idea of the nation, because nations are rooted in history. Arising out of tribes, ancient cosmological empires, theocracies, city states, imperial systems, feudal organization, we now have the nation. Imperfect as the nation may be, it alone—as far as we know—can protect many of the basic elements of civilized existence. Hegel rather thunderously argued that the nation and its freedoms are the goal of history. He might have been wrong, but that he was wrong has been yet to be shown.
- It follows that national defense remains a necessity, threatened almost always by "lie-down-with-the-lambism," as well as by recurrent, and more obviously hostile, hard utopianisms. In the earliest narratives of the West, both the Greek Iliad and the Hebrew Pentateuch, wars are central. Soft utopianism often has encouraged more frequent wars, such soft utopianism tempting irresistibly the lion's claws and teeth. National Review, most of the time, has shown a healthy resistance utopianism and its various informing ideologies. Ideology is always wrong because it edits reality and paralyzes thought.
- Constitutional Government. Depending on English tradition and classical theory, the American Founders designed a government by the "deliberate sense" of the people. The "sense" originated with the people, but was made "deliberate" by the delaying institutions built into the Constitutional structure. This system aims at government not by majorities alone but by stable consensus, because under the Constitution major changes almost always require a consensus that lasts over a considerable period of time. Though the Supreme Court stands as Constitutional arbiter, it is not a legislature. The correct workings of the system depend upon mutual restraint among the branches. And the Court, which is the weakest of the three (see esp. Article III, Sec. 2, Para. 2), should behave with due modesty toward the legislature. The legislature is the closest of the three to "We the people," who are the basis of legitimacy in a free society. Legislation is more easily rewarded or repealed than a Court ruling, and therefore judicial restraint is necessary.
- Free Market economics. Carrying this banner high, National Review emerged during a period when socialism in various forms had become a tacit orthodoxy. The thought of Hayek, von Mises, and Friedman, among others, informed the magazine's understanding of economic questions. At length, the free market triumphed through much of the world, and today there are no, or very few, socialists in major university economics departments, an almost total transformation since 1955. But the utopian temptation can turn such free-market thought into a utopianism of its own—that is, free markets to be effected even while excluding every other value and purposes…
- …such as Beauty, broadly defined. The desire for Beauty may be natural to human beings as such, like other natural desires. It appeared early, as in the prehistoric cave murals. In literature (for example, Dante) and in other forms of representation—painting, sculpture, music, architecture—Heaven is always beautiful, Hell ugly. Beauty may thus even have a theological dimension, as Hans Urs von Balthasar has argued. Plato taught that the love of Beauty led to the Good, Eros to Agape. Among the non-quantifiable needs of civilization are forms of what Burke called the "unbought grace of life," a memorable phrase from a man whom Adam Smith said was the only one in England who understood his free market economics. In Burke's formulation, the word "unbought" should be pondered.
In National Review this conservative principle, Beauty, has been clamorously present through its almost absence, except for the Books, Arts & Manners section. This has been a major omission, though briefly remedied by Senator James Buckley, who continued the tradition of regard for woodland and wildlife, present from the beginning of the nation in such eighteenth-century figures as William Bartram (1739-1823) of Philadelphia-explorer, naturalist, and extraordinary artists; and continuing through James Audubon, contemporary of Tocqueville; and through other famous exemplars, such as the Republican President Theodore Roosevelt, who established the National Parks; and in a small but exemplary way, through Russell Kirk, planting trees near his home in Mecosta for future generations to enjoy after his passing.
In its great buildings, which are history in stone, New York City would now lack most of the works of McKim, Mead and White, for example, were it not for the efforts of the Landmarks Preservation movement. Embarrassingly for conservatives (one hopes it is embarrassing), this was founded by liberal Democrats, such as Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Brendan Gill, and Jacqueline Kennedy, and continues to consist mostly of liberal Democrats. Not all ideas and initiatives by liberals are bad ones. Burke's "unbought" beauties are part of civilized life, and therefore ought to occupy much of the Conservative Mind. The absence of this consideration remains a mark of Yahooism and is prominent in Republicanism today.
Momentarily noticed by National Review, Governor Reagan had a good record on conservation in California, appointing leading conservationists to key positions, preserving wilderness areas in the Sierra Nevada and elsewhere, blocking unnecessary and destructive highway development and much else of that kind. Yet as if by an intrinsic law, when the free market becomes a kind of utopianism it maximizes ordinary human imperfection—here, greed, short views, and the resulting barbarism.
- Religion. From its beginning, National Review has known what religion is an integral part of the distinctive identity of Western civilization, this recognition manifesting itself in the magazine as support for traditional forms of religion—repeat, traditional, or intellectually and institutionally developed, not dependent upon spasms of emotion. This meant religion in its magisterial Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish forms.
The magazine, to its credit, editorially criticized political pronouncements on virtually all World War III questions, including Pacem in Terris and Mater et Magistra (relating the quip, "Mater, Si! Magistra, no!") as well as stands taken by the American Catholic bishops which were strategically suicidal. The magazine criticized Humanae Vitae, or the ban on artificial birth control, a ban widely ignored. Such teachings tend to discredit the valid core doctrines of traditional Christianity. What time calls for is a recovery of the great structure of metaphysics, with the Resurrection as its fulcrum, established as history, and interpreted through Greek philosophy. The representation of this metaphysics through language and ritual took ten centuries to perfect. The dome of sacred, however, has been shattered. The act of reconstruction will require a large effort of intellect, which is never populist and certainly not grounded on emotion, an unreliable guide. Religion not based on a structure of thought always exhibits wild inspired swings and fades in a generation or two.
- Abortion. This has been a focus of conservative, and national, attention since Roe vs. Wade (1973). Yet abortion as an issue, its availability indeed as a widespread demand, did not arrive from nowhere, one of National Review's conservative guideposts had been Burke's thought, including his sense of the complexity of society, at the same time his sense of the great power and complexity of forces driving important social processes and changes. Nevertheless, National Review recently has defended the "right to life" of a single-cell embryo, and it has criticized those conservative political figures who disagree with that view.
But a total ban on abortion, to put it flatly, is not going to happen. Too many powerful social forces are aligned against it, and it is therefore a utopian notion. The abortion question deserves a Burkean analysis. Roe relocated decision-making about abortion from state governments to the individual woman, and was thus a libertarian ruling. Planned Parenthood vs. Casey (1992) supported Roe, but gave it a social dimension, making the woman's choice a derivative of the women's revolution: the "advancement of women," as Casey put it
According to statistics available from the Centers for Disease Control, 83 percent of optional abortions take place during the first trimester. That abortion must be criminalized even during the first trimester is surely a utopian notion. The women's revolution has been the result of many accumulating social facts, as Burke would see, and such social facts would not be difficult to enumerate. The women's revolution already has been largely assimilated. Since the Beginning of the twentieth century, the United States has steadily urbanized, and suburbanized; living conditions now are radically different from those in a largely rural country. Women's suffrage was an issue in the election of 1912, and today is taken for granted. Women today work in all the professions, also serving in the military. Their career preparation often lasts years. They will not surrender control of their reproductive capacity.
By 1973 and Roe, the women's revolution reflected a relentlessly changing social actuality. Simply to pull an abstract "right to life" out of the Declaration of Independence, as some conservatives do, is not conservative but Jacobinical. To be Sure, the Roe decision was certainly an example of judicial overreach. Combined with Casey, however, it did address the reality of women's revolution, a social process with deep roots in actuality. The question now is whether Roe, more than thirty years old and reaffirmed by many lower court decisions, will stand; and, if Roe is overturned, then what rules might issue from fifty state legislatures. No doubt in 1973 the court should have deferred to the jurisdiction of the states. But a checkerboard of state legislation might merely increase the value of Greyhound Bus stock.
- Wilsonianism. The Republican Party now presents itself as the party of Hard Wilsonianism, which is no more plausible than the original Soft Wilsonianism, which Balkanized Central Europe with dire consequences. No one had ever thought Wilsonianism to be conservative—certainly National Review never has, even recently—ignoring as it does the density and intractability of culture and people's high valuation of a modus vivendi. Wilsonianism derives from Locke and Rousseau in their belief in the fundamental goodness of mankind and hence in a convergence of interests: "The human heart desires the same good things everywhere on earth" (G. W. Bush, 2-26-03). Welcome to Iraq. Whereas realism counsels great prudence in complex cultural situations, Wilsonianism rushes optimistically ahead. Not every country is Denmark
At this writing, the fighting in Iraq has gone on for more than two years, and the ultimate result of "democratization" in that fractured nation remains very much in doubt, as does the long-range influence of the Iraq invasion on the conditions in the Middle East as a whole. In general, Wilsonianism is a snare and a delusion as a guide to policy, and far from conservative
- The Republican Party. National Review has assumed since its founding in 1955 that this political party is by and large conservative. But this party has stood for many and various things in the course of its history. The nation at the present time exhibits a strange configuration. A recent analysis (the Economist) showed the American polity to be polarized, support for the Democratic Party at 31%, the Republican Party at 30%, and independents at 39%. On the issues, this analysis found that "most Americans have fairly centrist views on everything from multilateralism to abortion. They like to think of themselves as "moderate" and "nonjudgmental." Then why does moderation not rule? Because, this analysis concludes, a growing proportion of Democrats comes from deep blue congressional districts where it is more important to pander to the liberal base than to seek a moderate consensus. Bush's electoral strategy depended upon consolidation of his base rather than upon a wide appeal, and in consequence issued in narrow victories.
The Republican Party has changed in the past: for example, in 1912, when the party of William Howard Taft and the reform party of Theodore Roosevelt in effect rejected one another. The Republican Party changed again in 1964 when its center of gravity shifted to the South and the Sunbelt, now politically the solid base of "Republicanism." All the consequences of that shift could not have been foreseen in 1964, but perhaps were already sensed inchoately in 1963-1964, as we have seen here, by Burnham and Buckley. The implications of that profound cultural shift have now become evident, especially with respect to prudence, long views, education, intellect, and high culture. The seismic geographical-political shift of 1963-64 eventually produced an example of Machiavelli's observation that institutions can retain the same outward name and aspect while transforming their substance entirely.
- The Presidency. In the relatively recent past, Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and Ronald Reagan have been consensus-building Presidents, each winning re-election by large margins. Each was essentially prudent, and each achieved his goals. Each, in his time, was conservative. In 1955, National Review rebelled retrospectively against FDR's modest welfare state, but Eisenhower, against his personal inclination, accepted the New Deal reality. On that, Whittaker Chambers, Willmoore Kendall, and James Burnham essentially agreed. Roosevelt, fending off extremists from right and left, ameliorated the Depression with a center-left coalition and large injections of cash into the economy, and then orchestrated an international coalition to win the war.
Franklin Roosevelt seems secure in his standing among the top ten American Presidents, Eisenhower and Reagan more recently placed there by many historians. National Review in 1956 was mistaken about Eisenhower, as was the Kennedy campaign in 1960. Eisenhower, behind a deliberately created benign persona, contributed greatly to U.S. weapons systems, was willing to threaten nuclear war with China when there was little risk in carrying out the threat, stayed out of Vietnam when implored by the French to intervene, and refused to bail out the British and French at Suez. In what he did not do abroad, as well as what he did do, Eisenhower demonstrated a prudential conservatism.
That completes the paradigm evolved through my reading of National Review, in the contexts of both history and conservative political theory, from the beginning of the magazine through the present. By its very adventures with ideology and utopianism since its founding, National Review has shown, by deviating yet correctable lunges, that the Conservative Mind is a work-in-progress. Its guides in self-corrections have always consisted of prudence, reserved judgment as an operative principle, a healthy practical skepticism, and the requirement of historical knowledge as a guide to prudent policy. Without a deep knowledge of history, policy analysis is feckless.
And it follows that the teachings of books that have lasted are essential to the Conservative Mind, these books lasting because of their agreements, disagreements, and creative resolutions. It is not enough for conservatives to repeat formulae or party-line positions. The mind must possess the process that leads to conservative decisions. There is no substitute for Aristotle vs. Plato, Luther vs. Erasmus, Burke versus himself—as well as against the abstractionist philosophes of the Rights of Man.
One of the electrifying moments in the history of thought occurred toward the end of 1516, when Erasmus, then a predominant intellectual power in Europe and dominating through the new medium made possible by Gutenberg, received via diplomatic pouch a letter from an obscure German Augustinian monk named Martin Luther. Especially alert to the power of sin, Luther advised the most influential writer in Christendom to pay more attention to Paul's Epistle to the Romans, especially its implications for justification, and to study Saint Augustine. Erasmus's Catholic Humanism was at stake. He advised everyone, including Pope Julius II, to forbear and have patience with Luther; but when Luther denied free will, Erasmus attacked him philosophically. Luther and Erasmus were to contest the future of Christianity at that great juncture, a future that today remains far from settled, as traditional Christianity, while possessing a strong metaphysics and ways of expressing it, has been helpless to achieve similar success in its recommendations within a changing social reality where people make their ethical decisions based on experience.
As a guide, the books, and results of experience, may be the more difficult way—much more difficult in a given moment than pre-cooked dogma or a party line, which are always irresistible to the uneducated. Learning guards against having to reinvent the wheel in political theory from one generation to the next.
National Review has been a great mode, vigorous always, through mistakes and self-corrections, from November 1955 forward. If read as a single book, all of those bound volumes from 1955 forward constitute one of the great works of conservative thought and experience. For the things of this world, the philosophy of William James, so distinctively American, might be the best guide, a philosophy always open to experience and judging by experience within given conditions—the experience pleasurable or, more often, painful, but utopia always a distant and destructive mirage. The ship of National Review sails on, taking on water sometimes, but never smashing to bits on the rocks.
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