Revival of Intellectual Conservatism
I posted this originally as a comment on the Becker-Posner blog .
Conservatism, especially an intellectually stimulating and worthwhile conservatism, needs to reassert itself.
A certain degree of populism is always an essential ingredient to political, electoral success, however, to rely on pure emotionalism lends itself to poorly conceived policies as Mr. Posner clearly states.
Therefore, it is important that those who believe that cultural conservatism is not retrograde, but a pivotal mechanism for avoiding the growth of nihilistic despair, must better articulate their reasoning.
It is not enough to say that "God says it's wrong" as there are too many interpretations of what God means. However, conservatism, as in conserving tradition and allowing progress to move slowly and pragmatically, as opposed to radically, is an emminently defensible position.
The loss of the culture wars has led to too many single household families and many economic hardships that correspond to that reality.
The loss of the culutre wars has a bred a post-modernist sensibility in too many youth that now seems to believe that any judgements made are by definition "oppressive" and or/ignorant.
The loss of the culture wars has unmoored legitimate capitalist instincts from ethics and allowed greed to run rampant and the disadvantaged to seek salvation in unrealistic messianism.
The loss of the culture wars has been an unmitigated disaster for this nation and it was lost during the conservative ascendancy. That is a strong rebuke.
Today, the remaining culture warriors, disillusioned by the decline in values, too often come across as angry and unwilling to engage is reasoned debate. This makes it too easy for them to be caricaturized, delegitimzed, and stigmatized.
For the conservative movement to rise again, it must use reason to bolster its arguments and find intellectual champions who can battle the new rise of leftist "Liberalism" on its own terms.
To be pro-life, pro-family, pro-second amendment,strong on national security are not backwards looking positions. They are forward looking, we just have to present them as such.
And this was a mere comment? In order to regain electoral advantage, conservative interests be it groups, organizations individuals or parties, need to present conservative principles that reflect a pledge to mainstream values that can include amongst other policies, lower taxes, minimal Government intervention and a return to personal accountabilities. A political party does not abandon its conservative ethos for the sake of popularism. Conservative ideals will always unite if given a chance, in a manner an way that provides for individual freedom.
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Agreed. The challenge I believe is to find the appropriate way to articulate this. I do not find the present leaders of the Republican Party, for all intents and purposes, the conservative party, able to do this in a way that doesn't seem to alienate those that are not already on board.
I also think the appearance of a radical reactionary response will doom the party to the wilderness for a generation.
President Obama put a tremendous gloss and intellectual veneer to fairly standard order west coast liberalism (with a few tweeks here and there) and was able to take advantage of a unique confluence of events and ride that to victory.
Republicans need a similar type of leader and spokesman, just on the other side.
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