Imagining Conservatism
by Noah Joshua Phillips

George F. Will's February 26th review of Jeffrey Hart's Making of the Conservative Mind and Bruce Bartlett's Impostor is more jeremiad than intellectual history. It bemoans the movement's loss of virtue at the hands of ideology's perennial Lothario, political power. In its nostalgia and its fear of change, the piece is as conservative as can be. It gives us a past we never had and no plan for the future.

Will argues that political success and the stress of governing have dulled the Conservative mind. If what he means by this is that an ideology has fallen victim to political reality, then he is correct. As the Gatherer wrote, nothing is new under the sun.

But what is the Conservative ideology? Did such a thing ever really exist that we might mourn its passing? For only if Will can identify one can he demonstrate the arc of its rise and fall. There is tension even among the authors whose books Will reviews. Bartlett is a policy wonk with a laissez-faire economics approach, while Hart is something of an old-boy paternalist. While neither strikes me as particularly committed to a given political philosophy, one might locate them in the traditions of Adam Smith and Edmund Burke, respectively. Maybe Conservatism is something altogether different from either one. It could be Neo-Conservatism, the name variously applied to Liberals who broke with the Left over Stalin, students of students of Leo Strauss, or Jews who support Israel even when Democrats don't. Or is Conservatism the creed promulgated by the President's favorite philosopher, Jesus of Nazareth?

Will has difficulty giving us a real answer. He proffers one suggestion–of "Big Government Conservatism," the attempt using Liberal methods to effectuate a Conservative goal, individual self-sufficiency–but then rejects it. If there ever was a single unified Conservative ideology, its day has long since passed. And a good thing too. Burke favored monarchical paternalism in 18th Century France, and the National Review favored white paternalism in the 20th Century South. No one these days seriously contends for either position. Nor is there any reason that an ideology called "Conservative" cannot develop any more than one called "Liberalism" might become entrenched. This is our present political reality: we live in a welfare state. So Conservatism is now dynamic, and Liberalism status quo (the dynamic Left now thankfully limited mostly to the ivory tower).

Will's hesitance to define Conservatism stems from a confusion of two often-overlapping groups: Republicans and Conservatives. No doubt, the Republican Party is the political tent shared by most adherents to the aforementioned philosophies. But political alliance does not imply philosophical agreement. (Indeed, political allegiance often suggests a lack of philosophical commitment.) Evangelical Christians may have common interests with free tradeniks, but these connections are no more logically necessitated than those between the Marxists and the DLCers sitting together at the Democratic Convention.

The Republican Party does not function like a political ideology, or even the political arm of one. It operates the way a party is meant to, for the benefit of itself as an institution. When a party is out of power, it clamors to get inside. When it's in power, it acts to stay there. This was true of the Democrats for the bulk of the post-War period, and it is true for Republicans today. Bruce Bartlett hates the prescription drug benefit because it is social spending. He's right: it is social spending...to buy votes. Adherents to political ideologies have to weigh being in a party. To have the ear of the leadership, they may have to compromise with others who have its ear as well. This is not intellectually satisfying, to be sure; and that's why Plato urged the philosophers to leave the City for the lone, contemplative life.

Will's public persona is classically-Republican. Even beyond the blond part and the bow-tie, we most often find him arguing in this column or on that TV show for whatever product the Republican Party happens to be selling. In his review, he reflexively attacks Bartlett when Bartlett jumps down Bush's throat. So it's no surprise his review is unsatisfying in not giving us an ideology. It's a Republican defense against Conservative attack. Still, Will fears the change overcoming the Republican Party, its shift toward accommodating "Sunbelt populism." And it is here that his brand of Conservatism comes out. His preference for Hart over Bartlett has little to do with writing style and less to do with the latter's distaste for Bush. It's Hart's wistful look back at times as they used to be, Bill Buckley and the gang taking pot-shots at the hypocrisy of Left-leaning Ivy League administrators.

The problem is that that this stripe of Conservatism has little relevance, and fewer adherents. Say what you will about how well it works, but American meritocracy has done a number on its WASP aristocracy. Who but Senator Kennedy speaks with an upper-class Boston accent anymore? Our leading political dynasty--the Bushes--succeed because they shift with the times, not because they are powerful enough to resist them. Genetics aside, its difficult to pass on qualifications for leadership.

Can Will's Paleocons, or even the Neocons, prevent Republican dumbing-down? In a democracy, popularity with voters will win out over the long run. As a decidedly non-Conservative man once asked, "what is to be done?"

Well, I know of one party desparately seeking an ideology. And I'm fairly sure that, despite its yelping leadership, it isn't really moving in a left-ward direction. Still, they're Democrats. And their populist interest groups are no more inclined to reason than Republican ones.

Perhaps it is better to speak of a Conservative impulse: a worry about the thoughtless abandonment of tradition and a belief in a role for elites. These themes still resonate today, and they need loud voices to articulate them.

There are societal bedrocks worth preserving. But leaving words like "family" and "G-d"--and, yes, even "village"--in the hands of the Jerry Falwells runs the risk of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. We should no more tolerate a monopoly on defining virtue than we should one in lysine production. That's Liberalism, big "L," the way Conservatives like John Locke would have us practice it.

There's a place for elitism in politics, too; and it needn't be considered contrary to democracy. There is nothing wrong with standing on a soap-box and explaining why science is better left to the experts. A majority of a school board votes does not truth make. As a professor of mine once put it, "the only social scientific fact is public ignorance." Education is a paternalistic endeavor, but it's good for democracy. It requires parents, yes, but it also requires smart people. In our democracy, developed as it is, there is a continuing need for the aristoi.

How to integrate elite rule and democracy is a question as old as any. Plato began the inquest, and pretty much every political philosopher since has grappled with the question, even sacred cows of Liberalism like J.S. Mill. One person who committed himself to studying how philosophers advocating republican government dealt with the issue was Strauss himself. It has become fashionable of late to label a variety of Administration officials, friends and policy ideas "Straussian." A few years ago, the Grey Lady herself devoted a web diagram in the Weekend Review to connecting various folks to the famous University of Chicago professor. Straussians continue to be a pet obsession for conspiracy theorists who find some psychological pleasure in identifying a demon at the heart of their complaints with society. It is an open question how many of those who throw around the term "Straussian" have the faintest clue for what Strauss stood. It goes without question that most have not read The History of Political PhilosophyT or Natural Right and History, for example. Strauss was a complex thinker and is a difficult read, and does not lend himself to soundbite summaries.

One thing he most certainly stood for was what Plato stood for: the value of the contemplative life (at least for some). If Conservatives want to restore their imagination, they might take a moment to step out of the cave of politics and into the light.

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