One point that people need to contemplate: anti-communism and an aggressively interventionist foreign policy are not synonymous. The latter was a tactic to accomplish the goals of the former. The interventionism had a clear enemy and clear goals.
Today, we don't want to admit that we have a clear enemy -- Islam -- so we have aggressive intervention that is unfocused. We mostly won the battle against communism, and we are left with aggressive tactics as a residual element within conservative political culture, but there is no focus.
The Islamic world is perennially dysfunctional, and the dysfunction is even more clear in 2023 than it was in 2001, after 22 more years of being left behind. Political Islam is also a weaker force than it was then; the same acid that has been dissolving Christian piety is dissolving theirs as well, even if on a somewhat delayed timeline.
The only threat Islam poses to the West is from mass migration, but that's not exclusively a problem posed by Islamic countries, nor does the problem go away if Muslim immigrants convert to the dominant secular Western ideology, and anyway mass migration is only allowed to persist because of leftism.
Communism isn't defeated. The enemy is still communism. It's always communism, or rather, what underlies the Communist revolutionary spirit: the murderous envy, the God-denying pride, the fueling of petty enmities and the lack of regard for mercy or charity or any sort of personal virtue with which those enmities are pursued. The problem is now there's not really an external enemy to point to. The Chinese Communist Party is odious and tyrannical, but its ideology isn't influencing anyone else. The call is coming from inside the house.
I recently learned a term that's being bandied about by more uncouth sections of the online right to describe Woke: "gay race communism." Fair enough. How important Marxists like the Frankfurt School and Angela Davis are to the rise of Woke, I'm not entirely sure, or if that's just window-dressing. But it should be plain that it all shares the same moral psychology, and that psychology isn't going away even if it makes superficial changes.
Just to be clear, Islamic immigration to the West is exactly what I was talking about. Not fighting wars against Islam all over the world, but eliminating mass migration into the West. I would also favor eliminating all mass migration into the West, Islamic or otherwise.
Got it. As I said, it's a problem, but the reason we can't seem to reduce immigration is because of the West's dominant ideology. And also the effects of immigration are worse than they need to be, because that same ideology discourages full assimilation into a common national identity.
When the elites are no longer civic minded, populism is needed to smash their selfish faces in and wake them up.
When Baltzell says that no conservative was ever a populist, he makes the common error of failing to perceive at what point a conservative must seek to restore what has been lost rather than conserving a status quo that does not even care what has been lost.
Baltzell recognized that the elites were no longer civic minded. But what was his plan to restore civic mindedness in the selfish elite? Are they open to persuasion without suffering defeats that prompt reflection? Are they just going to read his books and repent?
Perhaps at some point, we will have succeeded sufficiently at the project of restoration so that overt populism is no longer needed. But, today, it is needed.
One thing that either of these conservatisms needs is an education system that produces them. There are, I believe, still universities in the US that function as conservative elite factories. Hold on to these and focus much energy on that battle!
Many European conservatives here do not have degree granting institutions even leaning conservative, let alone championing conservative Christianity.
Monocle sounds like The Economist in terms of the positions you articulated. The Ecnomist identifies itself as poromoting Classical Liberalism, which weems quite conservative in today's climate.
Digby Baltzell’s Aristocratic Conservatism sounds a lot like what Yuval Levin argues for with respect to not only the need for Elites to recognize they have responsibilities but the need to restore trust in mediating institutions. Elites used to reinforce things like faimly, economy, civics at a local level and work for their benefit.
"Elites used to reinforce things like faimly, economy, civics at a local level and work for their benefit." (sic) If that is so, then the question arises -why did they do that?
I can see that. Though it seems to me that a key distinction is The Economist did not "hold frame," as Aaron asserts about Monocle (a publication I've never read).
This can be seen in The Economist's history of US Presidential endorsements:
1980 - Reagan
1984/88 - None
1992 - Clinton
1996 - Dole
2000 - Bush
2004 onward - Democrat every time
In particular, the endorsement for Obama over Romney -- the quintessential "globalist conservative" -- shows that The Economist was no longer the same organization that endorsed Dole and Bush 16 and 12 years earlier.
I was a consistent reader of The Economist from around 2000 to 2008. I started noticing them publishing articles that treated global warming as a matter of spiritual purity instead of a pragmatic question circa 2006 ("here's what you can do to reduce your carbon footprint by 0.1%"), which for me was the beginning of the end of my interest in it and probably reflected some deeper philosophical change going on.
Many of the conservative ideas mentioned in the article are bubbling up in the country. But what does it take to bring real, principled conservativism to a full boil? There are many organizations in the country that espouse some form of principled conservatism; however, they are mostly engaged in parallel play. They don't act in concert. Perhaps this is to be expected because the inadequate Cold War form of conservatism has died, and it takes time for a substitute to develop. Many of the conservative organizations that currently exist (Focus on the Family, ADF, AFA, First Things, Becket, to name a few) have excellent leadership and promulgate ideas that kindred organizations would readily accept. Isn't it time for them to start acting in concert?
The leaders of conservative organizations need to come together in a kind of "Continental Congress," not as a legislative body but to start a dialogue on what they might do as a nascent movement. Early meetings would have to consist mostly of meet-and-greet with a stab at a basic consensus on principles. Next could come a charter and a few years down the road, a constitution and actions meant to showcase and encourage principled civic engagement. The organizations would remain committed to their unique goals but join forces to accomplish in concert what they could not accomplish individually.
Our very troubled time provides a strong impetus for such a convocation of conservative leaders. Great things could flow from it, just as our original Continental Congress led to the birth of a nation. Here the ultimate goal would not be a new nation but a renewed nation.
One point that people need to contemplate: anti-communism and an aggressively interventionist foreign policy are not synonymous. The latter was a tactic to accomplish the goals of the former. The interventionism had a clear enemy and clear goals.
Today, we don't want to admit that we have a clear enemy -- Islam -- so we have aggressive intervention that is unfocused. We mostly won the battle against communism, and we are left with aggressive tactics as a residual element within conservative political culture, but there is no focus.
It's wild to me that you think this about Islam.
The Islamic world is perennially dysfunctional, and the dysfunction is even more clear in 2023 than it was in 2001, after 22 more years of being left behind. Political Islam is also a weaker force than it was then; the same acid that has been dissolving Christian piety is dissolving theirs as well, even if on a somewhat delayed timeline.
The only threat Islam poses to the West is from mass migration, but that's not exclusively a problem posed by Islamic countries, nor does the problem go away if Muslim immigrants convert to the dominant secular Western ideology, and anyway mass migration is only allowed to persist because of leftism.
Communism isn't defeated. The enemy is still communism. It's always communism, or rather, what underlies the Communist revolutionary spirit: the murderous envy, the God-denying pride, the fueling of petty enmities and the lack of regard for mercy or charity or any sort of personal virtue with which those enmities are pursued. The problem is now there's not really an external enemy to point to. The Chinese Communist Party is odious and tyrannical, but its ideology isn't influencing anyone else. The call is coming from inside the house.
I recently learned a term that's being bandied about by more uncouth sections of the online right to describe Woke: "gay race communism." Fair enough. How important Marxists like the Frankfurt School and Angela Davis are to the rise of Woke, I'm not entirely sure, or if that's just window-dressing. But it should be plain that it all shares the same moral psychology, and that psychology isn't going away even if it makes superficial changes.
Just to be clear, Islamic immigration to the West is exactly what I was talking about. Not fighting wars against Islam all over the world, but eliminating mass migration into the West. I would also favor eliminating all mass migration into the West, Islamic or otherwise.
Got it. As I said, it's a problem, but the reason we can't seem to reduce immigration is because of the West's dominant ideology. And also the effects of immigration are worse than they need to be, because that same ideology discourages full assimilation into a common national identity.
When the elites are no longer civic minded, populism is needed to smash their selfish faces in and wake them up.
When Baltzell says that no conservative was ever a populist, he makes the common error of failing to perceive at what point a conservative must seek to restore what has been lost rather than conserving a status quo that does not even care what has been lost.
Baltzell recognized that the elites were no longer civic minded. But what was his plan to restore civic mindedness in the selfish elite? Are they open to persuasion without suffering defeats that prompt reflection? Are they just going to read his books and repent?
Perhaps at some point, we will have succeeded sufficiently at the project of restoration so that overt populism is no longer needed. But, today, it is needed.
One thing that either of these conservatisms needs is an education system that produces them. There are, I believe, still universities in the US that function as conservative elite factories. Hold on to these and focus much energy on that battle!
Many European conservatives here do not have degree granting institutions even leaning conservative, let alone championing conservative Christianity.
Monocle sounds like The Economist in terms of the positions you articulated. The Ecnomist identifies itself as poromoting Classical Liberalism, which weems quite conservative in today's climate.
Digby Baltzell’s Aristocratic Conservatism sounds a lot like what Yuval Levin argues for with respect to not only the need for Elites to recognize they have responsibilities but the need to restore trust in mediating institutions. Elites used to reinforce things like faimly, economy, civics at a local level and work for their benefit.
"Elites used to reinforce things like faimly, economy, civics at a local level and work for their benefit." (sic) If that is so, then the question arises -why did they do that?
I can see that. Though it seems to me that a key distinction is The Economist did not "hold frame," as Aaron asserts about Monocle (a publication I've never read).
This can be seen in The Economist's history of US Presidential endorsements:
1980 - Reagan
1984/88 - None
1992 - Clinton
1996 - Dole
2000 - Bush
2004 onward - Democrat every time
In particular, the endorsement for Obama over Romney -- the quintessential "globalist conservative" -- shows that The Economist was no longer the same organization that endorsed Dole and Bush 16 and 12 years earlier.
I was a consistent reader of The Economist from around 2000 to 2008. I started noticing them publishing articles that treated global warming as a matter of spiritual purity instead of a pragmatic question circa 2006 ("here's what you can do to reduce your carbon footprint by 0.1%"), which for me was the beginning of the end of my interest in it and probably reflected some deeper philosophical change going on.
Many of the conservative ideas mentioned in the article are bubbling up in the country. But what does it take to bring real, principled conservativism to a full boil? There are many organizations in the country that espouse some form of principled conservatism; however, they are mostly engaged in parallel play. They don't act in concert. Perhaps this is to be expected because the inadequate Cold War form of conservatism has died, and it takes time for a substitute to develop. Many of the conservative organizations that currently exist (Focus on the Family, ADF, AFA, First Things, Becket, to name a few) have excellent leadership and promulgate ideas that kindred organizations would readily accept. Isn't it time for them to start acting in concert?
The leaders of conservative organizations need to come together in a kind of "Continental Congress," not as a legislative body but to start a dialogue on what they might do as a nascent movement. Early meetings would have to consist mostly of meet-and-greet with a stab at a basic consensus on principles. Next could come a charter and a few years down the road, a constitution and actions meant to showcase and encourage principled civic engagement. The organizations would remain committed to their unique goals but join forces to accomplish in concert what they could not accomplish individually.
Our very troubled time provides a strong impetus for such a convocation of conservative leaders. Great things could flow from it, just as our original Continental Congress led to the birth of a nation. Here the ultimate goal would not be a new nation but a renewed nation.