Russell Kirk (October 19, 1918 - April 29, 1994) was an American political theorist, historian, social critic, literary critic, and fiction author known for his influence on 20th century American conservatism. His 1953 book, The Conservative Mind, gave shape to the amorphous post-World War II conservative movement. It traced the development of conservative thought in the Anglo-American tradition, giving special importance to the ideas of Edmund Burke. Kirk was also considered the chief proponent of traditionalist conservatism.
If one looks at his famous--and highly influential--document, "Ten Conservative Principles", one finds no trace of praise for the power of reason, but rather the echoing and amplification of Burke's emphasis on tradition, and the limits of what human reason can do. He begins:
Being neither a religion nor an ideology, the body of opinion termed conservatism possesses no Holy Writ and no Das Kapital to provide dogmata. So far as it is possible to determine what conservatives believe, the first principles of the conservative persuasion are derived from what leading conservative writers and public men have professed during the past two centuries. After some introductory remarks on this general theme, I will proceed to list ten such conservative principles.
Top of the list:
First, the conservative believes that there exists an enduring moral order. That order is made for man, and man is made for it: human nature is a constant, and moral truths are permanent.
That same reasoning was used to justify slavery, segregation, and the subjugation of women, prior to its current incarnation as a justification for the demonization--and even state murder of gays--as liberals, progressives and leftists with their pesky reliance on critical reason are often quick to point out.
Think I'm being unfair? Well, here's Kirk's second principle:
Second, the conservative adheres to custom, convention, and continuity. It is old custom that enables people to live together peaceably; the destroyers of custom demolish more than they know or desire. It is through convention-a word much abused in our time-that we contrive to avoid perpetual disputes about rights and duties: law at base is a body of conventions. Continuity is the means of linking generation to generation; it matters as much for society as it does for the individual; without it, life is meaningless. When successful revolutionaries have effaced old customs, derided old conventions, and broken the continuity of social institutions-why, presently they discover the necessity of establishing fresh customs, conventions, and continuity; but that process is painful and slow; and the new social order that eventually emerges may be much inferior to the old order that radicals overthrew in their zeal for the Earthly Paradise.
If ever one wanted a high-sounding reason to cling to group hatred, subjugation, oppression and demonization, this would be the way to go. And it's hardly surprising that for centuries liberals and radicals have opposed this argument for perpetuating past injustices with critical reason.
Kirk's third principle, is little more than a re-statement of his second:
Third, conservatives believe in what may be called the principle of prescription. Conservatives sense that modern people are dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, able to see farther than their ancestors only because of the great stature of those who have preceded us in time. Therefore conservatives very often emphasize the importance of prescription-that is, of things established by immemorial usage, so that the mind of man runneth not to the contrary.
Thinking for yourself is not part of the program--unless, of course, you just happen to agree with Burke and Kirk. Then you are a man of sound mind. Think I'm exaggerating? Well, think again. From an online resource, "Russell Kirk's Conservative Mind", introduced as "Material drawn from George Nash, The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945 New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1976, pp. 68-76" (which I have read, but do not own a copy of) we have the following:
For the next year [1941] Kirk was a graduate student in history at Duke University; there he wrote a master's thesis later published as Randolph of Roanoke. In it he clearly sympathized with the Virginian's aristocratic, strict-constructionist, states' rights agrarianism. During this year the young scholar from rural Michigan began to get acquainted with the South--"a conservative society," he later recalled, "struck a fearful blow eighty years before and still dazed...." He read approvingly the Agrarian manifesto, I'll Take My Stand; he read Donald Davidson's The Attack on Leviathan ("Southern agrarianism at its almost-best"). Like many an antebellum Southerner, Kirk was ecstatic about the fiction of Scott: "Sir Walter is the only novelist I can re-read anymore." Simultaneously, his life as a graduate student was ripening his already deep suspicion of progressive education. "There are simply not enough real brains in this country to fill the graduate schools," he complained. We need far fewer high schools and colleges, not more." In 1941, in his first published article, he revealed his developing conservatism.
In short: critical reason not in the picture. Valuing reason? Heck he thought there were too many high schools! In 1940! While high school graduation rate had climbed dramatically since 1920, and especially since 1930, they had barely reached 50% by 1940. And Kirk wasn't worried that there were too many high school graduates, he was worried that there were too many high school freshmen!
Of course Burke and Kirk aren't the only aspects of conservatism. But up until quite recently they represented by far the dominant strain in the Anglo-American conservative tradition as far as so-called "men of ideas" were concerned. What really shifted things was the conservatives eventual recognition that they simply couldn't cope with contesting for power in the modern world without doing a whole lot better--and hence was born the effort to build an imposing edifice of "think tanks" to supply the appearance of detailed policy proposals with which to counter the proliferation of liberal, progressive and leftist ideas.
But as indicated earlier, this was never seriously about the ideas so much as it was about the contest for ideological power. Whether conservative ideas actually solved problems or not was entirely secondary. This can be seen very clearly in the classic example used to promote and explain the "Overton Window". The idea is to shift the ideological landscape. The classic example Overton used re "education policy" was all about privatization vs. his paranoid fantasy of state brainwashing, with nothing at all about pedagogy, curriculum, educational philosophy and all that sort of boring stuff. You might think I'm being hyperbolic, but I'm not. As I explained in my February 2007 diary, "Three Waves And A Wall: 2008 And The American Future-Pt. 4", this is how conservative blogger Tacitus introduced the Overton window at SwordsCrossed (original link no longer valid):
One useful tool is the Overton window. Named after the former vice president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy favicon who developed the model, it's a means of visualizing where to go, and how to assess progress. Let's say, for example, that you want to make education as free and choice-based as it can possibly be. Let's start by developing a continuum of educational states, from the desired extreme of total freedom, to the undesirable extreme of total statism. It might look something like this:
# No government involvement in education.
# All schools private with government regulation.
# Voucher system with public schools.
# Tuition tax credit with public schools.
# Homeschooling legal.
# Private schools restricted.
# Homeschooling illegal.
# Private schools illegal.
# Children taken from parents and raised as janissaries.
That is how the modern conservatives who have gone beyond Burke and Kirk think about politics and ideas. They made the GOP into the party of ideas as weapons, because, quite frankly, they understand weapons. Ideas, not so much.
Of course, there are several other contributing factors as well. One is the more Continental European tradition derived from de Maistre, and the extreme reactionaries who fantasized that the French Revolution was the work of a hidden shadow elite, primarily lead by the distant and defunct Bavarian Illuminati. This is where the modern form of conspiracism was born from, and it continues to infuse rightwing thought and movement conservatism to this day. Add in some sociopathy from Ayn Rand, "hate thy neighbor" rightwing theology from former segregationists in the white South, and you've got yourself a pretty nasty mix that really doesn't cotton much to evidence and reason, not because of anything mean that liberals say, but simply because it's true.
So, with all that in mind, let's now turn to what else Alexander has to say:
Former vice president Al Gore made this case in his 2007 book, "The Assault on Reason," in which he expressed fear that American politics was under siege from a coalition of religious fundamentalists, foreign policy extremists and industry groups opposed to "any reasoning process that threatens their economic goals." This right-wing politics involves a gradual "abandonment of concern for reason or evidence" and relies on propaganda to maintain public support, he wrote.
So?
Prominent liberal academics also propagate these beliefs. George Lakoff, a linguist at the University of California at Berkeley and a consultant to Democratic candidates, says flatly that liberals, unlike conservatives, "still believe in Enlightenment reason," while Drew Westen, an Emory University psychologist and Democratic consultant, argues that the GOP has done a better job of mastering the emotional side of campaigns because Democrats, alas, are just too intellectual. "They like to read and think," Westen wrote. "They thrive on policy debates, arguments, statistics, and getting the facts right."
First off, Lakoff's point is the liberals are mistaken to continue believing in a model of disembodied reason. Once again, Alexander takes a quote out of context, and has absolutely no idea what he's talking about. Second, Weston is also criticizing Democrats for their lack of focusing on what works. (Are you starting to understand why the long prelude? Not much to say about Alexander's pathetic argument, once you know what's really going on.)
Markos Moulitsas, publisher of the influential progressive Web site Daily Kos, commissioned a poll, which he released this month, designed to show how many rank-and-file Republicans hold odd or conspiratorial beliefs -- including 23 percent who purportedly believe that their states should secede from the Union. Moulitsas concluded that Republicans are "divorced from reality" and that the results show why "it is impossible for elected Republicans to work with Democrats to improve our country."
Speaking of evidence and reason, what's Alexander's evidence that the poll was " designed to show how many rank-and-file Republicans hold odd or conspiratorial beliefs". That's not how Markos explained it. Here's Alexander doing exactly what he accuses liberals of doing: arrogantly substituting his prejudiced opinions for actually listening to what those he disagrees with have to say for themselves. What did Markos say? Simple:
As I've mentioned before, I'm putting the finishing touches on my new book, American Taliban, which catalogues the ways in which modern-day conservatives share the same agenda as radical Jihadists in the Islamic world. But I found myself making certain claims about Republicans that I didn't know if they could be backed up. So I thought, "why don't we ask them directly?" And so, this massive poll, by non-partisan independent pollster Research 2000 of over 2,000 self-identified Republicans, was born.
Now, I can understand why anti-modernist Christian fundamentalist extremists would not like to be compared to anti-modernist Moslem fundamentalist extremists. Swap out the data (sacred texts) and the programs are virtually identical. But that's not what the data (sacred texts) say!
Which of course, illustrates precisely what I was saying in the rather long start-up portion of this diary.
Skipping over any mention of the data that the poll revealed--except for that jab at " 23 percent who purportedly believe that their states should secede from the Union"--a figure that's consistent with earlier polling by other organizations--Alexander goes right for the attitude, thus assuming what he purportedly set out prove:
His condescension is superlative: Of the respondents who favored secession, he wonders, "Can we cram them all into the Texas Panhandle, create the state of Dumb-[expletive]-istan, and build a wall around them to keep them from coming into America illegally?"
I have to admit, I thought those remarks were sort of lame. But what could you say after all that damning data? Data that Alexander literally cannot talk about. Instead, he concludes thus:
I doubt it would take long to design a survey questionnaire that revealed strange, ill-informed and paranoid beliefs among average Democrats. Or does Moulitsas think Jay Leno talked only to conservatives for his "Jaywalking" interviews?
But
(1) It's one thing to have no doubts, it's another thing entirely to prove.
(2) The point here is not about "strange, ill-informed and paranoid beliefs among average" Republicans. It's about dominant beliefs that have been pushed repeatedly by various media and leadership figures that stir up the base, which in turn pressures public officials effectively incapacitating the political process based on fantasies, not facts.
No one doubts that Democrats as well as other groups harbor a lot of folks with funny ideas. The question is much more specific and serious than that. But Alexander trivializes the problem, because he's constitutionally incapable of listening to Markos, a mere blogger, mere stuck-up liberal blogger, and discovering what the real argument here actually is.
He's just too damned condescending to be able to get it. |
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