Yet the more important story may be how Trump and his loudest supporters are redefining the conservative disposition — the mood or motive that makes people self-identify as conservative in the first place — into an attitude of alienation, suspicion, and defiance....Conservatives in America have always been divided between those who believed that human nature needed to be filtered through wise institutions, and those who thought they were upholding the American heritage of freedom in a way that liberated us from institutions as much as anything else. For a while it was a close debate, as both sides had good arguments. Institutions do shape character, and character does matter. On the other hand, if one isn't free to choose which institutions to allow to shape one's life, one isn't really free.
[According to one such who gave an interview] “I’ve always been a nonconformist,” he says in the article. “In today’s culture, the nonconformists are conservatives.”
It’s an implication commonly heard on the right these days, especially among its youthful, online faction. Progressives, this faction argues, control so much of mainstream society that any true revolt against power necessitates identifying with the Right. Yet different people can interpret this mantra in different ways, and it’s here where the new conservative disposition begins to cause problems for those who value ideological coherence....
[I]f one possesses a less discriminating hostility to power, then the logic of conservatism-through-rebellion can easily solidify into a cruder disposition of cynical nihilism in service of nothing in particular.
Well, the debate is over, ladies and gentlemen. The institutions have been infiltrated and killed, one by one. It's not just the colleges, or the left-leaning churches. It's the Boy Scouts; it's the mainstream churches. There are holdouts, but they're holding out against tremendous pressure. The NRA is a holdout; the Marine Corps is holding out against its own leadership. The Army has elements that are holding out. But would you trust the FBI, after what we've seen these last few years? The IRS? The Department of Justice? The Bureau of Land Management? Maybe the Forest Service, just because they're mostly not thinking about managing or controlling people.
If the institutions fail, then the freedom road is the only road left. Maybe that's not 'conservative,' but if so, it's only because there isn't much left to conserve. It's worth considering that the outlaws are right, and it's time to make something new.
There's a third element which is the tendency of conservatives to think that we can do better than stand astride history and yell 'stop', and actually turn back the clock to recover lost institutions. This attitude used to be derided by the conservative Establishment. They appear to find it useful now but I don't think I know of an instance where that has happened.
ReplyDelete[I]f one possesses a less discriminating hostility to power, then the logic of conservatism-through-rebellion can easily solidify into a cruder disposition of cynical nihilism in service of nothing in particular.
ReplyDeleteHence the right and duty, acknowledged in the principles statement of our social compact documents, to throw out a destructive government and the requirement, also acknowledged there, not to do so lightly or for transient causes.
The Left, and its national front, the Progressive-Democratic Party, are leaving us little choice with their attempts to form exactly that destructive government and the violence with which they answer any act of demurment.
Eric Hines
Rod Dreher writes about the Benedict Option, of recreating institutions. I think it is moving from the fringe to regular menu, though I doubt it will ever be even a plurality of conservatives. It is a "Remnant" philosophy, which has a lot of appeal to fantasy/sci-fi fans, anyway, who are familiar with Liebowitz, the Rangers, the Fremen, or Second Foundation.
ReplyDelete