An examination of the formal assumptions behind each school of conservate thought reveals that they are logically incompatible with one another.
For all of the references to it, both positive and (as is more often than not the case) negative, there have been relatively few attempts at anything like a serious definition of neo-conservatism. I would like to rectify this situation by submitting my own account of this enigmatic phenomenon. In so doing, I will show how it differs from what I will call, for lack of a better term, “classical conservatism,” a tradition of thought that traces its roots to Edmund Burke.
In order to define any tradition or school of thought, we must look beyond the substance of the positions that its adherents have taken on various issues, to the formal assumptions that made possible those positions. Logically, the latter precede the former. For example, any given utilitarian thinker may agree with a Roman Catholic natural law theorist that abortion is generally immoral. That is, substantively they agree. But in terms of the formal assumptions to which they subscribe — the reasons by which they arrived at their conclusions — they couldn’t be further apart from one another. The utilitarian opposes abortion because he believes that the general practice of abortion will in the long run cause more pain than pleasure for the greatest number of people. In stark contrast, the Roman Catholic natural law theorist opposes it because he thinks that abortion is inherently wrong, irrespective of consequences. It is possible, even if unlikely, that this utilitarian and this natural lawyer will agree on most moral and political issues, yet they represent two rival traditions of thought. What distinguishes each tradition from the other are its formal suppositions.
With this (admittedly imperfect) distinction between the formal and the substantive in mind, we can turn to “neo-conservatism” and “classical conservatism.” Neo-conservatives and classical conservatives may very well share positions on some issues. Perhaps this is why neo-conservatives frequently regard themselves as simply “conservative.” But the formal assumptions from which they begin are logically incompatible with one another. That neo-conservatism and classical conservatism are as distinct from each other as the utilitarian and natural law traditions can be seen from their respective answers to questions concerning the basic character of reason/knowledge, morality, and the State.
Reason/knowledge. Neo-conservatives, whether they explicitly admit as much, endorse a trans-cultural, trans-historical conception of Reason. Reason, on this score, while influenced by tradition, is ultimately capable of rising over and against it. When neo-conservatives (and others, for that matter) approvingly cite Jefferson’s affirmation of “self-evident” truths, this is the model of Reason on which they rely.
Classical conservatives, in contrast, from at least the time of Burke in the eighteenth century, have repeatedly rejected this notion of Reason as a rationalist’s dream. The individual has reason, it is true, but his reason is the product of centuries of tradition. Knowledge consists not in the abstract intellectual apprehension of “self-evident truths,” but in unarticulated feelings, habits, and customs that have become “second nature.”
Morality. Inseparable from the neo-conservative’s abstract, universalistic, tradition-neutral notion of Reason is an equally abstract, universalistic, tradition-neutral conception of morality. Morality is comprised essentially of “principles,” specifically, principles of “natural” or “human right.” Neo-conservatives are as given to the language of “human rights” as are their ideological opponents on the Left. These principles are uniquely accessible to all rational beings.
Classical conservatives, on the other hand, have tended to eschew all talk of “natural rights” and/or “human rights.” Morality is local, tradition-constituted. Whatever principles there may be, they are the offspring of a historically specific, shared way of life, and not its parent: principle stands in relation to practice the way cliff notes relate to the text that they summarize, not the other way around.
The State. Neo-conservatives, like ideologues of various left- and right-wing persuasions, conceive of the State as an “enterprise association.” This is the term that the twentieth century conservative British philosopher Michael Oakeshott used to describe a model of the State on which it is said to exist for the sake of bringing to fruition some premeditated ideal or end, like Freedom, Equality, Virtue, Security, Prosperity, or Democracy. The ideal is held to transcend society, but it is the goal toward the accomplishment of which the resources of citizens must be deployed. At no time is a State more like an enterprise association than during times of war, for it is when a state is at war that government must have every available quantum of power at its disposal in order to insure victory. Also, it is in war that citizens are expected to make a concerted effort to bring about the telos, the purpose, for the sake of which the association exists. This explains why even when a nation is not literally at war, ideologues on both the Right and Left avail themselves of the language of war in order to unify support behind their favored causes (“The War on Poverty,” “The War on Drugs,” “The Cultural Wars,” etc.).
Classical conservatives, in contrast, are unsympathetic to this model of a State. The State, rather, is a “civil association” (again, Oakeshott’s term). Classical conservatives value the individuality and diversity of life forms that have become our way of life in the West, and so they emphatically reject any notion that there is a single supreme end or hierarchy of ends toward which it is government’s responsibility to direct society. Government is important, and it is important that government should be strong, but its functions are few and its chief function is to preserve order.
In conclusion, neo-conservatism really isn’t an expression of conservatism at all. It is a form of Enlightenment liberal rationalism, the sort of liberal rationalism in reaction against which conservatism originally emerged and developed as a distinctive tradition of thought.
jackk610@verizon.net
Read more articles by Jack Kerwick
Wow, I guess that makes the founders neo-cons, hmm?
I am not in a position to dispute with Dr. Kerwick regarding who is truly conservative in some sort of "classical" sense, but it seems to me that the quintessential definition of conservative as it applies to the American experience is adherence to the principles of the Founders.
I would say that contemporary neo-cons are not what Dr. Kerwick has described, since their principles appear to be ones of convenience. A neo-con to me is simply a moderate, a liberal-lite.
This is my definition of conservatism: If you believe that government must be returned to its constitutional limits, if you believe the answers to society's problems are found in the individual as he pursues his lawful self-interest moderated by biblical morality, if you believe that the free market creates opportunity and is self correcting apart from government intervention, if you believe that people ought to be free to associate, enter into contracts, transact business, and enjoy interpersonal relationships apart from the coercive power of government, that makes you a conservative.
All the rest is unfruitful chest-thumping.
Comment by Mountain Man | April 23, 2008
Mountain Man, I agree with your sentiments, yet I have these questions:
1. What would you say are the “principles of the founders”?
2. What would you say are government’s “constitutional limits”?
3. What are the individual’s “lawful self-interests”? Who determines what is “lawful”? And who decides when a “self-interest” meets the standard of “lawful”?
4. What would you define as “biblical morality”, and how does that relate to the “principles of the Founders”?
5. How free to you think people ought to be to “associate” and “enjoy interpersonal relationships”? Do you think that there ought to be some limit to association and interpersonal relationships when they transgress “biblical morality” and the “principles of the Founders”? And how would that square with the “lawful self-interests” of those who seek to “associate” and “enjoy interpersonal relationships”?
6. Should the law (or “lawful self-interest”) be defined and limited to “biblical morality”? And if so, is “biblical morality” dynamic, or is it static? The same question also applies to the “principles of the Founders”.
As I have said, I agree with your sentiments, but I do think these few questions need to be considered if we are to even begin to arrive at any consensus on how we are to be governed, or even whether we ought to be governed at all.
Joseph BH McMillan http://www.freedomvrights.com
Comment by Joseph BH McMillan | April 23, 2008
Mr. McMillan,
The plain meaning of things often gets obfuscated by those who prefer to see things in shades of grey; nuanced, as it were. "Sophisticated" minds wants to parse meaning and split hairs.
However, it isn't difficult to discover what constitutional limits, biblical morality, and lawful self-interest are. Any honest person is able to obtain a pretty accurate assessment of these concepts by reading the source matter.
The real issue is not the difficulty in obtaining this information, it is simply that too many people disagree with what they discover and feel the need to explain it away. That's why the Founders have become bigots steeped in European paternalism, the Bible a collection of myths and allegory culminating in the meaningless death of an obscure man, and lawful self-interest a way of dispensing with absolutes in order to freely engage in immorality.
So it is painfully simple. If it ain't in the Constitution, government can't do it. If it's in the Bible, we must do it. If it's condemned in the Bible, we can't do it. If a law is founded on biblical morality, it is legal. If it increases government's power over people contrary to its constitutional authority, it's an illegal law.
But my statement to which you refer is a broad philosophy of what I consider to be core issues. Others can fill in the gaps. However, let me say in part that if you want government to solve society's problems, you are not a conservative. If you believe the free market needs to be reigned in by government, you are not conservative. If you believe that the Founders intended to separate religion from government, you have it backwards, and you are not conservative. If you believe there is no such thing as absolute morality, you are not conservative.
Mr. McMillan, does this help?
Comment by Mountain Man | April 23, 2008
Mountain Man,
Thank you. What you say certainly helps me understand your position, but it doesn’t really help resolve the issues – except, of course, for those who share your views (and mostly I do).
Let’s take the Constitution and Bill of Rights for example. Jefferson specifically said in his fading years that they needed to be adapted to the times. He said this: “Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the arc of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well; I belonged to it, and labored with it. It deserved well of its country. It was very like the present, but without the experience of the present; and forty years of experience in government is worth a century of book-reading; and this they would say themselves, were they to rise from the dead. I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions. I think moderate imperfections had better be borne with; because, when once known, we accommodate ourselves to them, and find practical means of correcting their ill effects. But I know also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.” (Letter to Kercheval, July 12, 1816)
As you know, SCOTUS decided to take on that role instead, usurping the Constitution. Yet they found justification for what they have done IN the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. Do you think that may be indicative of a problem with the Constitution itself? If it can be ‘interpreted’ to embrace just about any point of view, then could it not be said that it was a sloppily drafted document? A document that needs some revision??
On the Scriptures, Christ repeatedly said on the Sermon on the Mount - “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time …,” then goes on to say, “But I say unto you …” He then says something different. So it seems not unreasonable that we should ask which is right. And since Christ only touched on very few of the ‘laws’ of old time, what of the rest? How do we interpret them?
Was Christ perhaps saying that the Ten Commandments are PRINCIPLES sufficiently adaptable to changing circumstances? If so, what are those principles, and how do we apply them in the manner Christ suggested?
I do not think these questions are pedantic. The only reason the United States is what it is, is because people challenged the ‘thinking’ of their time. May it not be time to question the ‘thinking’ of our time? (I expect you would agree with that – but then again, so would those of the opposite persuasion).
Joseph BH McMillan http://www.freedomvrights.com
Comment by Joseph BH McMillan | April 24, 2008
If we hold to the proper view of the Constitution, we will not get into trouble. The Constitution creates our government, it tells it what it can and cannot do. There is nothing in the Constitution that can be construed as granting rights to individuals or restricting or defining what a person can or cannot do.
Almost every judicial and interpretive error regarding the Constitution has its basis in a failure to recognize this basic principle. As I said before, it's really so simple to understand the plain meaning. Same with the Bible. It isn't that people don't understand, it's that they don't like what they are reading.
The Constitution doesn't need a re-do. It is a sound document, the product of fertile minds. What is needed is a revamp of the "industry" that has grown up around it. I doubt that the Constitution is even taught in public schools anymore. People are ignorant of its contents, and as a result the elites of society have been very successful in turning it on its ear.
I am not advocating Levitical law as the yardstick of American society. We are not a Jewish nation. However, the standards of conduct, fair dealing, personal restraint, and right living, as outlined in the Bible, are universal principles of a just and healthy society. I don't expect a non-believer to live a godly life. But I do expect everyone to conduct themselves according to the moral standard set forth in Scripture as the foundation of western society.
Comment by Mountain Man | April 24, 2008
Hardly an expository work on the subject. I am afraid that this treatise is perhaps unworthy of this publication and more suited to a survey course in American Political Philosophy. In grasping the elephant, you have revealed only the nature of the trunk.
Comment by arete5000 | April 25, 2008
arete5000,
Specifics, please. This is not the Huffington Post or Daily Kos where broad generalizations and unsupported assertions are commonplace. Here at IC, we need thoughtful commentary.
Comment by Mountain Man | April 25, 2008
MM
It goes without saying that the conservatives believe in governmental limits and restraints. But the principles of the Declaration and the American Founding are not merely rooted in the American character, the love of the ancient, prescriptive rights or the rights of Englishmen. Whether you side with Harry Jaffa or Russell Kirk is your business, but some principles are transhistorical and are writ large within the human heart. Calling neocons some species of quasi-liberals ill-serves the debate and calls into question the cause we all serve. Kirk's brand of conservatism granted a faint and opaque apology for slave-owning, state's rights, and the winking of the eye in the service of bolstering political inequality. Some principles are worth shedding blood for: here and in some God forsaken parched area of the Earth, especially when they bolster American foreign interest in a treacherous and unstable world. My son is a West Point grad and although he is not a Political Philosopher like myself, he instinctively knows this.
It seems conservatives nowadays are amongst the first to knife their wounded. We care for more greater things than preserving our own treasure. The Pat Buchanan school of hysterical isolationism ill-suits our great calling, if our regime perishes in the process, then let it not be said that it was in the cause of self-preservation or moral cowardice. I challenge you, in all respect, to find these words in the Daily Kos.
Comment by arete5000 | April 26, 2008
Arete5000,
A lot of words, but am left wondering what you're talking about.
I did not suggest that your words would be found in daily kos, I suggested that to make an unsupported citicism without offering specifics was typical for sites like kos.
By the way, who was talking about Kirk?
Comment by Mountain Man | April 26, 2008
If you do not know about the Natural Law/Prescriptive Law tension that runs through what we commonly term Conservatism
might I suggest any work by Jaffa or Strauss. You seem like a good and honorable gentleman, I will end our conversation with that.
Comment by arete5000 | April 27, 2008
Mountain Man, good comments. I am amused by the attempts to make the constitution a "living document" through interpretation. The fact is that the constitution was designed specific to a no need to interpret template. How can I say this? The constitution framers understood that no institution or organization stays static thus they designed a way to deal with needs for change. Were they activist courts? NO! It is called an amendment process but that is too difficult for those wishing to force their views on the overall population.
So how does this tie to the article? Seems to me that the neo-con designation is another way to say demomarxist. Big government forcing social engineering. Conservatives, on the other hand, understand the constitution and many of us carry a copy. In all my readings of it I have been unable to find the famous "seperation of church and state" and "right to vote" clauses that neo-cons and their demomarxist mirrors believe in so strongly as they attempt to drive us to act like Berlin in the 1920s, all of this as we are rapidly moving to 4th world status as the world's poorest and least educated flock across our borders to suck at the public teat.
It this represents a fracture in the conservative community so be it. Mountain Man said it more eloquently in his determination of the qualities of a conservative.
Comment by Mickey G | April 28, 2008
"In conclusion, neo-conservatism really isn’t an expression of conservatism at all. It is a form of Enlightenment liberal rationalism, the sort of liberal rationalism in reaction against which conservatism originally emerged and developed as a distinctive tradition of thought."
Amen, Dr. Kerwick. Finally someone who gets it. Now if we could just get Dr. Phil to understand this.
Comment by Dan Phillips | May 4, 2008
[…] Here is a great article from Intellectual Conservative by Dr. Jack Kerwick. He clearly gets it. In conclusion, […]
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