Why Conservatism is Disconnected From Reality
Jan 12th, 2010 | 28 responses
Another in my series of puny attempts to dissect what’s wrong with modern conservatism. Part II will appear tomorrow.
I debated whether or not to make this a piece about “some conservatives” eschewing reality for an alternate universe or if I should make it about much of modern conservatism’s disconnect from the reality of 21st century America.
In the end, I think it is more important to look at how conservatism as a philosophy has closed itself off so thoroughly from uncomfortable and inconvenient truths about America. The fringe players in the movement with their litmus tests and dreams of going bear hunting with Sarah Palin are not really the problem as I see it.
Their worldview, shaped as it is by wallowing in the echo chamber of conservative media, and warped by a naive and ultimately uninformed ideological prism through which they spout nonsensical, paranoid conspiracies, may be relevant to the political health of the right but has little to do with the breakdown of conservatism as a governing philosophy itself.
In this case, it is conservatism losing its ability to question itself in a rigorous and punishing manner, preferring to maintain a comfort zone in which certain shibboleths of the past rest easily on the mind and prevent the kind of examination of underlying assumptions that any set of philosophical principles needs to maintain touch with the real world.
One might argue that the problem is really with people who hold to those philosophical principles and their refusal to challenge their beliefs. I don’t think this is necessarily true. You can’t sneeze these days without tripping over someone on the right indulging in the kind of “Woe is us” pontificating. I should know. I do it often enough. One would think with all this angst, some truths about why conservatism is where it is today and how it got there would emerge. So far, I have been unimpressed.
There have been some valiant attempts, most notably after Sam Tannenhaus’s Death of Conservatism was published. Rejecting much of Tannenhaus’s critique (as most conservatives should), the author nevertheless wallops a couple of extra base hits while socking at least one, long home run in his analysis; that modern movement conservatism isn’t very conservative at all in that it seeks to overthrow the social order rather than conserve what is best about America while channeling change into productive venues consistent with tradition and the Constitution.
Tannenhaus refers to these right wingers as “revanchists.” Indeed, there is a strong impulse even among so called “reasonable conservatives” that FDR’s New Deal and Johnson’s Great Society need to be repealed or drastically curtailed. In it’s place? There things get kind of fuzzy but what emerges from many conservatives is some kind of “super federalism” where a souped up 10th Amendment would give us 50 different EPA’s or worse, where “market forces” would solve the problems of clean air and clean water.
That’s just one example, of course. And I should hasten to add that any good conservative supports a reasonable brand of federalism, not to mention a prudent regard for liberty and the taxpayer’s money that would force us to question the efficacy of hundreds if not thousands of federal programs. But, what many of the revanchists seek is not a “return” to first principles in the Constitution but rather a form of government more akin to an Articles of Confederation on steroids.
Another Tannenhaus point scored deals with the notion that movement conservatives positively hate government – government of any kind. It goes far beyond the healthy suspicion that all conservatives should possess of the positive impact government programs can have on society, and devolves into paranoia about any government program or effort to address stubborn national problems.
Here is where conservatism itself goes off the rails and feeds this paranoia, preventing conservative ideas from being brought to bear on national issues like health care, immigration, loss of industry, globalization, and adequate, sensible regulation of everything from financial institutions to the environment.
For it is not necessarily people who have become hostile to government but rather conservatism as a governing philosophy that has walled itself into a corner, refusing to confront a modern America that is less white, less agrarian, more urbanized, more technical, and developing a growing tolerance for government solutions to prickly, systemic problems experienced by ordinary Americans.
That last is the killer. Since the end of World War II and the rise of modern conservatism, it is been de rigueur for the right to promote the idea that government can be cut down to size, shrunk to an ill-defined outline that bears more of a resemblance to 19th century America than a modern society with all the miseries and challenges that reality entails.
The thrust of conservative critiques of the welfare state from Hayek to Kirk to Reagan has been that government is bigger than it should be as a result of it trying to do more than is necessary for the functioning of a constitutional republic. Indeed, a strict constructionist reading of the Constitution would cause anyone to question the manufactured justifications for everything from overly zealous government interference in commerce to the legislating of cultural issues from the bench. Conservatives rightly believe that “original intent” are not dirty words and that First Principles are in many ways as valid today as they were 220 years ago.
But over the decades, conservatism lost its flexibility in delineating a coarse ideology from this philosophy. By this I mean that conservatism has eschewed thoughtfulness for conformity. I’m not sure if you can actually pinpoint a moment where ideology trumped reason, although my personal line in the sand was the 1992 Republican convention and the rise of the culture warriors.
But that may have been the denouement to a decade or more of slow rot eating away at the foundations of a carefully nurtured worldview that fought for principle while recognizing that America was changing and that conservatism as a governing philosophy must change with it. The idea of reforming government – Reagan’s grand notion of a New Federalism, lower taxes, fewer regulations, and freer people – died in the fires of a cultural backlash that has come to define modern conservatism.
This is where conservatism lost touch with reality. The moment that the war itself became more important than the principles espoused, all semblance of rationality was tossed out the window and in its stead arose a mindless, knee jerk opposition to government and, of course, the left. As the living embodiment of Big Government, liberals became an enemy and not the political opposition. Rather than fighting to apply conservative principles to the art and artifice of government, the right chose to immolate reason, and turn its back on the reality of modern American in order to destroy their enemies.
As practiced by the most influential conservatives today, this is what passes for conservative thought. Tannenhaus correctly surmised that movement conservatism has won the battle against the pragmatists and now dominates the conservative discussion. I don’t agree with what he believes this fact necessarily portends for the future – a continued decline in influence and relevance of the right. In fact, as I will show tomorrow, there is cause for some hope that younger, more intellectually muscular conservatives who are questioning everything while searching for a new conservative paradigm that would re-integrate movement conservatives into a re-energized whole, may be the beginning of a conservative revival.
Tomorrow: Reports of the death of Culture 11 have been greatly exaggerated.
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28 Responses to “Why Conservatism is Disconnected From Reality”
“Rather than fighting to apply conservative principles to the art and artifice of government, the right chose to immolate reason, and turn its back on the reality of modern American in order to destroy their enemies.”
No, they didn't. There is no backlash against the Republicans the way there was against the excesses of liberalism (as demonstrated notably in the 1980 elections). The GOP and conservatives in the USA are far from monolithic and aren't all as is described here, but still don't know what they want, or behave that way. Meanwhile, they have been rejected by many voters for being too much like the Democrats and being in support of rather than against Big Government (centralization and overreach by Washington in particular).
The modern welfare state and expansion of Washington beyond its constitutional constraints, which has long had the support of much of the public, has withstood attacks on it in 1964 (the key) and since 1980. But (as demonstrated in the 1990s and the Dems' at-least lip service to it with their “Third Way” campaign) there is no huge backlash against what in fact is a largely pathetic and feeble, occasional attempt to counter excess by Washington. One cannot truly infer such a thing from widespread support of some of what Washington does, nor from a desire for more thorough federal regulation (good regulation) over the banks, for example.
Self-criticism is important and healthy, but making a career out of firing grape shot into the ranks of those you ostensibly are trying to save from themselves wears thin after a while.
When I find something remotely cheery to write about conservatism, I will. Check back tomorrow for something more sunny in outlook.
“making a career out of firing grape shot into the ranks of those you ostensibly are trying to save from themselves”
Actually, in this case it can be something more like surrender to Big Government and the DC mentality and choosing to go with the flow, or even become the equivalent of ingratiating (like conservative columnists joining others in the media kissing up to Obama after he won the election in late 2008).
Fine. Go ahead and describe to me the relevancy of conservative governance today. What impact has conservatism had on anything – even when George Bush was president? What impact did conservative thought have on health care reform? On fixing the economy? On anything?
People may hate Obamacare but vast majorities also worry to death about a system where they can lose their own insurance in a heartbeat. And anyone who doesn't believe there is anything wrong with the health care system – Limbaugh – is an idiot and a perfect example of conservatism being divorced from reality.
Opposition is fine. But when you oppose and have absolutely nothing – I mean nothing – to offer as an alternative, then something is radically wrong. 30 year old “solutions” to problems that don't exist anymore won't cut it in 2010 America. And the fact that you would believe that trying to govern conservatively is the same as “surrender to Big Government” shows that you are part of the problem and I am part of the solution.
Rick,
Don't worry. I'm not saying you're another Chamberlain, or worse, one of the Vichy collaborators. But it's too simplistic and in fact incorrect to say that the GOP or US (in fact, Western) conservatism is now charaterized by irrationality, or by extremism (the “social conservatives” or the Religious Right constitute a straw man here). And when you join what is at least concessionary, and could be more accomodating than that, toward Big Government, which is what other have done, what else should observant people be led to suspect? There is no reason to react excessively or oddly.
“But when you oppose and have absolutely nothing …”
Well, first, I have been among those saying that conservatism (more important than the GOP, about which it also is true) don't appear now to offer us a constructive, positive, attractive alternative to the Dems, vote-buying and good-feelings-buying through entitlements and other “beneficience,” and the growth of the federal government at the expense of states and localities as well as growth of the modern welfare state.
But second, define “nothing.” Are you saying that you insist on continuation of the welfare state, public over private sector, and overgrowth of Washington, as a “given” or unconditional demand? That will cause many conceivable ideas for reform to be consigned to disqualification as part of that “nothing.”
Third, “oppose” and the “party of No” critique has a factual basis, but has long been over-hyped.
Plenty of us aren't “Rockefeller” or big government Republicans (or conservatives; I'm among the many who aren't notably partisan, either), but want fiscal reform and a lot of downsizing. (Some of us even have the temporally-remote confidence in hand that even liberals and Democrats will be forced to face this, somewhat, eventually, as our population ages and government growth and costs reach unavoidable limits, and priorities and No and Less as well as Yes and More decisions eventually will have to be made.) We don't make the wrongful assumption (which you and others make, or behave as though you hold) that all of what Washington has done or sought is accomplished fact that is not to be questioned, much less criticized or [gasp] reduced or reversed.
“And the fact that you would believe that trying to govern conservatively is the same as 'surrender to Big Government' shows that you are part of the problem and I am part of the solution.”
That's quite an incorrect as well as illogical stretch. It also places in question your use of “govern conservatively.” (What is the limitation of “govern,” for starters? There are, or should be, limits…)
Plenty of us know what “govern conservatively” means, including what “conservatively” in all its ways means in this light.
Ha! Let's see the list of big government programs that Republicans (or Democrats for that matter) have tried to reduce or kill, and positioning proposals (the ones that are proposed only when they know they'll lose) don't count.
Wow, I owe an apology to some of the posters on this forum, that I thought were too irrational. After reading Part. 1, I can't wait to print out Part 2., which like 1., will go to line the cat's litter box; poop to poop.
I intend to answer the entire article tomorrow, as I believe your premise is faulty from the start. But this statement I have to rebut right now, because it is simply and completely wrong.
Conservatives have offered alternatives to the current plan repeatedly. There were no fewer than four separate plans offered by Republicans on the House and Senate floors, and numerous articles named better strategies, including some I wrote myself.
The conservative solutions never fall into the category of “conservative governance” because most of the known, named problems with health care are the result of governmental interference, and the correct governmental response is to stop doing something they've been doing.
The most common example is the federal law that makes it permissible for individual states to limit which insurers may offer health care alternatives within their states. This has resulted in oligopoly pricing and limited options in most places, allowing insurers to thrive who are not truly serving the market. The response from statists has been, predictably, to call the failure the “result of the free market” (which is opposite the truth) and call for either government “competition” or single-payer control. The correct solution is to revoke the federal law, thus creating a free market in which real alternatives can be offered and in which realistic pricing can operate.
Also, the government has instituted price controls by way of Medicare and Medicaid pricing, which drives up the cost of care that does not fall under one of those two umbrellas. The correct response to this is simply to remove price controls, and pay Medicare and Medicaid by way of vouchers that permit ordinary market pricing.
You may disagree with these specific proposals, Rick, and that's fine. But you cannot pretend they do not exist. They do exist, and have all along.
“a form of government more akin to an Articles of Confederation on steroids”
This was, of course, already incorrect when Schlesinger said this, echoed by Pat Schoeder, after the 1994 elections. (What's next, decrying another attempt at a balanced budget Constitutional amendment?)
The proposals – and I liked the one by Ryan – never had a prayer. And talk about Democrat lite! Moving decimal points is not policy.
And my point is exactly what you are concerned about; governmental interference in health care. Do we ditch Medicare? Do we repeal S-Chip? Do we scrap Medicaid?
The reality of America in the 21st century is that government is massively involved in health care. Unless you are proposing that we scrap these programs – or radically reform them – you have no “conservative alternative” to health care reform. You work with the world as it is and forget the world you dream should be. That means reforming health care in the context of a government that spends 40 cents of every health care dollar. You can nibble at the edges of that but anything more and you put millions of people at risk.
This is the reality. This is the way America has developed. You are tilting at windmills if you think you can radically alter the formula.
Well, I sure hope tomorrow's article is easier to read.
I think your 2 points are…1. social conservatives have ruined conservatism and 2. conservatives have not done enough publishing of a problem solving manual to your liking.
Being a libertarian, I don't see as many cultural issues as the socons do, but, also as a libertarian, I ain't going nowhere without a bigger voting block. The Buckley Republicans needed the socons to keep up voting numbers against the rolling lintball of freeloaders that the Democratic Party became. By the same token, the socons ain't going to bounce the liberals out without the help of the libertarians. It is an estranged marriage at times, but a necessary one for the foreseeable future.
As for point 2, you do a great job of castigating for offering nothing while offering nothing yourself….you're kind of ringing hollow on that unless you deliver some substance to back up your bravado tomorrow.
Part 2. Tension builds (tension music builds), this feels like the season ending episode of Dallas- JR gets shot.
“Unless you are proposing that we scrap these programs – or radically reform them – you have no 'conservative alternative' to health care reform.”
b-b-b-b-b-b-b-but, that or anything merely approaching or hinting at that is
“more akin to an Articles of Confederation on steroids”
“tilting at windmills”
and also according to you, even much less ambitious, perfectly sensible and straightforward goals
“never had a prayer. And talk about Democrat lite! Moving decimal points…”
so what is to be done, then?
What a great post! No, really!
“… conservatism as a philosophy has closed itself off so thoroughly from uncomfortable and inconvenient truths about America ….
[...]
conservatism has lost it's ability to question itself….”
It's impossible for a group of philosophical principles to take action, i.e. close themselves off and refuse to question.
Social conservatism: “… modern movement conservatism isn’t very conservative at all in that it seeks to overthrow the social order rather than conserve what is best about America while channeling change into productive venues consistent with tradition and the Constitution.”
Much of the social order has changed since the 1960s – and maybe some changes have gone too far in a direction which is inconsistent with human nature. Might social conservatives be trying to regain equilibrium which is consistent with human nature and with “tradition and the Constitution”?
Small government conservatism:
the “revanchists” disagree with your opinion. Their disagreement does not equate to being “closed off” and to having “lost the ability to question”; and does not equate to philosophical principles becoming animatedly able to be “closed off” and to lose the “ability to question.”
Some individual Conservatives have a paranoid hatred for government:
Okay. So what? That some human beings are paranoid is no commentary on conservatism as a philosophy. Conservatism doesn't feed paranoia any more than any ideas feed paranoia. Do you believe paranoid conservatives are obstructing pragmatic solutions? Fine. However, it does not follow that “conservatism … feeds this paranoia.” Paranoia feeds paranoia.
“…conservatism as a governing philosophy that has walled itself into a corner, refusing to confront a modern America that is less white, less agrarian, more urbanized, more technical, and developing a growing tolerance for government solutions to prickly, systemic problems experienced by ordinary Americans.”
Finally, you get to a point(!): conservatism doesn't work … in a black, urban, techno, nation of dependents. First: what the heck is race doing in that sentence? Second, re urban, techno, dependents who are “… developing a growing tolerance for government solutions to prickly, systemic problems experienced by ordinary Americans”: isn't it possible those “prickly, systemic problems” were created by government interference? If so, wouldn't more government interference be likely to compound the problem? Wouldn't the likeliest solution – and possibly the only actual solution – be less government interference, i.e. less obstacles to individual initiative?
“… a modern society with all the miseries and challenges that reality entails.”
It looks like you simply disagree about what level of government management is either optimal and/or possible. Disagreement does not equate to philosophic principles animating themselves, nor to your opponents automatically closing off and refusing to question their assumptions. You are just as likely to be closed off and refusing to question.
WTF.
Well, at least the conservatives here have done more to prove Rick right than actually provide a reasonable critique. The health care proposals made by Republicans should be ignored. They hold as much real promise for solving problems as their constant harping on tort reform does. It doesn't matter how many times it is pointed out that malpractice insurance, legal expenses and settlements are just a tiny fraction of the costs of the system and that those states that have passed “reform” haven't seen the benefits claimed by the conservatives, the meme just won't die in Republican circles. Facts don't make a difference to them and this ties in perfectly with Rick's point. Conservatives claim that the free market can take care of health care. Others say that the nature of health care has core differences from other things that people spend money on, and it's not just that we buy insurance for it. One of the things I find interesting about the conservatives' free market plan cited by the first link is that it depends on a completely unproven (And unprovable in advance.) assumption that if you completely disassociated health insurance from the employer that the employee would have their income increased by the amount the business is no longer paying for their share of insurance costs. In addition consider these paragraphs from that article:
His only solution to the issue of people who simply cannot afford health care in the current system and his new market based paradise is to give block grants to the states and trust that someone will come up with a method somehow so that it works out. It gives a whole new meaning to faith-based initiatives, IMO.
The conservatives here have done more to prove Rick right than actually provide a reasonable critique.
Well here's mine. Rick's brush is too broad to have a meaningful conversation about. Who can discuss “what conservativism has eschewed” without pinning down which conservatives you're talking about and what issue was under discussion? His “example” of conservatives wanting 50 different EPAs bears no relation to anything I've ever heard anyone advocate.
Analysis that inflammatory and that vague can't do anything but start an argument. Which, by golly, it has.
“Well, at least the conservatives here have done more to prove Rick right than actually provide a reasonable critique.”
I guess, if you don't bother to read what was said, or you can't understand it.
(Or if your mind was made up already about what you planned to write yourself, which is likely.)
I was not attempting anything like a comprehensive presentation, just positing a few examples, but I think I already answered your objection: replacing Medicare and Medicaid price controls with vouchers for market-priced services is a pretty dramatic reform, affecting fully half of all medical dollars spent in the US. But that's just one example.
Of course, a less-than-total reform is not the same as “absolutely nothing,” which was your original complaint. Beyond that, though, I think you've set up a “no-win” for conservatives. You posit less-than-total reform as inadequate; but in the article, you cite Tannenhaus calling the impulse “extreme” that says we should roll back the New Deal and the Great Society. What exists in the middle, between those points?
The entire US economy stands hostage to massive, unfunded liabilities which we'll never be able to pay, and about which we don't know what to do. Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, and federal pension funds pose obligations that exceed $50 trillion, and some estimates put them closer to $100 trillion by the time you and I kick the bucket. To these we've now added the UAW's pension funds, and now we're talking about adding all health care. THAT is insane. These are all the legacy of the New Deal, the Great Society, and the general progressive enterprise. What you appear to be saying is that they are permanent, and cannot change.
They will destroy the economy. If the nation is to survive as a nation, they must change, and dramatically.
This goes to my general objection to your analysis, about which I will write more tomorrow (I'll post it on my blog, with a link here.) What's happened is not that conservatism has lost it's mind; quite the contrary, it's found it. We've realized what was wrong. What was wrong was that the nation had committed itself to the entire progressive agenda. That agenda holds as its core tenet that human liberty is obsolete, and that it can be replaced by some optimal amount of clever social engineering. We do not agree that it is obsolete. We think it is utterly essential, far more necessary than anything or any combination of things that can be obtained by engineering. Furthermore, we hold it as proved beyond doubt that social engineering never, ever produces what it intends to produce, and that it always, always produces disasters. The only solution to our current dilemma is to roll back American government and society to a point prior to the onset of the progressive experiment — undo the New Deal and the Great Society, and everything that followed on thereafter.
Yes, that will produce dislocation, but the alternative is even worse. The 20th century showed us, over and over, what happens when nations pursue the progressive dream to its logical conclusion. You want the Soviet Union here? You want Cuba? You want Cambodia? That's the alternative to rolling back the New Deal. The alternative that you propose is that we simply surrender and admit that human liberty is passe.
Sorry, not buying. It's not. And between the progressive approach and the libertarian one, there is no compromise point that will suffice. They are adversarial systems, and cannot be reconciled. I, personally, favor partitioning the nation to avoid armed conflict. The only alternative I can foresee is civil war. You are correct, massive federal interference is the norm, and not just in health care — but most Americans, having awoken to the fact that this is so, will not accept it, and will fight to reverse it.
The government produced by this new, aware conservatism seems fuzzy because what it proposes, in place of the hyper-government of the progressives, is virtually no government at all in core areas. That's not fuzzy, though, nor is it inflexible or insane. It will work, because decent people seeking their best interests on their own will produce far more value than any set of expert systems could ever produce. We know it is so because we did it here, and it worked. It's worth recovering, even if we have to admit that the status quo is an enormous mistake — which it clearly is.
We agree 100%, the problem is why didn't conservatives do something about this when they were in power?
Conservatives were not in power. Republicans were in power, and were embarrassing pigs.
Then, have Conservatives ever been in power? When?
Good question, and I don't know the answer. In recent times, Reagan was conservative, but his Congresses were Democratic. Gingrich did a nice job with the Contract for America; did a nice job pulling the reins in on Clinton. Maybe Gringrich was the only moment in recent times.
Rick: Thanks for posting. I always enjoy your comments here.
I think perhaps you are suffering a little bit from “Grouchy old man syndrome”.
I would characterize “disconnect from reality” a little differently. I think many conservatives are very comfortable with high level principles and aspirational goals (more freedom, market based solutions, etc) but at least with the social conservatives and Tea Party folks, they are not grappling with the implementation of those principles and the tension between those principles. For example, the preamble to the Constitution says that:
“provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare”
Clearly, both of these things take resources, so what really matters is how you much is spent on each, both in absolute and in relative terms, and how they are paid for.
So perhaps another way of looking at your “we live in a modern and complicated society” view is that we have a certain level of “policy technology” that for a given problem provides a set of tradeoffs. E.g. with the current state of criminal detective technology, we have a menu of choices as to the number of guilty people who are set free versus the number of innocent people punished. Absent an improvement in the technology, we are stuck with those choices. So I believe that conservatives should be looking to people like Ronald Coase more than Ronald Reagan …
Many of these tradeoffs are well known in economics. For example, when a vendor knows what's in their product (and it may be harmful) and a customer does not.
Source
The main area where I think conservative policy is really lacking is in thinking about groups of individuals. For example, during the debate about “private accounts” for Social Security, very few on the right seemed to make the distinction between a retirement savings plan and a retirement savings *insurance* plan. Since you by definition hold an undiversified short position in inflation adjusted income (i.e. your cost of living) ultimately any rational restructuring of social security would at least consist of private *pools* of individuals, not individual private accounts. This needn't be government controlled or sponsored (private annuities are more or less what is needed), but the point is the individual is the wrong level of aggregation.
One person who does, I think, is Arnold Kling.
Philwynk: I think you are mischaracterizing Medicare and Medicaid as price controls, if I understand it. They act more like a large buying block (i.e. a monopsonist) since providers are not under obligation to take Medicare or Medicaid patients.
Secondly “The 20th century showed us, over and over, what happens when nations pursue the progressive dream to its logical conclusion”. I think that too is a false dichotomy. Paul Krugman and Jim Manzi have been sniping about this sort of thing recently. What emerges however, is that there are variety of policy mixes amongst OECD countries that don't have any discernible relationship with the long term solvency of those countries. Canada, for example, has provincial level government run health insurance, but has better long term solvency than the U.S.
[...] and at one time editor for Pajamas Media, posting an opinion piece explaining why he believes conservatism is disconnected from reality. He cross-posted the piece at Right Wing [...]
I have written a rebuttal to this article and published it here: http://www.plumbbobblog.com/?p=6417.
With all due respect to Rick Moran, whom I believe to be a fine man and a solid conservative, I think rather than disconnecting from reality, the conservative movement is finally awakening to the harsh reality that we have ignored for a full century: that American liberty and the progressive movement are utterly incompatible, and that to accept any part of the progressive claim that governments exist to solve social problems is to accept all parts of it, to our destruction.
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