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The Spectacle Blog
Julian Sanchez at Ars Technica:
What seems to be playing out on the right of late, by contrast, is a frenzy of mutual demonization. Pace some of my progressive friends, I don’t think the recent flurry of activity in the fever swamps reveals any deep, eternal truths about conservatism per se; it’s just what’s filled the gap created by the paucity of useful leadership from conservative intellectuals. What’s needed right now is less tactical refinement, and more conversation about the agenda tactics are supposed to serve.
That’s a wonderful little bit of kicking the can down the road there, a common statement of intent from the journalistically inclined right. See, we need a discussion about “What We Believe.” Forget for a moment how we define who “we” are. Or how “we” get into the conversation. “We” need to arrive at some kind of consensus, and these messianic intellectual leaders, whoever they are, will facilitate the process.
That’s a problem. For one thing, I don’t know who Julian is referencing when referring to these people, and I kinda doubt he does either. It would help if we could define intellectual leadership. All I know is that in the wake of William F. Buckley’s death, there were all kinds of tributes as to how nice and smart a guy he was, but then people went back to doing the things that didn’t quite follow the Buckley Model of Doing Good Works. What follows is not a criticism of what Julian Sanchez posted. My criticism for what he has written is only, “Clear that up for your readers.”
I realize that people the world over love to reference how great Bill Buckley was, and all these cool things he did, but I’d like to stress that, particularly in Washington, it’s all talk. Buckley is credited with assembling an ideological AND political coalition at once. This is a difficult thing to do, and his success should be a model for others. This means more analysis ought to be applied as to how he consolidated the respect of his peers, and how he enabled others to succeed.
Too often I’m overhearing conversations, however, where someone as “the next Buckley” is being contemplated. Right now, all you have to do to deserve a comparison to the patron saint of conservatism is to try to cast out some part of the right wing fever swamp or say that your own views are the ones that would make political victory possible. If your response to this is that “We all know Buckley was more than that,” I’d like to remind you that it’s not enough to assert that the man could write and think or sail a boat. It’s not enough to say, “He had style.” That doesn’t nearly address the fact that he was, himself, an organizer of men, and did so with class, and further, did so with political goals in mind.
So what are the things we should expect of “intellectual leaders”? Hm. Well, let’s compile a list of things gleaned from the various books written by or about him:
- Don’t cloister yourself from political activity and party causes. Political involvement provides insights into the process you’re attempting to influence. How on earth would you expect to change it otherwise?
- Mentoring younger people who, in all likelihood, may never have the chance repay your kindness. Interns can’t impress you if you’re not patient.
- Maintain intellectually purity, but become socially promiscuous; If all your friends are people inclined to agree with you, you’re probably having boring, self-referencing, or maybe just ironic conversations. Also, nothing creates a healthy debate like a healthy relationship between opponents.
- Bite your tongue: The temptation to become outraged over an issue can be strong, and blogging or email are a wonderfully passive aggressive weapons. Picking up the phone is a great olive branch and route to understanding.
- Please at least be somewhat aware of when you’re practicing the Dougherty Doctrine.
If these are the qualities necessary to be an “intellectual leader,” then I’m all for it. All of these things trump the technological changes necessary to step forward. They are, after all, the human parts of a campaign to actually achieve something. You can snipe back and forth using blogs and social media all you like, but it takes more to move the ideas you agree with into the leadership of a movement.
View all comments (6) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by J.P. Freire
http://spectator.org/blog/2009/01/02/moving-forward-involves-moving
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J David| 1.2.09 @ 6:21PM
I'll bet Julian doesn't really consider those with 20-22 million listeners per week, or five million any given minute, 15 hours a week, during which CONSERVATIVE principles of people like Buckley and Reagan and Von Mises and Von Hyeck are discussed in detail to be "intellectual". He is probably thinking of Douthat or Frum or Brooks or some other RINO pseudo-intellectual sellout pinhead gum-flappers.
"Intellectual" is a synonym for pragmatic(lacking in principles and ideals from which they spring, and any "principle" merely a political bargaining chip that may be traded for its momentary price in buying power over constituents) amongst the pseudo-intellectual God-haters and perverts.
John Lofton | 1.2.09 @ 8:11PM
Forget "conservatism," please. It has been Godless and therefore irrelevant. Secular conservatism will not defeat secular liberalism because to God both are two atheistic peas-in-a-pod and thus predestined to failure. As Stonewall Jackson's Chief of Staff R.L. Dabney said of such a humanistic belief more than 100 years ago:
"[Secular conservatism] is a party which never conserves anything. Its history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation. What was the resisted novelty of yesterday is today .one of the accepted principles of conservatism; it is now conservative only in affecting to resist the next innovation, which will tomorrow be forced upon its timidity and will be succeeded by some third revolution; to be denounced and then adopted in its turn. American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward towards perdition. It remains behind it, but never retards it, and always advances near its leader. This pretended salt bath utterly lost its savor: wherewith shall it be salted? Its impotency is not hard, indeed, to explain. It .is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It intends to risk nothing serious for the sake of the truth."
Our country is collapsing because we have turned our back on God (Psalm 9:17) and refused to kiss His Son (Psalm 2).
John Lofton, Editor, TheAmericanView.com
Recovering Republican
JLof@aol.com
vincep1974| 1.3.09 @ 6:19AM
John: Ok, so you told us what to abandon .. but what should we should adopt?
The tendency since 2006 for some right-wingers to descend into the contentless complaining the Left wingers do has been a great tragedy.
Thomas| 1.3.09 @ 10:18AM
Vince,
How about starting here:
Limit government, in general, and the Federal government to those powers and responsibilities specifically enumerated in the Constitution.
Reduce taxes, at all levels of government, to those necessary to provide basic government services. Allow people to spend their own money.
Reduce, or eliminate, personal entitlements not necessary for the PUBLIC good.
Demand honesty and personal integrity from our elected officials.
And, for Mr. Lofton, cease the state restriction of reasonable religious practice, public or private.
Feel free to add additional points of commonality as you choose.
vincep1974| 1.3.09 @ 1:14PM
Hi Thomas. I'm a conservative and accept all those points.
I was just complaining about John. It's so easy to b&m;but at least offer something in its place or explain why you can't. (to John, not you)
Jeffrey Payne| 1.3.09 @ 8:27PM
It seems to me that Thomas' comment is an example of John L.'s complaint. The word "conservatism" & the phrases "limit gov't", "reduce taxes" & "reduce...entitlements" all concede the intiative to our opponents. You are only interested in limited gov't & reduced taxes if you ALREADY HAVE a solid sense of the dangers of unlimited gov't & excess taxes. Too many today do not.
I would suggest that we advocate for "structural" gov't instead. We want gov't to build good roads; we don't want it telling us what to drive. We want sound money; we don't want gov't picking winners & losers in the economy. Etc.
Gov't should be in the business of boundaries, not bureaucracies. Family has to be the center (check the demographic projections for Italy, Russia, France, Japan to see what happens otherwise). There should be a generous gap between gov't & family; in this space the community should be allowed to flourish with free exchanges & associations.
The foregoing does not require the reader to have any dislike, or even understanding, of Leftist policy. If you believe that gov't's job is to defend society, that the family is the heart of society, & that otherwise society should be free to define itself, you'll like what was written.
As for religion, it is not window dressing in the Declaration where it says, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights". If there is no God, there is no moral truth. And without moral truth, "the strong do what they will, the weak suffer what they must."
Regards,