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The Spectacle Blog
When it comes to the long-running feud between paleoconservatives and neoconservatives, sometimes I feel like James Burke, whose "Connections" TV series followed chains of causality in surprising directions. At other times, I feel like Michael Corleone in Godfather III: "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in."
All I intended to do was to praise Angelo Codevilla's excellent 12,000-word article on the contemporary American ruling class. But a commenter on my blog pointed out that Codevilla is considered a Straussian -- a disciple of the late philosopher Leo Strauss -- and next thing I knew, I was rehashing some very old arguments about conservatism and the nature of the American founding.
This can be traced back to an interminable dispute that another Straussian, Harry Jaffa, had from the 1960s onward with Frank Meyer, Willmoore Kendall, and Mel Bradford, a battle subsequently continued on other grounds against William Rehnquist, Robert Bork and Lino Graglia. In the mid-1970s, in an attack on Kendall, Jaffa published an article, "Equality as a Conservative Principle," the very title of which served to mark him as a latter-day Jacobin in the eyes of many conservatives influenced by Edmund Burke. ("Believe me, Sir, those who attempt to level never equalise. In all societies consisting of various descriptions of citizens, some description must be uppermost. The Levellers, therefore, only change and pervert the natural order of things," etc. -- Reflections on the Revolution in France.)
Jaffa has the obnoxious habit of denouncing as "nihilists" all who dispute his particular philosophy, which can best be described as an eclectic (or, perhaps some would say, peculiar) stew of Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas and Abraham Lincoln. Considering that both Kendall and Meyer were close associates of William F. Buckley Jr., it is difficult to understand why their antagonist Jaffa was embraced by Buckley, but he was.
Jaffa-ism has been enshrined at the Claremont Institute, where Jaffa is a distinguished fellow and Codevilla holds the title of senior fellow, which fact led me into this Straussian time-warp. And this is where Conor Friedersdorf pops up. In explaining Jaffa's error, I wrote:
Let me cite just one example of the fundamental problem with Jaffa-ism: Jaffa has argued against gay rights. Yet if equality is, as Jaffa insists, a conservative principle, why shouldn't this principle apply to homosexuals?
This is the kind of problem that Kendall and others foresaw, and Jaffa clearly did not: Equality is a ravening wolf (cf., Matthew 7:15) with a boundless appetite, and there is no telling what future use might be made of such a "principle," which is most certainly not conservative.
Now, go back to my argument with Friedersdorf over gay marriage in January 2009:
Friedersdorf says, "my support for gay marriage is so inextricably tied to my conservatism." And the only wonder is that Willmoore Kendall, Russell Kirk and Richard Weaver didn't beat him to it.
If it is still permissible to disagree that conservatism "inextricably" requires what Friedersdorf says it does, how did we get here? The answer can be boiled down to one word, equality.
Are men and women equal in the fullest sense of the word? If so, then equality implies fungibility -- the two things are interchangeable and one may be substituted for the other in any circumstance whatsoever. (La mort à la différence!) Therefore, it is of no consequence whether I marry a woman or a man.
If equality is, as Jaffa says, a conservative principle, then Friedersdorf's argument is conservative and Jaffa's opposition to gay rights is perhaps not "nihilism," but at least easy to dismiss as just so much moralistic special pleading: Equality is the summum bonum, except when it's not.
As Bradford said, "Equality as a moral or political imperative, pursued as an end in itself -- Equality, with the capital "E" -- is the antonym of every legitimate conservative principle." The safe harbor of conservatism is limited government, not egalitarian fanaticism.
You may thank (or blame) Regent University Law Professor David Wagner -- proprietor of the Ninomania blog -- for the single blog comment that prompted this discourse.
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More Blog Posts by Robert Stacy McCain
http://spectator.org/blog/2010/07/18/angelo-codevilla-conor-frieder
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elixelx| 7.18.10 @ 2:20AM
Never in the known annals of intellectual argument have so many trees been murdered by so many idle hands to bring forth so much hot air....
Wow! You intellectuals really really know how to bore!
Katherine Lambert| 7.18.10 @ 7:59AM
Well said elixelx. I was going to type in YAWN. These intellectuals are CLUELESS. The Titanic is sinking and they aren't just rearranging the deck chairs they are ordering new ones in red.
Katherine Lambert| 7.18.10 @ 8:00AM
Woops I just saw the hyline said The Other McCain. Ok he cribbed this from David Frum or David Brooks.
David M. Wagner| 7.18.10 @ 10:02AM
Good post. Fwiw, Jaffa, tho' an interesting thinker & a gifted intellectual impresario, is generally considered somewhat one-off as a representative of the Strauss school. He has revived the Lincoln-Douglas Debates as a chapter in political philosophy; but, IMHO, Bork has the better of the argument on the law/politics distinction (Jaffa simply doesn't believe in it; our judicial system depends on it).
Tim*| 7.18.10 @ 10:44AM
Straussianism is elitist pseudo-intellectualism.
The Tea Party Rebellion Escalates .
The Ramp Up To November 2nd Is Underway .
kingsmill| 7.18.10 @ 2:44PM
Kendall's argument that conservatism defends a particularistic order, in this case the American political order, is the better argument.
Kendall determined that "majority rule" democracy was central to the American experiment, not vague ideas of "equality".
Jaffa's worship of an everchanging principle of equality, which he claims is enshrined in natural law, is not conservative. It is a brand of liberalism.
Jaffa cannot be lumped in with Russell Kirk and Richard Weaver. He is closer to that early group of thinkers, who claimed to be promoting "conservatism" but were pegged by Russell Kirk and others as very suspect. They called themselves, ironically "New Conservatives"- Clinton Rossiter and Peter Viereck.
Red Phillips| 7.18.10 @ 3:58PM
Excellent post RSM. For those who think this doesn't matter and is just so much intellectual prattle, it matters profoundly. In our PC dominated discourse, misguided conservatives, afraid they will be called bad names, have largely embraced Jaffa's silliness. Jaffa enshrined equality, which is in many ways the very essence of liberalism, and glossed it over with a bunch of rhetoric about antiquity and natural law and dubbed it conservatism. Misguided conservatives have been making Jaffaesque arguments ever since. Since Jaffa is smart enough to know better, this was a blatant attempt to deceive. Every serious conservative should read M. E. Bradford’s reply to Jaffa’s essay on equality. It is a masterpiece. I’ll look for a link.
Red Phillips| 7.18.10 @ 3:59PM
I see RSM has already provided us a link to the Bradford essay. Thanks. Everyone should read it.
BRAVO RSM!!!| 7.18.10 @ 5:04PM
As I wrote over at your blog (and any who haven't read RSM's blog should):
Bravo, Mr. McCain. It is sincerely heartening to see you raising and charging with this fallen flag. At heart the issue is about the objectively conflicting natures of genuine American conservatism (Bradford et al) and the neoconservatism that has become the ideological engine of the Republican Party and establishment elite.
In this reader’s opinion, the component of your philosophy exhibited here is one that should be mined more often in your columns. It doesn’t seem to me that there is any great need for another conservative columnist to criticize the left. It seems far more imperative to recapture the Republican Party than derail the Democrats. None can recapture the Party while it is in power and waxing in strength. And even if one considers these goals of equal importance, there are far more endeavoring to accomplish the latter than the former. What you are fighting here is the proverbial Good Fight. It is easier and more profitable to join the chorus than it is to fight to change its tune, which makes what you’re doing here all the more admirable. We need more columnists to be more admirable more often. Your efforts here are sincerely appreciated.">RSM's blog should):
Bravo, Mr. McCain. It is sincerely heartening to see you raising and charging with this fallen flag. At heart the issue is about the objectively conflicting natures of genuine American conservatism (Bradford et al) and the neoconservatism that has become the ideological engine of the Republican Party and establishment elite.
In this reader’s opinion, the component of your philosophy exhibited here is one that should be mined more often in your columns. It doesn’t seem to me that there is any great need for another conservative columnist to criticize the left. It seems far more imperative to recapture the Republican Party than derail the Democrats. None can recapture the Party while it is in power and waxing in strength. And even if one considers these goals of equal importance, there are far more endeavoring to accomplish the latter than the former. What you are fighting here is the proverbial Good Fight. It is easier and more profitable to join the chorus than it is to fight to change its tune, which makes what you’re doing here all the more admirable.
We need more columnists to be more admirable more often. Your efforts here are sincerely appreciated.
S.L. Toddard| 7.18.10 @ 5:06PM
And feel free to praise my awesome HTML skills.
Yeesh!
S.L. Toddard| 7.18.10 @ 5:42PM
That is an idea I think it would behoove everyone on the right to really consider: True conservatives cannot recapture the GOP while it is in power, so it is counterproductive to fight to empower the GOP until after it is recaptured. Until the GOP re-embraces conservatism, it does conservatism and therefore America a grave disservice to empower that party.
I would like to know what Mr. McCain thinks about that argument.
Ran| 7.18.10 @ 8:39PM
RSM : Thanks once again. Why is it that CoNor confuses equality before G-d - which is inextricably part of Conservatism with equality of outcome, which is pure marxist bravo sierra??
Toddy... lad... 'Recapture' is a process, not an event. [cough]
jcp370| 7.18.10 @ 10:21PM
Well, I don't know about you, but I can't imagine anything more essential to meeting the great challenges of the 21st century than examining Conor Friedersdorf's views on everything - philosophical thought, economic theory, political trends, you name it. He is obviously one of the great thinkers of our time and someone who will likely shape events for generations to come. In fact, no sooner do I read an editorial or hear a news headline that I immediately think, "I wonder what Conor Friedersdorf thinks". We are lucky to live to live in an age where so many media outlets, both new & old, are willing to keep us apprised, on almost a daily basis, of his every impression, mood or reflection.
thomas aquinas| 7.18.10 @ 11:24PM
Mr. McCain: The principle of equality defended by Professor Jaffa is the principle that all human beings share the same nature and thus are of equal moral worth and dignity. It is, in theological terms, the belief that all men and women are made in the image of God. It is not the absurd belief that the government's role is to squash differences in order to achieve some egalitarian end.
The question of marriage's nature depends on the content of human nature. If, in fact, marriage's intelligible point is unitive and procreative, then people of the same gender cannot marry, whether or not they are homosexual.
To treat people with equal dignity and disrespect requires that we judge their behavior as well as our own by standards that are applied without prejudice. So, a heterosexual who engages in sodomy is no different than a homosexual who engages in sodomy. The standard is the same, each moral actor is treated with respect insofar as we take their acts seriously.
JimH| 7.19.10 @ 8:51AM
Many times the commenters to this website provide cogent thoughtful and witty analyses of the articles and blog entries posted. TAS was created with some literary aspirations and sometimes has some esoteric references. On the other hand there a some commenters here to delight in ad-hominem, sometimes racist rants and who object to the use of words of more then on syllable. It seems that there are elements who want nothing so much as to turn the Tea party movement into the Know-Nothing party. This site could use a moderator.
Dave Corbin| 7.19.10 @ 10:29AM
What do any of your inside baseball posts have to do with Codevilla's argument? Who cares what Robert Stacy McCain thinks about Harry Jaffa?