Is conservatism inherently glum?
George F. Will has a new book out, considered his magnum opus. It is called “The Conservative Sensibility.” It’s on my Amazon list, but in recent days I’ve passed it up for Bach and socks.
For many years, I have appreciated Mr. Will’s erudition and his attempt to define a peculiar American form of conservatism, one derived from the American Founders and American constitutionalism.
The Founders had an unsentimental but also unhysterical view of human nature. It caused them to focus on power and the way it is used. Power begets abuse, so all power must be checked.
The Founders’ view of human nature caused them to create a system based more on process than ends. That might sound very dry, but it is also very sound.
Before Mr. Will there was William F. Buckley, who, along with Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, was responsible for the rise and power of American conservatism over the last 50 or 60 years. He described himself as a
libertarian conservative. The libertarian conservative in America has two great principles. The first is to question the doctrine of progress — to stand athwart history and yell “stop.” Or at least, “maybe not.” And the second is to let people work out their destinies on their own.
Hence, Goldwater wasn’t turning to the left or turning senile when he defended the right to be openly gay in the U.S. military. He was being consistent. He believed a person should be allowed to love the person he or she wants to love, or rent or decline to rent his property to whomever he likes, or sell or decline to sell a wedding cake to whomever he chooses. It’s nobody else’s damn business. And it is certainly not the government’s business.
This is a powerful strain of conservatism, and deeply American. It speaks to something lodged firmly in our DNA: Leave me alone. Don’t tread on me and I will not mess with you.
But it is not the way we are living together now.
Libertarian conservatism is closely linked to the third great promise of American life — the pursuit of happiness. Even though we know from the scholars that the Founders were talking primarily about public happiness, most Americans think we pursue happiness privately, in our families, work, friendships and enterprises.
And when a politician tells us what to eat or drink or smoke, some of us recoil.
This libertarian strain is quite different from Mr. Will’s constitutional strain. And I cannot help but notice that Goldwater, Reagan and Buckley seemed to have more fun. All had a gleam in their eye and a capacity to surprise both their critics and their friends. I have always found Mr. Will rather glum, even when rhapsodizing about baseball, which is slow but not glum. I gather he is not a believer in God, which would make anyone glum in this broken world and which is a position unimaginable to Reagan or Buckley.
A few days ago, the great British conservative Roger Scruton passed away. He was far more Burkean — a champion of rural life, voluntary associations, tradition and what one might call practical nostalgia. When faced with the demands of the state, with the woke and with “change,” his brave and mighty inclination was to ask: Must we relent?
And this is what unites all forms of conservatism — skepticism.
Maybe cellphones are wonderful tools that put good information, as well as half-baked information, at our fingertips. But maybe we are losing the capacity both to converse and to research. Maybe the tweet and the email are not as good as the letter. Maybe the Latin Mass is far more sacred and evocative than what replaced it. Maybe.
The point is that conservatism is a sensibility, a temper, not a doctrine. Conservatives abhor doctrine and all intellectual rigidity. And there are many mansions in this community of thought.
So there is no reason for a conservative to be glum, or to be in lockstep with anyone.
Mr. Will, in an un-glum moment, said Donald Trump and his followers have no more to do with conservatism than Doris Day. Again, I think
maybe. Certainly the prez has a persona that is anything but conservative. (Of Ms. Day we can say the opposite, I think.) But it is surely conservative to want to protect American jobs and small towns.
Mr. Scruton, who, like Buckley, had fun — writing about such topics as wine, sex and riding to the hounds — said that conservatism is about protecting the things we cherish — our homes, our families, our way of life. Mr. Scruton favored Brexit, for example, for he counted national sovereignty and popular sovereignty as values to be cherished.
A conservative, said Mr. Scruton, loves life and all that is and has been good in human life. Hence, he is logically prolife, but just as logically skeptical of endless, undeclared wars and the death penalty. He loves what is beautiful and solid, and wants to preserve art, architecture and the best that has been thought and said. But he surely also wants to preserve the beauty of the Earth, the only home of life and beauty that we have.
If there is a damning criticism to be made of conservatism, it is that it is insufficiently concerned with justice.
But in that conservatism suggests limits and humility in our angry age, and in that some forms suggest joy at a grim moment of our history, it is a sensibility worthy of rediscovery.