So there’s this article in the current issue of Time magazine, about a so-called conservative identity crisis that is apparently taking place in America right now. It quickly—in barely more than a page—enumerates a number of different styles, or ideas, of conservatism, and how those ideas have mostly wandered around in the desert, without benefit of one singular person to bring them all together, for a good chunk of the time since the Cold War ended and the specter of the Soviet Union went away. Then there is a small sampling of “ideas” about what it means to be a conservative, nine little snippets written by people as varied as Grover Norquist, Ann Coulter, and Sam Tanenhaus; and it was one of these little snippets that got me thinking.
A person called Pete Wehner writes, of American conservatism, “It looks to the future rather than remaining fixated on the past. And it is eager to embrace change and reform as social circumstances shift.”
I had to read it again, sure that I had read it wrong, or crossed my eyes while I was reading it—or something. But on the second pass, those words were all still there, and they were all still in the same order: “It looks to the future rather than remaining fixated on the past. And it is eager to embrace change and reform as social circumstances shift.” I think the other conservatives might want to kick this guy out of their clubhouse. If those two sentences represent the actual thought process of Mr. Wehner, then he has demonstrated an almost complete lack of understanding about his own political philosophy.
And if you don’t understand the fundamental errors in Mr. Wehner’s statements, then let’s go to the map. (I’m not actually trying to convince any conservatives that I’m correct, here. I’m just trying to show the evidence, to avoid the journalistic ineptitude to which I am sometimes prone. I know that the facts won’t convince the conservatives, because if the conservatives could be convinced by facts and logic, they would not be conservatives.)
The American Heritage Dictionary on my desk defines conservatism thusly: “n. 1. The inclination, esp. in politics, to maintain the existing or traditional order. 2. Caution or moderation, as in behavior or outlook.” (Yes, I have a dictionary in book form on my desk. Why don’t you?) Merriam-Webster’s website defines conservatism as “a political philosophy based on tradition and social stability, stressing established institutions, and preferring gradual development to abrupt change.” And Dictionary.com defines conservatism as “the disposition to preserve or restore what is established and traditional and to limit change.”
We will now pause for a few moments, in case anyone out there wants to try to reconcile any of the above paragraph with the two sentences of Mr. Wehner’s. Go ahead...I’ll wait.
The Excedrin is in the medicine cabinet, Sisyphus. Okay? All better? The sad thing about this kind of writing is that there are people who are going to believe it. People who already don’t think very well for themselves are going to read things like Mr. Wehner’s sentences, and they might find themselves feeling sympathetic for a system of ideas that they don’t even understand; and that’s how conservatism propagates itself. If it tells the truth, anyone who is intelligent and thoughtful turns one hundred eighty degrees and runs screaming; but if it lies, or is even just disingenuous, it can bring believers to the collection plate. This is also why Republicans and conservatives are against education and libraries. Those are places where people go to learn things and get smarter. If education and libraries are suppressed, then the Republicans and conservatives have a much easier time growing their ranks.
Conservatism is wrong about most things, but it should have the courage to stand up for its own ideas. Mr. Wehner has appropriated the ideas of some other system of thought. I’m not sure you’d call it liberalism, but it is most certainly not conservatism. That he tries to pass it off as conservatism is not just disingenuous—it’s outright lying; and it’s one of the many reasons that conservatives cannot be trusted.
No comments:
Post a Comment