The Historical Exceptionalism of American Conservatism
A fascinating thread on the topic of literature--particularly the works of William Shakespeare--and conservatism earlier this week left me thinking about how modern American conservatism is, actually, very different from what was understood as "conservative" two hundred years ago, and certainly different from "conservatives" as understood in Shakespeare's era.
The great questions of Shakespeare's era centered around the state's religious affiliations, the qualifications of the ideal monarch, and the tensions between decentralized feudal nobility and entrenched religious institutions on one side, and centralized royal power on the other. The engines of economic activity--the bourgeoisie, the creative artists of the courts, and other successful commoners were not held in high regard, and it was assumed, even in Shakespeare's most controversial plays, that to be of noble birth and to possess little wealth or ability was still better than to be of common birth and to possess great worldly talent or success. The battles of modern conservatism today would have seemed very far-fetched indeed to the Bard, who had little interest in the bourgeoisie save as comic relief(Antonio in The Merchant of Venice is a notable exception).
If we fast forward to the early modern era, around the time of America's founding, it becomes even clearer that modern day leftists and the celebrators of hereditary privilege and an entrenched nobility would find common ground in their disdainful views on the "low and vulgar" generators of wealth. The Burkean liberalism of the early modern period is the forefather of the conservatism of today: it celebrated private property rights and a stable social order to protect those rights, liberty to use one's talents as productively as possible, a respect for individual rights firmly grounded in Christianity, and a relationship with the transcendent that engaged the mind and body through personal faith. And yes, that meant a suspicion of Catholicism, Catholic-inspired Anglicanism and their cozy relationships with hereditary power. Of course, much like American Protestant conservatives today, Burke put aside his issues with the Catholic Church in the face of the universal enemy: the atheistic, nihilistic, destructive "egalitarianism" of the world's first leftist regime, Revolutionary France.
America was founded in this paleoliberal philosophy: with an emphasis on merit and excellence as the guarantor of property and wealth, a distrust of all hereditary or unearned power, a libertarian (initially Protestant) understanding of Christianity as the foundation of human dignity, and an exaltation of the bourgeoisie that has never been equaled in any other society. This was "liberal" in its age. The reason why American conservatism, unique in its liberal orientation, is now cast as "conservative" at all is that modern day conservatives have been forced to reconcile their differences and add various "defensive" planks to the philosophy by the depredations of the age. The old arguments between Catholics and Protestants pale against the new combined onslaught of militant secularism. Conservatives are now forced to defend institutions that they have often wished to reform or downsize(the police, the military, content censorship laws, religious institutions) due to the apparent leftist desire for a breakdown in Western culture, society, and civilization. There used to be a great conservative debate about the role of a permanent military and American involvement in foreign wars: that debate isn't really possible when leftists are trying to eliminate the need for national defense or sovereignty altogether. They are forced to pick fights that would have been unthinkable just fifty years ago.
Which gets me(admittedly in a long-winded fashion) to my question: does a reading of pre 20th century Western literature as "liberal" or "conservative" even make sense when modern American conservatism is so exceptional in the pantheon of philosophies historically considered "conservative?"
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Jun '10
Re: The Historical Exceptionalism of American Conservatism
Maybe so, if you define what you mean by conservatism. I just finished reading Benjamin Wiker's 10 Books Every Conservative Must Read, and the majority of the books he recommends are pre-20th century, starting with Aristotle. The first four books that he recommends are selected specifically to answer the question, "Just What Exactly is Conservatism?" In the last section he recommends three literary works, Shakespeare's The Tempest, Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, and Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, which span the centuries. He finishes the book by calling Atlas Shrugged a conservative impostor, spending some time going into Ayn Rand's philosophy and how it drastically differs from Dr. Wiker's definition of conservatism.
Nov '10
Re: The Historical Exceptionalism of American Conservatism
Well, first thank you. What a fine exposition of modern conservatism and its roots. To answer your question:
While there may be other reasons, perhaps reading those great works or, more precisely, claiming those artists, as conservative is justified in that they are integral to the rich Western cultural heritage that conservatives cherish. Perhaps conservatives are just trying to make the point that modern, rabid, secular leftism is so antithetical to Western culture (likely because so much of it was influenced or inspired by Christianity) that it is abominable to think of much of that Western heritage as anything other than conservative (classically liberal)... except maybe Godwin, Rousseau, & Marx, they can have them.
This is just speculation on my part, though.
Good post. Thanks.
Nov '10
Re: The Historical Exceptionalism of American Conservatism
Interesting essay. I'd say, however, that it's mistaken to say that the "essence" of American conservatism is built upon Burke. In fact, Burke is pretty marginal to American conservatism. Even Harvey Mansfield -- who some people see as not really a Straussian and more as some kind of quasi-Burkean -- says this explicitly in his 3 hour C-SPAN interview from 2005. (It's available online -- not time to find right now). Burkeanism is about gradualism. (Would have to expand on that later). Such gradualism actually fits well, ultimately, with Progressivism and Historicism.
Woodrow Wilson was a great admirer of Burke. Wilson: a hybrid of Burke-Hegel-Darwin.
See especially Leo Strauss's making mince-meat of Burke at the close of Natural Right and History.
I don't mean to totally reject Burke. He's magnificent in many ways. He was pefrectly right in being appalled by the French Revolution, and he predicted its bloodiness. And a great prose-stylist.
Re: The Historical Exceptionalism of American Conservatism
Those inclined to dismiss Edmund Burke should recall to mind his support of the American colonists in the 1760s and early 1770s. What was workable in America he thought unworkable in France -- and events suggest that his facility for discrimination was sound. I do not think it appropriate to blame Woodrow Wilson on Burke. Nor do I think it proper to suppose Leo Strauss hostile to Burke.
The political approach that was appropriate in Britain in the wake of 1789 may not be transferable to the United States. But, then again, the political approach that was appropriate in the American colonies in 1776 may not be transferable . . . anywhere else. There is no substitute for prudence, as Burke and Strauss knew better than we can easily imagine.
The real question that we have to face is what prudence dictates in our current situation. I am struck by the fact that those adhering to the school of thought most inclined ostentatiously to turn its back on Burke are counseling us now to make our peace with the welfare state.
Edited on Nov 21, 2011 at 3:23pmApr '11
Re: The Historical Exceptionalism of American Conservatism
I agree with this. If you read debates on the early state constitutions, for instance, you'll find them frequently featuring heavy references to Burke, as with the Articles of Confederation. The preference for the legislature over the executive, and for a terribly weak judicial branch seems to have been heavily influence by his writings. Fashion moves away from him in the late 1790s, and the Whig party (US) when it grows up is much less connected to his ideas, but he remains important.
Apr '11
Re: The Historical Exceptionalism of American Conservatism
I don't think I'm with you on the unimportance of the bourgeois in Shakespeare. A lot of his plays have bourgeois major characters, while still being focused on the aristocracy or royalty, and there are several that are almost exclusively bourgeois; Timon of Athens is my favorite of these, but The Merry Wives of Windsor, and The Comedy of Errors are pretty solidly bourgeois, and The Taming of the Shrew only has one lord (Kate's father). None of these are as unkind as the treatment of the craftsmen in a Midsummer Night's Dream, which is what I imagine you refer to.
Marx is quite helpful for the shift in "Conservative". When Shakespeare writes, the revolutionary class is still the aristocracy, struggling for dominance over the King. Over the next century, the struggle moves down a notch, and by the end of the century after that that the "left" of the French assembly, from which we get our political labels, was the bourgeois opposing the "right", aristocracy. 50 years later and the left's focus is on involving the "workers", so the liberal left of the French revolution, Bastiat et. al., are often conservatives today.
Jan '11
Re: The Historical Exceptionalism of American Conservatism
The concepts of liberal and conservative have been corrupted beyond useful meaning, I think. Moreover, libertarian confounds the matter further for me as a more or less casual observer of political/social trending. I delved into the distinctions after watching/listening to a Peter Robinson conversation with Milton Friedman on that very matter. Friedman counted himself a liberal, in the original usage of the term, I thought I had a reasonable grasp of the differences, but reading the foregoing postings, I see I have much more work ahead of me.
Nov '10
Re: The Historical Exceptionalism of American Conservatism
Writing on Burkean conservatism, Charles Kesler -- one of my main teachers; Uncommon Knowledge interview here -- writes:
"[N]one of these thoughtful American statesmen [i.e., the American Founders] endorsed the quasi-Burkean love of prescription, inequality, and the Romantic-organic view of society that Kirk himself embraced. Kirk’s conservatism, therefore, was never peculiarly American. It was consciously Anglo-American; more specifically, it took Burke’s useful fiction that the British Constitution had been a product of slow evolutionary growth and adaptation, and applied the nostrum to America, whose Revolution then became a "conservative restoration of colonial prerogatives." So much for the shot heard ’round the world! Until about 1774, Americans had in fact argued in favor of various conservative adaptations of the British Constitution to colonial conditions; but from 1776 on, they insisted on new, emphatically republican constitutions of their own devising, based on the unalienable or natural rights of man."
Emphasis mine. More here.
Aug '10
Re: The Historical Exceptionalism of American Conservatism
Robert Lux:
"[N]one of these thoughtful American statesmen [i.e., the American Founders] endorsed the quasi-Burkean love of prescription, inequality, and the Romantic-organic view of society that Kirk himself embraced.
Yeah, I sort of wonder what Kirk was all about myself sometimes. Nice to know I'm in good company.
Nov '10
Re: The Historical Exceptionalism of American Conservatism
There's something to which my mind always recurs which has for me long encapsulated the enormous problems with placing too great an emphasis upon Burke, or with seeing Burke as the fons et origo of American conservatism: Jonah Goldberg, in an explicit reference to Burke, gradualism and adaptation, telling Andrew Sullivan with respect to same-sex marriage, "Not yet, Andrew. Not yet." This was in NRO sometime about 2002. But then I think the dissolution of the American family is a far deeper problem than the economic (the latter being as horrible as it is), for reasons I've articulated here.
Aug '10
Re: The Historical Exceptionalism of American Conservatism
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
Yeah, I sort of wonder what Kirk was all about myself sometimes. Nice to know I'm in good company.
I mean, anyone besides me find Kirk's six "canons" of conservatism... a little weird in places? Only related to American conservativism, but hardly identical to it?
1) Belief in transcendent order (God or at least immutable nature). Check.
2) Affection for the varieties and mysteries of human experience. Check.
3) Belief that society requires orders or classes. Why? I mean, what is the good in this belief that isn't already covered in principles 1 and 2?
4) Belief that property and freedom are linked. Sure.
5) Faith in custom, convention, and prescription. Umm... depends. It's a good bet that custom has something behind it, but I wouldn't call that faith in custom. And some customs are just bad.
6) Belief in prudence and tying innovation to tradition. Sure. On the other hand, just because an innovation can be tied to tradition doesn't make that innovation good.
Also, it's just bizarre to an American have a list supposedly defining conservatism that does not explicitly mention limiting the size and scope of government, even if the limitations could be somehow deduced from other elements of the list.
Edited on Nov 21, 2011 at 9:07pmAug '11
Re: The Historical Exceptionalism of American Conservatism
A wonderful post.
"...does a reading of pre 20th century Western literature as "liberal" or "conservative" even make sense when modern American conservatism is so exceptional in the pantheon of philosophies historically considered "conservative."
I don't think it makes sense primarily because until the progressive era, liberal was a term derived from Lockean thinking. I am with Friedman on that. What Friedman, and to some extent Hayek, tended to overlook perhaps because they were economists, is that the Lockean liberalism also carried with it what we now think of as cultural conservatism. It valued institutions like family and church. It was opposed to inherited classes. Unlike Burke's conservatism, however, it was committed to revolution when government went beyond its just powers. It held to a firm doctrine of individual human rights.
I think modern American conservatives are conservative in that they wish to go back toward what Hartz called the Lockean consensus. It was always a bourgeois consensus based on notions of bourgeois virtues, individual liberty given by God, and limited government.
Progressives like Hartz see that Lockean consensus as a symptom of the arrested development of Americans. In this case, I am all for arrested development.
Mar '11
Re: The Historical Exceptionalism of American Conservatism
cbc:
Progressives like Hartz see that Lockean consensus as a symptom of the arrested development of Americans. In this case, I am all for arrested development.
It is sad how much this conversation is influenced by the opposition. Conservatives are only conservative because so-called progressives, after destroying the term progressive, moved on to usurp the term liberal.
I agree with Coolidge and his thoughts on "progressives". The secular left, when it comes right down to it, really wants an aristocracy of technocrats (experts). Once labeled an expert your words carries the weight of God, well that is if you believed in Him.
As amusing as it is to think about what we call conservatism today and the likes of Shakespeare, it is really anachronistic to do so, and ultimately leads to more confusion--which I believe is the reason the leftists took the moniker liberal in the first place.
Jun '10
Re: The Historical Exceptionalism of American Conservatism
Regardless of the history, it's seems important to point out that the present labels are correct for America: conservative = hearkening back to our founding principles; liberal = given to new ideas about the suitability of the founding principles to present and future circumstances.
If you do this for Europe, of course, you find conservatives hearkening back to some form of autocracy or rule by the nobility. Whereas liberals look more like Americans.
But, the terms leftist and Marxist have the same meaning in both regions = anti-Americanism = anti-democracy = anti-freedom = anti-secret-ballots = pro-terrorist (outside of Communist countries) = pro-state-control-of-media, etc.
Re: The Historical Exceptionalism of American Conservatism
Larry Koler: Regardless of the history, it's seems important to point out that the present labels are correct for America: conservative = hearkening back to our founding principles; liberal = given to new ideas about the suitability of the founding principles to present and future circumstances.
If you do this for Europe, of course, you find conservatives hearkening back to some form of autocracy or rule by the nobility. Whereas liberals look more like Americans.
But I really don't think so. Margaret Thatcher was a conservative and she looked to America, rather than hearkening to some fading British hierarchical structure. She even said that the Tories of today would be the Whigs of yesterday. I think that at least in the West, we have replaced autocracies and noblities with media-appointed elites who find it more important to control the culture than to control the people and whose method is to replace existing culture with the new "utopia" of complete equality. We don't live in political tyranny so much as cultural tyranny. Of course, with die hard Marxists, we may see Cultural Revolutions as well.
Jun '10
Re: The Historical Exceptionalism of American Conservatism
Vasant Ramachandran
But I really don't think so. Margaret Thatcher was a conservative and she looked to America, rather than hearkening to some fading British hierarchical structure. She even said that the Tories of today would be the Whigs of yesterday. I think that at least in the West, we have replaced autocracies and noblities with media-appointed elites who find it more important to control the culture than to control the people and whose method is to replace existing culture with the new "utopia" of complete equality. We don't live in political tyranny so much as cultural tyranny. Of course, with die hard Marxists, we may see Cultural Revolutions as well.
I was talking more definitionally. I have talked to many Europeans who despise the term "conservative" because it so evokes images of royalists and stodgy people with some claim to a title or elite family connections. With the term "liberal" I think you might be right that it's more complicated.
We have definitely replaced the nobility caste with elites who hate this country and are not "of" this country really. This is fairly new -- just since WW II.
Edit: Great Post, Vasant. Thanks.
Edited on Nov 22, 2011 at 2:08pmApr '11
Re: The Historical Exceptionalism of American Conservatism
Vasant Ramachandran
But I really don't think so. Margaret Thatcher was a conservative and she looked to America, rather than hearkening to some fading British hierarchical structure. She even said that the Tories of today would be the Whigs of yesterday. I think that at least in the West, we have replaced autocracies and noblities with media-appointed elites who find it more important to control the culture than to control the people and whose method is to replace existing culture with the new "utopia" of complete equality. We don't live in political tyranny so much as cultural tyranny. Of course, with die hard Marxists, we may see Cultural Revolutions as well.
Thatcher's not unusual in that. Talk to most right wing Tories today and they'll associate more with C19 Liberals than Tories, and with C18 Whigs. Dan Hannan is particularly keen on talking about this, but it's the dominant view.
Wrt "the west" and media appointed elites, I don't think that's true in the relatively undemocratic UK. Britain's ruling bureaucracies are more anonymous and tied to academia than the media. Media appointed elites would be an improvement.