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Why ‘Small Government’ Isn’t Enough
About a year ago, I generated some controversy around here with a series of threads on something I called “virtue conservatism.” Originally, I was merely looking for a new name for what we now call “social conservatism.” Over the course of the discussion, it became clear that this was about more than just branding. The central idea, however, is that conservatism needs to be about more than just beating back the administrative state. Small government principles are important, particularly in the realm of policy, but our vision needs to be more substantive that. And that broader vision should be evident in our rhetoric and our culture.
After that rather interesting conversation, I distilled some of my thoughts in a longish essay. It got sidetracked several times, and finally made it into print just today! But since the piece was very much inspired by conversations here at Ricochet, I thought I would post it with my thanks, and also invite commentary (or criticism!) from anyone who is interested. The title is: Slaying the Hydra: Can Virtue Heal the American Right?
Here’s the central metaphor, which is entirely Ricochet-inspired:
In Greek mythology, the hydra is a large reptilian beast with multiple serpentine heads. If one head is severed, two more grow in its place. A warrior intent on slaying the hydra would understandably tend to fixate on whichever head was actively threatening to devour him, but ultimately this was not a recipe for victory. In order to destroy the beast, it is necessary to deal with the monster in its totality.
The modern administrative state and our militant secular culture are like two heads of a single hydra. The modern state is a kind of secular church, wherein secular progressives pursue the only kind of fulfillment they think possible for humankind. The size and intrusiveness of the modern state mirror the strength and aggression of our secular culture. But the state also helps to create optimal conditions for the further entrenchment of secular ideals, by undermining natural community and fostering vice. It saps the strength and natural resources of its citizens, until they are finally unable to resist its incursions on their liberty.
In short, the state and its supportive culture are part of a single whole. Neither can be killed while the other lives, and by fixating too wholly on one, we risk leaving the other to build in strength, ultimately paving the way for a resurgence of both.
Published in Culture, Politics
How is calling for smaller government at odds with calling for stronger families and communities? One is a political matter (size of government) another is a social matter (strong families and mediating institutions). What the heck is our disagreement here? Have I ever stated “Hey lets get the government small and destroy families and churches!!!”
No. They are each as important as each other, but when government is so big as to make family and community irrelevant there is no way for them to thrive.
Again, who is arguing against this?
Really? I hear it all the time. It’s just that when I hear it, it is coming from the left. Their vision of “virtue” is more based on economics. They concern themselves with the sin of greed, rather than the sin of lust which seems to occupy your attention. But their argument is identical to yours. They want to use the state to impose their version of virtue on everyone else. And they think of themselves as being just as virtuous as you do. And I think of you both as being (potentially) just as dangerous as each other, except that the left is much better at it than you are.
To Tom as well–you cannot claim to support stronger families and redefinition of marriage, an idea that was pushed by the left and government in the form of judges. We have to have an idea of what virtue is and defend it, not necessarily by heavy-handed laws, but by defending basic and foundational things that keep everything in place, like the definitions of marriage and life. This is what neither of you seem to understand.
I don’t think this is true. They employ a Marxist paradigm in their pursuit of power. Sure, some of the rank and file believe some of that stuff, but for the bigger fish like the Clintons, it’s about power. They will do and say whatever they need to to further the Kingdom of Clinton. That’s not true for conservatives. We are genuinely interested in keeping a foundation of family, community and faith that is outside government so that we can maximize freedom, but we can only do so if we have an idea about what constitutes the foundation.
Rachel,
I’ll admit that you may be right that a small state requires certain a priori virtues of its citizens, but nothing you’ve written in “Slaying the Hydra” has convinced me. I came away from it much as I’ve come away from almost any piece or comment by either you or Merina (or anyone who shares your worldview):
1) I suspect that anyone who already agrees with you will see what you’ve written as making an argument that supports your claim, but that’s because all the assertions that are pieces of that argument are encapsulations of more fundamental arguments you and they have already wrestled with and settled earlier and elsewhere. And, everything else I’ve ever read or heard about a free nation requiring virtue of its citizens has been of the same nature: a bag of unsupported assertions. I’ve never seen the arguments supporting those assertions. My current view is that, if the nation is free, in some libertarian sense, people, to survive, will develop the virtue that that requires of them. I.e., the virtue will follow the liberty.
2 So, the feeling I get when reading most of what you write is that you and I are speaking different languages; the sets of our ideational categories are orthogonal one to another.
That’s all FYI; you can do with it what you will.
There’s also one other (serious) disagreement going on that deserves some exploration.
In general, I think there’s a presumption among libertarians — which I share — that if you put the state in its rightful place and take away the perverse incentives, things will largely set to right in reasonably short order. That is, once we stop shielding people from the consequences of their actions, they’ll tend to make better ones.
In contrast, social conservatives tend to think that we can’t remove the state until things are set back to order, at least more to order than they are now. This is because they think the libertarians underestimate the consequences of taking away the controls, that their removal will cause lasting damage to civil society, and that the temptations of vice are self-perpetuating.
I don’t think either approach is always correct, though my general preference is probably pretty clear.
You keep making this statement but people quite simply disagree with you. Your arguments haven’t been persuasive enough, nor is the empirical evidence on your side.
Yes, you can.
I understand that you and many others think that marriage is doomed if its civil version is not explicitly heterosexual, but I and others think you’re overestimating its importance.
As Arizona Patriot’s suggested platform shows, there are lot of substantive, important reforms to be made regarding marriage and family law that has nothing to do with SSM. Quite a lot of it I’d support, too, and I doubt I’m alone on that.
Yes, and this is accomplished, in my view, by first having a small state so individuals have to bear the consequences of their own actions.
The founders certainly thought that a virtuous citizenry was necessary for their experiment to succeed. They were smarter than any of us I’ll warrant.
It’s all about the underlying assumptions and the logic of genderless marriage. But I have noticed that recognizing the importance of the part of the iceberg below the surface is not the strong suit of libertarians.
In this, Merina, I think you are also like the left. They do not credit their ideological opponents with good faith. Whoever disagrees with them, they deem to be greedy, venal, hateful, and evil. That is what comes from the absolute conviction that you have a monopoly on virtue.
I find it best to believe that your opponent is never a villain in his own eyes.
Needlessly ad hominem. We simply don’t share those assumptions nor follow your logic.
I love these patriotic quotes, but this is a dangerous one to throw around this thread.
Recall that many of the founders were slave owners, killing each other in the street over disagreements was sanctioned, and adultery – including with one’s slaves – wasn’t unheard of. The thought of women writing articles in public and voting were tantamount to treason.
We tend to romanticize our founding as some Victorian post card, but the reality is those were very hard scrabble times with some very backward things considered virtuous.
The virtue the founders spoke of had much to do with property rights and individual liberty and if that individual liberty included owning other people with women confined to the kitchen, so be it.
Our nation is of course much better because of emancipation and the suffrage movement, but note that those movements lifted previous restrictions thereby reducing the reach and restriction of government and more closely aligning with everyone’s God given rights.
Repeating this assertion isn’t increasing my understanding or convincing me. Will I find an argument supporting your assertion in, say, Edmund Burke? Is that where I should look?
I think it is interesting that Marxists also claimed that once the power of the state had been used to set right the inequities of society, the state would wither away. Unfortunately, it just never works out that way. Once you rely on the power of the state to impose “virtue,” or “justice,” or “liberty, fraternity and equality,” the power of the state just grows. Like bringing in cats to chase away the mice, and then bringing in wolves to chase away the cats, and then bringing in mountain lions…
They did and were. So. “Argument” from authority?
I think you missed a key point of Rachel’s position: The considerable degree to which virtue is cultivated by family, church, neighborhood, etc.–not by government.
Yes, but no one here really disagrees with that. So I go back to Tom’s original comment: where exactly do we go from here? Rachel seems to be advocating for…something…I just can’t quite figure out what it is beyond “Family and social institutions are good and we should support them.”
In comment 94, Merina says, “We have to have an idea of what virtue is and defend it, not necessarily by heavy-handed laws, but by defending basic and foundational things that keep everything in place, like the definitions of marriage and life.”
See the weasel words, “not necessarily”? That means to me that she’s leaving open a back door to state control, if VirtuCons conclude they can’t get what they want by leaving people alone.
Yes.
“Small Government Isn’t Enough”
But it’s, like, 85-90% of enough. Can we do that first and then use our rediscovered virtue to mop up the leftovers?
Merina: “But the Brits are not going to shrink government because they don’t have nearly the concept of respect for family, religion and civil society that Americans do…”
Over the last five years the Brits have shrunk the size of their government. Maybe not to levels we might prefer, but Cameron, for all his squishiness, has managed to achieve a level of success at shrinking government that no American conservative politician has been able to come close to.
As I’ve said on previous posts on the subject, I would be absolutely delighted for America to embrace virtue conservatism. Virtue, by definition, cannot be compelled. Virtue conservatives who took the term seriously would be libertarians.
Merina,
You keep making statements which are factually incorrect. I am assuming, based on your comments, you believe British conservatives are ‘less conservative’ than American conservatives because the Brits don’t have a Christian conservative movement.
It’s for this reason you make the ridiculous assertion:
It’s that ‘holier than thou’ mindset that cause the British and many Americans to view the Republican party as suspect.
Most Conservatives (American and British) believe in limited government which means removing government from our pockets and our bedrooms. Outside of church and synagogue we don’t want to be preached to, especially by the most corrupt among us, politicians.
But we can protect ourselves from the vice of others. Government is a legitimate component of civil society. When is use of government justified in this manner (ie protection from vice of others)? That’s a political decision based on unprovable assumptions. Sometimes the line between these two approaches (imposition vs protection) is blurred, for sure, but there remains a line nonetheless. Something, I think, which distinguishes us from the left who does seem more interested in compelling virtue than protecting from vice.
It would be one thing if Rachel were suggesting that we eschew family, religion, and community in favor of heavy government regulation, but I don’t think she’s suggesting that.
Only to the point where you are harmed. A drunk person crashing his car into your house isn’t a reason to ban alcohol or cars, it is a reason to ban drunk driving.
In your opinion, you mean. Also, that word “harm” for many people encompasses the indirect and indefinite.
It’s a political decision, IOW. The best we can hope is to constrain the political process in productive ways or at least ways that might minimize or head off inevitable overreach. Things like participatory government, subsidiarity, federalism, self-interest, faction, reason, and the ultimate backstop of violence.
Oh, and a virtuous citizenry chief among the methods for constraining the government component.
The kind of fuzzy thinking that defines harm beyond the basic definition of causing physical harm to another individual is how we arrived at the current state were in.
Does it depend of what he definition of is is?