Where Conservatism Needs to Go

'Tis the season to think aloud about the future of the conservative moment, and most seem to agree that some change is needed, even if what is needed still eludes consensus. But, that hip young conservative thinker, Douthat, puts it well:

This problem is not, repeat not, a matter of conservatives needing to abandon their core convictions in order to win elections, as right-of-center reformers are often accused of doing. Rather, it's a matter of conservatives needing to apply their core convictions to questions like "how do we mitigate the worst effects of climate change?" and "how do we modernize our infrastructure?" and "how do we encourage excellence and competition within our public school bureaucracy?" instead of just letting liberals completely monopolize these debates, while the Right talks about porkbusting and not much else.

Conservatism, to me, is about being prudent, weighing evidence, and worrying about unforeseen consequences before embarking on a course of action. These principles derive from a recognition that human reason is fallible, that "majority think" is not the same as being right, and that rash actions are usually far more dangerous than carefully considered ones. What passes for conservatism now, however, is fossilized sloganeering that simply ignores mounting evidence contrary to long-held beliefs.

On global warming, for example, a healthy skepticism was a reasonable reaction back when scientific evidence in favor of this phenomenon wasn't quite as robust as it is now. Today, many conservatives spend their energies denying that climate change even is, as it were. Therefore, there is no conservative input into the real issue, which is, what, if anything, should we and the government do about it. The left mostly begins from the assumption that, of course, the government ought to step in and fix it, like require lower emissions, create green technologies, etc. If, as Douthat says, conservatives discussed ways of applying their core principles to this issue, they might offer a range of conservative solutions, including market-oriented ideas, that do not automatically assume that government will take charge and fix this thing. So long as conservatives stay in denial-land, all they accomplish is to appear anti-evidence and anti-intellectual. Without conservative participation, we all lose when the only solutions we talk about are what government is going to do about this or that problem.