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.

On Anti-Intellectualism (Part 0)

New York Times Columnist, David Brooks, wrote last week that the Republican Party has become the Party of anti-intellectualism, disdaining sophisticated thinking, and generally operating from gut instinct. Brooks highlighted Sarah Palin as emblematic of this mode of thinking, calling her a "fatal cancer to the Republican Party." The remarkable thing about all this is that Brooks is known (or at least, was known) as a conservative--I like to call him and people like George Will and Peggy Noonan old school conservatives, or, "paleoconservatives"--and his words sparked discussion and the closest thing to self-examination that the conservative movement has experienced in some time.

This anti-intellectual mindset scorns "elitism" and praises the wisdom of everyday "Joe six pack" as the antidote to everything that ails America. And it has manifested itself recently in some truly absurd ways: for instance, the "debate" about how to pronounce the names of Iraq, Iran, and Pakistan. Now, I normally do not begrudge those that habitually say "Eye-raq", "Eye-ran", and "Pack-istan", because I believe in freedom of accent. But when some take the time to argue that to pronounce these (correctly) as "Ee-rahq", "Ee-rahn", and "Pahk-istahn" is being "ostentatiously exotic" and "annoying", I find this dismaying. Dismaying because, to paraphrase something George Will said once, people like these think it is clever to think this way.

As David Brooks says, "Modern conservatism began as a movement of dissident intellectuals." And now, (neo-)conservatives value unsophistication as authenticity. To be fair, politicians have given us plenty of reasons to question their sincerity, but is electing "Joe six pack" really the solution?

There are many tangents I can take on this subject:

• Where American conservatism goes from here (please, let us save it from itself);
• A discussion of how the founding fathers would have been aghast at this mindset (those bloody elitists);
• A comparison to sports (because everything has an analogy to sports); and,
  
• A comparative analysis of anti-intellectualism around the world.
  

Maybe I will write about those some other time, but the thought that really strikes me for now is that we've seen this movie before, in the form of religious anti-intellectualism, specifically in Christianity. My wife (an Episcopal priest and a hundred times smarter than I am) has pondered this issue in her own academic and spiritual journey. By some strange coincidence, and if I may make a horribly broad generalization, it appears that in America there is some demographic overlap between the political and religious anti-intellectual groups. This is what I want to discuss, and will attempt to do so in parts over the next few weeks. Hopefully my wife will guest-write some posts (hint, hint) because I will probably end up paraphrasing what she's told me anyway. If you or someone you know has thoughts on the subject, please send them my way and I will post them here as well.