Morality & Politics
Where in the World
Are We Going?
By Claes G. Ryn
The legacy of the Cold War and the need to resist communism can
only partially explain why so many American so-called conservatives have
foreign policy attitudes that are not conservative in any meaningful
historical or philosophical sense. They assume that to be conservative
is to be always hawkish and prone to intervention. America, many
“conservatives” assert, is an “exceptional nation” called to promote
“American values” in the world, by military means whenever needed. But
such thinking is characteristic not of conservatism but of radical
ideological movements for which the French Jacobins are a prototype.
According to the militant ideologies, the world should be made to
conform to the dictates of Righteous Power. At the 2006 national meeting
of the Philadelphia Society, Claes Ryn, a former president of the
Society, discussed the anomaly that the term “conservatism” should be
attached to a militant ideological spirit or to a primitive
nationalistic desire to “kick butt.” Ryn's 2006 remarks are
republished here because they are relevant to sorting out what is what
in current public debate and addressing the larger moral and political
principles involved. Most generally, the article sketches the contrast
between a conservative and an ideological temperament. Recent opinion
surveys indicate that a majority of
Americans, now including approximately half of Republican voters, are
disinclined to foreign
policy interventionism.
Within the so-called American conservative movement intellectual and
political confusion are today rampant. Hence the following attempt to
sort out what is what.
First of all, a conservative is acutely aware of the flawed nature of
man. The capacity of human reason is limited. Our existence is
ultimately a great mystery. Conservatives recognize that for these
reasons we need the best of the human heritage to help guide us.
The Jacobin suffers from no such humility. Who needs history when
there are universal principles that are also self-evident? It’s all so
clear. Traditions are but historical accidents, props for old elites
that should be replaced by the enlightened and virtuous, people like
him. Leo Strauss and his disciples have taught us to disdain “the
ancestral” and heed only principles of reason.
Conservatives and Jacobins differ profoundly on what ultimately
commands our loyalty. Conservatives stand in awe of a higher power. The
ancient Greeks spoke of it as the good, the true and the beautiful.
Others refer to it as the will of God. This higher reality is, in any
case, not some ideological blueprint. To feel obligated to look for and
to do the right thing is not the same as to know just what it is in
particular circumstances. The complexity and unpredictability of life
disincline the conservatives to sweeping, categorical assertions.
The Jacobin is a true believer. He has access to universal
principles, you see, and they demand “moral clarity.” You are either for
his principles, which makes you virtuous, or you are against them,
which makes you evil. It’s all so clear.
To have unquestioning faith in one’s own moral superiority is for
Christians the cardinal sin. Only a profoundly conceited person could
think that for another to oppose him is by definition morally perverse.
But the Jacobin assumes a right to have his way. Behind his moralism
hides a desire to dominate. The hesitation or trepidation that may
trouble men of conscience do not deter him. The will to power silences
all doubt.
For the conservative, the universal imperative that binds human
beings does not announce its purpose in simple, declaratory statements.
How, then, does one discern its demands? Sometimes only with difficulty.
Only through effort can the good or true or beautiful be discovered,
and they must be realized differently in different historical
circumstances. The same universal values have diverse manifestations.
Some of the concrete instantiations of universality take us by surprise.
Because there is no simple roadmap to good, human beings need freedom
and imagination to find it. Universality has nothing to do with
uniformity.
For the Jacobins, ahistorical, ideological precepts define universality, and these demand conformity. Comply with them, or else.
The conservative is attracted to both universality and diversity,
because the two do, in a sense, need each other. He does not cherish
diversity for its own sake, for much of the diversity in the world
offends all higher values, but diversity of another type is how
universality comes alive in the infinite variety of individuals and
circumstances.
Because universality manifests itself variously, the conservative is
no narrow-minded nationalist. He is a cosmopolitan. This does not mean
that he is a free floater, at home everywhere and nowhere. That
describes the Jacobin ideologue.
The conservative is a patriot, deeply rooted in the best of his own
heritage. It is because he is so attached to what is most admirable in
his own culture that he can understand and appreciate corresponding
achievements in other cultures. He is able to find in different places
variations on a common human theme. The culturally distinctive
contributions of other peoples deepen and enrich his awareness of
goodness, truth and beauty.
The Jacobin is not interested in diversity, only in imposing his
blueprint. What history happens to have thrown up is just an obstacle to
what ought to be. Only what is “simply right” deserves respect. It’s
all so obvious.
Conservatives see in Jacobin principles a hair-raising obliviousness
of life’s complexity. To implement such principles may devastate a
society. A society may be wholly unsuited or unprepared for changes
demanded of it. So what, say America’s neo-Jacobins. We need moral
clarity. What was there before does not matter. “Democracy” must take
its place. One model fits all. To ensure a democratic world, America
must establish armed and uncontested world supremacy.
The will to power is here bursting at the seams. What argument could
be better for placing enormous power in the hands of the neo-Jacobins
than a grandiose scheme for remaking the world? At lunch yesterday we
got to hear [from Max Boot] the pure, undiluted neo-Jacobin message.
All Jacobins warn of the Enemy with a capital “E.” The Enemy is the
embodiment of evil, a force with which no compromise is possible. For
the American neo-Jacobins the Enemy is Terrorism with a capital “T.”
Though the only superpower, America must be in a permanent state of
emergency, be armed to the teeth and relentlessly pursue the Enemy.
One current assumption about conservatives is nothing less than
weird: that they are hawks, always looking for prey and always bullying.
Conservatives are in reality normally doves, looking for ways to settle
conflicts peacefully. They view war differently from neo-Jacobin
desk-warriors. The suffering and destruction of war are frightful
realities involving actual human beings. War is the very last resort.
Conservatives harbor no illusions about the international arena. Bad
people behave badly. So conservatives want to be prepared to handle
threats to their own society and civilization or to international peace.
But their normal way of interacting with other peoples is to try to
defuse conflict and to pursue a common human ground. This is the
cosmopolitan way.
In domestic affairs, American conservatives have always feared
unlimited power, partly because of their belief in original sin. Fallen
creatures must be restrained by law. Government must be limited and
decentralized, hence the separation of powers and federalism.
The sprit of constitutionalism forms the core of the American
political tradition. Unchecked power is an invitation to tyranny. The
framers even wanted the U.S. Congress, which was to be the preeminent
body of the national government, to have divided powers. Needless to say
they disdained democracy.
Jacobins see no need for restraints on virtuous power. Today American
neo-Jacobins are promoting presidential ascendancy and great leeway for
the executive. Old restraints and liberties must yield to the needs of
the virtuous national security state.
Neo-Jacobins undermine American constitutionalism by radically
redefining its meaning. They have little loyalty towards the culturally
distinctive, historically evolved America. This country, neo-Jacobins
assert, represents a sharp break with the past. They love to speak of
the “Founding,” because that term suggests that America does not have
historical origins but emerged afresh from enlightened minds. Harry
Jaffa and others insist that to celebrate America is to celebrate
radical innovation and revolution.
Conservatives cherish local autonomy and strong communities. As far
as possible people should be able to shape their own lives, partly
because the good life has to be lived differently in different
circumstances. Jacobins resist anything that might interfere with
ideological homogeneity. Individual and local autonomy could, they
think, so easily get out of hand.
It should be obvious that, due in large part to barely masked
neo-Jacobinism, American conservatism has in the last few decades been
turned virtually inside out. In 1952 many conservatives regarded Dwight
D. Eisenhower as too “liberal” because he was not willing to dismantle
the New Deal. He would only prune it. Today, in all but rhetoric, people
calling themselves conservatives accept a vastly larger and more
intrusive central government. Under the current allegedly conservative
president [George W. Bush] alone the federal government has expanded [as
of 2006] by 25%. Yet representatives of the so-called conservative
movement proceed as if nothing had happened and absurdly celebrate
“triumphs of conservatism.”
Only a major intellectual or moral flaw in American conservatism
could have made so many susceptible to the neo-Jacobin bug. Many who
caught it were myopically preoccupied with practical politics and
Republican partisanship. They lacked historical perspective and
philosophical discernment. Others dimly recognized what was happening
but went along to reap financial rewards and advance careers. They
concealed almost from themselves that they had become hired guns
advocating the positions expected of them. Both groups made alliances
that will prove compromising. Historians will wonder how so many could
have been so easily swayed and manipulated.
Today the utopianism, recklessness, cynicism and sheer incompetence
of the neo-Jacobins are becoming obvious. Many of their fellow-travelers
are trying to save what remains of their reputations by jumping ship.
Intellectually challenged supernationalists just raise their voices and
call critics unpatriotic. As for the neo-Jacobins themselves, they are
blameless. It is those who implemented their policies who should be
blamed. They didn’t do it right.
The neo-Jacobin virus should have been flushed out long ago.
Claes G. Ryn is professor of politics at the Catholic University of America, chairman of the National Humanities Institute, editor of Humanitas, and president of the Academy of Philosophy and Letters.
