Why my criticisms of Republicans and neocons can go nowhere

While I’m busy criticizing mainstream conservatives for their delusory liberalism, an influential and established voice of the Democratic party, The Daily Kos, defends Iran as a model country with peaceful intentions, and lets on that Israel is a uniquely dangerous country.

As long as the Democratic party is a radical left party siding with Third-World tyrannies against America and Israel, the great mass of conservatives will continue to huddle together under any plausible “conservative” banner, no matter how liberal it really is, in order to defend America against this evil. One result is that my traditionalist argument that conservatives and Repubicans are too liberal and need to become truly conservative can never gain a foothold. It is the reason why people like Robert Spencer and Melanie Phillips react with such inordinate hostility when I point out the liberal element in their thought. Since they’re on the front lines fighting the anti-Western left and anti-Western Islam and are constantly being attacked as right-wing anti-Muslim bigots, in their own minds they are as far right as anyone could be. The notion that they themselves are too liberal strikes them as ridiculous, totally off the wall, and discredits me in their eyes. It’s much the same with supporters of Bush’s Iraq policy. They think that to support the export of democracy to Third-World countries is to be as right-wing as anyone could possibly be; after all, doesn’t the left constantly call Bush a fascist? They cannot take in the idea that Bush’s policy is liberal, and so they remain closed to the idea that we need a genuinely conservative policy of national and civilizational defense.

It is the case that the left by going so far left has moved the liberal center to the left, and has moved the so-called right to what was once the liberal center. (By liberal center I mean central in relation to liberalism, not central in relation to reality.) The only way this situation can end is if conservatives stop letting their fear of the left be the main springboard of their politics, and form a politics based on a positive conservative vision of the good, rather than on a horrified reaction to the left, no matter how justified such a reaction may be. But I see little chance of this happening. History / Iraq / current American politics remains a nightmare from which I am trying to awaken.

- end of initial entry -

Stuart S. writes:

Very interesting and seemingly introspective post from you on VFR this morning.

I welcome it, since it goes directly to the gist of what I was trying to say to you in our correspondence several months ago.

Phillips and Spencer ARE on the front lines in a way you are not. As good and worthy as your ideas are, there is something about how you respond to those who are doing important work, however ultimately beset by liberalism they may be, that is off-putting at best. At worst, it suggests you think you can get from “here” (trying to awaken from the nightmare of history/Iraq/ and American politics) to “there” (your definition of a traditional American/Western civilization) in one step.

What if multiple steps are required? In that case, might not people like Spencer and Phillips be natural, even if only temporary, allies?

LA replies:

Who said I don’t regard them as being on the same side as me in opposing Islamization? It is they who are hostile to me, for pointing out their liberalism. My point was that their belief, that they stand at the right-most edge of conceivable thought, and that therefore I am wacky for pointing out their liberalism, is false, an illusion created by the extreme leftward tilt of our politics.

Naturally a lot of people are going to find my criticisms of mainstream conservatives and right-leaning liberals off-putting. So what? Liberals find conservatives’ criticisms of liberals off-putting. Should conservatives therefore stop their criticisms of liberals?

The point of my blog entry was to indicate the objective difficulty of my position, not to say that my position is wrong.

Let’s look at it this way. If a traditionalist accepts the idea that he should not to try to establish a traditionalist intellectual basis, at least for the present, because that is seen as off-putting, and that he should refrain from criticizing, for the present, the liberal premises built into the work of various right-leaning writers and Islam critics, when can he ever argue against those liberal premises? Central to traditionalism is the insight that so-called conservatism is not really conservative. If I cannot attempt now to move the center of gravity of the debate rightward, when can I do it?

LA continues:

My position could be, and has been, readily characterized as letting “ideological purity” stand in the way of effective politics. I don’t think the criticism is correct. Central to my position is the insight that today’s conservatives would be more effective if they were more soundly based in traditional principles. The Republicans’ recent electoral setbacks, for example, would have been avoided if they had grasped traditionalist principles. Similarly, the disasters of Bush’s Iraq policy would have been avoided if he had grasped traditionalist principles—for three years I have been correct about what was false and logically incoherent, AND about what was practically ineffective in our Iraq policy, and Bush’s mainstream conservative defenders have been wrong. Similarly, a “war against radical Islam” that continues to welcome Muslims into the West is not just wrong because it fails to be “ideologically pure” in a traditionalist sense; it is wrong because it is logically self-contradictory and practically disastrous. My criticisms of liberal-leaning conservatism are both theoretical and practical.

Finally, would Stuart have me accept, in the interests of maintaining a solid conservative front, such positions as this?

Vivek G. writes:

Mr. Stuart S. does make an important point but stresses political expediency. This can never be a long-lasting policy, being opportunistic at best, and often potentially gravely dangerous.

Your position, “My position could be, and has been, readily characterized as letting ‘ideological purity’ stand in the way of effective politics,” also indicates the sad state of prevalent main-stream politics.

A good politician must (1) think clearly about the problems and come up with genuine solutions, (2) try to convince about their effectiveness and correctness by educating the masses appropriately, and (3) thereby win elections to implement the solutions.

However, in the prevaling propaganda culture, ‘false promises’ have replaced ‘genuine education’.

So in my opinion, if you are (and you indeed are) trying to educate the masses about the real problems and the validity of your solutions, you are doing (even if you are not a politician) what a real good politician must do. That is, providing true leadership.

It is very important to understand that the future could be much worse than any nightmare, if we do not put our acts together ASAP. Hence, your efforts to awaken the masses from a dangerous and potentially catastrophic slumber assumes significant importance.

Your point that the fight against the left should not make us merely anti-left is critical. It is crucial to understand that we need a clearly defined ideological standpoint from which our actions are derivable. Only such a standpoint can form an essential core from which a consistent, practicable, wholesome policy can be obtained.

Building a clear and pure foundation for a comprehensive solution is at least as important as merely meeting political expediency for a speedy but fake solution.

This also brings me to my favourite point, that how persons of different traditional backgrounds think alike. We share different traditions (particulars) and yet on such core issues we (and possibly all true conservatives) are so strikingly same.

Rachael S. writes:

If leftist forces are instrumental in pulling the center of political thought leftwards, then don’t you think that rightist forces (yourself included) are responsible for delaying that pull? Perhaps it is the thankless—yet essential—job of right-of-”mainstream-right”-people to inhibit the progress of the left. Whenever I offer a (well-thought out) traditional viewpoint to someone else, don’t I send a ripple, no matter how small, of genuine conservative thought into the whirlpool of human ideas out there? I think that if you did what Stuart said, the practical effect would be that you would simply be reducing the number of people available to water the roots of conservatism. Eventually, the roots would die and the left would pull us all over the cliff, having eroded objective values, meanings, and concepts.

LA wrote back to Rachael:

What you’re saying is so important. Truth is life. Resistance to the lies around us, even if we have no immediate prospects for wide influence or power, IS politics, of the most fundamental kind. We are defending a world in which we can live.

Rachael replies:

“Truth is life” is a great way to sum it up! I agree one hundred percent with what you just said.

Gintas J. writes:

As George Orwell said, “During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”

Telling the truth is more important than gaining success politically. Truth is that important. We are not responsible for the success or failure of the truth; that is, do we persuade people or do they ignore us? But we must be faithful to the truth.

If telling the truth to the “Conservative Movement” means that there are only 11 of us left, so be it. I’d rather be with the 11 wandering in poverty in the desert than at a feast at the NYC offices of National Review.

Vivek writes (1/13/07):

“Truth does not pay homage to any society, ancient or modern. Society has to pay homage to truth or die. Societies should be molded upon truth; truth has not to adjust itself to society.”

This quote is from a speech delivered at London by Swami Vivekananda.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 14, 2006 02:23 AM | Send