Letters to a Young Conservative (2 of 2 free samples)

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COPYRIGHT
Letters to a Young Conservative by Dinesh D'Souza. Copyright 2002 by Dinesh D'Souza.
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1 Conservatives vs. Liberals (CONT'D)

Now that we have a sense of what liberals believe, let us contrast their views with those of the conservatives. Modern American conservatism is very different from European conservatism, or from conservatism traditionally understood. For one thing, conservatism in this country is "modern," and for another, it is "American." Ours is not the "throne and altar" conservatism that once defined European conservatism, and that is still characteristic of many Europeans on the right. These conservatives were true reactionaries. They sought to preserve the ancien régime and the prerogatives of king and church against the arrival of modern science, modern capitalism, and modern democracy.

American conservatives are different because America is a revolutionary nation. For the founders, the ancien régime was the world they had left behind in Europe. Ours is a country founded by a bunch of guys sitting around a table in Philadelphia and deciding to establish a "new order for the ages." Being a conservative in America means conserving the principles of the American revolution. (One of the most conservative groups in America calls itself the Daughters of the American Revolution.) Paradoxically, American conservatism seeks to conserve a certain kind of liberalism! It means fighting to uphold the classical liberalism of the founding from assault by liberalism of a different sort.

Classical liberalism, however, does not wholly define modern American conservatism. There is an added element: a concern with social and civic virtue. The term virtue has become a bad word in some quarters of American life. (It is especially unpopular with the chronically wicked and depraved.) Young people, especially, tend to associate it with finger-wagging and with people who tell you how to live your life. This is a very narrow view of virtue: It applies only to what it is good to do, rather than what it is good to be and what it is good to love.

The conservative virtues are many: civility, patriotism, national unity, a sense of local community, an attachment to family, and a belief in merit, in just desserts, and in personal responsibility for one's actions. For many conservatives, the idea of virtue cannot be separated from the idea of God. But it is not necessary to believe in God to be a conservative. What unifies the vast majority of conservatives is the belief that there are moral standards in the universe and that living up to them is the best way to have a full and happy life.

Conservatives recognize, of course, that people frequently fall short of these standards. In their personal conduct, conservatives do not claim to be better than anyone else. Newt Gingrich was carrying on an affair at the same time that Bill Clinton was romancing Monica Lewinsky. But for conservatives, these lapses do not provide an excuse to get rid of the standards. Even hypocrisy--professing one thing but doing another--is in the conservative view preferable to a denial of standards because such denial leads to moral chaos or nihilism.

Since modern conservatism is dedicated both to classical liberalism and to virtue, it is open to the charge of contradiction. What happens when there is a tension between liberty and virtue? Conservatives are often accused of resolving the tension by opting for liberty in the economic domain, but for virtue in the social domain. If liberals inconsistently hold that government should get out of the bedroom and into the pocketbook, conservatives appear to espouse the opposite philosophy of government: "Out of the pocketbook and into the bedroom."

Conservatives find this slogan amusing, but only because of its absurdity. I certainly don't know of any conservative who has advocated government surveillance in a person's bedroom. But it is true that the conservatives are willing at times to curtail liberty. When there is a threat to national security, as in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks, conservatives believe that to protect citizens' lives it may be necessary to curtail certain freedoms. Conservatives in general see nothing wrong with restricting pornography, with limiting the legal benefits of marriage to heterosexual couples, or with outlawing the use of hard drugs.

Thus neither conservatives nor liberals are the unqualified partisans of freedom. Both groups believe in a certain kind of freedom. What really distinguishes conservatives from liberals is not that one is for freedom and the other is against freedom; rather, what separates them is that they have different substantive views of what constitutes the good life.

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