For all those who feel that conservative Republicanism is self-evident ...
I promised the people at tNP that I would put up a post for the purpose of facilitating dialogue about the "self-evidentness" of their ultra-conservative Republican ideology. Others who feel differently are also quite welcome to speak their minds. (For those who wish to read the background to this conversation, read the comments at the Japery.)
Comments
Of course conservative Republicanism isn't self-evident. Neither is liberal Democtratism (is that a word?). Most Christians I know simply think that if you are going to vote for somebody who supports the unlimited license to abortion through all nine months, then you'd better have a damn good reason.
Democrats have been pushing Christians out for quite some time. Did you ever see the post on sound politics about the anti-Christian bumper sticker sold in my old haunts by the democratic party?
Democrat Party
I've met several 50+ lifelong Democrats who simply don't feel they can vote that way on a national level in good conscience. This does effect national politics, too. That is why so many registered Democrats in rural Ohio voted for Bush in the last election while voting for Democrats locally. The same thing happened in my home state of NM. In both states it changed the outcome of the election on a statewide level. In OH it had an effect nationally.
Conservative Republicanism is NOT self-evident. However, many Christians simply don't feel welcome anymore by the alternate mainstream party.
Doug
However, we can still have an interesting discussion. Let's take the party names out of the equation, so it is just conservatism and liberalism. The first major hurdle is that virtually everybody defines these terms differently. But if I take tNP's presentation of contemporary conservatism, then it appears that they are in opposition to gender, racial, and social equality -- all of which are party of modern liberalism. There are two ways of reaching this concept of conservatism: (1) the religious route of "fundagelicals" (as tNP loves to call them) who reacted against the cultural changes of the late 20th century, or (2) the secular route, epitomized by people such as Mark Steyn, Michael Savage, Bill O'Reilly, and Ann Coulter, who don't believe a word of Christianity but hold to roughly the same political views.
The latter route makes perfect sense. Without a framework of belief like Christianity to guide one's political and social views, then a person is completely free to say, "I'm going to look out for #1, meaning myself and my version of America." However, it is the former position that is so complex; the problem with people like tNP is that they begin with the political framework established by the secular route, and then argue that these views naturally follow their religious convictions. Unfortunately, their "self-evidentness" is originating apart from their faith, not from within it.
Unless, and here is why I labelled the site as I did, you begin with a model of faith and society that has its roots in Christendom, in which the Church rules society on a governmental hierarchical model of leadership. If this is one's understanding of how faith and culture intersect, then there is no division between the "religious" and "secular" routes of political ideology. The two are identical from the beginning. But of course, church history shows us that when these are identical, it is highly questionable whether those views are truly "Christian" or not. Would Jesus have crowned kings, or excommunicated them? Would Jesus have led crusades? These kinds of questions reveal how incredibly different Christianity became under such a model of government-church relations.
Finally, the history of Christian fundamentalism in the United States is far more complex than can be described here. The point is, though, that Christian fundamentalists were on the front line of cultural changes. They were the very first ones to provide social equality for women by letting women preach and teach in church. Today that seems impossible. The reason is simply because of the "sexual revolution" in the 60s. "Secular" culture changed, and the Christians reacted violently in the opposite direction. Thus we have the opposite model from Christendom: here it is the absolute and polarized opposition between church and society.
So I agree that Republicanism is not self-evident, but what about conservatism? Why do so many Christians feel like it is a natural product of the faith? I think it comes down to one of these two routes, or a medieval connection of both.
Now, i do not agree with david's initial characterization of the new pantagruel, but I certainly have not been persuaded by the advocates of the New Pantagruel that the journal is as ideologically diverse as they claim.
I had not read the pieces Brian linked to just a moment ago, but i have read the New Pantagruel occasionally for several years (mainly because a beloved undergrad profs was an editor). moreover, i did not base my judgments about the ideological tilt of the magazine just on jape's remarks.
Look at the page right now. Let's read a couple of the tNP 'classics'. What do we have there?
A very interesting, well written historical article by Mark Henrie "Understanding traditionalist conservatism" that tries to rehabilitate the concept of traditionalist conservativism (over against the neo-conservativism of the Bush Regime). It is largely a historical article and not a stump speech, but does seem to make an interesting link, "If neoconservatives are aptly described as “conservative liberals” – as I believe they are – perhaps we can best understand the Burkean tradition as “liberal conservatism.” Is this a distinction that makes a difference? I believe it does."
Now, I am going to go out on a limb and guess at the subtext of this article: One should be a traditionalist conservative, because neo-cons are complicit in liberalism. Henrie might be right, neo-cons might really be closeted liberals, but he does not seem to open up other possibilities reacting to this fact other than moving a bit further right to traditionalist conservatism.
Now read through the interview with Roger Scruton from this issue. Quite interesting. Scruton is lucid and brilliant. But what viewpoint is being advocated here? Again it is traditionalist conservativism, is it not? Look also at the coda appended to the end of the interview:
The Meaning of Conservatism belongs on the shelf of every thoughtful conservative; click here to view it on Amazon. A complete listing of Roger Scruton’s books and much else can be found on his website. Dozens of his articles are linked on the internet bibliography compiled by Christopher S. Morrissey.
My question is how to read the word 'thoughtful'. If i was a cynic i would guess that 'thoughtful conservative' = 'traditionalist conservative' = 'reader of the New Pantagruel'. Fortunately, my experience with tNP has made me a much more positive person and I no longer draw cynical conclusions like this.
One more example from the main page (which is all I took the time to read during my imbroglio chez Jape) is Jeremy Beer's piece "Resurecting [sic] Caelum et Terra" which takes issue with 'Whig Thomists' who are, again, implicity linked with liberalism. Who are these 'whig thomists' complicit with the capitalistic destruction of traditional family values? why, Pope John Paul II and Fr. Neuhaus, of course! (Please forgive the gross oversimplification of Beer's article, it's actually a very interesting case he makes, but i'm simply trying to draw a connection between several articles here).
I hope that it is more obvious now why david and I would see tNP as a ultra-conservative magazine. 'Liberal' seems to = 'wrong'. If you write an article for tNP that manage to create a link between a self-described 'conservative' figure X and some tenet of 'liberalism', then you may safely insinuate that X is simply wrong.
Now, when I saw John Paul II, Duane Litfin and George Bush all called 'liberals', I had to wonder if Fr. Jape was voting for Mussolini in 2008?
Perhaps one would object to my point and try to find other articles that have a little more of a lefty feel to them.
Well, one such article might be, "My Africa Problem and ours" by Gideon Strauss. This is a touching article by a man with an obviously deep love for Africa. And it does have sort of a lefty feel, global consciousness, give money to the poor, etc. and so on. What I wonder about, however, is this line, "The most important political work in South Africa, I came to believe, was that of proclaiming the gospel." I do not necessarily disagree with this statement, but please let's not pretend that tNP is advocating political radicalism or anything like a 'liberation' theology. It seems as if the author is deliberately going out of his way to make sure his article doesn't come off as lefty. He doesn't talk about development or globalization or structural evils or anything that might be offensive to the right-wing. What does strauss think we should do about the political crisis in africa? pray and give money to missionaries? No, i think he wants it to be something more than that, but he only hints indirectly and obliquely and thus article squeaks under the conservative radar. (i understand that traditionalist conservatives are less interested in free-market ideas than their neo-con brethren, so perhaps this one might have made it to tNP, even if it had gotten a bit more uppity with its economic analyses and so forth, but somehow i doubt it).
The only article I see on the front page that can really be described as having anything approaching a leftist tint is the piece "Christian intellecutals, embedded or otherwise" by McCarraher, who comes out swinging at the theologians who came out in favor of the unjust war in Iraq. McCarraher quotes Cavanaugh and calls for the disentanglement of Christian loyalties to the leviathan of the state. A very nice piece indeed.
But only one. And one that doesn't really strike me as that provocative. Right, interesting, well-written. But not something that I didn't already know, or with which most people in America disagree. Most of us already think that George Bush lied to start an unjust war. Maybe that crazy liberal Pope John Paul II had already paved the way for this view way back before the war had even started.
In short, Yes Virginia There Is An Ideology in tNP, one which Brian himself repeats to us . . . "It's this sort of action (having a family, going to church), moreso than attempting to influence culture by 'engagement,' that will bring about the sort of cultural change mandated by Christ." Traditionalist conservativism, coupled with the rejection of the 'engagement' model of christian thinking ('whig thomism') is what characterizes the thinking of tNP. Perhaps not all the articles. I didn't have the energy, motivation, or desire to read the articles Brian linked, so I'll generously assume that they prove that I am completely wrong about this.
But, I maintain that david and I were perfectly rational in saying that tNP is an exteremly conservative magazine. An interesting form of it, admittedly, but just another conservativism after all. (A form which I personally join in David's recommendation via Hopkins, "Forget it/The Middle ages are over.")
If you want to prove me wrong, show me a bunch of articles in tNP that would make a person want to vote against a Republican political candidate.
yours,
shane
Samuel and other kings at God's behest. The Israelites were involved in what one might term holy wars. Paul excommunicated the man fornicating with his mom.
The extent to which church law should be civil law is debatable and changes with cultures, but the idea that the church leadership was heirarchical and male from the beginning is a historical fact. The council of Jerusalem is a perfect example of that.
Doug
Samuel annointed kings at God's behest. The Israelites were involved in what one might term holy wars. Paul excommunicated the man fornicating with his mom.
The extent to which church law should be civil law is debatable and changes with cultures (e.g., civil marriage vs. Christian marriage), but the idea that the church leadership was heirarchical and male from the beginning is a historical fact. The council of Jerusalem is a perfect example of that.
Doug
Where does it say in the Bible that all of the people at the council of Jerusalem were men? There were female prophets and deacons and apostles. (Junia, in Rom 16.7, who is listed 'among the apostles', was a woman).
There were women anointed as Judges in Old Israel. Deborah was a prophetess as well as a judge (jud 4).
moreover, even if it had been the case that historically God only appointed a hierarchy of men to shepherd his people (and it isn't), from this historical fact one still could not to derive that therefore God wants it always to be this way.
the arguments for male 'headship' of the church strike me as a textbook example of the sort of mythologization of power that the marxists loved to uncover. (one cheer for marx). The divine right of kings and the divine right of popes are pretty much the same thing, in that respect. L'eglise c'est moi!
hey hey, ho ho, theological absolutism has got to go.
shane
i do grasp the difference between the traditionalist conservative and the died in the wool (classical) liberal neo-con. my point is that functionally tNP seems to come down to advocating republicanism. a traditionalist conservative might not like bush, but they sure aren't going to vote for kerry. Thus, even if neo-cons are 'liberals' in palaeo-con eyes, they are still two peas in one ideological pod.
(at least based on the articles i mentioned, i don't really care to read the others, honestly, so i'll just take your word for it that they completely prove me wrong. oh well, my point was simply that i had done my epistemic duty vis a vis tNP before i callled them 'conservatives'.)
moreover, what about the benefits of liberalism? might there not have been something really good and positive about the enlightenment and the turn toward the individual? i am sympathetic with the need to critique liberal individualism, but there is something valauble about liberalism as well.
shane
Based on the interview you quoted, there comes to mind one person embodies that same vision, and yet is not encumbered by the ideological straightjacket that seems to flourish among some at tNP: Wendell Berry. He says virtually the very same things about the "Good" (life) and the critique of modernity's atomization of individuals. All of this I agree with, as would Berry. So on one level, Berry is indeed a traditional conservative, but on another level, conservatism in the U.S. is one of his enemies because it advocates the kind of capitalistic industrialization that is a primary cause of our divisions and disordered relations between human beings. I'll end with a quote of his, just one of many:
"The line that connects the bombing of civilian populations to the mountain removed by strip mining ... to the tortured prisoner seems to run pretty straight. We're living, it seems, in the culmination of a long warfare -- warfare against human beings, other creatures and the Earth itself."
What I am still waiting for is a convincing argument about why evangelicalism is necessarily complicit in this modern liberalism such that the movement is inherently inable to promote the kind of goods that you are advocating.
Now I am no fan of evangelicalism, by any means. But I grew up within the very heart of it, and my experience showed me that evangelicals are some of the most concerned about nuclear family, anti-abortion, local church community issues.
Here is what I am afraid of. I am afraid that evangelicals are liberal because they are too egalitarian, too accommodated to the recent cultural shifts that have altered the socio-political landscape of this nation. I would agree with you if your critique was limited to evangelical individualism, because that is indeed a prevalen reality. But if tNP is going to criticize the egalitarianism within some (by no means all!) families, then this is where we will have to part ways.
This goes for Doug as well. I am astounded that simply because male hierarchies have been around since nearly the dawn of humanity, that this is therefore God's design and will for the world. Such a view is repulsive and anti-Christian in my mind. And to many, many others as well.
The kind of political mentality advocated by Nichols via Buchanan and McGovern is very appealing to me, and I have nothing really to say against it. That said, I see none of that represented in tNP. In fact, tNP exemplifies, in my opinion, the grenade-tossing politics which Nichols openly rejects from the start. If you wish to convince me otherwise, you'll have to wrestle with the fact that Fr. Jape believes that dialogue and compromise are simply signs of our modern liberal agenda.