So, before I address our gains and where we go from here, I want to address the continuing 800-pound gorilla in the GOP room: the continued split between those persons who define “conservatism” in economic terms; those persons who define “conservatism” in limited-government and constitutional terms; and those persons who define “conservatism” in cultural and social terms. Some economic conservatives criticize “social conservatives” and want a moratorium on pushing issues that are deemed to be too socially conservative; some social conservatives want to run all economic conservatives who do not embrace the entire social-conservative agenda out of the party through a “Rhino Hunt”; and many others, who simply want to limit the size, scope and cost of government, would like the others to just be quiet.
Here’s a scoop for all of you—you’re all “conservative” and you all need each other for conservatism to succeed.
In fact, most of us believe, to one extent or the other, in each of these viewpoints:
- Economic Conservatives understand that political freedom can not fully exist without economic freedom, and that prosperity in the modern world can not exist without free trade;
- Limited-government Conservatives understand that economic and political freedoms can not fully exist under a government that tries to command and control all economic activity (such as socialism or communism), and that our Constitutional, federal system was designed to limit such governmental interference in commercial, and other private, activities; and
- Social Conservatives understand that a free society with a limited government needs mature, virtuous and educated citizens, who develop and use moral character and wisdom to create, maintain, and protect the relationships of family and neighborhoods needed to preserve such a society.
The GOP needs the creativity that comes from the interaction among each of these viewpoints as it promotes public policy at each level of government in order for it to be a truly “conservative” party. To banish anyone who prioritizes one or more of these viewpoints over another, is to cut-off a limb from the body of our party.
However, in this post I want to address what is called “social conservatism,” because I believe it (correctly understood) is vital to our party’s future, and it has been the focus of much of the discussion since November 2nd. In saying that “social conservatism” is vital to our party’s future, I am not endorsing any one person’s formulation of what “social conservatism” means, or any one religiously-affiliated organization’s definition or agenda. Nor do I agree with some who point to the 18th Century “Great Awakening,” and individual sermons from that time, to promote a current interpretation of the intentions of our Founding Fathers and a current political agenda. Instead, what I am going to address is the importance of culture and society to conservatism today.
As I’ve mentioned in several prior posts, and which seems to escape our “progressive” friends, this country was originally settled throughout the 17th and early 18th Centuries by many groups of devoutly religious Christians who were fleeing Europe, and willing to endure a very rough existence, in order to try to live by principles found in the New Testament. These settlers used those principles to build families, neighborhoods, towns and colonies, with very little supervision or involvement from the European governments who claimed political control of the colonies. Over time, the settlers and their descendants, with the approval of the European governments, created self-governing bodies in each colony to protect the society they had established. Only when the British government tried to assert control over the colonies after the Seven Years’ War did Americans revolt.
Central to the settler’s experience was the need to promote moral character and virtue in order to sustain an individual in his or her development of families and communities in the rough and isolated environment of North America in the 1600s and 1700s. It should come as no surprise that, after the Bible, the first “bestseller” in the colonies was Ben Franklin’s translation of Cicero’s “On a Life Well Spent”, which is a memoir about the virtues of maturity and wisdom, and their dependence on the development and use of moral character over a lifetime of experiences. The settlers believed that the development and use of such character were necessary to sustain a free society.
Character also was important to economic life. Remember that Adam Smith was not a professor of economics—there was no discipline of economics at the time—he was a Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. In his first work that was preliminary to “The Wealth of Nations”, Smith explored what leads a man to make morally correct decisions. In “The Theory of Moral Sentiment”, Smith states that our moral compass is based on a combination of feelings of sympathy for our fellow man and the imagination to put ourselves in our neighbor’s position, and the development of sufficient moral character to act properly using that moral compass. Smith believed that moral character developed and used in this way was necessary for the proper exercise of self-interest, which he described in greater detail in “The Wealth of Nations”.
The centrality of moral character to the settlers and to our Founders is evident in The Virginia Declaration of Rights of June, 1776, which was authored by George Mason and James Madison. In the last two paragraphs, the author’s state:
“…no free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people, but by firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue, and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles. ….it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity towards each other.”
This quote does not show that the Founders intended to create a “Christian Nation,” but it does reflect that they inherited a land settled, and still inhabited, by Christians. What the quote really shows is that the Founders intended to create a government that would protect and promote the best of our inherited Western, Christian character that the settlers brought with them and cherished. The Founders understood that to secure and promote the gifts of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, each citizen owed a reciprocal moral commitment to our fellow man that would be preserved through families and communities.
In part, this is what Barry Goldwater was referencing when he described Conservatism in “Conscience of a Conservative”:
“Conservatism is not an economic theory, though it has economic implications. The shoe is precisely on the other foot: it is Socialism that subordinates all other considerations to man’s material well-being. It is Conservatism that puts material things in their proper place—that has a structured view of the human being and of human society, in which economics plays only a subsidiary role.
“The root difference between the Conservatives and the Liberals of today is that Conservatives take account of the whole man, while the Liberals tend to look only at the material side of man’s nature. The Conservative believes that man is, in part, and economic, an animal creature; but that he is also a spiritual creature with spiritual needs and spiritual desires. What is more, these needs and desires reflect the superior side of man’s nature, and thus take precedence over his economic wants. Conservatism therefore looks upon the enhancement of man’s spiritual nature as the primary concern of political philosophy. Liberals, on the other hand—in the name of a concern for “human beings”—regard the satisfaction of economic wants as the dominant mission of society. They are, moreover, in a hurry. So that their characteristic approach is to harness the society’s political and economic forces into a collective effort to compel “progress.” In this approach, I believe they fight against Nature.
“Surely the first obligation of a political thinker is to understand the nature of man.”
I could go on with more examples and quotes, but the gist of all this is that “social conservatism”—the focus on the spiritual side of man’s nature to promote the development of individual character and wisdom to improve the lives of the individual, his family and his neighbors—has been central to our political culture for most of our history. It helped us form churches and community organizations across a continent, which provided for neighbors in need, and which De Tocqueville found so remarkable in the 1830s.
I think it is fair to say that most conservatives, and virtually all “social” conservatives, recognize that today we live in a society that no longer values or requires the type of character that recognizes a reciprocal moral commitment among neighbors. It is why many people seem to value lifestyle choices over the sanctity of life at all its stages, why we tolerate broken families and large drop-out rates from school, and why we live in a society that spends more than it makes and doesn’t seem to care about the debt it is incurring or who will pay for it. As Cicero would have seen, and as our settlers would have recognized, we live in a society of adolescents who’ve never grown-up; and a free society can not long survive if it is filled with citizens who’ve never developed the self-discipline, character and wisdom that comes with maturity. Just as adolescents need parents, our neighbors have looked to government at all levels to be their parents—to fix their problems and forgive their mistakes–and the government has grown too large as it has filled this parental role.
So, here’s the dilemma: we can not limit government and preserve economic and political freedoms, unless we grow-up and take responsibility for our families, our neighborhoods and our communities; unless we fix our own problems and address our own mistakes. That means we need to send men and women to Washington who will not only say “no” to additional requests for more grand schemes and programs, but who will cut the present ones and return the responsibility for them back to state and local governments. It means we need to send men and women to Austin who will do the same, and send as much responsibility back to individuals and local governments as possible. Then it means we have to bring responsibility back to where it belongs—to us and our communities: responsibility for our families, our neighbors, our neighborhoods, our schools, our businesses and employees, our streets and bridges; and we have to elect men and women to school boards, city councils and county governments who will work with us, and with private organizations in our communities, to responsibly address these issues in a cost-effective manner.
To do all of this, we need to re-develop character, and to re-develop character we need our social-conservative voices in this party working with our economic and limited-government conservatives. If we stay divided, nothing will change; if we unite, we can realize what Reagan believed when he often used this quote from Thomas Paine: “We have it in our power to begin the world over again.”
Note: A pdf version is available on Scribd. Click here to view.
