Rediscovering the Soul of Conservatism, Part I

any conservatives, myself included, have recognized the wisdom of a populist turn in our politics. A roused populace was necessary to address the growing illiberalism and sheer unaccountability of woke elites who, for at least a generation, have committed themselves to redefining the theory and practice of liberal democracy. But populism also has marked limits, especially when applied to the realm where principle and prudence, in the high and noble Aristotelian or Burkean sense, must inform action.

Populist anger must be calibrated and channelled so that it does not become self-destructive. The welcome resistance to the progressivist “culture of repudiation,” as the late Roger Scruton so suggestively called it, must not give way to a rival spirit of repudiation on the Right that dismisses our intellectual and political forebears as fools and frauds. “What has conservatism ever conserved?” is both historically illiterate and politically ungrateful.

When the young and activist militants on the disaffected Right reduce Winston Churchill to the status of a dangerous forerunner of neoconservative foreign policy, or see in Ronald Reagan nothing but a sterile libertarianism—ignoring his courage and determination to defeat the scourge of communist totalitarianism, and his eloquent appeals to faith, community, and patriotic devotion to country—or facilely dismiss the pugnacious and brilliant William F. Buckley, Jr. as a RINO and puppet of the liberal establishment, something has gone seriously wrong. These ill-conceived judgments need to be corrected for the sake of truth and for preserving our shared moral and civic inheritance, which is what the Constitution calls our “blessings of liberty.”

Serious conservatives should not only fight woke despotism but also the new pseudo-rightist culture of repudiation at the same time. Indeed, it would be a mistake to imitate the ’60s Left, with its almost pathological fear of upsetting “the kids,” as they were then called. Happily, some young conservatives are rediscovering faith and the deeper wellsprings of Western civilization. They should be encouraged and tutored. This is an eternal imperative, now urgent in our time due to disturbing trends that are more and more apparent in younger generations.