Rediscovering the Soul of Conservatism, Part II

n the first part of my extended reflection on the character of conservatism, I warned that the American Right is confronted by a “pseudo-Rightist culture of repudiation” that in important respects mirrors the intellectual and political Left. The crude white nationalism and vociferous anti-Semitism of the so-called “groypers,” who delight in the nasty, transgressive utterings of the internet chameleon Nick Fuentes, present the most recent example of that phenomenon.

On another front, a spirit of ingratitude dominates in certain precincts of the Right. There is a marked tendency to dismiss even the most admirable conservative wisdom of the past as outdated, irrelevant, or worse. A young critic of mine at The American Conservative, who writes very much in that dismissive spirit, accuses me of making “rote” appeals to the likes of Burke and Churchill, as if deep immersion in the thought and action of these two great conservatives can only be formulaic and irrelevant.

But a conservatism that forgets the most capacious meaning of the social contract, the enduring bond that connects the living to the dead and the yet to be born, and the multiple reasons for gratitude to our noble if imperfect forebears—Burkean themes par excellence—has lost essential bearings, and will rather quickly lose its soul.

Similarly, a conservatism that ignores Churchill’s great insight that opposition to the totalitarian negation of man requires a full-throated defense of “Christian civilization” and “Christian ethics,” and not merely fealty to abstract liberal principles (see his incomparable “Finest Hour” speech), would be both impoverished and disarmed. Nor does the Churchill who reminded us at the height of the Cold War that “meeting jaw to jaw is better than war” need to be reminded of the limits of bellicosity. Contrary to a repeated misuse, Churchill knew that it was not always Munich 1938, and opined that a more traditional Germany, authoritarian but not totalitarian and genocidal, might have been accommodated (not “appeased”) in the 1930s, as he put it in his classic work, The Gathering Storm.

I would suggest that my young critic take the time to study Burke and Churchill with the same care that he parses the “ironic” rhetoric of Nick Fuentes.