'Going My Way?'

It usually begins with William F. Buckley, Jr. The new libertarian with a conservative bent finds "Mr. Fusionist" to be quite the guiding star: he has very definite libertarian sympathies, and understands quite well the link between freedom and free enterprise. Moreover, he has a persona that is quite easy to identify with; he's an upper-crust man of the world who nevertheless acts as if he was wronged in some way. Since the fellow is quite sleek, if rumpled, and his character type is stout-hearted, not devious, it is easy to conclude that his political beliefs got him into trouble earlier in life, beliefs not dissimilar to libertarianism. Both his opinions and his character do make him a kind of hero, and his public presentation of self is consistent with a person who got unjustly rubbished because he, unlike so many of his class peers, refused to sell out to the modern State. The young Buckley even had the gumption to criticize President Eisenhower for being too soft on rollback, both foreign and domestic, which makes him a few cuts above today's typical conservative pundit.

Defections from his ranks – mostly to liberalism – only added to his staying power. He does have the gift of conveying the impression that people who defect from his ranks are less than he, and the means by which he does so is through writers' bravery, not only with respect to libertarian causes. What other fellow would maintain a broad-minded perspective with respect to current culture and yet consistently pounce on the "pornographer" with full moral rigor from time to time?

Conservative libertarians have the sense that they have much to be grateful for thanks to him and his work. His strength of spirit also comes in handy. I am sure, also, that his wit and facility with coining ego-deflating ripostes brought much counter-ammunition to the lover of liberty in his or her hours of scorn. Given the might of the fellow, it's saddening to admit that, in the cause of liberty, he hasn't been very effectual at the policy level. The TVA still lives, and Social Security is as coercive as ever. Government has continued on its growth curve, with nary a pullback.

To be fair to the man, Objectivism hasn't been all that effectual, in terms of policy, either. Ayn Rand had a more powerful voice, but hers and his combined have not sufficed to push government out of its perennial bull market. Just as Objectivism's political efficacy is hampered by Rand's self-chosen second career as a philosopher, not as a political activist, so it is that the mental toolkit of Buckleyism is the cause of this hobble. William F. Buckley, Jr. is a closet Bismarckian – which implies that the role of the conservative libertarian in the Buckleyite ranks is the "kept libertarian."

Many conservatives are Bismarckian, actually. Bismarck is the source of modern "progressive conservatism," an ideology which took firmer root in Canada than in the United States. The fundamental premise behind progressive conservatism is that the young are energetic but foolish. They often lead themselves astray by swallowing glittering forms of radicalism whole, ones explained with professor's glibness. Since the youth are overly impressed with the world of ideas, since they lack the knowledge and experience to think their way out of bad but internally consistent political systems, and because they insist upon intellectual independence to the point of headstrongness, there's nothing that can be done except to wait for them to grow out of their folly. The ones who do return to the fold return with wisdom in them, as well as with a sense of what the politically new is. They supply the "progress" to the progressive-conservative mix.

Even Bismarck himself could be held up as a role model for this kind of conservatism. His making Ferdinand Lasalle his "kept socialist" does evince a radical past, a desire on his part to "keep socialism."

This seems all well and good. It may even seem to serve as a solid bridge between libertarianism and conservatism, with libertarianism serving as the progressive part of the mix. The fatal flaw in this mix, though, is found in the other side of Bismarckism, one that Mr. Buckley himself has pursued with some enthusiasm: greatness is found, not in politicking and diplomacy, but in "blood and iron."

American conservatism is suffused with this ethos. To adapt a line from the French version of Canada's national anthem, conservatives (should) know how to carry the gun; they know how to carry the Flag. Manhood is found in valor, and the highest form of manhood is found on the battlefield. The plain fact that the soldier risks his (and, sometimes, her) life makes him (sometimes her) a better kind of human, one who should be honored, not criticized, for accepting such peril. It is de rigueur to rally around flag and country in the event of war, and the intellectual has a special duty not to succor the enemy in those times. Part of that duty is to hold one's tongue; to criticize a war which is current is plainly gauche and rates being put below the salt. A well-bred intellectual is expected to know that the time to speak up is before war is declared. Once the deed is done, though, it is time to shut up. Publicly saying, or writing, that any war that America is currently in should not have been declared at all does render the speaker, or writer, or scholar, anathema. Such a person belongs in a zoo cage.

This is all fine and jolly when America's wars are both major and intermittent, like the crucible-war which got this model up and running, but World War 2 burst upon the United States after almost a generation's worth of no military action at all by the U.S. government which was not linked to WW2 itself. The duty to occasionally hold one's tongue when the occasional war is being prosecuted implies a deviation from the norm of free speech. A duty to hold to the Bismarckite standard when war is all-but-continuous makes self-silencing the norm, and liberty of speech the deviation from the norm. The policy of perpetual war has turned the same kind of conservatism from tolerant of liberty to inimical to it. No need to wonder why so many young Buckleyites jumped out of the ship during the Vietnam War years: the risk of being nibbled on by sharks seemed less parlous, by comparison, than a permanent regimen of the mouth-iron. As the ’60s progressed, it became more evident that the holy-warriors were not merely the beneficiaries of a benevolent "Right-Wing Cranks (Except For Non-Catholic Embarrassments) Welcome" policy, but were also becoming a kind of role model for what the responsible intellectual should do.

The ex-"peace creep" is only let back in nowadays after groveling. It's almost as if anyone who had questioned the Vietnam War, even on Constitutional grounds, had to enter into "peace rehab" before being welcomed back. "I was young and foolish" doesn't cut it anymore. The conservative mind has narrowed to the extent that any lover of peace has to follow the same penitent's path as the ex-Communist, or ex-Trotskyite, does. Mr. Buckley's nascent Bismarckism is now explicit in all but name amongst his next-generation epigones, and the followers in his wake of that age. Boomer conservatism is Bismarckian conservatism, with libertarians being little more than the kept radicals who supply the cool ideas from time to time. "Blood and Iron for Freedom and Democracy" is the mainstream.

What, then, of "slacker" conservatism, the kind of conservatism held by people aged twenty to thirty-five? The label of "chicken hawk" doesn't exactly square with the blood-and-iron state of mind; "strident dogmatist" does. The American conservatives who are my age, and a little younger than me, are somewhat intermittent with the war drum, if quite busy elsewhere. Rather than admirers of the martial way of life, they tend to be managerial in orientation. Colin Powell, as a hero, has been ditched in favor of Donald Rumsfeld, who has the same cachet amongst young neos today that Wernher von Braun had amongst aspiring scientists and engineers in the 1950s. There is a certain afterglow of the old Bismarckian enthusiasm amongst the young admirers of Senator McCain, even if a true war hawk would consider him, in private, to be "Admiral Unreliable" with respect to war policy. The bulk of the young neos, though, have put aside Bismarck as a guiding star in favor of another, quite different, historical figure: Niccol Machiavelli.

Machiavelli could be described as the ultimate chicken hawk. Efficacious as a servant and capable as a scholar, he proved to be hapless as a military commander: the one time he tried to general, his army deserted him en masse. This rout can be fairly ascribed to his own personal habits of circumspection, agreeableness, and – most importantly – his readiness to switch horses in midstream, which his troops emulated when on the field. What's relevant in Machiavelli for the libertarian-conservative divide, though, is his praise for cynicism with regard to principles as part of policy. He praises Ferdinand of Aragon for cynically using words of faith as a cloak, one that concealed quite different policies. [The Prince, Chapter 21.]

Where do our "words of liberty," and us, fit in with this kind of policy approach?

At the time when Mr. Buckley was young, fellow conservative Peter Viereck was famous for his observation that the conservative finds the liberal to be no threat, but worries over his relativist son and fears his nihilist grandson. This oft-repeated remark fixed the progression "pragmatist to relativist to nihilist" in many minds. It's a shame that a similar warning was not issued about modern conservatism:

The conservative is a fine, respectable fellow with a true respect for liberty; he is not only no threat, but is also a delight to work with. His shadow, though, is filled by his Bismarckian son, and, later, his Machiavellian grandson. It is not the conservative who we should avoid, and it is not his Machiavellian epigone who we should court.

June 9, 2006