'Is Conservatism Brain-Dead?' - Steven F. Hayward Fellow, American Enterprise Institute

Steven F. Hayward (American Enterprise Institute)

Steven F. Hayward, F.K. Weyerhaeuser fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and author of "The Age of Reagan: The Conservative Counterrevolution, 1980-1989," has taken on the question: "Is Conservatism Brain-Dead?"

I would certainly find it very difficult to disagree with Hayward's contention that conservatism is brain-dead because of the plethora of instances that the right has had to prove the assertion correct.

Hayward reinforces my belief by lamenting that: "During the glory days of the conservative movement, from its ascent in the 1960s and '70s to its success in Ronald Reagan's era, there was a balance between the intellectuals, such as Buckley and Milton Friedman, and the activists, such as Phyllis Schlafly and Paul Weyrich, the leader of the New Right. The conservative political movement, for all its infighting, has always drawn deeply from the conservative intellectual movement, and this mix of populism and elitism troubled neither side.

"Today, however, the conservative movement has been thrown off balance, with the populists dominating and the intellectuals retreating and struggling to come up with new ideas. The leading conservative figures of our time are now drawn from mass media, from talk radio and cable news. We've traded in Buckley for Beck, Kristol for Coulter, and conservatism has been reduced to sound bites."

William F. Buckley

Hayward pines for the old days; the era dominated by the likes of  the omnifarious "columnist, lecturer, TV host and debater," William F. Buckley Jr, who used "his weekly "Firing Line" show on PBS" to become a well known television personality who showed himself to be a "man of style and ideas who inspired two generations of conservative thinkers and more just a populist shock jock with a funny prep-school accent."

But the contemporary state of what describes itself as conservatism in Hayward's opinion is a mediascape in which the best that its nascent era provided; now dominated by a a group of conservative movement imitators who have "thrown off" the "balance" struck by the founders of the early years "with the populists dominating and the intellectuals retreating and struggling to come up with new ideas. The leading conservative figures of our time are now drawn from mass media, from talk radio and cable news. We've traded in Buckley for Beck, Kristol for Coulter, and conservatism has been reduced to sound bites."

I cannot disagree with Hayward's observation of conservatism thrown into disarray by its present generation of representatives who may be engaged in activities that are "authentic and laudatory, it is unfocused, lacking the connection to a concrete ideology".

And I agree with Hayward's assessment of the trashy tombs that promote conservatism today: "The best-selling conservative books these days tend to be red-meat titles such as Michelle Malkin's "Culture of Corruption," Glenn Beck's new "Arguing with Idiots" and all of Ann Coulter's well-calculated provocations that the left falls for like Pavlov's dogs. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with these books. Politics is not conducted by Socratic seminar, and Henry Adams's dictum that politics is the systematic organization of hatreds should remind us that partisan passions are an essential and necessary function of democratic life. The right has always produced, and always will produce, potboilers."

Ann Coulter

Hayward contrasts the "frivolous paranoia as the face of conservatism" with what is: "Conspicuously missing, however, are the intellectual works. The bestseller list used to be crowded with the likes of Friedman's "Free to Choose," George Gilder's "Wealth and Poverty," Paul Johnson's "Modern Times," Allan Bloom's "The Closing of the American Mind," Charles Murray's "Losing Ground" and "The Bell Curve," and Francis Fukuyama's "The End of History and the Last Man." There are still conservative intellectuals attempting to produce important work, but some publishers have been cutting back on serious conservative titles because they don't sell. (I have my own entry in the list: a two-volume political history titled "The Age of Reagan." But I never expected the books to sell well; at 750 pages each, you can hurt yourself picking them up.)

"About the only recent successful title that harkens back to the older intellectual style is Jonah Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism," which argues that modern liberalism has much more in common with European fascism than conservatism has ever had. But because it deployed the incendiary f-word, the book was perceived as a mood-of-the-moment populist work, even though I predict that it will have a long shelf life as a serious work. Had Goldberg called the book "Aspects of Illiberal Policymaking: 1914 to the Present," it might have been received differently by its critics. And sold about 200 copies.

Jonah Goldberg

Of course, it's hard to say whether conservative intellectuals are simply out of interesting ideas or if the reading public simply finds their ideas boring. Both possibilities (and they are not mutually exclusive) should prompt some self-criticism on the right. Conservatism has prospered most when its attacks on liberalism have combined serious alternative ideas with populist enthusiasm. When the ideas are absent, the movement has nothing to offer -- except opposition. That doesn't work for long in American politics."

Hayward correctly summarizes his discontent with conservatism's present dilemma: "The single largest defect of modern conservatism, in my mind, is its insufficient ability to challenge liberalism at the intellectual level, in particular over the meaning and nature of progress. In response to the left's belief in political solutions for everything, the right must do better than merely invoking "markets" and "liberty." Hayward admits that conservatives lack the gravitas of the next William F. Buckley when he admits: "The single largest defect of modern conservatism, in my mind, is its insufficient ability to challenge liberalism at the intellectual level, in particular over the meaning and nature of progress. In response to the left's belief in political solutions for everything, the right must do better than merely invoking "markets" and "liberty." And who does Hayward end up pinning his hopes on for a conservative resurgence? Glenn Beck.

Hayward admits: "Beck may lack Buckley's urbanity, and his show will never be confused with "Firing Line." But he's on to something with his interest in serious analysis of liberalism's patrimony. The left is enraged with Beck's scandal-mongering over Van Jones and ACORN, but they have no idea that he poses a much bigger threat than that. If more conservative talkers took up the theme of challenging liberalism's bedrock assumptions the way Beck does from time to time, liberals would have to defend their problematic premises more often."

Somehow this line of Hayward's argumentation fails to convince that America is sitting on the cusp of a conservative resurgence. Glenn Beck?

Glenn Beck Ranting