RSS Feed MenuSam Tanenhaus’ latest book, The Death of Conservatism, argues that conservatism must decide whether it is a movement of cultural revenge or a governing philosophy. NewMajority has asked conservatives to weigh in. First up: Austin Bramwell, a former National Review trustee, and Geoffrey Kabaservice, our resident GOP historian who at one time contributed research to Tanenhaus.
Austin Bramwell, Conservatism Isn’t Dead, It’s Just Intellectually Boring
Tanenhaus wants to reach the sensational but conventional verdict that the movement has become alarmingly radical. Yet the actual picture he draws is of a movement stuck helplessly in a rut. The conservative movement isn’t dangerous or “revanchist;” it’s just boring. Right-wing intellectuals should eschew the movement and reintegrate into the mainstream, not because the movement threatens the Republic, but because freedom of thought can only be found outside of it.
Geoffrey Kabaservice, Conservatism is Dead Without Pragmatism
Many reviewers have claimed Tanenhaus’ book to be a liberal critique of conservatism, but it doesn’t much deal with liberalism or even with conservatives’ battles against liberals. Rather, it’s an explanation for why the vital dynamic between idealism and pragmatism within conservatism has ceased to function. The problem with modern-day conservatism is that the realists have been vanquished by the ideologists, with dire results for the conservative movement and the Republican Party that is now wholly identified with the movement.
EscapeVelocity // Sep 8, 2009 at 4:10 am
Ahh – but those who theorize Dark Matter are also bought into the idea of a scientific process whereby someday in the future … there may be new data collection and processing, new analytical methods, new experiments … which may not only be able to prove the concept fo Dark Matter … but which also may be able to disprove the concept. — balconesfault
There is nothing in ID which claims that it cant be disproved or that new data, processing, new analytical methods, new observations, experiements…..can in the future prove or disprove intelligent design
I just busted your bubble full stop.
You can claim that Dark Matter is not science as well as ID, but you cant argue one is and the other isnt….because that is a logical inconsistency.
What is revealing is that their isnt a campaign to scrub Dark Matter from Science cirricula and being taught to children….in the noble cause of defending the purity of science. No their is something else driving the anti ID forces…
I wonder what it could be….
Hmmmm….
EscapeVelocity // Sep 8, 2009 at 4:29 am
BTW, ID and Evolution are not mutually exclusive. Furthermore ID doesnt necessarily imply a “God like designer.”
It was wrong when Evolution was suppressed its proponents persecuted in the past, and its wrong that ID is suppressed and its proponents persecuted now.
Im for open inquiry and academic and scientific freedom.
And shame on anyone who isnt!
balconesfault // Sep 8, 2009 at 4:50 am
There is nothing in ID which claims that it cant be disproved or that new data, processing, new analytical methods, new observations, experiements…..can in the future prove or disprove intelligent design
It’s not a claim – it’s a first principle. ID isn’t testable, in that it is infinitely mutable – any scientific process can simply have the phrase added “God wanted it that way”. You just did that, for example, with evolution.
Your belief in ID is therefore completely an act of faith, and has nothing to do with science. That’s not to say that it rejects science – it is simply as relevant to the scientific method as poetry is.
Cforchange // Sep 8, 2009 at 10:48 am
Chekote – I hardly have time to the NM but I will check out the greenfootballs.
The problem with creationists – it’s for the simpletons and dreamers. The proponents of “ID” are the first to confuse it with science by trying to put in on the same level claiming that it should replace or be on the same level of science. “ID” makes anyone a genius – especially those charasmatic enough to lead a chant at a religious entertainment center and in return have the passive load up the brass dish they pass. Balcone comparing it to poetry is perfect.
Science is very difficult to teach – we don’t have enough scientists in the first place. So you throw in warm and fuzzy creationism with a population who has been lead to believe they are the smartest the world has ever experienced, who would take the tougher road. Especially when the influence from home is that “ID” is just as important as science. Yes the influence would have to be in the home because those who respect and rely on science for progress think the ID crowd is cracked – me included.
ID didn’t cure polio or develop penicilin – get the facts straight. We need science and more scientists. We will not excel and produce the leaders of the new world – we will be lead by nationalized citizens who come to work here as our scientists and there goes the income base.
I can’t believe we are debating this here on this site…. Must be the “saved” smell blood after the Politico article on the moderate success of this site. David Frum don’t be discouraged – the majority isn’t here because they’re out there working hard. The former GOP majority aren’t anti intelects – they were busy business people who trusted that the GOP would select the best candidate to create an environment where business thrives. They’re still busy but no longer trust their party. They might be sick of the government’s growth when you can hardly grow a for profit business. But for sure, in majority, they will not cotton up to the “ID” thinkers. 2008 proved that and will continue to if that’s the path of the GOP.
Maybe it will take a dust bowl and vast hunger to get America on track. Maybe we just can’t think clearly while we are stuffed to the gills with canola oil and high fructose corn syrup.
balconesfault // Sep 8, 2009 at 11:12 am
Science is very difficult to teach – we don’t have enough scientists in the first place.
Hallelujah! Exactly right.
Educating the young in scientific method is hard … in no small part because so much of our entertainment and advertising incorporates tidbits of pseudo-science to spruce up the package. There’s an awful lot of clutter to cut through. Add in the babble of various politicians and interest groups, and it’s even thicker. Then let’s drop ID into the pond with a big “kerplunk” and backdoor theology into our science curricula.
So you throw in warm and fuzzy creationism with a population who has been lead to believe they are the smartest the world has ever experienced, who would take the tougher road.
Yeah – I always figured that if ID starts being taught in a school, the laziest smart kid could just fill out a science test with “Because God wanted it” or “whatever God wants it to be” as the answers to every question, and scream religious bigotry when those answers are marked wrong.
EscapeVelocity // Sep 8, 2009 at 1:53 pm
It’s not a claim – it’s a first principle. ID isn’t testable, in that it is infinitely mutable — balconesfault
This is false. You have a limited imagination.
EscapeVelocity // Sep 8, 2009 at 2:04 pm
I missed the last part. “Infinitely Mutable.”
Yes, and Evolution isnt testable in that it is infinitely mutable. Its more of a paradigm, a metaphysical project in that regard.
There is little reason to exclude mention and discussion of ID as an adjunct to Evolution. In fact it offers the opportunity to teach kids more about what science is and what it isnt….its assumptions and limitations….giving kids a better understanding.
However it seems to me that crying about how hard science is to teach, that you would rather skip over this interesting controversy so that you dont have to teach what science actually is, and can just offer up the consensus doctrine as gospel and be on your merry way.
Sad really.
EscapeVelocity // Sep 8, 2009 at 2:10 pm
ID didn’t cure polio or develop penicilin — Cforchange
Evolution didnt cure polio or develop penicilin…get the facts straight.
You see, its just bigotry that is driving your anti ID position….not rationality, not dedication to science, and not dedication to open inquiry(a property of science).
In effect your anti ID position is anti Science. And probably driven by an anti Religion, anti God belief position, as ID gives God a leg to stand on.
So, I suggest to you, that you quit hiding your bigotry and come out and be honest about your motives.
greg_barton // Sep 9, 2009 at 12:06 am
escapevelocity, you do know that many elements on the periodic table were discovered from “science of the gaps,” right?
balconesfault is right that ID isn’t testable because there are no commonly accepted definitions of consciousness and intelligence yet. Without those you can’t test whether something is provably created by an intelligent conscious entity, now can you?
Imagination is certainly important for scientific advancement, but at it’s core is empiricism. If you can’t test it, it’s not science. Sorry. Well formed claims about dark matter are testable because there are healthy branches of science called Astronomy and Cosmology that produce methods, instruments, and data that are useful for testing hypotheses.
Evolution is not infinitely mutable. It has a core, simple, rock solid principle: organisms that are more adapted to their environment survive and reproduce.
greg_barton // Sep 9, 2009 at 12:25 am
Believe it or not, escapevelocity, I’m actually a bit sympathetic to ID. My connection to evolution research is evolutionary computation, a branch of artificial intelligence that uses aspects of evolution to produce novel approaches to problem solving.
Anyway, it’s my view that evolution inevitably leads to ID. After all, evolution produced us: intelligent beings. If you accept that, it’s not too much of a leap to posit that other intelligences have also been evolved, possibly some on a higher scale than our own. And who’s to say we came first?
However, I also recognize that this is all speculation, and entirely untestable at this time. (And it may never be testable in any practical way.)
greg_barton // Sep 9, 2009 at 12:29 am
escapevelocity, just the fact that you say ID gives god a leg to stand on shows your bias. ID supposedly says nothing about the source of the intelligence doing the designing, right? The fact that you focus on a god (and the one with a capital G, to boot) means you have a preference for what that intelligence should be.
Cforchange // Sep 9, 2009 at 9:57 am
My only motive would be that the element of the GOP that is supportive of a Palin or Palin type ticket is one that would be wisely supressed. It’s not a winning strategy or majority.
race42008.com » Blog Archive » The Two Faces of David Frum // Sep 9, 2009 at 10:17 am
[...] and Ruffini, repeating the claim that there were no longer any great conservative thinker and by invoking the same call for conservatives to adopt Buckleyite, east coast conservative [...]
balconesfault // Sep 9, 2009 at 11:04 am
My only motive would be that the element of the GOP that is supportive of a Palin or Palin type ticket is one that would be wisely supressed. It’s not a winning strategy or majority.
Moreover, it should scare the hell out of anyone in the Republican Party who doesn’t naturally fall into the Palin camp. Because if there is anything that her term as Mayor of Wasilla and then Governor of Alaska and then VP candidate has shown, it’s that the woman has very thin skin, and that she will remember who she considers enemies, and that she will use whatever power is at her disposal to punish those enemies. Palin becoming the leader of the Republican Party could turn into a long winter for economic conservatives who don’t want to see a party platform focussed on a “rebirth of a Christian America”.
EscapeVelocity // Sep 9, 2009 at 12:31 pm
God and Guns
The only healthy way to fly.
By Mark Steyn
Our lesson today comes from the songwriter Frank Loesser: “Praise The Lord And Pass The Ammunition.”
Or as Barack Obama and his San Francisco pals would put it: God and guns. Loesser got the phrase from Howell Forgy, a naval chaplain at Pearl Harbor, who walked the decks of the New Orleans under Japanese bombardment exhorting his comrades. When the line came to Loesser’s ears, he turned it into a big hit song of the Second World War:
Praise the Lord and swing into position
Can’t afford to sit around a-wishin’…
— which some folks sang as “Can’t afford to be a politician.” Indeed. Senator Obama’s remarks about poor dumb bitter rural losers “clinging to” guns and God certainly testify to the instinctive snobbery of a big segment of the political class. But we shouldn’t let it go by merely deploring coastal condescension toward the knuckledraggers. No, what Michelle Malkin calls Crackerquiddick (quite rightly — it’s more than just another dreary “-gate”) is not just snobbish nor even merely wrongheaded. It’s an attack on two of the critical advantages the U.S. holds over most of the rest of the western world. In the other G7 developed nations, nobody clings to God’n’guns. The guns got taken away, and the Europeans gave up on churchgoing once they embraced Big Government as the new religion.
How’s that working out? Compared to America, France and Germany have been more or less economically stagnant for the last quarter-century, living permanently with unemployment rates significantly higher than the U.S.
Has it made them any less “bitter,” as Obama characterizes those Pennsylvanian crackers? No. In my book America Alone, just out in paperback and available in all good bookstores — you’ll find it in Borders propping up the wonky rear leg of the display table for the smash new CD Michelle Obama And The San Francisco Macchiato Chorus Sing “I Pinned My Pink Slip To The Gun Rack Of My Pick-Up”, “My Dog Done Died, My Wife Jus’ Left Me, And Michael Dukakis Is Strangely Reluctant To Run Again”, Plus “I Swung By The Economic Development Zone Business Park But The Only Two Occupied Rental Units Were Both Evangelical Churches” And Other Embittered Appalachian Favorites …
Where was I? Oh, yes. In my book America Alone, I note a global survey on optimism: 61 per cent of Americans were optimistic about the future, 29 per cent of the French, 15 per cent of Germans. Take it from a foreigner: In my experience, Americans are the least “bitter” people in the developed world. Secular gun-free big-government Europe doesn’t seem to have done anything for people’s happiness. Consider by way of example the words of Keith Reade. He’s not an Obama speechwriter, he’s a writer for the London Daily Mirror. And the day after the 2004 presidential election he expressed his frustration in an alarmingly Obamaesque way:
Were I a Kerry voter, though, I’d feel deep anger, not only at them returning Bush to power, but for allowing the outside world to lump us all into the same category of moronic muppets. The self-righteous, gun-totin’, military-lovin’, sister-marryin’, abortion-hatin’, gay-loathin’, foreigner-despisin’, non-passport ownin’ red-necks, who believe God gave America the biggest d*** in the world so it could urinate on the rest of us and make their land “free and strong.”
Well, that’s certainly why I supported Bush, but I’m not sure it entirely accounts for the other 62,039,073 incontinent rednecks. Mr Reade, though, does usefully enumerate some of the distinctive features that separate America from the rest of the west. “Self-righteous”? If you want a public culture that reeks of indestructible faith in its own righteousness, try Europe — especially when they’re talking about America: If you disagree with Eutopian wisdom, you must be an idiot. Obama and far too many Democrats have bought into this delusion, most thoroughly distilled in Thomas Frank’s book What’s The Matter With Kansas?, whose argument is that heartland voters are too dumb (i.e., “moronic muppets”) to vote for their own best interests.
Europeans did “vote for their own best interests” — i.e., cradle-to-grave welfare, 35 hour work-weeks, six weeks of paid vacation, etc — and as a result they now face a perfect storm of unsustainable entitlements, economic stagnation, and declining human capital that’s left them so demographically beholden to unassimilable levels of immigration that they’re being remorselessly Islamized with every passing day. We should thank God (if you’ll forgive the expression) that America’s loser gun-nuts don’t share the same sophisticated rational calculation of “their best interests” as Thomas Frank, Obama, too many Democrats and the European political establishment.
As for “gun-totin’,” large numbers of Americans tote guns because they’re assertive, self-reliant citizens, not docile subjects of a permanent governing class. The Second Amendment is philosophically consistent with the First Amendment, for which I’ve become more grateful since the Canadian Islamic Congress decided to sue me for “hate speech” up north. Both amendments embody the American view that liberty is not the gift of the state, and its defense cannot be outsourced exclusively to the government.
I think a healthy society needs both God and guns: it benefits from a belief in some kind of higher purpose to life on earth, and it requires a self-reliant citizenry. If you lack either of those twin props, you wind up with today’s Europe — a present-tense Eutopia mired in fatalism. A while back, I was struck by the words of Oscar van den Boogaard, a Dutch gay humanist (which is pretty much the trifecta of Eurocool). Reflecting on the Continent’s accelerating Islamification, he concluded that the jig was up for the Europe he loved, but what could he do? “I am not a warrior, but who is?” he shrugged. “I have never learned to fight for my freedom. I was only good at enjoying it.”
Sorry, it doesn’t work like that. If you don’t understand that there are times when you’ll have to fight for it, you won’t enjoy it for long. That’s what a lot of Keith Reade’s laundry list — “gun-totin’,” “military-lovin’” — boils down to. As for “gay-loathin,’” it’s Oscar van den Boogaard’s famously tolerant Amsterdam where gay-bashing is resurgent: the editor of the American gay paper the Washington Blade got beaten up in the streets on his last visit to the Netherlands.
God and guns. Maybe one day a viable society will find a magic cure-all that can do without both, but Big Government isn’t it. And even complacent liberal Democrats ought to be able to cast an eye across the ocean and see that. But then he did give the speech in San Francisco, a city demographically declining at a rate that qualifies it for EU membership. When it comes to parochial simpletons, you don’t need to go to Kansas.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Y2RjNzdlMjczZmU0MDdiZDVhMzY0ZmFiZTRlZDJjZDc=