Whither Conservatism?

Campus Report ^ | October 10, 2008 | Jesse Masai

[bs9021]

Whither Conservatism?

by: Jesse Masai, October 10, 2008

For anyone disillusioned about the current health of the conservative movement, the Heritage Foundation is the place to have been on October 7. There, at its Allison Auditorium, Harvey C. Mansfield delivered a lecture on the movement’s future as well as a constitutional basis for it.

The William R. Kenan Jr. professor of Government at Harvard University delivered the lecture in honor of Russell Kirk, one of the patron saints of the conservative movement. He said: “Conservatism is faced with three important dilemmas: Should it be compassionate, interventionist, international?”

He suggested that the movement also probes whether it would be sufficient to be merely an alternative to modern liberalism, or whether it can rescue disturbing trends in contemporary affairs.

Mansfield noted that conservatism has become associated with all things mediocre and ignoble in American society, and suggested that the situation fits into another dual challenge for the movement: Shall it be populist or elitist in its final expression? He said conservatives must contend for the affections of the liberal middle class, and help their liberal brethren because the latter “are weak in mind and spirit.”

The politics of global justice and entitlement, he said, present two areas in which the conservative movement could help provide leadership. “Political liberty is best shown in practice, as is indeed virtue over and against necessity,” he said.

He warned that the movement will have to negotiate a happy middle ground on whether it wants to be either majority-seeking or principle-expounding. Yet, he insisted, propriety and morality are concerns the movement should attempt to recover.

Mansfield has written on a variety of subjects in government and political philosophy, including Edmund Burke, Machiavelli, and the discovery and development of the theory of executive power.....

[Designer]

He said: “Conservatism is faced with three important dilemmas: Should it be compassionate, interventionist, international?”

It's too bad Mr. Mansfield isn't educated.

If he was, he would not be saying things like that.

Oh well, somebody has to be paid for sounding like an idiot, so it might as well be him.

[flowerplough]

Whither Conservatism? Yes, Conservatism will wither, weaken, and retract during this super-recession/depression, as some formerly-well-off CINOs flock to “I will care for all your needs” election campaigns. True Conservatives, though, will continue to think, reason, and decide, and will not let economic hardship drive them over into emotion-driven living.