Alas, it is one of the threads from the era where they can't currently be brought up, but perhaps they will be recoverable some day.
It got only modest contributions -- semantics doesn't make for passionate debate.
I pinged IronJack as he appreciates Kirk and he and I generally agree, but the alteration of the term through liberal predominance in the written word has so predominated for the last fifty years that even he finds Kirk's definition as archaic.
However, that chapter was my first post because of the idea behind it. Conservatism holds to Principles and those principles span politics, morals, religous views, culture and society. They do not offer a magic formula that can be followed and solve all of our problems.
Totalitarian rationalistic democracy (an extension of Hayek's term) or progressive liberalism as it is known in this era, espouses a formula that once discovered and adhered to solves all political and societal problems.
Part of how it is sold is its isolation as theory and formula. When the hesitant see conflicts with true Virtue, heritage, or institutions, they are convinced to see it as from a seperate, and more pure world.
As Heyek says in Chapter Four of the Constitution of Liberty:
Though freedom is not a state of nature but an artifact of civilization, it did not arise from design. The institutions of freedom, like everything freedom has created, were not established because people foresaw the benefits they would bring. But, once its advantages were recognized, men began to perfect and extend the reign of freedom and, for that purpose, to inquire how a free society worked. This development of a theory of liberty took place mainly in the eighteenth century. It began in two countries, England and France. The first of these knew liberty; the second did not.I have found that the great thinkers of Conservatism -- Burke, Kirk, Weaver, Hayek, Sowell -- all hold a similar view about the distinction. For Burke, it is the inhereted freedom largely supported by time honored institutions as opposed to sophisters and metaphysics. For Kirk, its First Principles as opposed to Ideology. For Hayek, see above and for Sowell he shows us in A Conflict of Visions the difference between the Constrained and Unconstrained views of man and his nature.As a result, we have had to the present day two different traditions in the theory of liberty: one empirical and unsystematic, the other speculative and rationalistic –the first based on an interpretation of traditions and institutions which had spontaneously grown up and were but imperfectly understood, the second aiming at the construction of a utopia, which has often been tried but never successfully. Nevertheless, it has been the rationalistic, plausible, and apparently logical argument of the French tradition, with its flattering assumptions about the unlimited powers of human reason, that has progressively gained influence, while the less articulate and less explicit tradition of English freedom has been on the decline.
The commonality is seen by many who do deep analysis of political theory, but as IronJack so aptly points out, we must have the straight forward and plain rhetoric to charge our adherents and advance the unconvinced and often deep study is not something we can get that audience to devote the time to doing.
My caution is that we must watch for the traps of rationalistic totalitarianism and the way the arguement is framed. If a comparison of various simple formula is the artifical limit of the debate, the rationalists will always win. However, if the whole Heritage of Mankind is considered; the whole weight of civilization and our patrimony is measured up; if the inherited worth of what mankind has achieved is defended, then magic formuli pale in comparison.
In that sense, it IS a system of principles rather than ideas, and its adherents measure developments not against Conservatism's principles, but USING Conservatism's principles. The developments themselves are judged in their historical context, that judgment itself being a Conservative process.
I guess I feared Kirk was equating "ideological" with "doctrinaire." Neither is pejorative in its own right, but each is ripe for abuse.
Ideologues, if I understand Kirk’s use of the term, offer a magic formula, and if one doesn’t agree, one is branded a blasphemer. Many on the political right offer the magic formula of appointing persons to the Supreme Court who conform to a certain profile. Follow the magic formula and all political, moral, religious, cultural and societal (to borrow from your above quote) problems disappear, and America becomes heaven on earth. Failure to follow the magic formula is blasphemy. Thus the flame-throwing at President Bush from so many of his natural allies concerning Harriet Miers. No matter the realities of the vote count on the Senate floor, President Bush has committed blasphemy. Those on the present day right who are so quickly opposed to Meirs’ appointment without even waiting for the hearings should just stand on a chair, shout “Blasphemy!” at the top of their lungs, and hopefully get it out of their system, because that is the basis of their opposition.
Yes, conservatism spans politics, morals, religion, culture, and society, but the ideologues in this case have taken a strictly political matter (Supreme Court appointment), isolated it, and elevated it to the status of a magic formula that supposedly defines the essence of conservatism. That, in my opinion, is what makes them ideologs, as opposed to principled conservatives.
Rereading the article at the top of the thread, it seems I’ve done little more than regurgitate what the author, Kirk, and KC Burke have written. Thanks to all three for their thoughts. (Thanks KC Burke, including thanks for using the phrase magic formula.)
…we must have the straight forward and plain rhetoric…
How about:
But I don't want to contribute to a stereotype. So I tell you there are a great many God-fearing, dedicated, noble men and women in public life, present company included. And yes, we need your help to keep us ever-mindful of the ideas and the principles that brought us into the public arena in the first place. The basis of those ideals and principles is a commitment to freedom and personal liberty that, itself is grounded in the much deeper realization that freedom prospers only where the blessings of God are avidly sought and humbly accepted.-Ronald ReaganThe American experiment in democracy rests on this insight. Its discovery was the great triumph of our Founding Fathers, voiced by William Penn when he said: "If we will not be governed by God, we must be governed by tyrants." Explaining the inalienable rights of men, Jefferson said, "The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time." And it was George Washington who said that "of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports."
And finally, that shrewdest of all observers of American democracy, Alexis de Tocqueville, put it eloquently after he had gone on a search for the secret of America's greatness and genius -- and he said: "Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the greatness and the genius of America. America is good. And if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great."
Well, I'm pleased to be here today with you who are keeping America great by keeping her good. Only through your work and prayers and those of millions of others can we hope to survive this perilous century and keep alive this experiment in liberty, this last, best hope of man.
I want you to know that this administration is motivated by a political philosophy that sees the greatness of America in you, her people, and in your families, churches, neighborhoods, communities: the institutions that foster and nourish values like concern for others and respect for the rule of law under God.
Now, I don't have to tell you that this puts us in opposition to, or at least out of step with, a -- a prevailing attitude of many who have turned to a modern-day secularism, discarding the tried and time-tested values upon which our very civilization is based. No matter how well intentioned, their value system is radically different from that of most Americans. And while they proclaim that they're freeing us from superstitions of the past, they've taken upon themselves the job of superintending us by government rule and regulation. Sometimes their voices are louder than ours, but they are not yet a majority.