What the Heck is a Paleoconservative and Why You Should Care

Paleoconservatism is informed by certain philosophical presumptions that differ markedly from the presumptions of neocons and most modern conservatives.

Have you ever noticed how enthusiasts of all sorts frequently speak a language that is completely unintelligible to the rest of us? For example, computer geeks . . . err . . . enthusiasts have their own language as do gear heads . . . err . . . hot rod enthusiasts. Wonkish political obsessives like me are guilty of the same thing, I am afraid. I don’t know a gigabyte from RAM or a header from a flathead, but I can rattle off the various shades of conservatism in Rainman-like fashion.

I was reminded of this tendency recently when I published an article on paleoconservatism and abortion. The article was originally published at Intellectual Conservative, and later published at several mainstream, GOP-oriented conservative websites. It made some very controversial assertions so I expected to get feedback. Well I did. Most of it was positive. Some of it was not. But what surprised me was that most people weren’t taking issue with my controversial assertions. Instead, many seemed to be unfamiliar with the term paleoconservative. I was surprised because my article appeared on conservative oriented political websites. I assumed paleoconservative would be a term familiar to those who frequent such websites. Well you know what they say about assuming. I was also disappointed. That many conservative internet surfers didn’t know what a paleoconservative is is an indication that my side seriously needs a marketing campaign.

As a result, I have decided that a little Conservatism 101 is in order. I will attempt to explain the origin and history of the movement now called paleoconservatism, and how it differs from “regular conservatism,” for lack of a better term. But perhaps more importantly, what does this movement have to offer us that regular conservatism does not?

First of all, this is a topic about which a book could easily be written, and some have. It is not my intention to be exhaustive or to reinvent the wheel. For a more exhaustive treatment, see the Wikipedia entry on paleoconservatism. I know Wikipedia can be a bit hit and miss, but the paleoconservative entry is fantastic. (No I did not write it.) It was updated recently, and the first half is particularly well done. Several other books and magazines have been written that address this subject, and I will provide internal links to helpful resources.

Since most readers will be familiar with the tenants of “regular conservatism,” it may be easiest to describe paleoconservatism by how it differs from the more mainstream variety. First a little history.

Prior to World War II, there existed a coalition often referred to now as the Old Right. The Old Right was a collection of traditionalist and libertarian politicians, writers, businessmen, scholars, etc. who composed the loyal opposition to the Left which was ascendant at the time. The ascendant Left was represented most obviously by Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal. Perhaps nothing resembling a “movement” as we know it today existed back then, but the Old Right did what it could given the tenor of the times. The Old Right differed from the modern conservative movement in that it opposed foreign military intervention and favored a policy often derisively referred to as isolationism. The Old Right opposed American entry into World War I and World War II. On that note, the most prominent organization of the Old Right was the America First Committee (AFC) which was organized to prevent US entry into WW II. (The AFC was populated by a lot of anti-war leftists as well.) The conservative argument for opposing foreign intervention and entanglements is that it is not America’s responsibility to be a global policeman. Foreign adventuring necessitates big government, big spending, the sacrificing of liberties at home, and of course places American troops in harm’s way.

The Old Right also opposed, generally with limited political success, FDR’s New Deal. They believed his New Deal programs were wasteful, not authorized by the Constitution, and ineffective and counterproductive to reviving the depressed economy.

Some elements of the Old Right also opposed what they saw as a trifecta of insults to freedom and the Constitution that took place in 1913, the Sixteenth Amendment which authorized the Income Tax, the Seventeenth Amendment which mandated the direct election of Senators, and the creation of the Federal Reserve. (Tax protestors don’t scold me. I am aware that many believe the Sixteenth Amendment was not passed appropriately by the States and/or doesn’t authorize an individual income tax. That debate is beyond the scope of this article.)

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor and American entry into the War, non-intervention fell out of favor. When the hot war ended, America was faced with a Cold War attempting to halt the global expansion of Communism and Soviet influence. The “modern conservative movement” (MCM) as it is often called arose after WWII and after the start of the Cold War. Unlike the Old Right, the MCM supported a strong internationalist foreign policy as a means of combating the Soviet menace. Some recognized foreign intervention as inconsistent with the traditional conservative support of small government, but felt the Soviet threat warranted a temporary alteration in principles. A small contingent on the Right, led by Murray Rothbard among others, continued to resist the call for an aggressive foreign policy to contain Communism, but they were in the minority. (The merits of their argument deserve an additional column as well.)

You might wonder, “If the Old Right is characterized as pre-WWII, then would it not be accurate to designate the post-war alternative as the New Right instead of the more cumbersome modern conservative movement?” There is a related movement called the New Right but it is not an entirely analogous term. The MCM is generally conceived as originating and coalescing in the 50’s especially around the issue of the Cold War. Seminal events in its genesis would be the publication of Russell Kirk’s The Conservative Mind in 1953 and the founding of National Review in 1955. The New Right refers to that coalition that flourished after the Barry Goldwater campaign. Perhaps I am splitting hairs, but the term MCM seems to better encompass the decade or so before what is usually conceived of as the official beginning of the New Right. For the purposes of this article the MCM will indicate the post-war conservative movement that is to be distinguished from the Old Right.

Another element of the post-war anti-Communist, anti-Soviet forces were ex-leftists who had grown disillusioned with the excesses of Soviet Communism. Beginning in the 70’s they started to leave the Democratic Party in frustration over the emergence of radical liberalism, especially the counterculture, the perceived direction of the party with the McGovern nomination, and the perceived weakness of the Democrats on foreign policy. This group included Irving Kristol and others frequently associated with the advent of neoconservatism, a term I suspect the average reader is more familiar with.

Since they were ex-liberals, the neoconservative element of the MCM was generally supportive of a broad social safety net. They were comfortable with New Deal programs such as Social Security and FDR’s economic interventions. Most were supportive of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society and the Civil Rights movement, although most opposed quotas.

The Old Right was, as I already pointed out, hostile to Roosevelt and the New Deal. Some of the conservative elements that made up the original MCM did not support the New Deal or economic intervention either. This was true of both the traditionalist elements and the libertarian elements of the fledgling MCM. But by the mid-50’s it was generally assumed by most conservatives that the New Deal was a fait accompli, so serious opposition to it was dropped. This was partially based on pragmatic political concerns, but it was also felt that opposing the Soviets was the paramount issue, and they should not waste political capital or alienate potential allies with less urgent issues. A pragmatic consensus quickly arose that opposing settled leftist gains such as Social Security was a political loser, so they were essentially taken off the table.

The transformation from isolationist Old Right to interventionist modern right has been much observed and commented on. The de facto adoption of political pragmatism over rigorous adherence to principles as a defining component of modern conservatism has been less commented on, and I will devote a future article to discussing the far reaching implications of that decision.

So the neoconservatives were pro-intervention, supported a social safety net, were comfortable with some government intervention in the economy but supported free-trade and liberal immigration policies and were generally socially conservative. While the depth of their commitment to social conservatism has been questioned by some, they were clearly anti-counterculture which they saw as a radical and anti-American threat.

A question: does what the neoconservatives supported initially sound familiar to anyone? It actually sounds very much like the agenda of the MCM and the GOP of today. More on that later.

The MCM has always been a coalition of rather diverse elements who were united in their opposition to the radical Left as much or more than they were united in their common goals and philosophy. One element was the traditionalists personified by Russell Kirk and Richard Weaver. Another element was the economic libertarians personified by Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman. Traditionalists placed less faith in free-markets and rejected economic reductionism. They denounced the libertarians as hidebound ideologues. The libertarians denounced the traditionalists as too friendly to the state and rejecters of reason. But both factions opposed federal government expansion although perhaps for somewhat different reasons, and both opposed the economic and cultural collectivists on the Left. The fusionists, whose main spokesmen at the time was Frank Meyer of National Review, tried to chart a middle course. Fusionism is described by Donald Devine of the American Conservative Union as advocating “libertarian means to traditional ends.” Whether fusionism was a coherent intellectual philosophy or just an attempt to reconcile a diverse coalition is a matter of much debate among partisans on all sides.

But whatever fusionism might have lacked as a coherent philosophy, you could argue that the MCM that emerged was generally fusionist in its orientation, socially and culturally conservative but libertarian on economics. All sides supported limited government, tax cuts, minimal government intervention in the economy, and a strong national defense. (Actually it could be argued that a strong national defense is neither traditionalist nor libertarian nor fusionist, but its support by most was a product of the Cold War times.)

Also holding the movement coalition together was near unanimous agreement on the strategy of political pragmatism mentioned above with the GOP as the chosen vehicle, and a fear of the Democratic Left. The near unanimous consensus that the GOP should be the vehicle of choice was facilitated by the slow but sure shift of once conservative Democrats in the South to the GOP starting with the Goldwater campaign in ’64.

So what the heck is a paleoconservative and where do they belong in this grand scheme? Many paleos, whose beliefs coincide largely with the Kirk-style traditionalists, would gripe that they were really a barely tolerated part of the coalition from the beginning, but there was at least a general civility. The late paleocon, Sam Francis, claimed that the neocons were at first welcomed into the movement as useful allies, but tensions between the traditionalists and the newly grafted neocons soon rose. The traditionalists charged that the neocons were still unrepentant leftists. The neocons charged that the traditionalists were backwards looking reactionaries.

Things really came to a head at the start of the Reagan administration, as the spoils were being divvied up. Traditionalists, who had been a part of the MCM from its inception, expected a piece of the pie. The Johnny-come-lately neos were accused of trying to get all the spoils for themselves. Things really got ugly concerning the appointment of Mel Bradford to head the National Endowment for the Humanities. Mel Bradford was a traditionalist extraordinaire. He was also a proud Southerner. One aspect of the traditionalist element has been respect for the inherent conservatism of the Southern tradition. Russell Kirk recognized it, Richard Weaver recognized it, and Mel Bradford recognized it. The Southern Agrarians, who had been an element of the Old Right, had eloquently articulated it in their book I’ll Take My Stand. These men recognized that the South had always served as a traditionalist brake on the grand designs of Northern progressives. The neos did not want Dr. Bradford to get the job. To them he was hopelessly behind the times. Their choice was William Bennett, so they set out in a rather nasty way to tarnish Bradford’s reputation. They especially focused on his veneration of the South and his traditional Southern view of the merits or lack thereof of Lincoln. Of course accusations of racism were hurled, and this was an early harbinger of things to come. (Note the hysterical and hyperbolic reaction of the neocons to Trent Lott’s Strom Thurmond remark.) This incident among others confirmed to the traditionalists that their suspicions had been right from the beginning; the neocons really were a type of leftist instead of a type of conservative, since free and easy accusations of racism are too often the first recourse of the left.

The term paleoconservative was coined around this time by either Thomas Fleming and/or Paul Gottfried originally as a joke. Paleo, as a prefix meaning old or ancient, was to designate the opposite of neo meaning new. Even though it was initially coined as a joke, the term caught on. Some paleos have objected to the term, suggesting it invokes images of dinosaurs. It may well be true that the term was embraced and used by the paleos' enemies because they saw it as unflattering. At this point we are probably stuck with the term. It is now routinely used by both its proponents and its detractors. Personally, I kind of like the term. As a proud traditionalist, I am perfectly comfortable with a word that invokes ancient or old as opposed to a word that invokes the new. Such an attitude I’m sure appalls the progressives.

In the 80s, the term paleoconservative was still mostly used in-house by conservatives “in the know.” It began to be used by a broader audience during the lead up to the first Gulf War. The MCM had been characterized by support of foreign intervention in the struggle against the Soviets. With the Soviet threat diminished or eliminated, the paleos sought to revert back to the traditional conservative position of avoiding foreign intervention. The neos, however, saw America, as the lone remaining superpower, as having an international opportunity/responsibility to shape the world in America’s interests and ostensively in a way that would benefit all.

The paleoconservative movement as we know it today synthesized and galvanized around opposition to the first Gulf War. For the paleos, that war was not our fight. American foreign policy should focus on safeguarding America and protecting American’s vital national interests, not punishing acts of aggression around the world.

The most prominent paleoconservative public face was Pat Buchanan. He articulated for the masses the three areas where paleos are most commonly recognized as differing from “regular conservatives.” They were early strong opponents of immigration, a position which is now becoming in vogue. They were skeptical of the benefits of free-trade, and favored a policy of “economic nationalism.” They were particularly weary of free-trade deals that they believed sacrificed our national sovereignty such as NAFTA and GATT. And of course, they opposed most foreign intervention.

You can see how paleoconservatism came to be largely defined by its positions on issues where it was at variance with the neocons and the rest of the conservative movement and the GOP, especially on the triad of issues mentioned above. The paleocons believe the conservative movement has been nearly entirely co-opted by neocon ideology or “neoconized,” if you will. The less flattering characterization that is often used is that the movement had been “hi-jacked” by the recent interlopers. As far as the “official position” of the conservative movement, they are correct, although many grass-roots conservatives support the paleoconservative positions. They just lack an organized or effective voice. This is especially true on immigration, where the Establishment’s support of “comprehensive” (read “guest workers”) immigration reform and reluctance to support an enforcement only policy, is very much at odds with the conservative base.

This essay has been an attempt to place paleoconservatives in a historical context, and to focus on how they differ from other conservative on important policy issues. In this light you can see that paleoconservatives are a continuation or recovery of the traditionalist element of the Right that has been there from the beginning. In many ways it has more in common with the Old Right, especially the Southern Agrarian element, than it does with the modern right. Many commentators have noticed this commonality.

However, as I stated in the passage above, the underlying differences are much deeper than mere differences on certain issues. Paleoconservatism is informed by certain philosophical presumptions that differ markedly from the presumptions of neocons and most modern conservatives. It is a hard concept to initially get your arms around for the uninitiated, but once you understand the presumptions the positions on issues naturally follow. It is not just a hodge-podge of policy differences. Likewise, the neocons have their own different set of underlying philosophical presumptions. While the modern Right generally takes positions on the issues similar to the neocons, it is not at all clear that all conservatives entirely understand what philosophy they are buying into.

It will be through trying to illustrate these core philosophical differences, not just debating the merits of free-trade vs. fair trade, that a broader understanding will be fostered of how the sides differ and what each has to offer with regard to addressing the problems we face as a nation today, and where we went wrong in the past.

I will leave the complicated and perhaps cumbersome discussion of each side’s underlying philosophy for later essays. I hope this essay has adequately laid the historical framework.

I'm not scolding anyone, but if you discuss an article it would be nice to let the author know if they have a public e-mail.

I will deal with two issues that have come up. The relationship of paleos with social conservatives, and Lockean contract theory.

Most paleo leaders (as opposed to the rank-and-file who would be hard to characterize) are religiously orthodox and many are very devout. Many are Catholics but some are Orthodox, Conservative Lutherans, Conservative Calvinists, etc. There are relatively few evangelicals among the leadership. Even the ones who may be skeptics recognize the importance of Christianity to America and the West and accept our Christian tradition as a good, healthy, essential thing. There are probably no crusading atheists among the ranks.

They have always had a distant relationship with the religious right, even though they are all almost by definition social conservatives. There are a few reasons for this. First, they think the religious right has been too beholden to the GOP and too quick to support less than good conservative candidates such as Bush. Because they are for nonintervention, they do not support the War in Iraq. They think many Christian leaders(Falwell, Robertson, etc.) and the rank-and-file evangelicals have too easily supported a War that is hard to square with the Christian Just War tradition. Many see this as partially related to the majority Evangelical belief in dispensational pre-millienialism. Since they are mostly old school Christians, they don't embrace this doctrine, and they feel it is a big reason why many evangelical Christians, esp. the leadership, is overly supportive of Israel in matters of foreign policy. They also do not like the praise music, seeker sensitivity, etc. of much of modern evangelicalism.

In one area where you would think that Christians would have a big stake, halting Muslim immigration into America and Europe, they see the religious right as being completely absent from the fight. (I agree.) A growing number of Christian leaders are making nice on immigration, Brownback and Huckabee for example. They would view this as not necessitated by Scripture and suicidally ignorant. The cultural dissolution that massive immigration is likely to bring about will totally take their issues and the GOP off the table within the next 50 years.

Also, paleos favor regionalism and decentralization, radical decentralization really. They see the RR's focus on the federal government as counterproductive. Instead of trying to get a constitutional amendment to ban abortion, which is very unlikely to happen, they would support State action like SD did. That doesn't mean they are pro-choice. They just see local action as more likely to save more lives.

I am a Baptist and consider myself an evangelical, although I am a very traditional one and despise praise music and the like. But I came to paleoconservatism via the religious right. Therefore I have a more sympathetic view of the RR than do most paleos. I think the hostility is counterproductive.

Whoever said that the RR is a relatively recent phenomenon is exactly right. Issues such as gay marriage and the attacks on Christmas are fairly new issues. There used to be a very broad cultural consensus on such issues. Just 30 years ago the idea of gay marriage would have been unthinkable, for example. So the RR arose in response to cultural drift away from the historic consensus. This is why I believe the RR and paleos should/can work together. Despite the happy talk of some Christian conservatives like Brownback, the RR is not fundamentally a progressive movement. It is a reaction to cultural drift. So is paleoconservatism. The RR has resisted/is resiting a modernist drift to the left on theology and morals, but they have embraced modernism in many other ways. The Paleos can be viewed as resisting modernity in general. So I see both as part of any future counter-revolution against the leftward slide.

But the above illustrates a good point. Paleos are not libertarians on social issues, but they see restoring the cultural consensus that made gay marriage a laughable idea just a few years ago as more important than a law against it. Does that make sense?

Many paloes, esp. the leadership, are very skeptical that any political solution is possible. So they focus on culture and local action. Home schooling is a very paleo activity for example. Also, boycotting the local contractor who is building the abortion clinic is a more important activity than electing a "pro-life" Republican who isn't going to do anything about abortion anyway. Make sense?

This is long so I will post on Locke separately.

On Locke. Locke conceptualized a bunch of free individuals coming together and consenting to be mutually governed in a way that is beneficial to all. Thus the "social contract" theory.

Locke had a high view of man. He did not see man as inherently corrupt. For him man is able to be improved if not "perfected." Paleos and Christians in general would see this as a fundamentally un-Christian conception (and unsupported by observation) since Christians see man as inherently corrupted by original sin. The Founders generally had a low view of man which was likely highly influenced by their Christianity.

Locke also believed in the blank slate or tabula rasa. That man was not born with a certain nature, but his nature was largely imposed on him by his environment. Change the environment, change the man. This too goes against all observation as well as the Christian belief that the natural order generally squares with the Divinely ordained order. So paloes would see the family, the primacy of the mother child bond, socialization, patriarchy, hierarchy, etc. as part of a Divine/natural order. Viewed at this level you can see that Locke's conception was fundamentally liberal. But if you follow the logic you can also see why the paleo conception is in many ways more conservative than most modern "conservatives" will tolerate. Conservative have no problem appealing to a natural/Divine order when it comes to lesbians not adopting babies, but how many would reject the liberal egalitarianism that says for example that being a "Mister Mom" is perfectly OK. See what I mean? Paleos resist appeals to the theoretical, in this case gender roles are imposed by society and mom and dad are really interchangeable, and appeal to tradition, history, revelation, nature, etc.

So the problem with Locke is that his conception is really a purely mental exercise. No society has ever formed itself in that way. America, as a colonial country that broke away from the motherland, is about as close as you can get. But it is extremely naive to believe that even America came about as a result of this fanciful social contract. American's already had an organic society before the Founders signed the Declaration or the Constitution and that society is much more than its government. We were primarily British Islanders, we were Western, we were Christian (mostly Protestant) etc. which defines us as a society more than any document could.

Americans, due to the colonial nature of our country are uniquely vulnerable to this "contract theory" conceit. Compare the US to a country in Europe or the East for example. Did Poland become a country because all the Polish people got together and theoretically consented to some contract, or did Poland precede the modern nation? The nation is not a contractual agreement among individuals, but is more like an extension of the tribe. Family, tribe, community, extended tribe, nation. Of course those who extend this thinking understand why the paleos are particularly concerned about immigration. Again, the underlying theory or conception leads to views that many modern "conservatives" are unwilling to endorse.

Paleos see the liberal modern Enlightenment focus on the atomistic individual as harmful. Man is by nature a social animal. He can not be properly conceived of outside of his social roll - family, community, etc. They see much of modern conservatism, focused as it is on the individual and rights, as actually a brand of liberalism.

Economic libertarianism is thus the flip side of the coin of socialism. Both are theoretical constructs that rely on abstract philosophizing and a general acceptance of Enlightenment views. But they are not anchored by tradition, history, family, common bond, etc. and are thus dangerous and destructive of the traditional society. This does not mean that paleos can't and don't accept free-market capitalism as the most efficient economic system. (On paper, since Paleos are less likely to embrace a mercenary political pragmatism, they actually are much closer to libertarians on the government programs they would shut down than is a pragmatic conservative who embraces the free-market but doesn't’t think shutting down large, established government programs is feasible. Their reasoning is just somewhat different.) They just reject economic reductionism, materialism, acquisitiveness, etc. on the basis that family, society, etc. are greater goods than efficiency, and there are more important things in life than stuff.

Someone mentioned the Founders and how influenced they were by the Enlightenment. Great question. (In fact that may well be the most essential question.) Paleos are not agreed on this. There were clearly liberal and conservative elements of the Founding. We were rebelling against the King in favor of some measure of popular consent, so there was definitely a liberal element. But there were conservative elements as well that primarily resided in the people as a whole, the remarkably by most standards religious orthodoxy of Americans for example. Many paleos believe that despite the liberal Lockean idiom of the Declaration, the Founding was basically conservative. Others see the Founding as inherently corrupted by liberalism, hence many of our problems today.

What ever view they take on the Founding, paleos generally agree that the American conservative tradition has been most fundamentally manifested in the South, and the progressive impulse has been most fundamentally evidenced in the North.

Well I just basically wrote my paleo philosophy article that I promised.

Try not to react viscerally that conservatism means a certain set of policies such as foreign intervention and free-trade. Look at the basic assumptions, and I think it will be hard to dispute that paleoconservatism is really a more ancient or authentic form of conservatism. Whether modern conservatives are willing to go there is another matter. But what needs to be conceded is that much of modern conservatism is really a light form of liberalism. Those who embrace the designation of "classical liberalism" are conceding this.

"I'm not scolding anyone, but if you discuss an article it would be nice to let the author know if they have a public e-mail."

OK, I checked, you do have one.

~~~rim shot~~~

All kidding aside, I'm glad you're here, I posted your article because I found it to be informative, well-written, and interesting. We post many articles and most authors would rather sue us than take the time to discuss them with us.

I do have some comments on your comments...

"The cultural dissolution that massive immigration is likely to bring about will totally take their issues and the GOP off the table within the next 50 years."

If you're talking about Muslim immigration into Europe, I agree, if you're talking about mass immigration of Muslims into America, I don't see that happenning...today or anytime in the near future.

Before I proceed, I'd like to define a term; immigrant means immigrant (I am one), not illegal alien.

Europe needs to repopulate, and their primary source of available immigrants are Muslim countries, so yes, Europe has a huge problem. America repopulates from Christian countries south of our borders.

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