In their very different ways, Michael Gerson and Jonah Goldberg ask us to contemplate going back to the future. Both suggest that perhaps the much-maligned George W. Bush was onto something when he asked us to think a little differently about the relationship between government and civil society.
I’m pressed for time and so can’t now say everything I’d like to say, but I will assert this: if “compassionate conservatism” is only a marketing slogan, I want no part of it and it won’t work anyway. If, on the other hand, it means recognizing the primacy of community as an authentic expression of our natures, that those communities are healthiest that spring from affection and proximity, and that government can serve but not create such communities, I’m interested.
If there’s going to be a conversation about the meaning of conservatism and Republicanism in the aftermath of this disappointing election, I won’t (and of course can’t) deny the libertarians a seat at the table, but I will insist upon a place as well for what some might call Christian democracy.
November 16th, 2012 | 2:32 pm
“If, on the other hand, it means recognizing the primacy of community as an authentic expression of our natures, that those communities are healthiest that spring from affection and proximity, and that government can serve but not create such communities, I’m interested.”
Unfortunately,whatever the rhetoric, George W. Bush grew government- TARP, Medicare Part D, etc.
To the left, and increasingly society a large, government may not be the creator of civil society, it is civil society.
As for “Christian Democracy”, it’s an unworkable syncretic mess and the “Christian Democrats” of Europe haven’t advanced Christianity or Democracy.
There is no “third way”. You cannot overcome original sin with social organization.
November 17th, 2012 | 6:57 am
Hegel explained the difference between the state and civil society in this way, “If the state is confused with civil society, and if its specific end is laid down as the security and protection of property and personal freedom, then the interest of the individuals as such becomes the ultimate end of their association, and it follows that membership of the state is something optional. But the state’s relation to the individual is quite different from this. Since the state is mind objectified, it is only as one of its members that the individual himself has objectivity, genuine individuality, and an ethical life. Unification pure and simple is the true content and aim of the individual, and the individual’s destiny is the living of a universal life. His further particular satisfaction, activity and mode of conduct have this substantive and universally valid life as their starting point and their result.”
That is what Yves Simon means, when he says, “The highest activity/being in the natural order is free arrangement of men about what is good brought together in an actual polity where it is no longer a mere abstraction.”
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