Perhaps it is time for conservatives to reach back to the beginning of the modern conservative movement in order to regain their footing in the conservative movement of today.
Social conservatism seems to have been reduced to a set of policies — life and marriage with pornography somewhere in there — advanced only by the “Christian right” when I wonder if social conservatives could be more effective not by dropping these vitally important issues, but speaking more deeply about traditionalism as William Doino suggested in these pages recently.
The deep thinkers ought to get together with activists and friendly pols in order to shore up the foundation.
November 26th, 2012 | 8:59 am
Austin,
A good place to start is the Federalist Society. Deep thinkers, activists, lawyers, and politicians all meet to discuss the nature of the Constitution, judging, legislation, Federalism, etc. A great number of Federalist Society members are also social conservatives and traditionalists.
November 26th, 2012 | 10:59 am
“Social conservatism seems to have been reduced to a set of policies — life and marriage with pornography somewhere in there”
I’m very receptive to the diagnosis of social conservatism succumbing to a reductive set of policies, but I’m not sure I recognize the social conservatism of this particular account. I’m not even sure I understand the sentence. A lil more analysis might have been helpful.
November 26th, 2012 | 11:21 am
SDG, when there was a fusion of the various strains of conservatism in mid-century, life and family issues where not even on the agenda. Yet today the traditional wing of conservatism seems to be only about life and family issues. Life and family issues subsist in the traditional wing of conservatism but isn’t the analysis much deeper and richer than these two things?
November 26th, 2012 | 3:46 pm
Well, Austin, to whatever extent life and family issues weren’t on the agenda in the mid-20th century (and that may be something of an oversimplification), presumably that’s largely (though not entirely) a reflection of the extent to which life and family were norms that could be taken for granted. (Of course the roots of the sexual revolution go back to preceding decades and further, but still I imagine few people in 1950 seriously foresaw the excesses 1960s and 1970s and beyond so near in their own future.)
I’m curious about the deeper and richer legacy that you see being neglected. Are you echoing Doino’s case regarding the rise of secular conservatism and affirm the need for a more-than-nominally religious conservatism? Do you have your eye on other principles or issues?
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