Comments on: Conservative Ressourcement

By: SDG

SDG — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 20:46:39 +0000

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?

By: Austin Ruse

Austin Ruse — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 16:21:30 +0000

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?

By: SDG

SDG — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 15:59:24 +0000

“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.

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 13:59:14 +0000

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.