My own attempt to define the conservatism I believe in - the antithesis of much of the current Bush-Cheney-Palin GOP - is in my book, " The Conservative Soul ." If you’re interested in a more abstract and academic account of the philosophical roots of my take on post-modern conservatism, then my Harvard PhD thesis on the pre-eminent conservative thinker of the twentieth century, Michael Oakeshott, has just been published. It’s called: " Intimations Pursued : The Voice of Practice In The Conversation Of Michael Oakeshott."— Andrew Sullivan
Andrew has taken a lot of criticism these days. And everyone can agree he isn’t afraid to beat a dead horse to ensure it doesn’t come back as a zombie horse. But his project is one of the more shining examples of how we need to rededicate ourselves to the task of cultivating a properly conservative courage and a properly conservative disposition. He loves Obama more than I do, and he hates Palin more than I do, and there are plenty other differences besides (in addition to a sizeable pile of similarities). But our discourse would be the poorer without him — because he is, indeed, a kind of postmodern conservative. Heaven forfend that ‘postmodern conservatism’ ever be considered anything like the Next Big Label — a postmodern conservative understands, I think, that that kind of positioning deconstructs itself. But in calling postmodern conservatism a big tent, my tongue is only partly in cheek; without launching into a long account of why, the main reason would have to do with the status of modern conservatism.
