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May 13, 2009
Exclusive: Social Conservatism in America: A Definition
Conservatives’ current muddle derives from the very founding of modern conservatism. That movement grew from the intersection of intellectual challenges to founding principles, philosophical rejection of absolutes, attacks on individualism, the rise of communism and socialism and the uneasy sense that things were changing for the worse with a dramatic departure from traditional values.
Modern conservatism grew to meet all of those challenges at once and, in doing so, blurred the lines between conservative political philosophy and conservative social impulse. Conservative intellectuals’ embracement of Edmund Burke as the godfather of conservatism added to the muddle since his idea did not argue for a systematic analysis of the role of government as a basis for the development of a logical political theory. His was a philosophy based on social impulse, history, tradition and the building of institutions through slow metamorphosis grounded on established foundations.
As a social theorist, he was dead on but he provided no guidance for the development of a political philosophy because he gave no grounding in systematic thought from which new concepts could be developed to address modern public policy challenges, rejected rationalism as a means to truth and provided no fundamental premise from which to think forward. Accepting Burke as the father or American conservatism was a fundamental error for any number of reasons.
The first, of course, is that conservatism must mean to conserve something. There is some unanimity of thought among conservatives that that which they intend to conserve are the founding principles of the nation. But Burke had little impact on the Founders. He was their contemporary, neither their guide nor their intellectual progenitor, and his greatest intellectual influence was not to be felt until after the Revolution had succeeded and the republic established.
Far more influential among the Founders were John Locke and Thomas Hobbes. Many of their concepts, and at least some of their very words, found their way into founding documents and more than a little into the debates leading up to the establishment of the nation. Burke provided a rationale for monarchy and argued against the right of the people to establish the government of their choosing. Surely, these are not ideas American conservatives seek to conserve. Had the Founders agreed with these concepts, they would certainly not have provided a mechanism for amending the Constitution or the means for overthrowing it in its entirety by Constitutional Convention.
But accepting Burke as the father of American conservatism firmly, though not irretrievably, bound political conservatism to social conservatism. The two proceed, however, from entirely separate premises and intellectual rationales. They must not be linked if either is to prosper. Conservative political philosophy, based as it is on freedom, does not necessarily include social conservatism, based as it is on values, some logical, some wholly subjective. Combining both as a necessary, unified whole diminishes each.
Social conservatism is hardly controversial as a lifestyle. Social conservatism means the observance of traditional social values. Dedication to family and community. Celebration of country. Responsibility, self-reliance, initiative. The sort of mainstream values sometimes dismissed by the intelligentsia as “Norman Rockwell’s America.” It includes caring for the poor and dispossessed through support for private charity. It celebrates the traditional nuclear family comprised of a mother, a father and children. It means family dinners and Sunday barbeques and taking an interest in children’s education and activities. It means parents providing the means for children to grow and advance and taking responsibility for their needs.
It includes a sense of responsibility for one’s community and the setting of community standards of behavior. It means teaching children the virtues of, well, virtue. It means teaching them manners, politeness and a civilized way of interacting with others. It involves defining morality and expecting that others observe standards of moral behavior based on the traditions of our culture; the preservation of traditional moral values. In the broader sense, it is creating a sense of community with shared values and standards all are expected to meet.
It means becoming involved with the civil society, as generations have conceived it. Involvement with improving neighborhoods, towns, cities, states and the nation. It means civic involvement at some level. It includes taking an interest in how the community is faring from levels of education to levels of crime. From civic upkeep to acceptable behavior.
It includes civilized interaction among friends and enemies and those one does not know. It requires polite treatment of those with whom one comes in contact. It means tolerance for those who are culturally different, but not of those whose behavior falls below community norms. Social conservatism means treating people with courtesy and decency and kindness and not knowingly hurting any person who doesn’t deserve it. It means observing ethical standards and achieving a level of integrity. For that matter, striving for integrity as a positive social good. It means demanding and observing honesty in one’s personal affairs and intolerance for dishonesty in others.
I remember meeting two different men only months apart, each of whom had known one of my grandfathers; neither of whom knew both of my grandfathers and who did not know each other. When I told each man who my grandfather was, each said to me – in the very same words – “I knew your grandfather. He was an honest man.” Neither said “he was a nice guy,” “he was the life of the party,” “he had a great sense of humor,” “he was he sweetest guy I ever knew.” He was an honest man. I thought at the time what a wonderful epitaph. What a terrific way to be remembered. An honest man. How very old fashioned that seems now. So very 19th century.
Or is it? When I hear from urban sophisticates that this is a naïve view; an unrealistic, sentimental Norman Rockwell view of an America that no longer exists, I tell them to go to rural New Mexico, where I have spent so much time. Talk to the cowboys and ranchers and the townspeople. It is a place where a man’s word is still his bond; where they believe you can tell an honest man by a good, firm handshake and the look in his eye. Where neighbor still helps neighbor and caring does not require a government mandate. Where integrity still rules the day and where the quickest way to ostracism is to lie to a friend. These values dead? No. They still live in towns and neighborhoods and communities throughout this nation. They still live in the hearts of the vast majority of Americans.
That is social conservatism.
Who disagrees with any of that?
It goes beyond personal conduct, though. It means having a heroic view of man. It means celebrating the achievements of great people. It means promoting the best, striving, in one’s own life to be the best, most highly achieved and successful one can be. It means celebrating the heroes knowing that great achievement on the part of communities generally means great achievement by individuals who lead through inspiration or example. People who do mighty things we wish we had done or could do. It is celebrating accomplishment in sport, the arts, politics and business. It means celebrating creativity and imagination and those who achieve great things as a result of exercising their own.
It means having a concept of heroism and seeing it in others as many of us do in such diverse characters as Patrick Henry, Winston Churchill, Walt Disney, George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln. Americans still believe in Davey Crockett and Daniel Boone and that the good guys should win. It is still reflected in our culture. In movies, television dramas, soaring and moving music and art.
Where is the controversy in social conservatism? If conservatives want to see a real conservative success story, take a look at the values that still clearly prevail in this country. The vast majority of Americans are still socially conservative. And it is those conservative social values that grow out of our traditions and continue to define our personal conduct and much of our aspiration.
So what is there to criticize in social conservatism? It is in the very judgment that social conservatism demands. Traditional social values reject a long list of socially unacceptable deviations from the norm: adultery, premarital sex, lying, bad manners, abortion, vulgarity and bad language, among many others. That means social conservatives generally criticize those who engage in this conduct and view its increasing frequency with alarm. Out of that comes the pervasive view that our society is in decline; that we are losing those values that brought us to the pinnacle of our success and that the nation cannot long survive if it tolerates such behavior.
Fair enough. But should that be a matter for political action? Should we outlaw premarital sex, belching at the dinner table, bad language? Should we prosecute vulgarity and adultery? Or should we use our social structures to set and demand standards for those we would count among our friends and acquaintances? But if we do not take political action, how, then, do we address it?
Social conservatives do themselves a disservice by making their social and cultural impulses a matter of politics. They diminish the power of their social ideas by identifying them with a set of political principles. There are those who believe that political conservatism is a natural outgrowth of social and cultural conservatism and that conservative social values are consistent only with political conservatism. That was Burke’s theory and that of some contemporary conservative thinkers. But there are others who do not agree.
The most socially conservative community in America today is the Latino community. But it is not politically conservative. If social conservatism is a positive value, it must be promoted and supported on its own terms regardless of the political leanings of those who might embrace it. It cannot be linked to political conservatism because if it is, it gives impetus to those who would reject it on the basis of politics. Social conservatives leave a lot of natural constituents behind if they demand political conservatism in the bargain.
Political conservatives, on the other hand, stand to gain support as social conservatives who are political liberals find their social values under assault by the prevailing philosophy of liberal intellectual leaders. If social conservatives who support liberal politicians can be made to see that their long term social concerns will be answered only through politically conservative initiatives, their social impulses might lead to political realignment.
The problem is that conservative social values are inherently subjective. They come from the traditions of generations of civilized peoples. They are of a piece with the conservative impulse articulated by Burke. This is where he had it right. Some of those urges are logical but few are based on logic. They are based on inchoate impulse and instinct and are transmitted unconsciously through generations of our ancestors. Their rightness derives from their familiarity. That social reality results in cultural strength.
At the same time, conservative political theory must be inherently objective and based not on instinct but on a reasoned progression from first concepts to a detailed description of Man’s relationship to government. It must be based on premises that are provable and rational and on which the greatest number can agree, having accepted the premise that the greatest duty of government is the preservation of individual freedom, as our founding documents provide. Political conservatives leave far too many behind when they demand social conservatism to be a member of the club.
The enforcement of social norms through government action squints toward authoritarianism, the polar opposite of the basic premise of conservative political theory. There is clearly a place for government in the regulation of criminal conduct. But social conduct must be enforced in the home, the workplace and in our choice of friends. It can be enforced through the community’s rejection and ostracism of those who engage in socially unacceptable behavior. It should be the stuff of social interaction and social rebuke. There is simply a fundamental difference between Man’s relationship to man and Man’s relationship to government. One is an amalgam of instincts, feelings, traditions and senses the other is necessarily the result of logical thought based on agreed upon empirical premises unrelated to the amalgam of the other.
I am aware of a family in which the only living members are a brother and a sister. he sister has made bad choices and is on the verge of destitution. Her brother is very wealthy and easily has the means to support her. The law says he has no responsibility to do so. A political conservative would say he has no legal responsibility and would support no move to provide one. A social conservative might suggest that he has a moral responsibility and would disapprove of his refusal to do so. In the end, each impulse is right for its discipline but demanding the socially conservative impulse become a politically conservative imperative would destroy the very rationale for political conservatism.
There are gradations of human behavior. We make illegal those acts that are so bad that society cannot tolerate them and punishes them through criminal prosecution. The law is simply the minimum standard of morality acceptable in a society, but living a legal life is not to live a moral one. Likewise, leading a moral life does not mean living a virtuous one and leading a virtuous life does not mean living an honorable one. The life of law is the subject of politics. Matters of morality, virtue and honor are not defined by law and cannot, therefore, be defined by politics. They must be defined socially and enforced through purely social structures. In the end, community opprobrium is as powerful a weapon as one should need.
If social conservatism is as pervasive as I suggest, how is it that so many have so much concern? It is because the rise of social liberalism on the part of opinion, intellectual and cultural leaders challenges our morality, social customs and cultural values. They proceed from the false premise that there are no legitimate standards. They discredit judgment in the name of tolerance. Who would destroy a culture must first destroy standards. Who would destroy standards must first discredit judgment.
The result of this social liberalism is an alarming breakdown in social standards reflected in sexual promiscuity, drug use, discordant music, chaotic art, suspension of normal sensibilities to the over intellectualization of artistic effort, the denigration of the hero, pervasive dwelling on historical dark sides, child criminality and tolerance of anti-social behavior. Americans rightly worry about the effects of this social nihilism and fear for the future of civil society.
Americans feel the effects of this false social philosophy every day in drug abuse, dishonesty, apologetics for criminal behavior and criminality inflicted on the innocent who did nothing more than doubt their own instincts because they have been told it is wrong to judge. They see it in the decline or sexual moral values on the part of young people who have been convinced that if it feels good, there is nothing wrong in indulging passion without judgment. If it gains popularity, it is acceptable. If nothing is right or wrong; if we may not judge, nothing is to be denied us.
This impulse on the part of young people does not come from nowhere. It is of a piece with that of their parents who celebrate financial gain over all other values. If, at the end of the day, one succeeds in gaining material success, what difference does it make if it was done through dishonesty or engagement in immoral acts? If moral standards are false; if there are no absolutes, who is to judge and on what basis?
Most Americans instinctively understand the wrongness of values free social thought even as they robotically mouth its fundamental rationale which is that there is no truth; there are no absolutes; everything is relative; there are no legitimate standards to be followed. But this cannot be rectified by political action. It must be by no less than a recognition that what we are losing are the cultural and social norms the greatest number value. It must begin with the setting and embracement of the standards we know to be right and the unsentimental rejection of those who do not meet them. It must include unapologetic judgment when our countrymen fall short and an unembarrassed willingness to confront those who attempt to delegitimize social absolutes. We can, do and must judge them. It is not only our right, it is our responsibility.
We are guided in our personal conduct by our social impulses and our political principles by an intellectual process. Each has its separate role to play. They are not the same, though they often intersect. In the end, we must recognize that separating the two makes each stronger because the one maximizes our freedom by restricting our government and the other serves as a social brake on conduct that, while bad, should not rise to government restriction. Good politics does not ensure a good society. It simply provides the freedom to create one. A good society comes only through good people enforcing, socially, the social values they instinctively know are right.
Family Security Matters Contributing Editor John W. Howard is a lawyer, specializing in corporate and business litigation who also founded a non-profit, public interest law firm specializing in First, Second and Tenth Amendment issues. Feedback: editorialdirector@familysecuritymatters.org.
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