Rod Dreher on movement conservatism’s culture problem:

One of the things that first attracted me to conservatism was that back in the 1980s, when I was in college and watching liberals elevate utter mediocrity to sacrosanct status because it was produced or embodied by a member of an approved victim group, it was the conservatives who were advocating for excellence judged by serious, valid criteria, not ethnic, gender or sexual identity — which is their contemporary form of egalitarianism (versus a previous eras, based on class). Now the right has adopted this sort of thing as a lens through which to see and judge the world. Like I said, depressing.

In recent years, it has never ceased to amaze me how much right-wing political correctness and identity politics have come to resemble the very worst aspects of late-80s and early-90s left-wing political correctness, and in particular the way in which it so dramatically views all culture through a political lens.  A true conservative nowadays not only holds particular political views, it seems he must also prefer Kwik-E-Mart to Whole Foods, and 24 to all other TV dramas.  Not only must he hold these preferences, he must also complain vociferously about how his ideology is underrepresented and disrespected on TV, in the media, etc.   How conservatives are portrayed (or not portrayed) in the arts seemingly takes precedence to whether the art is actually good art.  If it portrays conservatives and conservative mentalities positively, it is automatically deemed good art; if it portrays liberals and liberal mentalities positively, it is automatically deemed bad art. 

(Reminder to all reader-bloggers: the surest way to get a link from me is to write about right-wing political correctness).

Time for some blawging.

Rod Dreher makes the case, once again, that same-sex marriage presents a unique and unavoidable conflict that will drastically undermine religious liberty in this nation, concluding that the ”conflict between gay rights and religious liberty is deep, serious and irresolvable to the satisfaction of both.”  Dreher further argues that:

“It’s one thing if the boundaries of gay rights are set by statute, as in the DC case. It’s another if they are set by a court in a constitutional case. In the former, exemptions for religious organizations can be carved out — but if the Supreme Court decides that gay marriage is a constitutional right, then religious organizations will be given much less room to move, and there’s nothing they will be able to do about it.”

On both counts, Rod misunderstands the nature of the conflict and the role of the legislature and courts in creating (or potentially alleviating) that conflict.

First, the conflict here is definitively not between gay marriage and religious liberty.  It is instead between laws regarding private discrimination and freedom of association, or perhaps between licensing laws and freedom of religion.  As they affect the private sphere and specifically religious organizations, gay rights, and specifically same-sex marriage, represent at most an expansion of existing conflicts rather than any new type of conflict.  Even here, the conflict arises not from whether or not same-sex marriage is permitted, but instead from whether or not statutory laws recognize sexual orientation as an impermissible basis for private discrimination (whether in an employment context, public accommodations context, or otherwise), which is independent of whether same-sex marriage is permitted.

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Conor Friedersdorf has posted another entry in the “sprawling, muddled debate about the state of the right, the role dissident conservatives should play, and the wisdom of attacking talk radio hosts” that’s been playing out recently, with Conor and Rod Dreher on one side, and fellow Gentlemen Freddie, Mark, and E.D. on the other, with a special appearance by Julian Sanchez. I myself was a little bit unclear on what Freddie meant by “taking responsibility” when he started this whole thing, and I think the debate has defaulted to Julian’s interpretation:

It’s not that opinion writers should have bad consciences about not being party activists, or that a fondness for Edmund Burke actually makes one “responsible” for whatever some racist loons shout at a town hall, which would be silly, but is also an easy way to read the claim on a first pass. Rather it’s that there’s an actual conservative base out there supporting the political actors, they’re not going away anytime soon, and if the conservative movement’s going to pull out of this toxic death spiral, someone who’s not an imbecile or a psychopath is going to have to identify with them enough to lead them out of the fever swamps.

And so we’ve been focusing on the relationship between dissidents and the base, and gotten into issues of leadership and tone and rhetoric, with Mark and E.D. offering their advice. Now, the League is more of a confederation than a union, so I don’t have to join up with my co-contributors on this line of argument. And so I’m actually with Conor on the idea that, in Mark’s phrase, “conservative wonks aren’t doing their job”:

Put another way, tweaking Rod Dreher for his failure to fully invest himself in reforming “the conservative movement” with wonky solutions acceptable to the base makes about as much sense as criticizing Reihan Salam for failing to abandon his cosmopolitan tendencies long enough to convince culturally conservative Texans to raise backyard chickens in the name of spiritual fulfillment and environmental sustainability. What a shame it would be if everyone who understood and embraced conservative insights uniformly turned their attention toward or away from politics! It is preferable that folks who identify as conservative adopt different postures toward “the conservative movement,” play greater and lesser roles in shaping it, wield influence in different places, and make varying contributions to American culture, political and otherwise, more generally.

All of which is to say, I have no interest in telling conservative wonks or dissidents what they should be spending their time writing or arguing about. I do, however, want to try out another angle on “taking responsibility,” and I think it might actually be more in line with what Freddie was ranting about.

In his piece, Conor reiterates a point he’s made before:

…I insist on reaffirming the distinction between the political philosophy conservatism and “movement conservatism.” The flaws that are so evident on the right are entirely due to the latter. [emphasis added - wrb]

This distinction can be made for any political philosophy that gains enough popularity to become significant in the halls of power. (Although when I try it for liberalism, I feel like I have to drop in a modifier like “Millean” or “Rawlsian.” Can we really take it for granted that “the” conservative philosophy needs no such modifier?) Since politics is a realm where concern for the common good has to contend with every kind of individual or communal interest, only rarely does a political philosophy find anything approaching a pure representation.

It seems obvious that no one would subscribe to a political philosophy if she believed that philosophy would ruin the world. But it’s not so hard to believe that someone could endorse a political philosophy without considering the problems that will come from imperfect instantiations of that philosophy.

To take a small-scale hypothetical: let’s say I become convinced that deregulation is generally good for the economy, with only rare exceptions, and that the widget industry has been under heavy regulation for years and years. Now, I conclude that a comprehensive deregulation of the widget market will lead to lower costs for consumers, lower barriers to market entry for would-be widget makers, and more innovation in widget design. It seems like I should advocate deregulation, right? Except — WidgetCo Inc. has a powerful lobby in Washington. If they manage to get their hooks in the deregulation process, they’ll skew it so that the rules they like stay in place and the rules they don’t go. It still counts as deregulation, but it redounds to the benefit of WidgetCo. If it turns out that partial deregulation is worse than the status quo, and it’s apparent that partial deregulation is ever so much more likely than comprehensive deregulation, my anti-regulation stance starts to look a little bit, well, irresponsible.

So, if you advocate for a political philosophy, taking responsibility means that you ask yourself: what does it look like when this philosophy goes wrong? What happens when it’s taken up by self-interested people? How will it be twisted by power? When Freddie says he takes responsibility for liberalism, I think what he means is that he can look at his how his political philosophy worked out in the real world, even in its Carter-years excesses and mistakes and say, “It was worth it.” Not: “They called themselves liberals, but it’s like they never even read Mill!”

In 2009, at what may or may not turn out to be the close of a conservative era, I’m not sure what I can say. The excesses and missteps of Buckley-style conservatism (which conceives of itself as in opposition to and separate from contemporary liberalism) strike me as fearsome indeed. But, really, that’s neither here nor there for this post. The point is that a person bears some responsibility for making sure the political philosophy she advocates isn’t an unstable equilibrium, prone to breaking down into something bad when deployed in the mess of political reality.

Spurred by a harrowing investigative piece from The New Yorker on the execution of Cameron Todd Willingham, Rod Dreher has written a powerful op-ed opposing the death penalty:

First things first: If Willingham really did kill his three daughters, he deserved his 2004 date with death at Huntsville. Anyone who takes the life of another in cold blood should pay for it with his own. But being found guilty by a jury is not the same as actually being guilty of the crime – which is why I reluctantly oppose the death penalty. This is no longer the Wild West. If we are going to send a man to his death, an irrevocable punishment, the margin of error must be vanishingly small.

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People seemed to dig the interview I did with Kevin Drum around his thoughts on the evolution of blogging as a medium over the past seven years, so we’ve decided to turn that one-off into a series of interviews with a variety of bloggers who’ve been engaged in the art of the immediate for some time. Our next interview is with the original Crunchy Con himself, Rod Dreher, who got his start in 2002 when NRO started The Corner. Rod has moved on to work for The Dallas Morning News, publish his own Crunchy Con blog at Beliefnet, and co-found the always interesting Front Porch Republic (and he even managed to turn the interview around on me at one point).

Many thanks to Rod for taking the time to offer his insights into our beloved fishbowl. [Read more →]

So, true to form, there were problems hooking the discussion up via Blog Talk Radio, but Dan, Conor, and I gave Skype another whirl and managed not just to get through over an hour of conversation, but also had a really great and spirited dialogue. [Read more →]

I’ve been holding my tongue on Levingate 2009 because most of what I would say is old trope around these parts and I didn’t want to add to, as commenter and fellow blogger Bob Cheeks astutely noted as, the “bullshit” of this ridiculous firestorm. But E.D. has reawakened the discussion here at our home digs and so while I might not feel compelled to link to and comment on others in the fracas, now that it’s at my door step I can’t but give in to the urge to stamp on this flaming bag. [Read more →]

Rather than go through and pen something new in regards to Vermont’s landmark decision on marriage equality, I thought instead I would reprint my first contribution at The Moderate Voice back in December here at the League with some tweakage to bring it up to speed. I remain squarely behind everything expressed in this piece and think that the suggestions offered are more relevant than ever.

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The passage of Proposition 8 in California on November 4 seems to have vaulted the issue of same sex marriage into the spotlight of America’s culture wars,  stirring a variety of emotions amongst Americans coast to coast. Arguments from opponents to marriage equality have varied in focus and quality, but perhaps one of the more sincere and thoughtful refrains has come from conservatives like Rod Dreher.

Recently Dreher has been engaged in a back and forth with Damion Linker where he has once again fleshed out his concerns around the larger issue of moral decay, of which non-traditional definitions of marriage that include same-sex couples are both symptomatic and contributory. Dreher writes,

We’ve been over this a thousand times, and I don’t know how to make it plainer but than to say that changing the law to permit same-sex marriages teaches a lesson about the meaning of marriage that I think is untruthful, and ultimately deconstructive (if that’s a word) of the concept of marriage. We legislate morality all the time; except for procedural laws, that’s what law-making is. Making same-sex marriage legal teaches a different moral lesson, one Damon believes is salutary. I think it tells a lie about human nature, and the nature and purpose of sex and sexuality. I don’t fear that my children will “turn out gay,” or whatever paranoid nonsense some liberals impute to us conservatives. What I do fear is that they will grow up in a culture that tells them by example that marriage means whatever we want it to mean.

I do not disagree with Dreher that as the foundations of our traditional institutions erode in the face of complex social dynamics, we are forced to grapple with increasingly hazy moral clarity. That such moral haziness represents an assault on the signifiers of meaning against which we pin our lives is, as well, not a controversial statement in my mind. However, contra Dreher I see the legalization of same-sex marriahe and the institutionalization of marriage equality as an effective redress to our contemporary ethical dilemma. [Read more →]

So this is a neat new site for any of you who may read Daniel Larison, Rod Dreher, Patrick J. Deneen and the many other conservative writers who make up Front Porch Republic.  I’m personally very excited because it looks like this site will focus on the very issues I’m most concerned about – culture, community, the environment, and localism.

From the About page:

The economic crisis that emerged in late 2008 and the predictable responses it elicited from those in power has served to highlight the extent to which concepts such as human scale, the distribution of power, and our responsibility to the future have been eliminated from the public conversation. It also threatens to worsen the political and economic centralization and atomization that have accompanied the century-long unholy marriage between consumer capitalism and the modern bureaucratic state. We live in a world characterized by a flattened culture and increasingly meaningless freedoms. Little regard is paid to the necessity for those overlapping local and regional groups, communities, and associations that provide a matrix for human flourishing. We’re in a bad way, and the spokesmen and spokeswomen of both our Left and our Right are, for the most part, seriously misguided in their attempts to provide diagnoses, let alone solutions.

Though there is plenty we disagree about, and each contributor can be expected to stand by the words of only his or her own posts, the folks gathered here more or less agree with the above assertions. We come from different backgrounds, live in different places, and have divergent interests, but we’re convinced that scale, place, self-government, sustainability, limits, and variety are key terms with which any fruitful debate about our corporate future must contend. We invite you to read along, and perhaps join the discussion.

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