You might have noticed that I’m on a bit of a hiatus right now. Maybe not, either way is fine. I’ve left the League in the capable hands of my fellow contributors to focus more of my time and attention on various other projects, links for which will be forthcoming as early as Monday.
Today; however, is a bit slow, so I thought I’d drop a quick note in response to Erik’s post of yesterday on the pettiness of current conservative politics, the effort and sincerity of which I appreciated greatly.
In that post, Erik wrote,
Populism, after all, is just a nice word for “mob”. If ever there was a thing that conservatives were meant to protect us against it is the rule of the mob. Conservatives were never supposed to be the mob, were never meant to be its advocates.
In so writing, I think that Erik has succinctly summed up why he, despite twists and turns, ducks, bobs, and weaves, and, ultimately, come what may, is a conservative at heart while at the same time articulating a (if not “the”) pressing Conservative dilemma: Erik and most other conservatives don’t trust people.
I don’t say that to be derisive or condemning, it is a perfectly acceptable position to take given the vagaries of common modern life. But this strikes me as one of the fundamental planks of conservative ideology, when the chips are down, people are not to be trusted. And so we must find ways of protecting ourselves from those that cannot be trusted, namely: everyone — excepting maybe family and close friends, and even then…
I note this primarily because one of the projects in which I am currently engaged is an exercise and exploration into precisely the opposite perspective: given the opportunity, people will, more often than not, demonstrate not only that they are trustworthy, but that they are quite capable of not just meeting, but exceeding your expectations. There are no golden rules here, of course. People cannot 100% of the time either be trusted or not trusted. But I am coming around to the idea that people can be trusted often enough that I find myself increasingly averse to precisely the terms that Erik choose to employ: mob or, in other popular lexicon, the masses.
My projects aside, I think this fundamental lack of trust presents, as I mentioned, a real dilemma for conservatives. Conservatives are supposed to be the advocates of liberty and the watchdogs of tyranny, they rail against the excesses and intrusions of government in all it’s myriad forms. And yet, articulations like Erik’s often break down into beliefs like: keep the government out of my life, except when it comes to those people, if government is supposed to do anything it is to keep me safe from those people! And, of course, the number of ways in which the actions of those people, the mob, the masses, intrude on one’s life are never ending, so the number of ways in which government must be utilized as the means by which the untrustworthiness of those people is mitigated grows in a proportional fashion.
Such is the way that — and believe the legislative trajectory of conservatism bears this out — advocates of liberty and limited government wind up constantly finding new ways to use government as a means of guarding against the excesses and dangers of the mob and, presto change-o, government continues unfathomably to grow under their direction. Call it subtle governmentalism, conservatives claim to be thoroughly averse to government excess and speaking loudly and courageously against it in public, but in private enable a justifyng cognitive dissonance to grow it, time and time again.
At least liberals are upfront about their belief that government is a useful means of providing the needed measures for society, sometimes for the mob/masses and sometimes guarding against. Not so for conservatives who are locked into this sort mistrust-limited government finger trap that seems inevitably to render the majority of their rhetorical flourish empty when the rubber hits the road.
Again, I’m not condemning here, we all have our catch-22s with which to deal. But if this isn’t the major roadblock for conservatives and conservatism in contemporary political practice, it strikes me as a fairly significant one.
Will Truman 
Patrick Cahalan 
Cornelius 
wardsmith 
Tod Kelly 
Tom Van Dyke 
Murali 
James Hanley 
Borat: “I do a picture, only small, of the Tishnik Masacre. Where many Uzbeks…crushed!”
Kindly Gray Hippie: “How did you feel when you drew this?”
Borat: “Very proud!”.
KGH: “I’m just listening with sadness…a little sadness for your people…?”
Borat: “Yes…no, it is not sad. It is us who do the kill!”
When in doubt,
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Wow. Now that’s a hiatus-from-hiatus for the ages if I ever read one. That said, I do want someone to keep me safe from those people! But then I’m a liberal, and the populist of this day are scary conservatives! That’s my thing with populism, which I’ve been trying to figure out since E.D.’s post: it doesn’t get us past politics. It’s just a mode, or rather a mood — a flavor — of the same old politics. The substance is what matters. I’m all for populism — when it’s pushing what I’m for. When it’s pushing something I’m against, I’m agin’it. And I don’t have any problem with that, and I don’t think anyone else should either. It’s a pretty much value-neutral form, so there’s really no reason we need to be impartial to it with regard to out politics and the politics that happen to be taking the form of populism at that moment.
And that’s what I think about populism. Have a cluckety-cluck day.
Basically, though, yeah, I’m okay with the fairly strong checks we have in the system to slow down populism on either/any side. I’m conservative in that way. When it’s really important, the system gives way enough to get what needs doing done. Except when it doesn’t…
Scott, I definitely think you have a point there, and a well made one at that. However, there can be a difference between a distrust of people and a distrust of government. Certainly government is composed of people also, but a conservative (or anyone, whatever they label themselves) may distrust what people do within the confines of governmental institutions and yet feel considerable trust for people as individuals, and as parts of organizations with which he feels at home (perhaps his service club, church, place of employment, golf game partners, etc.). Certainly some of us are naturally more social than others and that figures into how each of us deals with everything in our lives. But again, a distrust of government does not necessarily indicate that there is more general distrust.
Perhaps it’s a thing where “I don’t mind a government of ‘us’ but I sure as hell mind a government of ‘them’”.
And there are conflicting impulses regarding what government ought to do.
I tend to think that we shouldn’t give ‘us’ a single power that I wouldn’t want to see ‘them’ wielding over me.
Some tend to think that ‘we’ will use the power for good while ‘they’ use it for bad and so ‘we’ need to always make sure ‘they’ lose.
And some people seem to think that ‘we’ will have a permanent majority so giving the government that much power just makes sense.
Everyone but me is crazy, of course.
Scott, I’m gob smacked. Just beautiful.
I think it’s wrong to say that conservatives have a distrust of “people.” They have a distrust of certain mechanisms people use to enforce their ideas. They distrust people wielding political power, for instance. “They” should not have the power to tax me.
On the other hand, conservatives (pretty famously, I would say) tend to be far more trustful of corporations, churches and other wielders of consolidated power.
This difference come on pretty strong in a debate like health care reform. Progressives charge that the market allows evil Robber Barons to ration care. That cannot stand. So we need “the people” to elect people to appoint technocratic bureaucrats ration the care instead.
No! Cry the conservatives. We cannot allow technocratic bureaucrats to ration care! We must allow the Invisible Hand of the market arrange some Robber Barons to do it for us.
Both sides trust certain people and distrust others. In fact, people don’t care who the specific people are, only how they came to power. If the technocratic bureaucrats would quit government and take up positions in Health Corp, or whatever, the conservatives would endorse and approve of their power all of a suddent. On the flip side, if the Robber Barons working for Health Corp would suddenly quit their corporate overlords and go to work for HHS, the Progressives would endorse and approve of their recommendations.
That is, it’s not a question of who trusts whom, but of who trusts which arrangements.
Thank you Scott… you’ve perfectly described why I think conservatism at it’s heart is non-interventionist.
We don’t trust our economically illterate central planners to completely create a healthcare system in their image,
It would be absurd to trust our culturally illiterate central planners to try and totally recreate a foreign culture based on their ideas.
Conservatives most certainly trust people. They trust people who are more powerful than they are, and they expect everyone else to do so as well. Hierarchy is very important to conservatives, in fact, more important than justice, equity or avoiding harm. That means trust has to flow upwards, not downwards. Consider Alan Greenspan, who trusted the powerful bankers and thought they were wonderful, intelligent people who would never do wrong, no matter how little oversight one offered. He was a classic conservative and quite trusting, as even he admitted. Look at the tea party types. They trust wealthy, powerful sorts when they say they will create jobs, or rebuild America, or whatever rubbish, if only their taxes were lowered, or that the private market can provide good, affordable health care coverage.
Conservatives also trust members of their own subgroup as group identity is extremely important. President Johnson always used to say that the South was held back because whenever someone tried to move it forward the conservatives would yell n—-r, n—-r, except he didn’t use dashes. Trust of one’s racial in-group and distrust of other groups is one important reason that neither the US nor South Africa have universal health care.
Conservatism basically bully worship and bigotry. You find it in every parochial, isolated, traditional culture.
Scott, you provided a different view than I had when reading E.D.’s post. When I read “mob” I didn’t read “them” so much as “torches and pitchforks crazies.” From my point of view E.D. is quite right that the pettiness is a cynical use of the know-nothings, not the manipulation of general working folks.
Because I love folksy anecdotes, i’ll share one: My wife and I just bought a new house with some stretching of our finances. We can afford the house but we will need to tighten the belts a bit until we’ve recouped the moving expenses, downpayment, etc. My wife, because she loves our kids, wants to get them brand new sheets, quilts, etc for their rooms because, y’know, it will help them adjust to the new house. Me, being the less-exuberant of our marriage, has to remind her that money is tight right now and their old sheets are fine. Her response is that I am always the wet blanket. *sigh*
I think ‘untrusting may be a less-fitting epitath to arrive at for conservatives. My opinion, as a conservative, is that we aren’t untrusting…we’re just skeptical as hell. We need to be convinced tenfold before we adopt an idea, whereas the stereotypical liberal is much more easily persuaded. I consider our skepticism to be the counter-balance to the over-exuberance of liberalism. The ying to the yang. We have to be the wet blanket because liberals always act with their hearts. As a result, we sound like those old guys in balcony on the Muppet Show. It’s our cross to bear.
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