How is the conservative movement like "1984"?
Just got a PDF copy of Austin Bramwell's upcoming article from The American Conservative, and it will indeed start a thousand fights. Good. The conservative movement needs to have some fights to clear the way to its renewal. I'm going to wait until the Bramwell essay is online to comment extensively on it, because people should be able to read it in its entirety (and nota bene, I don't agree with all of it). But I have to say the finest passage to me was a lengthy one in which he outlined the four ways the conservative movement has become like "1984." See if you don't think a lot of this rings true:
1. "First, like Ingsoc, conservatism has a hierarchical structure. Like Orwell's "Inner Party," those at the top of the movement have almost perfect freedom to decide what opinions count as official conservatism."
Dissent, even from conservative principles, and you face "ostracism and harsh rebuke," writes Bramwell. And: "Millions of conservative epigones believe nothing less than what the movement's established organs tell them to believe."
2. "Second, conservatism is concerned less with truth than with distinguishing insiders from outsiders."
"Conservatives identify themselves in part by repeating slogans ("we are at war!") that, like "ignorance is strength," are less important for what (if anything) thtey say than for what saying them says about the speaker," Bramwell writes. And if you doubt the official line, whether or not your doubts have merit, you are guilty of "doublethink," and had better keep those doubts to yourself or risk being pushed to the outside of the movement.
3. "Third, and closely related to doublethinking, the conservative movement engages in selective editing of history. When events have a tendency to disconfirm ideology, down the memory hole they go."
Did leading conservatives claim that Iraqis would welcome us as liberators? That the insurgency would end once we got rid of Saddam, and then Zarqawi? Of course -- but, writes Bramwell, "the ability to forget that any of these events ever occurred signals one's loyalty to the movement. (Hence, the rise of hawkishness against Iran, not four years after the last effort to sell a war to an otherwise balky public.)
4. "Fourth, conservatism is entertaining. Understanding the world, though rewarding, provides nothing like the pleasures of a 'Two Minute Hate,' a focused, ritualized denunciation of enemies.
I was at a big conservative dinner earlier this year, and listened in on a panel discussion. Among the panel was a venerable conservative activist and controversialist, who weighed in with a ritual denunciation of judicial activists, public school educrats, and the usual suspects. What stuck in my mind about the thing was not so much whether she was right or wrong (and I think she was more right than wrong), but how stale it sounded. It was as if she believed that reciting the Litany of Enemies of the Right was sufficient. Maybe it was, I dunno. But I know for a fact I wasn't the only conservative in that room thinking, "Is this all the Right has to offer anymore?"
Back to the Two-Minute Hate, this kind of thinking is a symptom of why the conservative movement is in such trouble. If your critics and opponents can't possibly have a point, and are only Stupid or Evil (else they'd see things your way in every instance), then you shouldn't be surprised when you get cold-cocked by reality on Election Day. Which is a lesson the Democratic Party leadership has been struggling to learn for years and years.
UPDATE: I should add that Bramwell says this ideological behavior doesn't have anything to do with conservatism per se, but rather lies "deep in our cognitive limitations and instinct for group loyalty. One could make similar observations of any ideology." It's important, though, to point out how ideological conservatism has become, and thus strayed from its roots. Writes Bramwell, "Lexically, 'conservatism' denotes caution, prudence, and resistance to change. Conservatism the ideology, however, has if anything tended towards recklessness."
1. "First, like Ingsoc, conservatism has a hierarchical structure. Like Orwell's "Inner Party," those at the top of the movement have almost perfect freedom to decide what opinions count as official conservatism."
Dissent, even from conservative principles, and you face "ostracism and harsh rebuke," writes Bramwell. And: "Millions of conservative epigones believe nothing less than what the movement's established organs tell them to believe."
2. "Second, conservatism is concerned less with truth than with distinguishing insiders from outsiders."
"Conservatives identify themselves in part by repeating slogans ("we are at war!") that, like "ignorance is strength," are less important for what (if anything) thtey say than for what saying them says about the speaker," Bramwell writes. And if you doubt the official line, whether or not your doubts have merit, you are guilty of "doublethink," and had better keep those doubts to yourself or risk being pushed to the outside of the movement.
3. "Third, and closely related to doublethinking, the conservative movement engages in selective editing of history. When events have a tendency to disconfirm ideology, down the memory hole they go."
Did leading conservatives claim that Iraqis would welcome us as liberators? That the insurgency would end once we got rid of Saddam, and then Zarqawi? Of course -- but, writes Bramwell, "the ability to forget that any of these events ever occurred signals one's loyalty to the movement. (Hence, the rise of hawkishness against Iran, not four years after the last effort to sell a war to an otherwise balky public.)
4. "Fourth, conservatism is entertaining. Understanding the world, though rewarding, provides nothing like the pleasures of a 'Two Minute Hate,' a focused, ritualized denunciation of enemies.
I was at a big conservative dinner earlier this year, and listened in on a panel discussion. Among the panel was a venerable conservative activist and controversialist, who weighed in with a ritual denunciation of judicial activists, public school educrats, and the usual suspects. What stuck in my mind about the thing was not so much whether she was right or wrong (and I think she was more right than wrong), but how stale it sounded. It was as if she believed that reciting the Litany of Enemies of the Right was sufficient. Maybe it was, I dunno. But I know for a fact I wasn't the only conservative in that room thinking, "Is this all the Right has to offer anymore?"
Back to the Two-Minute Hate, this kind of thinking is a symptom of why the conservative movement is in such trouble. If your critics and opponents can't possibly have a point, and are only Stupid or Evil (else they'd see things your way in every instance), then you shouldn't be surprised when you get cold-cocked by reality on Election Day. Which is a lesson the Democratic Party leadership has been struggling to learn for years and years.
UPDATE: I should add that Bramwell says this ideological behavior doesn't have anything to do with conservatism per se, but rather lies "deep in our cognitive limitations and instinct for group loyalty. One could make similar observations of any ideology." It's important, though, to point out how ideological conservatism has become, and thus strayed from its roots. Writes Bramwell, "Lexically, 'conservatism' denotes caution, prudence, and resistance to change. Conservatism the ideology, however, has if anything tended towards recklessness."
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