{"id":1431,"date":"2016-01-22T14:54:07","date_gmt":"2016-01-22T19:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=1431"},"modified":"2016-01-22T14:54:07","modified_gmt":"2016-01-22T19:54:07","slug":"national-review-vs-trump-and-burke-and-kirk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2016\/01\/national-review-vs-trump-and-burke-and-kirk.html","title":{"rendered":"National Review vs. Trump–And Burke and Kirk!"},"content":{"rendered":"

National Review <\/em>recently sponsored a symposium of 22 \u201cconservative\u201d commentators who are \u201cagainst Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for the specifics of their remarks, more will be said at a future time. The virtue of this symposium is that it has the potential to generate a conversation over the nature of conservatism.<\/p>\n

Of course, NR\u2019s <\/em>contributors are indeed correct that Trump is not any sort of conservative in the classical or traditional sense of the word. But neither are Trump\u2019s \u201cconservative\u201d critics conservative in the classical or traditional sense of the word<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Undoubtedly, Trump has never read, if he\u2019s even heard of, Edmund Burke, \u201cthe patron saint\u201d of conservatism. I would be surprised if he\u2019s even heard of, let alone read, the work of the 20th<\/sup> century\u2019s American reincarnation of Burke, Russell Kirk. Chances are even slimmer yet that he\u2019s familiar with Michael Oakeshott\u2019s classic essay, \u201cOn Being Conservative,\u201d or George Nash\u2019s and Paul Gottfried\u2019s seminal studies of the conservative movement in America.<\/p>\n

The one contemporary nationally-renown figure who is<\/em> more philosophically approximate to Burke and Kirk than anyone else\u2014Pat Buchanan\u2014Trump at one time ridiculed. Nor has Trump been any more generous to either Ron or Rand Paul, both of whom, though widely regarded as \u201clibertarian,\u201d are nevertheless conservative just insofar as they are (or at least seem to be) committed to federalism, our Constitution.<\/p>\n

Yet here\u2019s the rub: What\u2019s true of Trump in all of these respects is at least as<\/em> true of many of his critics in the NR <\/em>symposium.<\/p>\n

Granted, I\u2019m sure that there are many among the latter who have heard<\/em> of Burke. Since Kirk\u2019s name was at one time on NR\u2019s <\/em>masthead, some of them have probably <\/em>heard of him as well. However, Kirk\u2019s name is scarcely ever, if at all, mentioned by any contemporary \u201cconservatives.\u201d And on those rare occasions when Burke\u2019s name is dropped, it is almost always in connection with a single line of his: \u201cThe only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Buchanan and the Pauls (especially the Elder), many of the Trump critics at NR <\/em>have reserved nothing but contempt.<\/p>\n

Obviously, Burke is no more exempt from criticism than is any other thinker. But to self-identify as a conservative while being either ignorant of or dismissive toward Burke is akin to proclaiming oneself a Christian while being either ignorant of or dismissive toward Christ. At the very least, unless the concept has been divested of all meaning<\/em>, a conservative must acknowledge his political-philosophical debt to Burke.<\/p>\n

Burke articulated his famous statement of what subsequently came to be known as \u201cconservatism\u201d while making his case against the conflagration of the French Revolution. Burke attacked the Revolution at its root, the philosophy underwriting it. This philosophy is what has been referred to as \u201crationalism.\u201d<\/p>\n

The radicals who supported the Revolution lent plausibility to their cause by trading in such abstractions<\/em> as, say, \u201cthe Rights of Men.\u201d Burke knew, as David Hume, another famous 18th<\/sup> century philosopher and political conservative, observed, that the more general<\/em> are a theory\u2019s ideas and propositions, the more remote it is from the concreteness of everyday life, the more plausible it can appear\u2014regardless of how ridiculous the theory actually is. This is part of the appeal of rationalism: it shields nonsense from the light of day.<\/p>\n

Burke, like both his peers and successors in the classical conservative tradition, despised rationalism. They despised ideology.<\/p>\n

Conservatism, then, emerged as a response<\/em> to rationalism, to ideology.<\/p>\n

Yet most of those \u201cconservatives\u201d who participated in the NR <\/em>symposium are <\/em>ideologues. Their \u201cconservatism\u201d is not conservative at all but, rather, another species of rationalism.<\/p>\n

It is neo<\/em>conservative.<\/p>\n

Anyone who champions \u201cAmerican Exceptionalism,\u201d the radically ahistorical doctrine<\/em> that America is not<\/em> a historically and culturally-specific country but an \u201cidea<\/em>,\u201d an abstract \u201cproposition<\/em>,\u201d is philosophically no different in temperament from the radicals who Burke reviled.<\/p>\n

It is this rationalist fiction that\u2019s been used to justify limitless immigration, both legal and <\/em>illegal, from societies and cultures that have little to nothing in common with\u2014and, in some instances, no small measure of hostility toward\u2014American institutions and traditions.<\/p>\n

It is this rationalist fiction that has also been used as the pretext for launching endless military-centered missionary efforts\u2014wars\u2014to deliver another rationalist fiction, \u201cliberal democracy,\u201d to foreign lands around the planet.<\/p>\n

And as Burke, Kirk, and other genuine conservatives could have predicted\u2014and as some, like Buchanan, actually have <\/em>predicted\u2014the indulgence of such ideological fantasies has been ruinous for untold millions of actual flesh and blood human beings both at home and abroad.<\/p>\n

In fact, given his past opposition to the disastrous invasion of Iraq and his current opposition to more American social engineering in Syria (and the Middle East generally); his diplomatic attitude toward Putin; and his recognition of the horrors and potential horrors visited upon Americans by our American-Last immigration policy, it seems that while Trump is no classical conservative, he sounds more like Burke than do his detractors at the neoconservative National Review. <\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

National Review recently sponsored a symposium of 22 \u201cconservative\u201d commentators who are \u201cagainst Trump.\u201d As for the specifics of their remarks, more will be said at a future time. The virtue of this symposium is that it has the potential to generate a conversation over the nature of conservatism. 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