by Grant Reid | Andrew Sullivan's latest book details what went wrong and how to fix it.
With the ceremonial disrobing of the Republican Party in the rearview mirror, conservatives, Republicans and just about anyone with a political opinion will emerge to offer their suggestions about where the Republicans went wrong and how to pick up the pieces. Each will diagnose the problem differently, offer blame to different sides and present a set of philosophical or policy ideas to lead the Republicans back to the Promised Land. Andrew Sullivan’s book “The Conservative Soul,” written in 2006, was one of the first tracts in this genre and demands a critical look.
Andrew Sullivan himself is not a typical conservative. A Briton, he moved to the United States and studied under Harvard’s legendary oracle of conservative thought, Harvey Mansfield. His internal contradictions puzzle many on the right and have made him an object of derision in some circles. He is a practicing Catholic, but married his male partner in Massachusetts. He supported Bush in 2000, but Kerry in 2004 and was perhaps the earliest conservative supporter of President-elect Obama in early 2007. Despite this lineage, “The Conservative Soul” explains not only Sullivan’s deeply conservative political beliefs, but offers an eloquent historical look at conservatism’s intellectual history (centered primarily on Oakeshott and Montaigne) and a contemporary look at where the modern Republican Party has veered from its traditional principles.
Much of Sullivan’s dismay with the current state of the Republican Party centers on his belief that it is not particularly conservative. Taken alone, this prescription is identical to what every right-wing critic is likely to write in the next few years. But it is Sullivan’s definition of conservatism that makes his observation especially keen. For Sullivan, deeply influenced by British Toryism, conservatism is defined by a healthy skepticism of abstraction, and marked by a devotion to practicality and conservation that emerges from tradition, and is mixed with a sober understanding of the humanity’s limits. Philosophically speaking, Sullivan would likely receive very few arguments about this definition. But when political philosophy enters into electoral politics, it inevitably becomes at least partially compromised. And it is at this juncture that Sullivan makes his deepest criticisms of modern political conservatism.
He devotes a chapter each to “The Fundamentalist Psyche,” “The Theoconservative Project” and “The Bush Crucible.” While these chapters tend to unload on perceived religious intolerance and lack of liberty amongst the religious right, Sullivan never fully offers a solution for exactly how religious conservatives (especially those who wish to limit abortion rights, gay marriage, etc.), the foot-soldiers of the Republican Party, ought to be integrated into a new political polity. He rightly criticizes their excesses and rigid inflexibility on some issues as reasons why an increasing number of Americans were turned off to a party dominated ever more by religious conservatives, but often seems motivated by ideals of religious tolerance that while admirable, are increasingly less likely to be realized in the wake of a changing religious landscape. Indeed, the thorniest question Sullivan leaves unanswered is: what sort of mass religion ought to replace mainline Protestant churches whose moderate impulses and restraint once held dominated politics and culture.
The best aspects of Sullivan’s book emerge from his keen understanding of what conservatism can accomplish when it seeks to maximize individual freedom. In this sense, Sullivan may be tossed in with the libertarian conservatives in the great debate over conservatism’s future, but this would be a mistake. Marked by a deep practicality that is influenced by a healthy doubt and willingness to question the ability of man and government alike to achieve radical change, Sullivan’s prescription for a conservative future rests on using government as a small but highly competent tool for enabling individuals to achieve their own desired ends.
After eight years of a radically expanding the powers and size of government under an ostensibly “conservative” president, this task will be an uphill battle. The current economic crisis and Democratic super-majorities in Congress may very well make this ideal unrealizable in the near future. But, if the reader believes as Sullivan does that the only viable future for a successful government is one that allows its citizens a certain freedom from onerous government intrusion into their lives, then a time will come in the future when conservatives will be given another chance to demonstrate this agenda.
By then, Andrew Sullivan and all conservatives hope that they will have recovered a truer, deeper and purer understanding of what principles and ideals define the conservative soul. But for now, the soul-searching continues.
Mr. Reid is a senior majoring in History.
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