Jun 11, 2005
A Conservative Road to Serfdom
As a Marxist, Eugene Genovese recognized the failure of the Soviet experiment as the decisive end of a road he had spent his life walking. But as he took in the disheartening failure in his own political neighborhood, he heard familiar sounds to his right. As he wrote in the curious The Southern Tradition:"The socialist debacle has exposed the false premises on which the Left has proceeded, but it has done so at a time in which the Right is embracing many of those premises -- notably, personal liberation and radical egalitarianism."
Genovese first published those words in 1994, well before our current set of putative conservatives embarked on their global crusade for Western Civilization. But his premise has grown stronger with time. To return to a favorite and endlessly useful figure, look at this Victor Davis Hanson column on the purportedly conservative National Review Online. Writing in March, Hanson offered a triumphal catalog of those moments in which the U.S. government has"acted boldly" against the"unstable and corrupt...status quo" to achieve"a radical and systematic political solution...to the entire Arab cycle of failure."
In the alternative universe we currently call home," conservative" writers now celebrate moments in which the state takes bold action against the status quo in the service of dramatic societal transformations; a" conservative" is someone who urges his neighbors to march to utopia behind the banner of the liberationist state. I have previously described the application of this new ideal as the conservative Great Society program for the Middle East, a fevered embrace of the nearly unlimited application of state power. The United States government, possessing great human truths, will make common cause with the world's oppressed, and spread its system of freedom across the globe. So far, this is familiar stuff that I have said before (and will say again and again).
But the interesting development now underway is that putative conservatives, having abandoned moral modesty in global affairs in favor of an unyielding ideological certitude, are now compelled to take a distinctly Soviet attitude toward the simplest realities. While people who follow the U.S. military closely are describing a "manpower meltdown" -- especially in the army, and especially among soldiers in the combat arms -- the emerging collapse of the very force needed to sustain the liberationist project is entirely absent from the neoconservative radar. Look at Michelle Malkin's blog, or Victor Davis Hanson's website. See any signs in there that American military power is reaching its limit on the ground? Any mention of the growing crisis in recruiting and retention?
Meanwhile, Hanson wonders publicly if it isn't maybe time -- you can't make this stuff up -- to"press on" and begin bombing Syria. The war is going so well, in the alternative universe these folks have constructed for themselves, that it's time to think about extending the project.
Our soldiers are Stakhanovites for global liberation! All are marching in unison behind the banner of glory!
Sing that anthem, brothers and sisters. Conservatism is no longer premised on limited power, cautious goals, and modest means. The law of unintended consequences is repealed, and there are no barriers to the global success of Our Glorious Way of Life. (And you should really take a moment to click on that last link. Soon, all will bow down before us! Hail! All hail!)
But here's the bottom line, and it just doesn't fit the message.
So they simply aren't going to notice it. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a dynamic that the world has seen before. Fortunately, the available political forms are very different; the United States is nowhere near the model of the Soviet Union, and our own Stalinist faithful are more pathetic than powerful. But the psychology is there, and worth watching very closely.
Seriously: Read this. Remember that you've read it. (The man opens with a radical global power shift and ends with the thought that one day our enemies will whimper back, asking for our friendship.) (Our struggle will be vindicated! Hail!)
Keep your eyes on these folks.
(Cross-posted on Historiblography)
Genovese first published those words in 1994, well before our current set of putative conservatives embarked on their global crusade for Western Civilization. But his premise has grown stronger with time. To return to a favorite and endlessly useful figure, look at this Victor Davis Hanson column on the purportedly conservative National Review Online. Writing in March, Hanson offered a triumphal catalog of those moments in which the U.S. government has"acted boldly" against the"unstable and corrupt...status quo" to achieve"a radical and systematic political solution...to the entire Arab cycle of failure."
In the alternative universe we currently call home," conservative" writers now celebrate moments in which the state takes bold action against the status quo in the service of dramatic societal transformations; a" conservative" is someone who urges his neighbors to march to utopia behind the banner of the liberationist state. I have previously described the application of this new ideal as the conservative Great Society program for the Middle East, a fevered embrace of the nearly unlimited application of state power. The United States government, possessing great human truths, will make common cause with the world's oppressed, and spread its system of freedom across the globe. So far, this is familiar stuff that I have said before (and will say again and again).
But the interesting development now underway is that putative conservatives, having abandoned moral modesty in global affairs in favor of an unyielding ideological certitude, are now compelled to take a distinctly Soviet attitude toward the simplest realities. While people who follow the U.S. military closely are describing a "manpower meltdown" -- especially in the army, and especially among soldiers in the combat arms -- the emerging collapse of the very force needed to sustain the liberationist project is entirely absent from the neoconservative radar. Look at Michelle Malkin's blog, or Victor Davis Hanson's website. See any signs in there that American military power is reaching its limit on the ground? Any mention of the growing crisis in recruiting and retention?
Meanwhile, Hanson wonders publicly if it isn't maybe time -- you can't make this stuff up -- to"press on" and begin bombing Syria. The war is going so well, in the alternative universe these folks have constructed for themselves, that it's time to think about extending the project.
Our soldiers are Stakhanovites for global liberation! All are marching in unison behind the banner of glory!
Sing that anthem, brothers and sisters. Conservatism is no longer premised on limited power, cautious goals, and modest means. The law of unintended consequences is repealed, and there are no barriers to the global success of Our Glorious Way of Life. (And you should really take a moment to click on that last link. Soon, all will bow down before us! Hail! All hail!)
But here's the bottom line, and it just doesn't fit the message.
So they simply aren't going to notice it. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a dynamic that the world has seen before. Fortunately, the available political forms are very different; the United States is nowhere near the model of the Soviet Union, and our own Stalinist faithful are more pathetic than powerful. But the psychology is there, and worth watching very closely.
Seriously: Read this. Remember that you've read it. (The man opens with a radical global power shift and ends with the thought that one day our enemies will whimper back, asking for our friendship.) (Our struggle will be vindicated! Hail!)
Keep your eyes on these folks.
(Cross-posted on Historiblography)