The late conservative kerfuffle

Posted on | June 29, 2009 | 11 Comments

While I was eating buckets of bug-eyed shrimp in Louisiana this weekend, the folks at Front Porch Republic and Postmodern Conservative got into a gentleman’s quarrel over their distinctive brands of conservatism. I’ve spent the morning sorting through the discussion, and had to pass this along as a must-read. Considering the more typical unreasoned level of debate in conservative cirlces, the discussion between luminaries like Deneen, Lawler, Poulos, Stegall, and others, is wonderfully refreshing. High octane pre-modern vs. postmodern conservatism.

  • Jason Joseph catalyzes the discussion by pointing out the difference between the FPR vision (agrarian, distribustist, anti-liberal, with a definite Wendell Berry fetish) and the PomoCon variety (a tempered, mildly Straussian rapprochement with modernity and our post-Enlightenment philosophical infrastructure.)
  • Patrick Deneen challenges Poulos & Co. to a throw-down. Lawler claims the pomocons can share MacIntyre, Percy, and Deneen himself with the FPR sect.
  • Deneen replies to Lawler with this excellent summary:

    For PoMoCons of Lawlerian variety, this is a source of optimism – our human condition of alienation and misery will not be “cured” by any amount of technological manipulation, and so the misery and glory of being human will endure, and because of the inescapability of this condition we will all be stuck with virtue more than ever. That said, while the human condition will not be overcome by technological mastery, much of the natural world will be, and that’s ok, so long as we understand that we won’t cease being restless and alienated. So, no amount of McDonalds or living in suburbs will make us truly happy, but it’s ok to be stuffed and comfortable even amid our glory and our misery. Some fast food and poorly-built McMansions won’t make us any more or less miserable. For Lawler, everything is always getting better and worse, so a certain easy-going quiescence should be our default position most of the time. A basic Lawlerian dictum: don’t worry, be unhappy.

    The PomoCons are revised versions of first wave liberals (according to Strauss, inaugurated by the thought of Hobbes and Locke), strenuously urging the expansion of human control of the natural world while believing that human nature remains untouched and untouchable by such efforts. Lawler is himself much more ambivalent about Locke, but accepts the Natural rights regime under the pretense that the Founders built better than they knew. He views the pre-modern inheritance as sufficiently vital to withstand the corrosiveness of Lockeanism, although there are times he’s not as confident about its staying power.

  • Lawler attempts a consolidation between the parties, and points out that neither group is yet a true movement (the Crunchies, pomocons, and front porchers are all equally in conservative exile).
  • Poulos hints at an incrementalist lifestyle conservatism.
  • Stegall brings the schizophrenic radicalism of the front porchers into full relief (“further to the right and further to the left”). He levels his main criticism of the pomocons and the other First Things bloggers: “[they] are far too accomodating of, and sanguine about, the advance of things that threaten the possibility of conserving myself as a human being.” He also raises the deal-breaking “Question of the Whopper.” Poulos needs to lower his intake of philosophical cornstarch.
  • Pomocon Ralph Hancock suggests that we need the public things just as much as the private, and that the FPR crowd is in danger of romanticism.
  • Robert Cheeks of the pomocons tries to cast certain FPR authors as co-belligerents with Obama and traditional socialists. He strangely lumps John Medaille with the “left-wing” of FPR. In my own opinion, this suggests that at least Mr. Cheeks of the pomocons has not read FPR closely enough. While certain FPR contributors are sympathetic with traditional socialism, the attempt to tie distributism to Geithnerian socialism requires some all-too-ungodly contortions.
  • Ivan Kenneally tries to synthesize nature, technology, and the individual.

Comments

11 Responses to “The late conservative kerfuffle”

  1. Robert C. Cheeks
    June 29th, 2009 @ 10:18 am

    Dear Theo,

    “While certain FPR contributors are sympathetic with traditional socialism, the attempt to tie distributism to Geithnerian socialism requires some all-too-ungodly contortions.”

    My differentiations of Messrs. Daly, Medaille, and Fox’s leftwing leanings were of a general leftist, as in epigonic Marxists, definition rather than the specific “Geithnerian” one you describe. I don’t know who Mr. Geithner is.
    Re: distributism, or at least Mr. Medialle’s version, surely appears a statist/socialist endeavor and in the spirit of full disclosure I’d go back to the church if you people would drop that Mary, the Co-Redemptrist thing and return to the Latin Mass….but NO, we gotta be Protestant Lite!
    But, in all fairness, the Pope appears a conservative!
    Kumbaya dude,
    Bob Cheeks

  2. Davey Henreckson
    June 29th, 2009 @ 10:59 am

    Bob,

    Thanks for the follow-up. I think your criticisms of Russell and Lew have more than a little validity. Traditional socialists have a complicated historical pedigree. And even the insightful Mr. Tawney had some sketchy associations.

    I do still believe that you owe Medaille a little more nuance, however. The most you can say about the distributist-socialist connection is that both see capitalism as unsustainable and socially disruptive. The solutions they propose, however, are diametrically opposed. Chesteron’s classic undressing of Shaw’s socialism is one excellent example.

    Also, as a good little Protestant, I must say that I prefer my Latin extra ecclesiam. But I’m with you on the co-redemptrix blight. I have my Genevan credentials questioned often enough by a certain wing of my tradition that I’m almost glad Rome holds to dogma that I can violent oppose. Almost, but not quite.

    But yes, we can unite in opposition to any brew of Protestant Lite. Give me something more frothy, something to chew. Kumbaya indeed.

  3. Robert C. Cheeks
    June 29th, 2009 @ 5:55 pm

    Davey boy it’s good to see a Protestant among the beloved Micks getting a good education albiet some blackguard from the university admin invited our fetal butchering president not only to speak but to get an honorary doctorate which nearly made me ill and illuminated why the football team can’t beat USC.
    I’m a Voegelinian, he taught at ND for a short time, and my clash with John M. is predicated on his stated desire for what is intrinsically the re-distribution of wealth, an idea that as a Randolph tertium quid, I find singularly repulsive. Alas, at my age my opposition to socialists sadly turns to the vulgar retort and thus the hard feelings. So I’ll visit here, and do tell me about your courses, papers, publications, ect.
    RCC

  4. Mark Shiffman
    July 1st, 2009 @ 1:20 pm

    Theo: Well, if you compare the relative infrequency with which Berry is invoked on FPR (though granted he is a presiding spirit) to the incessancy with which Strauss is mentioned, quoted, and deferred to (to be sure, not always, but nearly as an understood default) on Pomocon, its seems a wee bit one-sided to contrast a “Berry fetish” with a “mildly Straussian” cast in this case.

    Sincerely,
    Your local agent of Accuracy on the Internet

  5. Mark Shiffman
    July 1st, 2009 @ 1:24 pm

    Oh, and Bob, don’t kid yourself: wealth is constantly being “redistributed”. I can’t see how legislative neutrality is possible under any imaginable legal regime on that point. So the real argument is over the tendencies of the legislated biases.

  6. Davey Henreckson
    July 1st, 2009 @ 1:41 pm

    Mark,

    No quibbles here. FPR certainly has a more ecumenical set of contributors than PomoCon (although red tories, agrarians, and crunchy cons are often animated by many of the same localist and private concerns).

    If my post had been directed at Lawler, et al, I would’ve cautioned against granting the “regime” too much ultimacy. Again, I think both sides are dealing with incipient temptations, not actual vices yet. But if the pomocons head down the wrong path, it will surely be toward granting the establishment too much weight. I don’t want to restrict our definition of a “political act” to stuff that happens in a courthouse or legislative chamber.

    Thanks for the comment.

  7. Mark Shiffman
    July 1st, 2009 @ 7:46 pm

    Agreed. Oh, and did I mention that this was a fine and judicious summary of the “controversy”? Well done.

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  9. Robert C. Cheeks
    July 8th, 2009 @ 6:33 am

    “Oh, and Bob, don’t kid yourself: wealth is constantly being “redistributed”. I can’t see how legislative neutrality is possible under any imaginable legal regime on that point. So the real argument is over the tendencies of the legislated biases.”
    Mark, yes I quite agree, redistribution for the professional welfare class and/or the corporate recipients, and as an olde Quid I’d stamp it all out: Fed, state, and local…hang ‘em all!
    All I wanted to know was how Medaille’s scheme is funded? Still waitin’ on an answer!

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Theopolitical is the weblog of Davey Henreckson, a graduate student in theology at the University of Notre Dame. Topics of conversation are political and historical theology, with semi-frequent forays into literature, economics, localism, and the divine American sport -- baseball.

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