I love reading Jonah Goldberg. He writes like an angel after a couple of bourbons. But I think he’s confused about my political philosophy, or how I think conservatism should adapt to modern liberal (in the good, old sense) society. In referring to my recent stab at portraying the problems of conservatism after September 11, he says that my “conclusion is that all branches of conservatism are wrong, and that they should basically adopt Sullivan’s own quirky, iconoclastic, personal brand of conservatism, complete with his imperative of incorporating gays into the mainstream conservative movement.” I don’t think that’s the best interpretation of my piece. I actually make a point of saying: “Don’t get me wrong: Many of the schools of thought I’ve discussed here have important insights. But they need adjustment to new social realities and new geopolitical opportunities.” I guess it just goes to show that even when you ask people not to get you wrong, they still do. My basic point is that conservatism is not in its best incarnation an ideology. It’s a temperament, a spirit, an impulse that has always been alive to change. From Burke to Oakeshott, the flexibility of conservatism as a political philosophy in response to a changing world has come almost to define its difference from other modern creeds. That’s the kind of conservative I am. Although others may have very different ideas of what conservatism is, I don’t think I’m being outrageous in saying that this emphasis on unideological temperament is perfectly within the mainstream of conservative philosophy.
So if conservatism is flexible, is it infinitely flexible? Nope. I think any political proposal a temperamental conservative makes is informed not by sheer random experimentation but by a respect for current institutions, an appreciation of morality, empirical common sense and an openness to debate. In my own fitful attempts to describe a conservatism that can respond intelligently to modernity, I’ve tried to make arguments that do all of that. My nuanced argument for gay equality, for example, is not some knee-jerk pro-gay polemic, but a carefully constructed, classically liberal, temperamentally conservative argument. <a href = http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0679746145/ref=pd_sim_books/002-8971396-2779232 target = new>Check it out. Reviews by such conservative figures as Harvey Mansfield and Kenneth Minogue did not read the argument as solipsistic or liberal. And the issue of gay integration is not something I have simply dreamed up out of my own needs. It’s been a burning public issue for a while now. Obviously I have a stake, but I’ve been extremely careful not to argue from personal need, but simply to incorporate what I know from simply living as a gay man into an intelligent conservative case. That’s why so many liberals don’t agree with, say, my rejection of hate crime laws or even more harmless anti-discrimination statutes.
Ditto with the legalization of soft drugs. This isn’t some culturally neutral argument for anarchy, or a projection of my own tastes. It’s a case based on good classical liberal principles and empirical observation. I’m sorry but the ban on legal marijuana is so obviously counter-productive, needlessly authoritarian and irrational that, frankly, I’m amazed any sane conservative defends it. I think lifting such a ban would be good for social order, just as allowing gays to marry would be. I’m not a doctrinaire libertarian. I support banning the most addictive and anti-social drugs. I believe in an interventionist foreign policy; I support public schools; I largely back John Ashcroft’s anti-terrorism measures. Let’s tick off a few other items: I’m against affirmative action, morally opposed to all abortion, but politically resigned to legal first trimester abortion. I’m for a flat tax and secular government. I’m an anti-Keynesian; a Zionist; a fan of Orwell and Montaigne, a Catholic in frustrated but respectful dialogue with my own Church. In all this, I’m not a typical conservative, if there is such a thing. But are my views merely “an extrapolation of [my] personal beliefs – or, more accurately, [my personality]”? I don’t think so – at least no more than anyone’s political philosophy. Why is my congeries of beliefs more idiosyncratic than Robert Bork’s? Or Jack Kemp’s? Or Jonah Goldberg’s?
My view is that conservatism needs to adapt to modernity or die a reactionary death. Oakeshott for me was an <a href = http://andrewsullivan.com/text/hits_article.html?1,people target = new>epiphanous intellectual mentor. He showed me how a conservative temperament could come to terms with a liberal order, restrain, temper and guide it. He faced similar attacks – that he was an idiosyncratic and unintelligible thinker. Read him closely and you will see that he isn’t – and that this coherence is also a function of his own, yes, personality. A conservative is someone who doesn’t take his views from some authoritative tome called, in Jonah’s words, “old-style conservatism.” He is someone who looks at the world afresh all the time, informed by tradition, alert to history, but constantly exhilarated by the possibilities of the present. He knows that all thought is, at some level, refracted through the prism of human personality, and rather than see this as a weakness, he sees it as a strength. Does anyone believe that Disraeli’s version of conservatism wasn’t informed by his personality? Or Lincoln’s? Or Reagan’s? Or Thatcher’s? None of these figures checked a guidebook to proper conservative ideology to govern. In his day, Burke was regarded as a Whig. No Tory backed American independence and he was decried as being completely on an idiosyncratic wing of his own. Now he’s regarded as the most influential conservative thinker perhaps of all time. My point exactly.
A conservative’s philosophy is a blend of experience and argument, of temperament and reason. He is enamored with intellectual challenge and does not, as Jonah seems to, feel threatened by new and idiosyncratic interpretations or ideas. That’s what Oakeshott meant, in part, by the metaphor of conversation. No book can contain this political tradition. No encyclopedia can inform it. It’s happening now – as I write and you read and you write back. That’s why in a way I think this new medium is such a boon for such a way of thinking. It’s so supple and open and human, it can reveal truths that more dogmatic approaches cannot. Jonah clearly gets this and practices it. At some point, his political theory may catch up with his practice.
The Dish 