Today, conservatism finds itself in danger of losing its way. In an attempt to win what feels like an all-out war, young conservatives take on the common tactics of the day. When conservatives surrender their civility to the abrasiveness, they sacrifice a part of the tradition that makes them conservative.
Young conservatives are faced with difficult times. The cancel culture comes for all, and it comes in a vicious way to any who speak out against the orthodoxy of our time. Defenders of the American founding, free market capitalism, traditional family values, a traditional moral order, and other conventionally conservative ideas are seen as offenders by the wider culture.
What, then, are young conservatives to do? Potential employment opportunities, friendships, and reputations are on the line. And silence, even that of prudence, has been deemed as violence and an assent to the social sin of that day. Careful and decisive action is necessary—conservatives must speak.
Some conservatives have chosen to take the low road, assuming a recalcitrant and abrasive mentality. This mentality seemingly says, “if a war is what you want, then a war you shall have!” This is recognizable in many young conservatives. “Own the Libs” was the rallying cry of far too many young conservatives already, and current circumstances have only made it worse. One can understand the tendency to move in that direction, when the opposition to conservatism and its ideas often fights dirty. If a person has been attacked or has seen his friends or family hurt by the words and actions of those with opposing views, he might feel called to retaliate and seek vengeance. Nonetheless, this does not require the abandonment of conservative principles.
The loud and unlistening bulwark mentality is flawed, and ultimately not conservative. The conservative intellectual tradition teaches that this is precisely the wrong attitude for conservatives to have and the wrong way for conservatives to act. Inherent to this tradition is a certain civility. What conservatives need now is a principled conservatism that seeks prudent and just action. In order to foster that principled conservatism, conservatives need to refer back to a cloud of witnesses, a wealth of wisdom and prudence from past thinkers.
The Antithesis to Ideology
One witness that young conservatives can look to is Russell Kirk. In his essay Ten Conservative Principles, Kirk wrote, “Perhaps it would be well, most of the time, to use this word ‘conservative’ as an adjective chiefly. For there exists no Model Conservative, and conservatism is the negation of ideology: it is a state of mind, a type of character, a way of looking at the civil social order.” Conservatism is fundamentally against ideology. It refuses to be brought to a dogmatic level and, when viewed in this light, is understood as a call to prudence.
Most Americans use the word ‘ideology’ in a neutral manner. One might say, “I am ideologically aligned with [fill-in-the-blank] candidate.” People use the word to mean a set of beliefs that govern their thinking. This seems harmless but in reality, ideology of any kind is rigidly dogmatic. Kirk’s use of the word implies the true danger of ideologies. Ideology keeps people from being able to see when they are wrong. It is dogmatic in the sense that it binds one to a system of belief that has no alternative. Importantly, ideology destroys the ability to be prudent, warping a person’s moral vision and precluding his ability to see the world as it actually is. Kirk understood this and in The Conservative Mind wrote, “Conservatism never is more admirable than when it accepts changes that it disapproves, with good grace, for the sake of a general conciliation.” Conservatives, according to Kirk, are not so dogmatic that they cannot work with those with whom they disagree.
It is ideology that drives both rioters to tear down statues of abolitionists and an unlistening attitude which chooses to wage war in response. Prudence, however, allows one to remain free from the control of any single prevailing or reactionary ideology and instead, think deeply and act rightly.
Prudence
In order to understand the importance of prudence and why it sets one against ideology, it is worth hearing a brief word from the German philosopher Josef Pieper. In his book An Anthology, he writes,
Prudence, strictly speaking, does not stand on the same level as justice, courage, and temperance; she is not, as it were, the eldest or the most beautiful of the four sisters. Prudence… is rather the mother of the other virtues… this means… that justice, courage and temperance exist only because of prudence! Prudence is the precondition for all that is ethically good.
Pieper gives prudence high praise setting it atop the other classical virtues as their “mother.” It is the virtue that gives life to the others—the sine qua non (the necessary condition). But why prudence? It is because prudence allows one to see the world as it really is.
Prudence, according to Pieper, is made of two parts. Prudence has to do with (1) being able to see things as they really are; and (2) acting on this correct vision: that is, perception and translation. He says, “prudence is the art of making the right decision based on the corresponding reality—no matter whether justice, courage or temperance is at stake.” This proper reception of reality is fundamental to one’s moral vision. One cannot see what is good if one cannot truly see. Prudence is having a well-ordered vision and seeing the world as it actually exists. It is not seeing the world as one wants to see it, or with a vision that is closed and blind to reality.
Moreover, prudence requires us to lay aside our biases: “What is asked of us, then, [in order to be prudent] is no less than this: to reduce our own interest to that silence which is an absolute precondition if we want to hear or perceive anything,” Pieper writes. Our own interest often obstructs our vision and obscures reality. This is part of the problem with the reactionary ideology that so many young conservatives have run to. These camps allow the interest of their ideology to obscure their moral vision and inhibit prudent action.
Prudence ought to have a defining place for the conservative. Kirk wrote the following when commenting on the role of prudence in conservatism:
[C]onservatives are guided by their principle of prudence. Burke agrees with Plato that in the statesman, prudence is chief among virtues. Any public measure ought to be judged by its probable long-run consequences, not merely by temporary advantage or popularity… As John Randolph of Roanoke put it, Providence moves slowly, but the devil always hurries. Human society being complex, remedies cannot be simple if they are to be efficacious. The conservative declares that he acts only after sufficient reflection, having weighed the consequences.
The conservative is one marked by movement that, while not necessarily slow, is necessarily thoughtful. The conservative changes when change is necessary and stands firm when a firm standing is called for. The conservative seeks to move rightly. Imagine someone standing in a room in front of three doors with her luggage. She opens each door and examines each room but leaves her things in the room where she entered. Upon examining the rooms, she may be entirely content to return to her things and make her home there for a while. Such is the conservative manner: inquisitive, patient, and prudent. The conservative would rather act rightly than hastily.
The Conservative Civility
How then should young conservatives respond to the cancel culture? For this one can turn to another witness who has identified the very crux of what it means to have genuine civil dialogue: Theodore Zeldin. In his little book Conversation, Dr. Zeldin writes,
The kind of conversation I’m interested in is one which you start with a willingness to emerge a slightly different person. It is always an experiment, whose results are never guaranteed. It involves risk. It’s an adventure in which we agree to cook the world together and make it taste less bitter.
Some interpret Dr. Zeldin to require a sacrifice of their intellectual foundations. For example, a conversation where a Catholic might have to give up his belief in the sanctity of life. This interpretation of Dr. Zeldin usually arises from one of two things: (1) a fear that one is incapable of defending themselves or (2) a failure to see opponents as valuable members of society. To enter a conversation with the “willingness to emerge a slightly different person” is a vision of prudence. Dr. Zeldin is asking people to lay aside self-interest in order that they might see things as they actually are. Thus, civility flows from prudence. Civility does not require one to sacrifice his convictions or morals—unless they are wrong. If one is not proven wrong in the course of a conversation, one is still able to emerge in some way changed through an understanding of what the other believes. This type of conversation requests that you understand those subtleties of human thought, be prudent, and listen to your interlocutor.
One common retort to this is, “others do not do this, so why should I?” This is unfortunately true; nonetheless, this type of conversation not only requires civility from prudence, but it also has the ability to civilize and cultivate prudence. When people approach other human beings with clear moral vision and recognition of their personhood, they appeal to the humanity of the other—the act of civility. Being treated in this loving and prudent way acknowledges the other’s humanity and creates space for civility. Civility rings the bell of humanity within the other’s soul. Now, it might not work. That other person may not be willing to hold this type of conversation or, unfortunately, we may be bad practitioners. This is no excuse to give in to ideology. Rather, let one seek to raise both himself and others to civility and prudence.
Some people will read this essay to have simply said, “be nice to one another.” Though kindness and charity certainly play a main role in cultivating this attitude of civility, it is not inimical to serious disagreement or even just reproach. What this essay emphasizes is the need to be civil. Civility is the act of recognizing the personhood of one’s interlocutor and appealing to his humanity. This does not mean one cannot implore the other to see truth or find his logic inconsistent and wrong—it simply means one ought not assault the other person verbally or physically. The prudent thing to do in moments of disagreement is to listen and attempt to persuade one’s interlocutor. This is a far more powerful tool than attacking him.
Today, conservatism finds itself in danger of losing its way. In an attempt to win what feels like an all-out war, young conservatives take on the common tactics of the day—and too many surrender to ideology. Civility is the conservatives’ key to rise above the fray. When conservatives surrender their civility to the abrasiveness that boosts ratings and receives retweets, they sacrifice a part of the tradition that makes them conservative. Conservatives ought not sacrifice that tradition, for without it they have no ground upon which to stand.
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The featured image is The Debate of Socrates and Aspasia (c. 1800) by Nicolas-André Monsiau (1754–1837) and is in the public domain. It has been brightened slightly for clarity and appears here courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
I’m an older conservative, and what I wonder is how one can remain civil while being shouted down and threatened. The way things are these days, there may be no time for patient reflection. It seems as though the only way to survive is to throw back what the liberal haters throw at us. Make no mistake, I’d love to have an intelligent conversation with those who are in desperate need of persuasion, but we can only help those who want to be helped. Fighting extremism with moderation is a tough game to play. Nevertheless, this is a good counterpoint to yesterday’s article by Itxu Diaz, “The Good Man’s Crusade: The Frog is Getting Hot,” which resonated somewhat better with me.
The author misses one point. Time and again, when I have confronted a liberal by questioning their belief, I found their argument was based on extremely limited knowledge of the subject matter for which they espouse and severely lacking in factual based thought. They are typically incapable of carefully sorting through information, navigating the obviously controlled narratives, which are fed to us daily by the main stream media and social media, and developing a thoughtful opinion. When they ran out of their typically extremely limited defense stockpile, they invariably have gone into a defensive posture and have resorted to name calling, personal insults and even threats of assault. Almost everytime, I find myself terminating the conversation abruptly at that point because, at times, I admit I am not the greatest nor most patient orator. I can be a hot head as well, I have felt compelled to do the same. As an Instructor/Auditor/Supervisor, I try to practice the rule, criticize the work not the worker. In the vast majority of my discussions with the liberals, their lack of knowledge and self control is the trigger whereby the conservative either jumps in head first in retort or backs off completely because you can’t reason with the unreasonable. It has been my personal experience better than 90% of the time. (And yes I can generalize) Every once in a while I run across a liberal that it is a pleasure to discuss an ideology (political, religious and yes racial). These people are never extremists (rioters and looters) like the cancel culture crowd. And by the way, when too many people espouse the same repetitive destructive ideas and uncivil behavior, that just don’t meet the rigors of thoughtful civil common sense, there comes a point where too many coincidences are no longer coincidence. Look at what is happening to conservative free speech on our college campuses around the country. These people (liberals and radical liberals) are either brainwashed, or for one reason or another, incapable of discerning the truth or they are paid!! My guess is this all contrived. There, I said it. I can come to no other conclusion other than this is a conspiracy. (This is a discussion for another time) In any case, the conservative (me) is forced into a defensive posture of limited debate and up to and including owning a gun for personal safety, dependent upon your zip code. Sad!! Very sad!! I hold the parents of these liberals responsible as well as the liberals themselves. Their (liberals) ignorance didn’t happen overnight. Conservatives must be strong but also maintain the virtues of valuable and civil debate. Very difficult in today’s environment.
Ouch. So they, meaning all liberals are painted with the same brush?
Mr. Davenport,
Excellent.
Where may I read more of your writing?
Thank you!
My most recent is in the University Bookman: https://kirkcenter.org/reviews/translating-great-books/ More to come via Forma Journal soon!
Nonsense. We are under assault by totalitarian fanatics who know no moral or practical constraints, who consider it a moral (ironic as that is) imperative to destroy us and everything we stand for by any means necessary. One doesn’t win a street fight by the Marquis of Queensbury rules.
First of all, please, excuse my poor english. Nowadays, the consequences of civil conservative conversation can be job loss, social stigma, civil death, bullying, persecution, bankruptcy, physical aggression, “hate speech” prosecution, even a jail sentence, sometimes people have been murdered for “thought crimes”. Nobel prize winners have lost their tenure because of innocent jokes.
Nobody should and, anyway, nobody can live up to the absurd standards woke culture is trying to impose.
A good response would be (I think legitimate though machiavellian) to denounce fiercely, under a woke persona, in twitter and facebook, every pronouncement of SJW that are in opposition to some woke tenet, so that they get a good portion of their own medicine from their own ilk. With a little imagination, this shouldn’t be very difficult given that all their nonsense is a compendium of blatant incoherences and contradictory principles, especially when the ideas of one identity group collide with those of another. Fortunately, Intersectionality is an impossible project which only survives thanks to the ignorance, bad faith and logical inability that blind true believers to its absurdities and malignity.
One example has been J. K. Rowling’s recent troubles with LGBTI activists which have poured on her a good portion of the same kind of hate which she frequently spews without mercy, even by lying, on those who she dislikes or opposes because of her leftist and feminist views, with the same fame killing aim she is now suffering from her fellow travelers.
I’m totally fed up with all this socialist millionaires and billionaires, especially tycoons parading as philanthropists like Jeff Bezos that grind their employees to their last drop of blood for miserly wages or like George Soros that earn huge fortunes with wars and the ruin of entire populations.
Confronted with the current hideous and relentless totalitarian onslaught from the new cultural marxism, an excess of civility can be deadly, for us and for many future generations.
Agree entirely about civility but the author must realize we’re not in the House of Lords. This is another world and alas, completely U.N.-civil. We can attempt to be civil ourselves, but when some of our most eminent Americans are greeted with obscenities and flying vegetables or—not allowed to appear because their opinions are different from the so called “hearers,” civility has opened her wings and flown home to
Mother Prudence. Civility is all but dead in this country and will be first in line, right after Christianity, to the guillotine.
The author fails at one of his primary points of conservatism ” to see the world as it actually is”. He seems to view the world and his opponents as “civilized” who view conservatives as their fellow “humanity” and have “personhood”. This seems to be the view of a person detached from the actual reality of living in the day-to-day life of an average conservative in this nation. It seems to be a person who believes that his political opponents use the same definitions and precepts of reality that conservatives take for granted. This is not real or “seeing the world as it is”. The left does not live within the same reality that we do, they have created an alternate reality by which the primary institutions of our society and culture live. They control every vestige of these cultural institutions and thereby have redefined objective reality and longstanding definitions into unrecognizable facsimiles of their actual meaning. By his argument, we should be admirable and follow Kirks’ admonition that “Conservatism never is more admirable than when it accepts changes that it disapproves, with good grace, for the sake of a general conciliation.”
For all practical purposes, this “prudence” of accepting the change that is objectively false and moving on in living a lie is completely antithetical to conservatism and objective reality. This conciliation is nothing more than a complete and utter capitulation to a dystopian cult that denies the fundamentals of reality.
I am not sure how the “conservative” can accept a change that is objectively and provably false in order to be prudent. I wonder how our founding fathers lost their “prudence” when they wrote the Declaration of Independence and stated, “When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another”. This was radical and by his definition not a “conservative” action. Was the prudent thing to do at the time to remain subjects of the King?
In the end, this is the failure of conservatism, our continued graceful acceptance of radical ideas from our political adversaries to prove our civility by unending compromises with the left to continually move our political reality further to the radical left. There is no spine or backbone to say enough is enough and any further compromise only advances their radicalism and further erodes our founding principles. When does the conservative actually fight back with the fervor and ferocity of their opponents? According to this author, it appears we do not fight back at all and allow ourselves to be forced into re-education camps and gulags, all in the name of prudence.
When your opponent does not accept your humanity and when they continually dehumanize you and your entire world view as equivalent to that of the Nazis, they deny objective realities and their redefinition of fundamental language to mean unrecognizable gibberish. When they seek to not just silence you but to literally eradicate reason, logic, common sense and your entire world view from the world’s reality are we to just accept that for “what it is”?
It seems this prudence would do very well in authoritarian countries as they just would have no opposition at all since you accept your reality and hold your convictions and morals to yourself for the “general conciliation”.
I am sorry but the idea of a polite discourse with the lunatics on the left has come to an end. My circle of acquaintances has grown smaller and smaller. The left does not want to hear your facts or opinions. They want you to shut up and obey. We need to cancel their culture by not buying products or supporting companies or sports leagues that stand against almost everything we believe in. It’s hard but stop paying for Apple , Google and Amazon services. We can use their products to our advantage but don’t pay for any extras. Do not use Twitter or Facebook. Get together with likeminded people and live your conservative principles. However, that does not mean to shut yourself away from the world. If you do have the chance to have a meaningful conversation then by all means have it! The left wants nothing other than to destroy us and our way of life. We just fight back as politely as we can but can only be pushed so far before it is an obligation on our part to push back.
Sorry, I just can’t go there. “Civility” in face to face is one thing, but in the arena of public opinion and social media all it is is “surrendering”. These are the people who didn’t like Donald Trump because of “mean tweets” and gave us Joe Biden. These are culture pacifists and following their advice is like going into battle with bows and swords because it’s more “civilized” when your enemy has advanced to machine guns.