Original Article: http://dartreview.com/archives/2007/01/12/andrew_sullivan_pick_a_con.php

Andrew Sullivan: Pick a ’Con

Friday, January 12, 2007

Andrew Sullivan is no stranger to labels: as a nonfundamentalist but devout Roman Catholic, a gay conservative political commentator, and a Brit living in (and writing about) America, his much-publicized personal identity seems to revolve around flouting conventions and stereotypes regarding such classifications. Sullivan’s supporters have branded him “a card-carrying intellectual,” “a poet of outrage,” and “one of the best bloggers in the world”; his detractors deride him as a “performing flea” whose “frequent rants” contain “enough moral relativism to light Manhattan.” And in an era when the conservative movement seems to have fragmented into a myriad of heatedly opposed ideological camps, each sporting such clever labels as paleocon, neocon, theocon, and even “crunchy con” and “South Park Con,” Andrew Sullivan’s latest book, The Conservative Soul: How We Lost It, How to Get It Back, attempts to navigate through the shifting identities of modern conservatism to stake a place for his brand of political thought, “the conservatism of doubt.” Sullivan passionately argues that in recent years, fundamentalist movements, a label he applies to ideologies both political and religious (but mainly the latter), have hijacked the conservative values of individual liberty, limited government, and distrust of social engineering long championed by Thatcher and Reagan, Burke and Montaigne, and calls for a return to form.

The Conservative Soul begins by describing “The Silver Age,” an era when conservatism became the ruling consensus in Western politics: Sullivan traces its rise, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and its usurpation by fundamentalists circa the beginning of the George W. Bush presidency. With the decline of the Left—evidenced by growing awareness of the welfare state’s ineffectiveness, the failure of communist economics in Russia and China, and the fragmented, extremist politics of the far-left wing – conservatism, with its emphasis on pragmatism and smaller government, ruled the roost. Sullivan’s opening sentence claims, “All conservatism begins with loss,” and indeed, in an era of rapid globalization, technological innovation, and social disorientation, he identifies the sense of loss of old institutions and its ensuing desire for stability as the second reason for the growing appeal of the conservative movement.

Stability, that is, but not certainty: Sullivan draws a clear distinction between the conservative who, heeding lessons of the past, skeptically confronts new ideologies and effects gradual change for the security of society, and the conservative who, fearing the bewildering upheavals of modern times, seeks the certainty of “clear, global, unchanging, solid truth” and relies upon a powerful government to enforce such truth. It is the distinction between the conservative who understands and appreciates the history behind modern institutions, using it to evaluate change, and the conservative who attempts to fix institutions in history in order to avoid any and all change. The latter, he argues, does not reflect conservatism at all, but rather an ideological antithesis, fundamentalism, which is the focus of examination and criticism for the next section (discussing the “anti-conservative soul,” so to speak).

Fundamentalists, as characterized in The Conservative Soul, desire “regimes constructed to propagate and disseminate an inerrant doctrine and to find and punish all error.” The fundamentalists Sullivan identifies form a motley crew: Communists, Islamists, Nazis, strictly orthodox Christianists, ideologues from Pol Pot to Osama bin Laden, Oliver Cromwell to Pope Benedict XVI. It’s an interesting array, and he does an admirable job in sketching out a portrait of fundamentalism as a mindset, not a single doctrine but a guideline for shaping doctrine, as applicable to the far-right as to the far-left.

Unfortunately, Sullivan fails to distinguish much between different manifestations and degrees of these diverse views. While discussing brutal, totalitarian Islamist regimes and the terrorist violence condoned by prominent Wahhabists, he mentions that Christianism is merely this type of Islamism’s “milder counterpart in America.” All fundamentalism, according to Sullivan, falls on the same spectrum, and atrocities like Islamist suicide bombings are the “logical, ultimate, extreme consequence” of a fundamentalist mindset shared by, for example, orthodox Christians. He neglects to point out the incredible significance of the location of a fundamentalist movement on that spectrum. The Christianist movement in America, which relies on tools of democracy (voting, lobbying, Congressional law-making), is considerably less dangerous than the authoritarian Islamist rule in many Middle East countries precisely because it doesn’t take its political/religious mission to the “ultimate, extreme consequence.” Fundamentalism may be an oppressive politic in any form, but Sullivan does not realize the full extent to which all fundamentalist evils are not created equal.

Regardless, it is Christian fundamentalism that is the focus of Sullivan’s blame for corrupting America’s conservative movement. The new American fundamentalists, he writes, dangerously “reject the whole idea of the law as a way to create a neutral public space, to mediate between competing visions of the good…They reject, in short, the entire premise of secular democracy: that religion should be restricted to the private sphere.” Instead of asking the law to allow them to practice the tenets of their faith, they want the law to enforce the tenets of their faith. Sullivan criticizes the way that either true belief in such Christianist fundamentalism or desire to gain votes by pandering to believers has influenced the Republican party’s platform on how the government should act (and not how individuals should opine) on issues such as stem cell research, gay rights, the banning of all abortion, the teaching of intelligent design, &c. He observes that fundamentalists have replaced the conservative ideal of a limited government with another incarnation of the managerial state, managing not its constituents’ money, but their moral health.

The flaws of fundamentalism are convincingly argued, and for those who are increasingly frustrated by the conflation of traditional conservatism with the populist politics of Christianists, it’s very tempting to simply nod along with each of Sullivan’s statements…until he missteps, again and again and again. An oft-repeated epithet referring to the Republican Party as the “first fundamentally religious political party in American history” raises several objections. First, although the “religious right” does exert significant influence upon some Republican politicians and plays a role in their social-issues platform, it’s only one of many voices in their coalition; nobody could realistically describe all the motives behind the array of political, foreign policy, social, and economic issues that define the party platform (to say nothing of the vast diversity of opinions in individual Republican politicians!) as “primarily religious.” Second, Sullivan exaggerates the influence of religion upon Republican politics by attempting to attribute every policy failure, every presidential or legislative action he opposes, to Christian fundamentalism. For example, he provides a long, torturous explanation of the connection between President Bush’s alleged religious fundamentalism and the launching of the Iraq War, but most intelligent on-lookers would probably attribute the Iraq War not to religious zealots, but rather secular neoconservative ideals.

Overstatement is the word of the day. Not only does Sullivan overstate the influence of the religious right on Republicans, but he overstates the influence of extremist elements on the religious right itself. In rather bad taste, he draws “examples” of fundamentalist faith from inflammatory remarks made by extremist pundits such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, and unfairly implies that they represent the bulk of orthodox Christians in America. If Sullivan honestly thinks all conservative Christians hold views identical to those of Falwell and Robertson, small wonder that he’s so concerned about their extremism.

After reading Sullivan’s lengthy indictment of fundamentalism, which occupies more than half of the book, one wonders what happened to the titular “conservative soul.” (Perhaps the book should have been titled “The Fundamentalist Soul” considering the amount of time Sullivan spends belaboring the topic.) In this last section of the book, he finally describes his conception of conservatism, its philosophical underpinnings, and its applicability to modern-day politics, and it is here that he truly comes into his element. Drawing upon his extensive knowledge of political philosophy, Sullivan articulates his advocacy of “the conservatism of doubt” with nuance and perspective, painfully missing from his account of the evils of fundamentalism. “The defining characteristic of the conservative,” he writes, “is that he knows what he doesn’t know.” A conservative thus strives towards Truth, while keeping in mind that because of human fallibility, absolute certainty of such truth is always subject to perusal. Sullivan identifies his main intellectual compatriots in this endeavor as the French essayist Montaigne, whose observations of the volatility of human nature led to radical skepticism (but not abandonment of the pursuit of T ruth), and the British philosopher Michael Oakeshott, who emphasized the importance of experience and development, not immutable doctrine, in determining morality.

Sullivan applauds Oakeshott’s notion that true “conservative politics [is] not a means to repress or regulate man’s often sinful exuberance, but a way to allow it to flourish when politics ends.” As Sullivan himself states in the preface, “the best form of politics was that which enabled us to engage in nonpolitical life more fully and more freely.” More concretely speaking, the conservatism of doubt necessitates security first, for one can exercise freedom and pursue truth only when the prime value of safety is assured – safety from both outside threats and threats from one’s government, accomplished by a strong national security force and a limited, highly accountable authority. The conservative of doubt is skeptical of attempts by the government to overhaul society for the betterment of mankind, to inculcate virtue, and to take control of private possessions and decisions. Strong security, limited government, rejection of radical revolution —Andrew Sullivan’s philosophy restates more clearly the common thread linking traditional conservative stances.

Ultimately, The Conservative Soul is never quite as insightful, as cogent, as accurate as a book with such a talented author and relevant, thoughtful thesis has the potential to be. For all his discussion of nuance and its importance to religion and politics, Sullivan often fails to understand the nuances of the fundamentalist movements he so passionately opposes. He tends to conflate all the political and religious movements that he dislikes into a single fundamentalist label: you are a conservative of doubt, or you are a fundamentalist (and therefore much too powerful and much too extremist). But despite its imperfections, this is a vital book: in a political climate where, increasingly, conservatism has turned into populist fundamentalism, appreciation of the past into fixation on the past, and skepticism into absolutism, The Conservative Soul is a wake-up call to reclaim the conservative movement.