CLASS POLITICS DEFINITION FREE
When one hears bromides today about free enterprise and limited government - as if those are not only the main thing, but perhaps the only thing - this is a sign that one may not know what time it is. It also implies a certain focus on the material over the cultural, again when we are in the throes of an anti-cultural revolution, and it is the culture that is preeminent. It is futile to focus on them when facing an existential crisis in which the ability to even freely debate anything of consequence is under assault. These fundamental issues make economic policy and the size of government of secondary concern. We do not share a common belief in our history, the righteousness of our cause, or the cultural basis for a free and flourishing society. “Equal rights for all and special privileges for none” has given way to a ruling class ethos of unequal rights and special privileges.
CLASS POLITICS DEFINITION SKIN
People are being deemed inherently evil based on their skin color, and the country deemed evil itself. Thomas Jefferson’s statue was just removed from New York’s City Hall. In response to Continetti’s formulation, one colleague commented: “I’m sorry but these days when I read the phrases ‘market-oriented’ and ‘limited government’ coming from people on the right I kind of throw up in my mouth a little.” Why do these words ring hollow to those traditionally most receptive to them?īecause such concerns are anachronistic. Nor is it clear why a conservatism unmoored from or even effectively hostile to the national interest can be treated as “conservative.” Hence the utility in part of “national conservatism,” in contrast with a globalist, values-neutral liberalism that ultimately aims at a nationless, secular progressive, likely China-dominated world. The idea that conservatism needs no modifier becomes questionable if conservatism - which has in many quarters focused on economic liberalism while ceding most everything else - is not conserving or doing everything it can to restore what it ought to in the face of a ruling class onslaught. I laid out what it is that unites national conservatives in a recent piece here at The Federalist - noting that a shared understanding of the stakes is inherent to the movement. In the Wall Street Journal, Chris DeMuth and Matthew Continetti jousted over it. Continetti took issue with DeMuth’s argument endorsing national conservatism in part by claiming essentially that the movement captured so many schools of thought as to be incoherent, and that he favored his “conservatism without modification - constitutionalist, market-oriented and unapologetically American.” Knowing what time it is leads one to prioritize different ends and to pursue them using different means. Among those on the right, although more so in the chattering class than among activists, there appears to be a divide over the stakes inadvertently elucidated in some of the recent debates over national conservatism.