Forward or Backward?

Are conservatives fundamentally negative or positive? Do we look forward to creating a better society or are we irredeemably stuck in an overly glorified past that now has disappeared? This is not a question that has a single, easy, or definite answer, but one that came up in a discussion with an friend and teammate who has graduated and moved on to the real world.

In a conversation about the state of current politics my friend Dave Kang—who, like me, was a coxswain for the varsity lightweights—struck a tone that I thought out of place for a self-professed conservative. On the subjects of educational reform, shrinking the government, and reworking social security he was thoroughly confident: “privatization is the only choice; it’s a no brainer and people will see that.” I found myself taken aback. Here was a young man who had impeccable Republican credentials, and who had voted for George W. Bush twice, confidently predicting victory in struggles that have given conservatives nightmares for the past half-century.

My own, far more pessimistic, instincts are that things will continue to go pretty much as they have for the past half century: government will continue to grow, taxes will continue to rise, and public education will continue to decline. These are not outcomes I relish, in fact I fear them, but they seem unavoidable nonetheless. While conservatives such as myself might dream of, in William F. Buckley’s words, “standing athwart history yelling stop” real world experience has shown that this is really only that: a dream. Despite the persistent nagging of hundreds upon hundreds of conservative intellectuals, columnists, and politicians, America’s trajectory seems entirely unchanged; the effort seems all for naught.

The idea that we are fighting a noble, worthy, but ultimately futile rearguard action against the unstoppable tide of “progress” is one that constantly haunts many conservatives, but is entirely rejected by my friend Dave. How? The answer seems to be that the optimistic conservatives are economically oriented; since they view human existence and action as value-maximizing or at least predictable, they are sure that, if only they can get people the right information, they will choose the better policy. Thus Dave’s confidence that Americans will soon reform their education system or stop the growth of the federal government that has run amok for the past seventy years. These conservatives are the ones that “bracket” divisive social issues and are constantly dubbed by the media as “rising stars” or “the futures of” the Republican party.

Yet to religious or social conservatives, such as myself, the overriding economic mindset of some of our conservative brethren seems out of place or even selfish. Someone once wrote something to the effect that “the free market is the least conservative institution on earth;” and they are absolutely right. In principle the idea of a free market is better than socialism, but completely untrammeled free-markets are immoral and cruel. The label of “libertarian” is unpopular because of some of the more outrageous members of that political grouping, but I would argue that it is the word that best describes many American conservatives and especially conservatives at Harvard and other elite universities.

Many “conservatives” here and around the country are uncomfortable around religion and more than a little embarrassed about the “red-state” yokels that constitute their ideological brethren. They would be just as happy in the Democratic Party if it dropped its populism and class-rhetoric; their allegiance to the Republican Party runs not through their minds and hearts but through their pocketbooks. Social or “paleo-” conservatives such as myself will continue to protest the changes ripping through our society, but I expect at some point in the foreseeable future, as the pace of social change escalates and “wedge issues” become ever more salient, the tensions between conservatives will boil to the surface and the movement as a whole will weaken and divide. I’d like to hold faith in the ability of people to make the right choice, as my friend Dave does, but find myself uncomforted by mankind’s previous experience.

Mark A. Adomanis ’07, a Crimson editorial editor, is a government concentrator in Eliot House.