Letters to a Young Conservative (2 page)

Conservatives find this slogan amusing, but only because of its absurdity. I certainly don’t know of any conservative who has advocated government surveillance in a person’s bedroom. But it is true that the conservatives are willing at times to curtail liberty. When there is a threat to national security, as in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks, conservatives believe that to protect citizens’ lives it may be necessary to curtail certain freedoms. Conservatives in general see nothing wrong with restricting pornography, with limiting the legal benefits of marriage to heterosexual couples, or with outlawing the use of hard drugs.

Thus neither conservatives nor liberals are the unqualified partisans of freedom. Both groups believe in a certain
kind
of freedom. What really distinguishes conservatives from liberals is not that one is for freedom and the other is against freedom; rather, what separates them is that they have different substantive views of what constitutes the good life.

Let us make a list of the liberal virtues: equality, compassion, pluralism, diversity, social justice, peace, autonomy, tolerance. Liberals become impassioned when they use these terms: They make up the moral priorities of the modern liberal worldview. By contrast, conservatives
emphasize other virtues: merit, patriotism, prosperity, national unity, social order, morality, responsibility. Both sides are willing to place occasional restraints on freedom to achieve their substantive vision of the good society. Indeed, some liberals attach little importance to freedom. The Columbia radicals felt perfectly justified in trying to silence my talk: In their view, I have forfeited my right to free speech because I oppose their leftist agenda.

There is some overlap in the moral vocabulary that liberals and conservatives use. Both speak of “equality,” although they mean different things by the term. Conservatives emphasize the equality of
rights,
and they are quite willing to endure inequalities that are the product of differential capacity or merit. Liberals emphasize the equality of
outcomes,
and they tend to attribute inequality to the unequal opportunities that have been provided by society. Another term that both liberals and conservatives use is “morality,” but conservatives tend to define morality personally, while liberals define it socially. Conservatives find it hard to believe that a sexual reprobate can be a good person, but many liberals who acknowledge Bill Clinton’s personal failings nevertheless consider him an admirable fellow because of his public positions in favor of the poor and women’s rights.

Since conservatives and liberals have different conceptions of the good society, their priorities are different, and this leads to contrasting policy positions. Conservatives emphasize economic growth, while liberals
emphasize economic redistribution. Conservatives like to proclaim their love of country, while liberals like to proclaim their love of humanity. Conservatives insist that force is required to maintain world order, while liberals prefer the pursuit of peace through negotiation and dialog. Conservatives are eager to preserve moral standards; liberals cherish personal autonomy.

At root, conservatives and liberals see the world so differently because they have two different conceptions of human nature. Liberals tend to believe in Rousseau’s proposition that human nature is intrinsically good. Therefore they believe that people who fail or do bad things are not acting out of laziness or wickedness; rather, society put them in this unfortunate position. Since people are innately good, liberals hold, the great conflicts in the world are not the result of good versus evil; rather, they arise out of terrible misunderstandings that can be corrected through ongoing conversation and through the mediation of such groups as the United Nations. Finally, the liberal’s high opinion of human nature leads to the view that if you give people autonomy they will use their freedom well.

Conservatives know better. Conservatives recognize that there are two principles in human nature—good and evil—and these are in constant conflict. Given the warped timber of humanity, conservatives seek a social structure that helps to bring out the best in human nature and suppress man’s lower or base impulses. Conservatives support capitalism because it is a way of steering
our natural pursuit of self-interest toward the material betterment of society at large. Conservatives insist that because there are evil régimes and destructive forces in the world that cannot be talked out of their nefarious objectives, force is an indispensable element of international relations. Finally, conservatives support autonomy when it is attached to personal responsibility—when people are held accountable for their actions—but they also believe in the indispensability of moral incubators (the family, the church, civic institutions) that are aimed at instructing people to choose virtue over vice.

I am a conservative, Chris, because I believe that conservatives have an accurate understanding of human nature and liberals do not. Since liberals have a wrong view of man, their policies are unlikely to achieve good results. Indeed, liberal programs frequently subvert liberal objectives. Richard Nixon once described the liberal Democrats as the party of “acid, amnesty, and abortion.” For all its grand proclamations, today’s liberalism seems to be characterized by a pathological hostility to America, to capitalism, and to traditional moral values. In short, liberalism has become the party of anti-Americanism, economic plunder, and immorality. By contrast, conservative policies are not only more likely to produce the good society, they are also the best means to achieve liberal goals such as peace, tolerance, and social justice.

Dear Chris,

I can see that you are not entirely happy with my definition of conservatism. Like a lot of young people, you have strong libertarian instincts, and you are inclined to a “leave us alone” ideology that calls for the government to stay out of your pocketbook and your private life. In policy, I generally agree. Even so, I want to point out that libertarianism is not the same thing as conservatism.

Libertarianism is a philosophy of government, but conservatism is a philosophy of life. The libertarians want to contract the domain of government to expand the domain of personal liberty. For the most part, conservatives support this. But on the question of how liberty is to be used, on the central question of what constitutes the good life, libertarianism is largely silent.

The central libertarian principle is freedom, and to defend freedom, some libertarians find themselves arguing
that whatever people choose is always right. But one could arrive at this view only from the premise that human nature is so good that it is virtually flawless. In reality, human nature is flawed, and freedom is frequently used badly. Conservatives understand this. Conservatives defend freedom not because they believe in the right to do as you please, but because freedom is the precondition for virtue. It is only when people choose freely that they can choose the good. Without freedom there is no virtue: A coerced virtue is no virtue at all.

Consider an example that contrasts the conservative and libertarian views of freedom. If you said to a libertarian, “What if 300 million Americans opt to become pornographers like Larry Flynt? Would that constitute a good society?” While the conservative would emphatically answer no, the pure libertarian would have to answer yes, because these people have chosen freely. As this example illustrates, libertarianism is a philosophy of choice without political concern for what people actually choose. Thus, although many libertarians live virtuously, libertarianism as a philosophy is indifferent to virtue. In this respect it differs markedly from conservatism.

Admittedly, vast areas of programmatic agreement exist between libertarians and conservatives. Both believe that the federal government has grown prodigiously and that it needs to be severely curbed. Even on social issues, libertarians and conservatives are often on the same side, although not always for the same reasons. A few years ago, I heard a conversation between a conservative
and a libertarian. The conservative said, “I am distressed by the idea of fornication in public parks.” The libertarian replied, “I am distressed by the idea of public parks.” And on the policy issue in question, the two found themselves in happy agreement.

Conservatives, like libertarians, resist looking to the government to redistribute income. But on some occasions, conservatives are willing to use the power of government to foster virtue. Libertarians find this appalling. “If you won’t trust the government with your money,” one of them said to me, “how can you trust it with your soul?” Well, nobody is putting the government in charge of morality or salvation. But government policy does influence behavior, and conservatives are not averse to using the instruments of government, such as the presidential bully pulpit or the incentive structure of the tax code, to promote decent institutions (such as intact families) and decent behavior (such as teenage sexual abstinence).

The issue that best illustrates the libertarian-conservative disagreement is the drug war. Libertarians say that the “war against drugs” has been a failure, and this seems to be true. But what if the antidrug effort could be conducted in such a way that it was a success? Libertarians would still have to oppose it because in principle they are against the idea of the government regulating drugs. Conservatives, who may agree with libertarians that our current antidrug campaign is imprudent and inefficient, would generally have no problem with a
more sensible campaign that effectively reduced the use and abuse of hard drugs.

Chris, I am not asking you to relinquish your libertarian beliefs. But I think your libertarianism would be intellectually richer if it were integrated into a more comprehensive conservative philosophy that advanced a substantive vision of the good life and the good society. In other words, the best argument for freedom is not that it is an end in itself but that it is the necessary prerequisite for choosing what is right. Think about it.

Dear Chris,

I am glad that you found my letters contrasting conservatism and liberalism (and distinguishing both from libertarianism) to be helpful. You pronounce yourself a “libertarian conservative,” and this seems to me an excellent way to preserve your libertarian economic philosophy within a broader conservative worldview.

Let me go on to address your questions about how I became a conservative, and how I became involved with the conservative movement at Dartmouth. I arrived at Dartmouth in the fall of 1979, having come to the United States the previous year as a Rotary exchange student from Bombay, India. Dartmouth was entirely new to me. I had never visited the campus before; I am not even sure that I had heard of Dartmouth when I applied. But my host family in Arizona convinced me that
it was an Ivy League institution and that I should attend. They left out the part about the snow.

I started out at Dartmouth as a pretty typical Asian American student. My plans were to major in economics and to earn an advanced degree in business, either in the United States or in London. I enjoyed writing, however, and signed up to write for the campus newspaper, the
Dartmouth.
I learned the basics of journalism and wrote several news stories during my freshman year. Toward the end of the year, a major schism occurred at “The D.” The editor of the paper came out of the closet as a conservative. He began to write editorials supporting the candidacy of Ronald Reagan for president; the other editors, scandalized by this offense, began the process of getting him fired. They succeeded, and the brash young editor, Gregory Fossedal, resolved to start an alternative weekly newspaper. He called it the
Dartmouth Review,
and modeled it after William F. Buckley’s
National Review.

I was not a conservative. I had never heard of
National Review.
In fact, I didn’t see myself as political. In retrospect, I realize that by the end of my freshman year my views were mostly liberal. If you had said “capitalism,” I would have said “greed.” If you had said “Reagan,” I would have said “washed-up former actor.” If you had said “El Salvador,” I would have said, “another Vietnam.” If you had said “morality,” I would have said, “can’t legislate it.” These were not reasoned convictions. Rather, I was carried by the tide. A liberal current flows
on most college campuses, and the more prestigious the campus, the stronger the current. If you do not recognize this, you will surely be swept along. The only way to avoid this is to actively resist the waves.

Although I had acquiesced in the prevailing liberal
weltanshauung,
I was by no means a radical. Indeed, during my freshman year I was offended by much of the radicalism on campus, but I had no coherent way to think about it or to express my dissatisfaction. For instance, during our convocation ceremony, a very dignified affair, the college chaplain said to our freshman class, “I want each of you to look to the student on your right, and the student on the left. One of the three of you will have a homosexual experience to climax before you graduate.” Personally, I found this a bit shocking. Indeed, I looked to my left and right, and I resolved to avoid those two guys for the rest of my days at Dartmouth.

I was also troubled by the radicalism of the feminist professors on campus. These women made statements to the effect that all males were potential rapists. One professor said she could barely walk around the Dartmouth campus because the tall tower of Baker Library upset her so deeply. To her, the tall buildings at Dartmouth were “phallic symbols.” I swear, this woman’s definition of a phallic symbol was anything that was longer than it was wide. And because these women were famous for bringing their politics into the classroom, your grade was likely to suffer if you didn’t agree with them.

Another phenomenon I found puzzling was the anti-Americanism of many foreign students. We had foreign students who were on full scholarship at one of the most beautiful campuses in the world, yet they spent their time bitterly complaining, and some even found Dartmouth responsible for their “institutional oppression.” Iranian students who had been sent to America to study by the Shah had now become ardent supporters of the Ayatollah Khomeini, whose social policies they deplored but whose anti-Americanism they found delightful and exhilarating. At the time I did not know what to make of these things.