Ideas, Action, and Optimism

If the title of Ideas Have Consequences, Richard Weaver's seminal work on tradition (and, at times, traditionalism), has been overused to the point of becoming clichéd, the truth underlying the title's words remains firm. Ideas make their mark in the world because any action that is considered, rational, reasoned, and purposeful draws on the life of the mind. Picking up on this fact, one think tank used to employ the motto, "Turning Ideas into Action." Even the contemplative life can, and should, result in some action, including writing, teaching, praying, and setting an example by the way one lives. Yet, for all his contribution to conservative thought, Weaver's pessimistic assessment of the world lacks the appreciation for human potential and accomplishment, and perhaps even for our creation in the divine image, upon which to build a successful political movement, and conservatives would do well to avoid the comfortable den that knee-jerk pessimism offers.

To see what can happen to a movement, be it political, social, or cultural, that eschews an intellectual foundation of vital ideas derived at through rigorous research and debate for one constructed on the eternal sands of despair, one need only examine the contemporary left. From hollowed-out university curricula to the ascendancy of low-brow culture to a privileged place among elites, and to the replacement of considered, fact-based argument with emotional and irrational vitriol, the left's intellectual supports have never been weaker. Consider the components of the worldview upon which the left would build a political party: a distrust of democracy at home and abroad, loathing for bourgeois virtues, visceral hatred of political opponents, the embrace of conspiracy theories to explain complex events, an unwillingness or inability to engage in intellectual debate.

The list could be lengthened, but the picture is clear: the past 30 years have witnessed monumental setbacks for the left. Whether in the America of Reagan, a reigned-in Clinton, and George W. Bush; the U.K. of Thatcher and a reformed Labor party under Blair; the newly freed nations of Eastern Europe, whose former slavery large swathes of the American left chose to ignore; or the free market reforms in the Far East, the left's once confident, even smug, vision of the future has been dashed. And, as I've noted often, there is little on the horizon that would indicate a resurgence of the intellectual left. As others have asked, where are the books, journals, and writers upon which such a resurgence would need to rely? Who are the rising stars of liberal and radical thought?

The eviscerated state of the left, which finds itself without natural leaders or the kernel of a new movement, makes the gloominess of some conservatives, and the ineptness and evident cowardice of some Republicans, all the more inexplicable, at least at first glance. It's the subject of a thoughtful op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal (free) by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldrige. Titled "Cheer Up, Conservatives! You're Still Winning," the piece points out what should be obvious to conservatives who, after all, pride themselves on taking the long view of the world around them: despite bumps in the road and temporary setbacks, the ideas upon which the right should base its actions are still far superior to anything the left can draw on to mount an effective opposition. And the long view they take reveals not disarray and confusion, but strength upon strength:

The essential conservatism of Mr. Bush's approach is all the clearer if you compare it with the big-government liberalism of the 1960s--or with the big-government reality of European countries that American liberals are so keen to emulate. Mr. Bush is not using government to redistribute wealth (unless you own an oil company), to reward sloth or to coddle the poor. And government in America remains a shriveled thing by European standards. Some 40 years after the Great Society, America still has no national health service; it asks students to pay as much as $40,000 a year for a university education; it gives mothers only a few weeks of maternity leave.

What about values? Back in the 1960s, it was axiomatic amongst the elite that religion was doomed. In "The Secular City" (1965), Harvey Cox argued that Christianity had to come to terms with a secular culture. Now religion of the most basic sort is back with a vengeance. The president, his secretary of state, the House speaker and Senate majority leader are all evangelical Christians. Ted Haggard, the head of the 30-million strong National Association of Evangelicals, jokes that the only disagreement between himself and the leader of the Western world is automotive: Mr. Bush drives a Ford pickup, whereas he prefers a Chevy.

Rather than dying a slow death, evangelical Protestantism and hard-core Catholicism are bursting out all over the place. Who would have predicted, back in the 1960s, the success of "The Passion of the Christ," the "Left Behind" series or "The Purpose Driven Life"? To be sure, liberals still control universities, but, thanks to its rive droite of think tanks in Washington and many state capitals, the right has a firm control of the political-ideas business.

The proof of their argument is in the competing outlooks of right and left regarding the future of the nation and the world. Talk to a liberal (go ahead, it'll be good for you), and you're more likely than not to find yourself confronted with one gloomy, yet unsupportable, prediction after another. The environment has entered a state of irreparible decline, global warming will destroy us all, the car is a source of great evil, we must cut back our expectations; in a word, the future is bleak.

Surely one major source of the comfort they seem to take from their pessimism is that, in spite of their dire warnings, little seems to change in their daily lives. Quotidian existence goes on pretty much as before, day after day, year after year. Food is cheap and plentiful (Dinesh D'Souza likes to recall the words of an Indian friend, commenting on Americans' obsession with obesity, "I want to live in a country where the poor people are fat"), energy prices, though rising, do not reflect true shortages, crime is falling, ownership of homes is rising, poverty continues to wane, and more. That's not to deny the persistence of stubborn problems, nor the growth of certain social ills or the coarsening of popular culture.

But it is to remember that the ideas that have given us the bounteous harvest we enjoy in so many areas of life are based on core beliefs -- the sanctity of the individual, freedoms enshrined in the Bill of Rights, the existence of moral norms, the liberty to pursue greatness -- that are antithetical to the left's worldview. Or, as Micklethwait and Wooldrige put it:

The biggest advantage of all for conservatives is that they have a lock on the American dream. America is famously an idea more than a geographical expression, and that idea seems to be the province of the right. A recent Pew Research Center Survey, "Beyond Red Versus Blue," shows that the Republicans are more optimistic, convinced that the future will be better than the past and that they can determine their own futures. Democrats, on the other hand, have a European belief that "fate," or, in modern parlance, social circumstances, determines people's lot in life. (And judging by some recent series in newspapers on the subject, the party appears to have staunch allies in American newsrooms at least.)

Euro-pessimism has no future in America. Indeed, Americans have always been repulsed by Europeans' intellectual embrace of fate as the key determiner of one's future. Whether expressed as a Hegelian historical spirit, Marxist material determinism, or the current willful blindness to demographic or international trends, Euro-bleakness has found fertile soil in American only in universities and among the media or cultural elite who receive, one step removed, the gloomy vision of the professors.

Which returns us, at last, to Richard Weaver, who knew a thing or two about gloom. For all his undeniable insight into the human condition, or his many invaluable lessons on language and human nature, Weaver never shook his love affair with pessimism. Any man who believes sincerely, as Weaver did, that Western culture reached its apex in the fourteenth century is less a conservative in the classical sense than a reactionary who has little hope for the future. It's why he and his followers have so little to contribute to answering a question every generation must ask: what should we do? For those in the public policy or political worlds, it's a question asked daily. When we're tempted to see nothing but clouds on the horizon, as some Republicans apparently are, it's useful to remember that political movements draw their inspiration from their founding ideas. As a subject for academic debate, Weaver's ideas can be rich fodder; as a foundation for a political movement, however, they lead less to action than inertia, less to optimism than retirement from the world.

Update: Via Michelle Malkin, the American Thinker has some thoughts on disdainful Democrats. Disdain masquerading as achievement makes Johnny a dour boy.