Sunday, February 08, 2004
(10:45 AM) | Adam Kotsko:
The Closing of the Conservative Mind
I think it makes a lot of sense to think of politics along a general continuum from left to right. It provides a mnemonic device for grouping together politicians who share similar goals and similar visions for how to achieve those goals. It can help to contextualize particular policies among the many available options and help people to categorize their own views so as to know what political party they will support. All of this is helpful, morally neutral stuff, in itself.
In American discourse, however, we do not have a continuum from left to right. We have only two options: conservatism and non-conservatism. Conservatism, as the term is actually deployed in contemporary American discourse (as opposed to the dictionary or the history of political philosophy), is a fairly rigid orthodoxy -- the opinions of self-declared conservatives are almost completely predictable, within certain narrow limits. Those who self-identify as conservative tend to read a certain narrow set of authors and publications in order to reinforce their views.
This orthodoxy is maintained by a two-step rhetorical move. The first step is grouping together all non-conservatives into a monolithic force, usually called liberalism. Everyone who does not completely conform to conservative orthodoxy, from John McCain to Fidel Castro, is a liberal to some degree, whether they are still trying to pose as a conservative or have finally followed through their liberalism to its natural consequences of communistic oppression. By an interesting rhetorical sleight of hand, even Adolf Hitler becomes a kind of liberal -- after all, he was head of the National Socialist party.
The second step is to present the monolithic, already evil, force of liberalism as a terrible oppressor that desires to silence all debate in this country so that the brainwashed masses will hear nothing but orthodox liberal views. This is basically a self-fulfilling prophecy. Based on the terms set by the conservatives themselves, the media is bound to be biased toward liberals. No responsible news outlet can be expected to spend half of its time expounding the orthodoxy of a particular narrow group of ideologues who have hijacked the name "conservative" for themselves. In fact, insofar as the news media does give conservatives more time than their numbers warrant, it is in fact biased toward conservatives to some degree (no matter how much time they also spend on liberal, i.e., non-conservative views).
Hence, whenever you're reading an orthodox conservative, substitute "non-conservative" for "liberal." It makes their arguments a lot clearer.
As already noted, the rhetorical trick of calling all non-conservatives liberals has the interesting side-effect of grouping Bill Clinton and Howard Dean with Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. Often this grouping effect is employed to render all liberals morally suspect. Ann Coulter's arguments, though so outlandish that they have been disowned by many orthodox conservatives, are the "truth" of the definition of liberal as non-conservative -- liberals hate America, liberals want Soviet-style oppression, liberals are true racists, etc., etc. Suddenly, liberal becomes a swear word. Any self-professed liberal must be extremely ignorant, deluded, and dangerous.
Thus it becomes obvious, for instance, that Bill Clinton was a terrible president -- it doesn't matter whether what he did as president was objectively good or bad for the country, because he was a "liberal." It becomes obvious that, if Al Gore would have become president in 2000, America would have collapsed completely and capitulated to its enemies -- because Gore's a "liberal" and thus loves America's enemies and hopes they would win. That's why conservatives are so scornful when they ask, "Oh, so you think Al Gore would have been a better president?"
Well, yes, I do think Al Gore would have been a better president -- not because I'm liberal and he's liberal, but because virtually anyone would have been a better president than Bush. I think John McCain or Bob Dole or Bush Sr. would have been a better president, too. But the conservative worldview will not allow that kind of thinking. Everything is a stark opposition between conservative and liberal, Republican or Democrat. You either support Bush or support Saddam. You either support Bush or you support Clinton. It's impossible to question Bush without someone chiming in about Clinton or about how evil Saddam was, because there are only two options: orthodox conservatism or everything else. And since everything else includes Saddam Hussein and Pol Pot, everything else must be evil.
"Oh, so now you're saying all conservatives are narrow minded, deluded fools? Typical liberal...."
