It was nice of Andrew Sullivan to link to us. (I’m not being facetious: It was nice of him. Thanks, Andrew.) I’ll take issue with his description of National Review as a “central pillar of theoconservatism,” though.
National Review — yes, and NRO, too — have always let me say exactly what I think, sometimes to the extreme vexation of individual editors. They edit stuff, of course: if you don’t want to be edited, don’t take up writing for a living. In my very considerable experience of freelance journalism, though, I’d put NR/NRO well over at the lighter end of editorial authoritarianism. My first venture into anti-creationist writing appeared in NR, at their invitation.
A magazine lives by its personality. The personality of National Review remains, to the best of my perception, as Bill Buckley established it: a broad-minded and literate conservative magazine with a strong line on national defense and a Catholic coloration. It was never, and so far as I can see still is not, the vehicle for an ideology, certainly not a religious ideology. Among the earliest contributors there was at least one atheist (Max Eastman) and one Jewish agnostic (Frank Chodorov).
Theoconservatism — I take this to mean the phenomenon described in Damon Linker’s book — is an ideology. Like all ideologies, it seeks to “own” everything good: the Constitution, the Founders, art, science (it’s often fun to watch theocons fall over their feet as they try to claim credit for the Enlightenment, and then, a page later, blast it as the worst development in human history), conservatism, … everything. That’s what ideologies do. They are ravenous for credit. Every good thing that ever happened has to be shoe-horned into their formulas. The old Soviet Encyclopedia was notorious for placing the origin of everything — automobiles, planes, modern architecture, nuclear physics, indoor plumbing — in the Homeland of the Proletariat. Irreverent Soviet intellectuals had a stock joke about it: “Russia — home of the elephant!”
I never found Bill Buckley at all that way inclined. He was the opposite of an ideologue in every way. He had a life, for example. The only time he took issue with anything I wrote was when, on NRO in 2006, I owned up to some mild anti-Catholic sentiments. Bill’s manner was one of gentle reproof with an overtone of mild amusement. He made some point about John Paul II the substance of which, I am ashamed to say, I have forgotten; but I remember thinking it was a good point, revealing that I didn’t know as much about JPII as I’d thought. He terminated the brief exchange very cordially with a diffident suggestion that I read his own book of apologetics, which I later did, though with no discernible effect on my soul.
As for being careful: I’ve never been careful about anything. That’s why I’m so damn poor.
Perhaps I’m feeling overly charitable to Sullivan today, but — depending on your definition of “central pillar” — I actually think this is a not indefensible claim (provided that you edit Sullivan’s words down to “NRO’s The Corner blog” and not simply the “magazine”; I doubt he’s a subscriber, anyway).
First, I think there is an analytical difference between calling something a “bastion” or “monolith” and a “central pillar.” The first two terms (and others of their ilk) imply censorship or at least heavy moderation of dissent. So when I say “The Nation is a bastion of far left-liberalism,” that correctly implies that other viewpoints are vigorously suppressed.
For that reason, it would be inappropriate to say “The New Republic is a bastion of Iraq War hawks.” It is not; plenty of lefty war critics have had plenty of opportunities in that magazine to express their views. On the other hand — particularly in 2004 — it would have been defensible (at least) to claim that The New Republic was a “central pillar” of Iraq War hawkery.
In the same vein, I would say that upwards of 90% of what I read at the Corner is vigorously theoconservative — some of it hilariously so. That’s enough to make something a “central pillar” in my mind, even if the occasional Derb or even less occasional Stuttaford post gets through to the contrary.
Very nice. My meticulous blog research focuses on the issues of “ownership” and the Founding Fathers & religion (which actually led to publication on the matter by the Cato Institute and First Things of all places; I have to thank the theocons over there for publishing a brief piece of mine).
The key Founding Fathers were not atheists/secularists along the lines of this blog. However, they were “rationalist” who put much stake in “man’s reason” to the detriment of traditional religiously orthodox Christian doctrines. Even as “mainstream” and “conservative” a figure as John Adams had some things to say about the Trinity that sound right out of the Da Vinci Code, things that would have gotten him executed for “high handed blasphemie” by his Puritan ancestors.
“The Trinity was carried in a general council by one vote against a quaternity; the Virgin Mary lost an equality with the Father, Son, and Spirit only by a single suffrage.”
— John Adams to Benjamin Rush, June 12, 1812.
And:
“An incarnate God!!! An eternal, self-existent, omnipresent omniscient Author of this stupendous Universe, suffering on a Cross!!! My Soul starts with horror, at the Idea, and it has stupified the Christian World. It has been the Source of almost all of the Corruptions of Christianity.”
— John Adams to John Quincy Adams, March 28, 1816.
And:
“If I understand the Doctrine, it is, that if God the first second or third or all three together are united with or in a Man, the whole Animal becomes a God and his Mother is the Mother of God.
“It grieves me: it shocks me to write in this stile upon a subject the most adorable that any finite Intelligence can contemplate or embrace: but if ever Mankind are to be superior to the Brutes, sacerdotal Impostures must be exposed.”
-– John Adams to Francis van der Kemp, October 23, 1816.
Perhaps someone should adopt the pseudonym “John Adams” here.
I should amend in the interests of accuracy: “90% of what I read at the Corner on religious topics is vigorously theoconservative.”
Given their penchant to link to Christopher Hitchens while excoriating Iraq War skeptics (i.e., the “Unpatriotic Conservatives”), the label theocon is suspect. At one time it was clear that you could badmouth Christ all you want and still have friends at NR, but if you dare say a bad word about Bush or the war, well, that was another matter.
Of course, now that the scenery has fallen down on the Bush Administration (to steal a Hitchens phrase), you have a bit more freedom on that front.
“… if you dare say a bad word about Bush or the war, well, that was another matter …”
Perhaps you should try actually reading NR/NRO. Here was I on NRO right after the 2004 election:
And that was just clearing my throat. By early this year I was calling Bush “stupid” on NRO, to the displeasure of many readers.
First rule of commentary: try to have some clue about what you are talking about.
Lol,
Try saying something bad about the Sainted Sarah Palin then.
The “Theocons” that Damon Linker primarily describes (First Things types) are not your run of the mill Christian conservatives. They are Straussian neocons (hence a type of liberal) in Christian clothing. As such, they most certainly are ideologues, and without intending to comment on the state of their immortal souls, not good Christians.
NR is not, despite today’s claim by VDH otherwise, particularly diverse. Note the past purges. Note Frum’s infamous Unpatriotic Conservatives article. Note the individuals (Brimelow, Sobran, etc.) who have lost their jobs. They certainly did not tolerate Ron Paul’s non-interventionism the author’s and David Freddoso’s commendable support of him not withstanding. Nor is there much diversity of opinion on Israel. Nor is anything that is not broadly “mainstream” centrist and pragmatic much considered. Nor are third parties or alternative candidates entertained. (How much did NR or NRO cover Chuck Baldwin?) Nor is rigorous Constitutionalism given consideration. Etc.
I don’t read NR or NRO anymore because I don’t find many of the contributors other than you, Mr. Derbyshire, to be particularly intelligent or independent. I have agreed with your negative assessment of the Bush presidency since the early days of crusade on terrorism and also agreed with your early assessment of the distasteful choices on hand in the last election, but I saw little evidence that suggests that you were anything but a dissenter in the chapel on these issues.
I don’t share (and have suggested as much in comments on the contributions of David Hume) the faith in science that seems to be a presupposition of this blog, but I generally agree with most of your political conclusions. I also doubt that an aggressive kind of secular conservatism will be a big seller on the American political scene, but my own kind of anti-progressive political skepticism (see Mr. Oakeshott, e.g.) is not exactly the kind of thing that resonates with the garden variety quasi-messianic American exceptionalism that often passes itself off as conservatism these days either. In any case, good luck with it.
Red Phillips,
I don’t think it’s accurate to call the Roman Catholic “theocons” as described in Damon Linker’s book, “Straussians.” Note: They tend to be allied with and respect the “Straussians” in their political and intellectual venture. But at heart they hold irreconcilable positions about Christianity and the American Founding. See for instance Michael Novak using Walter Berns’ thesis on Christianity and Americanism as the impetus for his book “On Two Wings.” Novak was arguing AGAINST Berns’ thesis. And Berns’ thesis of a “non-Christian” American Founding, make no doubt, is central Straussian thought (at least East Coast Straussian thought).
I prefer The American Conservative and Reason to National Review anymore. I lean so far in the paleo-conservative/libertarian direction anymore that NR just seems to lack the purity of traditional conservatism anymore. Aside from Derbyshire and the late Mr. Buckley, I found a clear majority of the writers to be way too saturated in the beltway for my tastes. Nowhere near as bad as The Weekly Standard but very excessive when it came to nation building and the value voters.
Jon, Novak and Neuhaus are Straussians or if they aren’t in some technical sense (they didn’t study under the appropriate master or whatever) they do a mighty fine job of playing one on TV. Any Christian who is a Straussian is going to be troubled by cognitive dissonance since one of Strauss’ Noble Lie was the existence of God. Christian Straussians are fooling themselves.
Now I don’t know enough about Berns to comment intelligently, but to whatever degree Novak may accept some Christian nation understanding, he like all good Straussians (and liberals) enshrines pluralistic liberal democracy. Note his snit fit and declaring he was going to vote for Romney because of Huckabee’s alleged playing of evangelical identity politics. Alan Keyes accepts to some extent the Christian nation idea, and you can’t get more of a Straussian than his babbling self.
They aren’t Straussians. Political philosophical terms are squishy IMO. I’m usually OK with reappropriation, but this is just ridiculous. Why don’t you say neocon since that’s a flexible enough term which could include Novak et al.? As it is, you’re just confusing people and I’m sure many people will now start a semantic swarm like piranha around a raw steak.
David Hume, you are engaging in argument by nitpickery. Does one have to study under Bloom, Jaffa, or Mansfield to be an official Straussian? Neoconservatism is informed by Straussianism. Novak and Neuhaus elevate pluralism, tolerance, and their version of Americanism (denounced by their Church in the past as a heresy) above the teaching of the Bible and the historic teaching of their Church.
Jone Rowe really has absolutely nothing to fear from these toothless Christians.
Does one have to study under Bloom, Jaffa, or Mansfield to be an official Straussian?
Frankly, hell if I know, but probably not. But calling someone like Father Richard John Neuhaus a Straussian debases any meaning of the term, aside from what it no doubt means in your mind. If you want to engage in a dialog with yourself, go ahead and keep calling Catholic intellectuals who are neocons or neocon fellow travelers Straussians. But what is Straussian to you? Perhaps I agree, and this argument is for naught.
(I would perhaps be a little less critical if you didn’t already have a record in the very short history of this weblog of making big broad and bold claims which invite contention)
“Even as “mainstream” and “conservative” a figure as John Adams had some things to say about the Trinity that sound right out of the Da Vinci Code, things that would have gotten him executed for “high handed blasphemie” by his Puritan ancestors.” Jon Rowe
Adams wrote as an avowed Unitarian, not a Hollywood-esque personality or Dan Brown styled author of “controversial” fiction. Adams was also a self described enthusiast qua moralist. I’d be surprised to see the pseudonym appropriated.
That’s also false. David Frum has his own blog linked off the main page, and he was one of the biggest Palin detractors. The Corner actively linked to Kathleen Parker’s first Post article urging Palin to resign, and so on.
This is the point I was trying to make in my distinction (perhaps unintended by Sullivan, mind you) between “central pillar” and “monolith.” The Corner isn’t a monolith of anything; it doesn’t suppress dissent as far as I can tell. It is, on the other hand, a central pillar of a bunch of things (including support for Sarah Palin, which I obviously find wrongheaded). But I think there’s an important difference between the two.
It’s interesting about the Soviet Encyclopedia, I had never heard of it but I’d wager it’s the source of a friend’s claim that the former Soviet nation he grew up in was where the laser was invented. It was such a preposterous statement (I had read the World Book article on the laser countless times as a child) that I didn’t say anything, I just wondered what on Earth his source was. Now I realize that it was probably the Great Soviet Encyclopedia.
In addendum to my comment #17 above, this quote from Wikipedia adds a fascinating twist: “Alexander Prokhorov was a physicist and professor at the Moscow State University. In 1964 he received the Nobel Prize in Physics, for his pioneering work on lasers and masers. He was also the chief editor of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia [from] 1971-1990.” It seems Prokhorov independently designed a ruby-based laser around the same time American scientists did. The World Book article I read as a child (in the midst of the Cold War, go figure) didn’t mention Prokhorov, nor did it mention that there was (in 1967) a court battle between the multiple American inventors over the patent. Thus, my friend’s statement was not only non-preposterous but also nearly correct, at least if one counts a valid design (as opposed to a working model) as an “invention” (Theodore Maiman produced the world’s first laser light in 1960 in a Hughes Research lab in Malibu; Prokhorov only did his on paper). I say “nearly” correct because Prokhorov (who was born in Australia) did his work in Russia, not in my friend’s home country.
The Soviet Encyclopedia is online. If anyone here can read Russian, a translation of its entry on the history of the laser would be appreciated.
Andrew.
Frum is leaving NRO.
Hadn’t you heard?
Perhaps you should try actually reading NR/NRO.
With respect, perhaps you should try not ellipsing important qualifiers when quoting. You’ll note that I said “At one time…”
I’ve been reading NR and you since the 90s. You’re right that you yourself began to diverge, but during the run-up to the Iraq War and shortly after, cross words against Bush were rare and opposing the Iraq War was generally anathema. You’re citing Scott McConnell in your quote. His magazine was one of the ones explicitly cast into the utter darkness by Frum in his article. Can you remember any equivalent treatment meted out to you, Heather MacDonald or even Christopher Hitchens for expressing atheistic thoughts? I can’t.
Michael B,
Well I think it would be perfectly proper to appropriate Adams’ name as a “secular conservative” on Founding & Religious issues SOLELY when to demonstrate his “freethinking” side on religious matters and that traditionalist Christians (what Andrew Sullivan terms “Christians”) didn’t “own” the Founding as they often assert. Yes, Adams devoutly believed in “God,” “religion” and “morality.” But he also bitterly broke with the prevailing tenets of orthodoxy of not just his day but today. For instance, he believed Hinduism (and most or all world religions) taught the same principles at heart as “Christianity” and were all valid ways to God.
Adams also thought that religion must meet the test of reason and that man’s reason trumped revelation and traditional orthodox doctrines.
In my last comment, I meant whom Sullivan terms “Christianists.” Note, traditional Christians aren’t necessarily “Christianists.” It’s the ones who utterly conflate theology and politics, try to argue THEY founded America and hence “own it,” and don’t believe in pluralistic America and want everyone to play by their rules.
I’m not arguing that America was founded to be pluralist per se. But the ONE area where we HAD problems with tolerance and pluralism was “religion” and America WAS founded on the idea that your religious conscience is between you and your maker, not a matter of politics. That’s one reason why the Founders, when they did “talk up” religion, almost ALWAYS did so in as generic and philosophical manner possible. Even when they talked up “Christianity” they often did so with qualifiers to make Christianity into a “kinder-gentler” creature. They’d use terms like “mild,” “tolerating,” “benevolent,” and “benign.” The Christianists like David Barton come along, take those quotations out of context (when they quote the Founders accurately) and act like America’s Founders were a bunch of Bible quoting evangelicals-fundamentalists. What nonsense.
Well, your commentary is tendentious throughout in and virtually every particular, so I need to be very pointed about some things, I cannot unravel it all. It’s not intended personally.
But, yes, and you’re “meticulous” as well, hence language such as “perfectly proper,” or “utterly conflates” when in fact no one that I’m aware of “utterly” conflates theology and politics, not remotely so, that is hyperbole at best. Or, offer specific, real-world examples. Hence when you not so perfectly or properly tendentiously dichotomize Adams, referring to him as a “secular conservative,” SOLELY to demonstrate his “freethinking” side. Adams was a secularist in much the same sense I am millions of other Christians are secularist, in lineage of Locke and Montesquieu. By contrast, to invoke Sullivan as some type of arbiter is merely to advance the tendentious quality of your argument all the more.
But let’s note some quotes from Adams himself:
“The Christian religion is, above all the religions that ever prevailed or existed in ancient or modern times, the religion of wisdom, virtue, equity and humanity, let the Blackguard [Thomas] Paine say what he will.” The Works of John Adams (1854), vol III, p 421, diary entry for July 26, 1796 (pulled from wiki)
“The Bible … is the most Republican Book in the World, and therefore I will still revere it. The Curses against Fornication and Adultery, and the prohibition of every wanton glance or libinous ogle at a woman, I believe to be the only system that ever did or will preserve the Republik in the World. … But if I don’t make it out you may say if you please that I am an enthusiast. I say then that national Morality never was and never can be preserved, without the utmost purity and chastity in women: and without national Morality a Republican Government cannot be maintained.” John Adams to Benjamin Rush, Feb. 2, 1807. Old Family Letters, 127-8, via J. Hutson
Further, this entire faith vs. reason debate is a very wide ranging set of discussions in and of itself. Adams lived during and in the immediate wake of the Enlightenment when, for example, a certain scientific and natural (i.e. materialist) positivism was germinating and very much in vogue, a positivism that Auguste Comte represented, though there were progenitors as well, Comte reflecting so much absolutist faith in scientific “progress” that he looked forward to the time when the earth’s orbit can be changed from an elliptical to a circular orbit (in order to mitigate seasonal climate variations and for other beneficient effects). That type of positive and that type of materialist faith hasn’t panned out since Ernst Mach and certainly not since Planck and Einstein at the turn of the century.
There is so much tendentiousness and presumption embedded and interlaced within every part and phrase of what you offer that it would take a five-thousand word reply, perhaps, to address it all, but there is the beginning of some specifics and some broader themes.
Michael B:
You said via J. Hutson. May I ask from what Hutson book do you quote Adams? And is it the hard or softcover?
Hardcover, “The Founders on Religion: a Book of Quotations,” Princeton Univ. Press, 2005
Heh. You should have the soft cover. It’s got my name on the back. I wrote the “briefly noted” for it for First Things. Mine is the fourth blurb down.
http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8013.html
But in any event what I was chiefly referring to is found on pp. 215-16 of Hutson’s book. Adams letter to Jefferson dated Sept. 14, 1813. He notes that he disbelieves in the Trinity because man’s reason proves 1+1+1=3 not 1. AND that even were he on Mt. Sinai with Moses and God revealed the doctrine to him there, he still couldn’t believe it because one is not three and three is not one.
“…the human Understanding is a revelation from its Maker which can never be disputed or doubted. There can be no Scepticism, Phyrrhonism or Incredulity or Infidelity here. No Prophecies, no Miracles are necessary to prove this celestial communication. This revelation has made it certain that two and one make three; and that one is not three; nor can three be one. We can never be so certain of any Prophecy, or the fulfillment of any Prophecy; or of any miracle, or the design of any miracle as We are, from the revelation of nature i.e. natures God that two and two are equal to four. Miracles or Prophecies might frighten []us out of our Witts [sic]; might scare us to death; might induce Us to lie; to say that We believe that 2 and 2 make 5. But we should not believe it. We should know the contrary
“Had you and I been forty days with Moses on Mount Sinai and admitted to behold, the divine Shekinah, and there told that one was three and three, one: We might not have had courage to deny it. But We could not have believed it.”
There’s more of that letter on this site:
http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/history/dfg/amrl/jeffadam.htm
Adams also denies eternal damnation and expresses other wonderfully heterodox sentiments.
Actually I was aware of that, concerning Hutson’s volume, as I had seen you quote from it at Volokh.
As to the other, yes, though I don’t dispute any of it as it relates to Adams’ personal theological views. Approaching theological subjects per se, whether philosophically conceived (e.g., the problem of divine simplicity) or more strictly in a theological sense (e.g., Aquinas or others on the trinity) is not something that can be done lightly, as Adams does with his 1+1+1 = 3 formulation. As I only alluded to, in previously recalling Auguste Comte’s positivism and naturalism, such reductions were very much in vogue during that era. I say that not because I’m satisfied with any type of obscurantism or simplistic appeals to authority, but rather because I find people such as Adams, when commenting upon philosophical and theological subjects, to be wanting in the extreme and to be echoing some of the philosophical fashions of their times. (Understandably so, to a notable degree – the abuses religion have been put to are not in dispute, quite obviously, but it remains understandable to a degree only, beyond which there is a notable incurious quality, hence my prior example of any scientific positivism fading away from much coherence around the time of Mach, Planck and Einstein, at the fin de siecle. There remain adherents, but they are believers and adherents and ideologues in that role, not scientists qua scientists.)
I was aware of that, concerning Hutson’s volume, as I had seen you quote from it at Volokh.
As to the other, yes, though I don’t dispute any of it as it relates to Adams’ personal theological views. Approaching theological subjects, whether philosophically conceived (e.g., some conceptions of the trinity, of divine simplicity) or more strictly in a theological sense is not something that can be done lightly, as Adams does with his 1+1+1 = 3 formulation. As I only alluded to, in previously recalling Auguste Comte’s positivism and naturalism, such reductions were very much in vogue during that era. I say that not because I’m satisfied with any type of obscurantism or simplistic appeals to authority, but rather because I find people such as Adams, when commenting upon philosophical and theological subjects, to be wanting in the extreme and to be echoing some of the philosophical fashions of their times. (Understandably so, to a degree – the abuses religion have been put to are not in dispute, obviously enough – but understandable to a degree only, beyond which there is a notable incurious quality. Hence my prior example of any scientific positivism fading away from much coherence around the time of Mach, Planck and Einstein, at the fin de siecle. There remain adherents of scientism and positivisms, but they are believers and adherents and ideologues and presumptives in that role, not scientists as such, not even empirical/rational inquirers in any thoroughgoing or more rigorous sense.)
Even the subject of “religion” is hugely problematic. I deem Christianity to be, in its better conceived sense, not only non-religious but anti-religious. In large part that will make no sense to most “secularists,” especially secularist ideologues, and its a subject that can and does fill volumes, so I can only provide an allusion to that theme here.