William F. Buckley, Jr., godfather of the modern conservative movement, was found dead this morning in his Connecticut home at the age of 82. He was seated at his desk.
In describing the National Review, the journal of opinion he founded in 1955, and by extension the conservative movement whose intellectual home it was, Buckley wrote: "It stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it." It is perhaps the most economical synopsis of a system of political thought ever delineated. In one brief sentence, Buckley identified both the appeal of conservatism and the source of opposition to it.
One need not be a historian to understand that, across the long haul, America, and most of the rest of the world, has become progressively more liberal. Indeed, the United States was born in a fit of radical liberalism - a violent revolt against the British crown followed in short order by the establishment of a republic. Certainly, the liberalizing effects of history have not been uniform, either on a global basis or within our own nation. Institutions develop progressively (American democracy vs. European monarchy) while social attitudes do not (pan-European abolition versus America's retention of slavery), or vice-versa. Nor is progress traceable on a straight line - where, for example, does communism - a theoretically economically progressive ideology wedded to a repressive one-party political system - fit? It is against this general trend which conservatism "stands athwart."
A charitable analysis of conservatism cuts in two directions: 1) progress is not the sole preserve of liberalism, and 2) rather than attempting to bring history to a halt, conservatives are like brakes on a car - you want to get where you're going as quickly as possible, but you also don't want to spin out on a tight curve or collide with the driver in front of you. Such conservatism is useful in our society as a (more often than not) dissenting voice; a doctrinal second-opinion, if you will. It is more inclined to view the entrepreneurial aspect of American society as essential to its ongoing vitality; it is more apt to argue for the good of the individual being as worthy of consideration as the good of the whole. This strain of conservatism is not fundamentally Republican or Democratic, though it may be more often identified with the former party. In fact, when Americans on the leftmost end of the political spectrum argue that the Democratic Party has moved too far to the right, it is, in no small part, this influence they detect.
I do not know enough about Buckley's overarching political philosophy to ascribe to it such a moderating character. However, I do know that though the movement he has birthed has not stopped the march of history in this country, it has diverted its course. Buckley's ideology underwrote the candidacy of Barry Goldwater in '64 - a political insurgent both in his party and his country - which begat the presidency of Ronald Reagan, whose ascendancy marked both the end of the New Deal era and the arrival of conservatism at the center of our political discourse. Buckley's war against the hegemonic liberalism of his day made these men possible - and by extension laid the foundations for George W. Bush.
It is in President Bush and his coterie that Mr. Buckley's conservatism met its apotheosis and antithesis - the breaching of its outer limits. The religious conservatives cleaved to his defense of traditional values but neglected his exhortation of reason as the conservative's sword and shield; the neo-conservatives took his anti-communism and directed its energies toward an elective war of nation-building and perpetual commitment. Bush himself, though happy to stand athwart history, is too intellectually weak a leader to either adhere consistently to conservative doctrine, or adapt pragmatically to extenuating circumstances. Buckley himself, drawing a fine line between his intellectual tradition and mere reaction, said that Bush was "conservative, but not a conservative."
But perhaps Mr. Buckley's conservatism had found its electoral high tide, and Mr. Bush's chief sin was to try to cannibalize it in the name of perpetuating Republican dominance at the polls. After all, Bush tried to package his mishmash of social obstinacy and aggressive unilateralism as something verging on futuristic. He and his chief political architect, Karl Rove, sold their vision not on the basis of Main Street, U.S.A. revisionism, as Reagan had, but rather as a way forward: that is, as history itself. Bush Republicanism ultimately faltered because it was incoherent - G.O.P. detractors refer to it as "big government conservatism", a dialectical impossibility in their eyes - and because the practical ramifications of his rule pointed not towards the sturdiness of conservatism as an ideology but its ultimate frailty when confronted with the exigencies of reality. Conservatism could not save the citizens of New Orleans, trapped on the roofs of their homes, nor can it furnish us with a solution to our health care crisis.
Indeed, if there is one central aspect of Buckley's conservatism that Bush has cleaved to, it is the idea that perhaps government is not supposed to meet these challenges. Ultimately it is this prizing of ideological purity that may be Buckley's chief bequest to the conservative movement - this deeply ingrained belief that principle should always triumph, even when that principal - that "organic morality" he once wrote of - runs contrary to the very tide of social progress and human necessity. It is a perverse inversion of the greater good, that inequities should persist and people should perish so that the idea can live on. Mr. Buckley, the man athwart history, did not subscribe to such a view of his work, saying "A conservatism that cannot find room in its folds for the actualities is a conservatism that is not a political force, or even a twitch: it has become a literary whimsy." It is a shame that the movement conservatives on whom he has left an indelible stamp have taken such doctrinal inflexibility as their primary inheritance.
The New York Times' obituary is available here.
