W. Edward Cynoweth
Dear Editor:
In the December, 2007, issue, Herbert London stands firm, but Allan Brownfield gets caught in the "conservatism" web. As Gerhart Niemeyer saw, such terms suffer from illusive meanings and thus warrant only "secondary importance."1 Mr. Brownfield's "conservative" authorities (no less than Modern Age's) reveal not only America's generation gap but also an unavoidable conservative gap. (His reference to Burke recalls our own exchange earlier this year, reflecting, in my opinion, a serious misreading of the great Whig that deserves correction. The same occurs Modern Age's 50th anniversary issue -- a "conservative" symposium.) Some conservatives are more "conservative" than others, which is why the term is less helpful than a Burkean argument based on specific facts and circumstances, not abstractions, etc. What follows, in hopes your esteemed advisors are open to what M. E. Bradford might term "the critical imperative" regarding Mr. Brownfield's query, "Where does conservatism go from here?" is an adaptation of my comments to Modern Age editors.
Mr. Brownfield seems to be in the ranks of those who voted for G. W. Bush only to become disenchanted. In part, I join them, with regard to excessive spending and over-reaching "compassionate" programs hoping to charm the opposite Party and the women's vote (on which more below). Analyzing the situation in terms of "conservatism," however, is like arguing for ordered freedoms in terms of Tom Brady's passing stats. It is not "conservatism" to consider "inevitable" the gross revisionism undermining various areas of our heritage, etc. (e.g., shaming the justified 1942 relocation; neglect of Booker T. Washington vi-a-vis Martin Luther King Jr; the true fault for Wounded Knee and Sand Creek; true history, military and general; the cancer of public coeducation; shrill-voiced "judges'' and cops, etc.)
No frontline conservative is tackling the most basic aspect of society -- right order of the sexes -- deserving more than catering gallantly to the ladies. One "conservative" now delegates to women the management of Burke's "little platoons," a sales pitch intelligent women and Burke might question. As he wrote to the Duke of Portland on candidates, "Oldish men are not more fit to court the people than the Ladies -- nor is it very becoming . . ." (Sept. 3, 1780) His "little platoons" were instead local institutions and myriad human arrangements involving both men and women for which he quite often emphasized the importance of "manly" leadership not, in all honesty, to be expected from women, who work with their own womanly gifts. Of course the latter manage superbly in organizations, groups, etc., but understanding the complementarity of the sexes remains the key to civil society.
Mr. Brownfield quotes David Brooks on Burke's "modern conservatism" -- reliance on tradition and settled ways -- to show how President Bush has erred trying to pacify Iraq, the latter obviously being a huge undertaking. With other conservatives, they scorn this as a Bushian misstep, forgetting our successful 1940s efforts in Japan and Germany, also huge undertakings. More on this below.
I'll touch on two aspects -- conservative avoidance of feminism, and the Iraq venture -- to offer more robust lessons, e.g., from Burke. As mentioned, I agree that President Bush's administration leaves a lot to be desired but for different reasons than Mr. Brownfeld's authorities, none of whom mention the co-ed military and service academies, sending young mothers or girls in general to fight our war; Dewey, unions and the Department of Education; Titles VII and IX as to sex; etc., all of which need confronting. Edmund Burke put it well, writing passionately of the French mob's treatment of Marie Antoinette, with resonance for the experience of American female soldiers caught in combat:
Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of honour and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. -- But the age of chivalry is gone. -- That of sophisters, economists, and calculators, has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever. . . . The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise is gone!
And Adam Smith, too, on:
. . . violation of these exact decorums which ought to be observed in the conservation of the two sexes. . . . They are generally violations of a pretty plain rule, and at least in one of the sexes, tend to bring ignominy upon the person who has been guilty of them, and consequently to be attended in the scrupulous with some degree of shame and contrition of mind.
David Brooks's deferring to Burke for "suspicion of radical change" is on target until he uses it to criticize our Iraq project, while neglecting the "radical changes" our government attempted in the 1960s-1980s concerning the human sexes. The Iraq project is not over and needs support, not back-biting (see below); the sexual experiment, too, is far from resolved and needs Burkean correction!
Another example of "where conservatism might go from here" is being offered in Fresno, where a jury composed of 11 women and one man came up with an irrational, unjust verdict rashly awarding $19+ million in damages against the university for firing a female coach for just cause. Opinion, of course, is divided, which only reflects the stark division that men have caused since Tocquevillian days when men and women were stronger and more orderly. The coach's conduct was considered "bizarre" by many, characterized by drugs, sex, and "provocative and cleavage baring game-time dress," making her, in the Fresno Bee's opinion, the "loser" (hardly a preponderance of evidence in her favor!) yet the jurors awarded her millions. It suggests a miscarriage of justice, with many letter writers seeing it as another O. J. Simpson case, when the jury also was mostly female. For the more objective men and women, it is apparent that if this is "sex equality," we should go back to discriminating as to sex! If Mr. Brownfield wants to know "where conservatism goes from here," he'll have to deal with this issue.
In complaining of Bush's efforts in Iraq, etc., Mr. Brownfield's authorities resort to debatable precedents. Mr. Brooks' version of Burke ignores the full context of Burke's thought (discussed in part below), which suggests a manlier warrior spirit than some conservatives possess today. A true conservative would gut it out to support those who are serving in Iraq until the task is done, then assess the experience intelligently. As for deferring to Eisenhower for a more cautious, conservative strategy against our efforts in Iraq, one can't ignore that D-Day was no predetermined romp, and later if he had supported Eden in the Suez, who knows, terrorists might have gotten a different message and abstained from 1990s terrorism and 9/11, etc. Reagan at least put up a fight, as did the Thatcher government, and Muslims got the message. Clinton's halfhearted efforts in the Balkans also might have encouraged 9/11, etc. Some conservatives seem to have an inbuilt animus against fighting wars, which is probably natural but inevitably unrealistic. A man and a country must know how and when to fight, and current protestors are out of their league.
As for Edmund Burke's thought on the subject, consider his comments on Britain's 1797 militia being limited to home defense despite the threat from the new republican France:
I think I see nothing short of the total and inevitable ruin of the Kingdom, even in the means that seem to be provided for its safety. When I see an Army, amounting, as I hear, in both Kingdoms to 150,000 Men, who, by the very terms and conditions of their Service, cannot strike a blow at any Enemy, I see already a fatal determination of the War. What has an enemy to fear from a Nation who confines herself to an inert, passive, domestic defense? By continually threatening, tho' without ever striking a blow, and by the demonstration of the smallest forces, they can ruin you in your resources of revenue and of Credit. This is matter of demonstration, if not of intuitive certainty. To say that this is more agreeable to the People, is to say nothing, when the question is concerning, not their humour, but their existence.2
Iraq is no Vietnam, where the threat was remote, whereas Bin Laden, al Qaeda, Saddam, militant Islam, etc., actually threaten our neighborhoods.
Brooks sees that, rather than docile acceptance of ideologies, Burke strongly resisted innovations to the end, exemplified by his well-known advice about resisting evil -- needing only good men to take action, etc. One wishes Brooks saw feminism for the false ideology it is! The problem with too many conservatives (even the older ones!) is that they haven't studied feminism enough to realize that its premises are wrong, dishonest, and inevitably asocial and evil -- the essence of false ideology that Burke would have resisted. Please let me elaborate.
Frankly, it seems inevitably to reflect a younger group not as attuned to full immersion as the former thinkers. I blame co-education and, despite being ignored by the symposium, the inroads from decades of Titles VII and IX. Among other results, the Fresno jury coupled with the O. J. jury, the ugly disharmony and artlessness nationwide should be a wake-up call! As Anthony Esolen puts the call, "modern men and women should clear their heads, admit their follies, and learn to live with one another in as much harmony as a fallen world will admit." (More on my "call" below.) Would Burke's "good men" be so "suspicious of rapid reform" and fearful of "lamentable conclusions" as simply to do nothing, nor even say nothing?
Messrs. Brownfield and Brooks use their slant on Burkean "prudence" to argue against our effort in Iraq, while others are using it for other reasons, e.g., to accept laws banning "sex discrimination." In both cases, the premises are wrong.
Perhaps it boils down to accuracy of perception. When conservatives, whether thinking of Iraq or any other issue, quote Burke on:
. . . the science of constructing a commonwealth, or renovating it, or reforming it is, like every other experimental science, not to be taught a priori . . . it is with infinite caution that any man ought to venture upon pulling down an edifice which has answered in any tolerable degree for ages the common purposes of society or on building it up again without having models of approved utility before his eyes.
They're unaware that Burke is not advising inaction but rather manly wisdom to do what is right, requiring thought, study, debate, honesty, knowledge. The above passage is the crux of the matter. Are conservatives assuming that what we have now is the "edifice" deserving prudent protection? If so, this is our difference, since I believe the better case can be made for pre-1950s America as the edifice worth protecting, with its virile roots still existing. Those who dismiss this as "the day before yesterday," or "an earlier system" are not Burkean! Nor is that earlier era passe because of a supposed finality of the "women's revolution," when it was only a feminist "revolution" and, being a false ideology, spurious. (Truly, a masquerade. In all of history there has never been a matriarchy, so how in a few years one now?) From their remarks, surprisingly, many conservatives appear to have been feminized, or taken in by what Burke would call feminist Jacobins.
Some conservatives rely on a passage from Burke's 1791 Thoughts on French Affairs in which he writes of being "perverse and obstinate" against a "mighty current in human affairs" obeying "the decrees of Providence," thinking this shows that Burke, "without abandoning his criticism of abstract ideology . . . now understood the irresistible character of social forces when they move toward institutional and cultural change." With such a general mindset apparently, they surrender to feminism, thinking that Burke accepted a halfway position between the right and the wrong.
However, they're ignoring the full testimony, as aptly presented not only by Burke but also by a St. Croix Review fan, Russell Kirk. Although Burke was "deeply discouraged" in 1791, seeing the dangers in France still being ignored by most despite his dogged warnings, he nevertheless continued to encourage resistance, not docile surrender as apparently some conservatives favor. In his 1795 letter to William Elliot, Burke wrote, urging men:
. . . to assert the honor of the ancient law and to defend the temple of their forefathers with as ardent a spirit as can inspire any innovator to destroy the monuments of the piety and the glory of ancient ages. . . . It is not a hazarded assertion, it is a great truth, that when once things are gone out of their ordinary course, it is by acts out of the ordinary course they can alone be reestablished. . . . I would persuade a resistance both to the corruption and to the reformation that prevails. It will not be the weaker, but much the stronger, for combating both together. A victory over real corruptions would enable us to baffle the spurious and pretended reformations. I would not wish to excite . . . that kind of evil spirit . . . to rectify the disorders of the earth. No! I would add my voice with better, and, I trust, more potent charms, to draw down justice and wisdom and fortitude from heaven, for the correction of human vice, and the recalling of human error from the devious ways into which it has been betrayed.3
As Kirk realized, despite Leo Strauss's misinterpreting it to show Burke's capitulation to "progress," in his "Thoughts" he was actually:
. . . endeavoring to be a Providential instrument of (resistance to the French Revolution). Strauss scarcely seems to be aware that Burke was demanding . . . an assault "with guns blazing" on revolutionary France; Burke was the "last-ditch resistance." Like Cato at Utica, Burke would not have chosen to survive the triumph of the enemies of freedom.4
As Kirk put it, with cogence for American males nagging about Iraq or trying to justify the abstraction of "women's equality," "one does not volunteer to be an instrument of a retributory Providence against one's own country." Much like "conservatives" in America today, the English resisted Burke's urgings until too late and became involved in two decades of destruction.
. . . at that hour, imagination and conviction were lacking in the English government and among the allies generally, and the opportunity was lost.5
The fact that neither Burke nor, years later, Russell Kirk (to my knowledge) said anything about feminism, suggests that its transience renders it neither a credible factor nor an edifice needing defending. For them the edifice was based on religion and settled folkways. The suffragettes came in the 19th century but were mostly disgruntled women and not mainstream women, any more than the Friedan/Greer modern manifestations of feminism were after the 1950s. Knowledge of the slapdash 1964 legislation and the minimal feminist rhetoric up to then and even later should dispel any honest thought of a settled "revolution"; and the growing dysfunction from Titles VII and IX (e.g., rogue female juries and leftward voting pattern) only shows the weakness of such innovations -- spurious innovations that true Burkeans would resist manfully.
Thus it is surprising and disappointing that scholars who should be more knowledgeable now surrender to an "edifice" or "revolution" that is mere puff and huff and has never been established for a free people. Again, since in all of history there has never been a matriarchy, those who assume one now are misguided. The evidence is ample that men and women are still different and destined for complementary roles despite current pretense of "my fair ladies" being used by political men or editors to get votes and power, or sell more books.
To think now that experts on "American Conservatism" don't fully understand Edmund Burke or feminism is not reassuring. The reality cries out for attention on TV, the radio, in the corridors of power. How would Burke or Kirk deal with stunning TV belles nightly portraying severely dishonest male roles contrasting starkly with more honest beauties a la Audrey Hepburn or Mona Lisa? Listen to the Voices!
Sincerely,
W. Edward Cynoweth
[Mr. Chynoweth would like to correct the record: he is a retired deputy D.A. for Tulare County, CA, and not for San Francisco]
P.S. Drawing again on our exchange last to clarify Messrs. Brownfield & Brooks's views on "the Burkean conservative," some further examples of Burke's "prudence" or "satisfaction with obtaining what is possible, in a bite-sized and gradual manner if necessary," gleaned from Peter Stanlis's Edmund Burke: The Enlightenment and Revolution [Burke's words appear within quotation marks] :
. . . prudence has both a negative and positive character (p. 90) . . . According to Burke, in reforming abuses in society a temperate man will be moderate in his expectations and actions. Such moderation is not to be confused with cowardly equivocation; quite the contrary, it takes bold moral courage to be temperate in the face of popular pressure to be extreme. . . . "The impetuous desire of an unthinking public will endure no course, but what conducts to splendid and perilous extremes. Then to dare to be fearful, when all about you are full of presumption and confidence, and when those who are bold at the hazard of others would punish your caution and disaffection, is to show a mind prepared for its trial; it discovers, in the midst of general levity, a self-possession and collected character, which, sooner or later, bids to attract every thing to it, as to a centre." (p. 91)
If this passage were not enough to acquit Burke of being through prudence an unscrupulous calculator, conniver, or moral coward, Burke's whole practical political career is the best answer to such a misrepresentation. . . Goldsmith's line is literally true; Burke was "too fond of the right to pursue the expedient." Because of his refusal to be corrupted by the crown, Burke spent most of his political career with the loyal opposition. (pp. 91-92)
When rulers violated the principles of Natural Law or the constitutional laws that defined their power, they were in revolution, and the revolt of subjects against the arbitrary will of such tyrannical rulers in order to restore their natural and constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property, was really a counterrevolution on traditional grounds. (p. 203)
Although Burke believed that obedience to a duly constituted government was the normal duty of every subject and citizen, he clearly did not defend every established regime out of reverence for the status quo, without regard to how the regime used or abused its political power. . . . Therefore, rulers are held strictly accountable, and when they abuse their power by violating Natural Law and the constitutional rights of their subjects, and reject reforms that would end their abuse, they should be resisted by every available means, including rebellion. In October 1789, Burke wrote to his young French friend M. Depont: "A positively Vicious and abusive Government ought to be chang'd, and if necessary, by Violence, if it cannot be, (as sometimes is the case) Reformed." On the level of abstract principle, Burke agreed with Jefferson that resistance to tyrants is obedience to God. (p. 204)
As for the East India Company:
"I therefore conclude . . . that this body, being totally perverted from the purposes of its institution, is utterly incorrigible, and because they are incorrigible, both in conduct and constitution, power ought to be taken out of their hands, -- just on the same principles on which have been made all the changes and revolutions of government that have taken place since the beginning of the world."
Burke advocated rescinding the charter of the East India Company, not only because it had forfeited its trust, but for justice to the people of India. British misrule in India was to Burke a classic instance of the just principle that rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God. (p. 206)
Aside from prudence's "purely social character" of "decorum, tact, and reserve," and checking "raw impulses and barbarous instincts, undisciplined emotions, and even bad taste," ". . . the soul of good manners, which acted as a supplement to ethics and civility in politics":
. . . Burke also stated that there was a "higher order" of prudence as a moral virtue, which transcended mere intellectual calculation. In times of great social and political crisis, the higher order of prudence required of a statesman the courage of a martyr, to resist single-handedly, if necessary, any currently popular political concept or project that would vitiate the basic norms of society, the constitutional restraints on political power that safeguarded life, liberty, and property. (p. 211)
The distinction seems clear. He advised gradualism in reform projects but he distinguished mere reform from resisting or rolling back revolution that violated the norms of society, which I contend the 20th century legislation tampering with long established social/sexual arrangements did. (George Gilder refers to them as our "sexual constitution.") And the nefarious results are piling up. Again, whether one agrees will depend on how one sees the issues of "rights." One either sees the danger or one doesn't. Personally, I believe that American husbands, brothers, and sons have strayed too far from the 19th century wisdom of those like Dicey who considered the principles of self-government more important than the more recent ideas (Jacobinic, revolutionary, unnatural) of "rights" and "equality."
P.P.S. G. K. Chesterton also reminds us that:
. . . government is only one side of life. The other half is called society, in which women are admittedly dominant. And they have always been ready to maintain that their kingdom is better than ours because (in the logical and legal sense) it is not governed at all. . . . A snub from a duchess or a slanging from a fish-wife are much more likely to put things straight. So, at least, rang the ancient female challenge down the ages until the recent capitulation. So streamed the red standard of the higher anarchy until Miss Pankhurst hoisted the white flag.6
G.K. Chesterton's assessment again, "appealing to the cold facts of history":
. . . the freedom of the autocrat appears to be necessary to her. . . . Almost every despotic or oligarchic state has admitted women to its privileges. Scarcely one democratic state has ever admitted them to its rights. The reason is very simple: That something female is endangered much more by the violence of the crowd. In short, one Pankhurst is an exception, but a thousand Pankhursts are a nightmare, a Bacchic orgy, a Witches Sabbath. For in all legends men have thought of women as sublime separately but horrible in a herd . . .
The huge fundamental function upon which all anthropology turns, that of sex and childbirth, has never been inside the political state, but always outside of it. The state concerned itself with the trivial question of killing people, but wisely left alone the whole business of getting them born. . . . You need not strangle a man if you can silence him. The branded shoulder is less effective and final than the cold shoulder; and you need not trouble to lock a man in when you can lock him out.7
"No man's life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session." --Judge Gideon Tucker
Notes
1 William S. Miller, "Gerhart Niemeyer: His Principles of Conservatism," Modern Age, Summer, 2007.
2 "Letter to George Canning," 3/1/1797 (Shortly before his death) Selected Letters, p. 356, (Chicago U.).
3 The Best of Burke, edited by Peter Stanlis (Regnery), p. 661.
4 Edmund Burke: A Genius Reconsidered (Sherwood Sugden), p. 185.
5 Ibid. p. 190.
6 What's Wrong With the World, "The Higher Anarchy," Collected Works, Vol. IV, Ignatius Press, pp. 141-2.
7 "The Higher Anarchy," "The Queen & the Suffragettes," What's Wrong With the World (Ignatius), Vol. IV, pp. 142, 146.
