Goldberg looks back at the Christian conservatism of the old NR

N. writes:

This is a useful posting by Jonah Goldberg, relevant to (though it doesn’t mention) the new Derbyshire/MacDonald blog. Excerpt:

National Review itself, and William F. Buckley and particular, were hardly casual about the role of religion. Indeed, the Catholicism of National Review [at present] is probably at its lowest ebb (though I’m open to correction on that point). If you read the pages of NR from the 1950s and 1960s you’d be hard pressed to conclude that it was ever a truly secular magazine. Indeed, if you read Nash’s Conservative Intellectual Movement (and why on earth wouldn’t you?), you’ll find that the proper role and scope of religion has been a permanent fixture of conservatism from the get-go.

and the conclusion:

And on my fundamental point, I think it’s clear: the idea that conservatism—as opposed to the Republican Party—is suddenly and without precedent embracing religiosity to a dangerous extent is just false. If anything, the new and unprecedented change is the striking rise of secularism in some quarters of the right, most quarters of libertarianism and nearly all quarters of liberalism.

LA replies:

Goldberg’s point about the Catholic conservatism of NR in the 1960s is well taken. I only disagree with Goldberg in that, as argued at length at VFR back in September (see this and this), I would not say that today’s pro-Palin, evangelical conservatism is conservative at all. The Catholic-based conservatism of the old NR that Goldberg discusses, particularly that of L. Brent Bozell, had a vision of the transcendent order and its embodiment and expression in the social order. All that the pro-Palin evangelicals have is ardent anti-abortionism and populist patriotism. They have no conservative vision of man and society, and, indeed, in key respects they are liberals. So it’s ironic that Republicans are being attacked for their supposedly increasingly extreme religious conservatism, when in reality they are moving in the direction of Palin-type, shatter-the-glass-ceiling, identity politics.

A further irony is that Goldberg—the individual who, with his Animal House-type conservatism, embodies more than any other person the extinction of traditional conservatism at NR—is now looking back, with at least some measure of admiration, and almost, perhaps, with longing—at the older conservatism that he and his type have trampled into the mud. Try to imagine what L. Brent Bozell would have thought of a National Review dominated by the likes of Goldberg, Derbyshire, Lopez, Nordlinger, and Andrew Stuttaford (who wrote at the Corner: “Why humanity has to have a ‘purpose’ escapes me. We just are. As for human dignity being grounded ‘in transcendent truth,’ well, let’s say that I feel a sneeze coming on.”)

As for Goldberg himself, while his persona seems to have become less vulgar in the last couple of years, his Animal-House aspect is still there. Thus in a column last month, criticizing the Democrats’ empty slogan of “change,” he wrote:

Fair enough, but change has no moral content. Winning the lottery is change, and so is catching a ball peen hammer to the bridge of your nose. The desire for change for change’s sake is the stuff of children and attention-deficit disorder.

Goldberg could have used any image in the world to suggest the idea of “change,” and went out of his way to choose an image of gratuitously disturbing, perhaps disfiguring violence. That’s the sensibility of the man who then turns around and talks about the meaning of traditional conservatism.

Joseph Arimathea writes:

I have read your criticisms of Mr. Goldberg before (“Animal House conservative”), as well as your current entry on him. Maybe the issue is generational—have pity on us who were suckled on the teats of pop culture. I usually find him funny and insightful, but that does not mean that Goldberg or I fail to see the value of the likes of Kirk, Weaver, Maritain, Voegelin, and company. I would simply say that we do not consider ourselves worthy to be in their company, though we are happy to be their students.

Moreover, I should like to bother you with Plato again. There is a theme, in the Dialogues and in the Seventh Letter, of philosophy as play. We habitually denigrate play as that which befits a child—and therefore something of little worth to the world of adults. Yet, Plato’s point, I believe, is that human affairs, even great matters of state, pale in importance to the really real. That does not mean that they are not worth our time, resolve, and effort, but it does mean that we must keep things in perspective and not take ourselves too seriously. Socrates, the greatest figure in philosophy’s literary corpus, is an exceptionally playful person while simultaneously being a man of firm principle and unwavering virtue.

Consider the dramatic end of Plato’s Symposium. Against the Greek conventions of the day, Socrates argued past sunrise that “the genius of comedy was the same with that of tragedy, and that the true artist in tragedy was an artist in comedy also,” and Socrates overcame, in the drama of the dialogue, both Aristophanes—Athens’ finest comedic poet, and Agathon, a rather tragic figure himself. Elsewhere, as in the Republic and even more explicitly in the Laws, philosophy is presented as a tragedy. The philosopher is both comedian and tragedian. He knows the perilous contradiction of human life, but he also knows that something much finer transcends our world.

So, when Goldberg throws out references to the Simpsons, Star Trek, and internet pop cult, he is simply remembering his place in the world. Please consider giving him the benefit of the doubt. I had the fortune to meet him once and to talk with him after a presentation of his Liberal Fascism book. He was cordial and genuinely interested in ideas—I think that he is a good, intellectually honest, and modest man, and I am glad to have him on our side.

LA replies:

There is play, humor, comedy that is a complement to and a relief from seriousness, and there is play, humor, comedy that undermines and subverts the very possibility of seriousness. You believe that Goldberg style vulgarity is in the first category. I emphatically disagree.

In any case, I think the vulgarity has been less in the last year or two, and I’ve given him credit for that. I was favorably impressed by the little I read of Liberal Fascism.

LA continues:

On another point, I don’t accept your notion that allowance must be made for the fact that people of Goldberg’s and your age are products of a very vulgar pop culture. I was shaped by the counterculture, and in the process of becoming a conservative and a Christian, I had to rethink, reject, and repent of some of my former attitudes. By contrast, Goldberg doesn’t reject or regret his pop culture formation—he revels in it.

Spencer Warren writes:

Note Goldberg’s ego—feeling the need to state his talk to a college group is not open to the public! Plus the immature, callow way he expresses himself.

December 4

LA writes:

For a further glimpse into Jonah Goldberg’s “conservative” mentality, consider the fact that when Colin Powell said during the presidential campaign that there is no reason why a Muslim should not be president of the U.S., Goldberg agreed with him.

Powell said on Meet the Press:

I’m also troubled by, not what Senator McCain says, but what members of the party say. And it is permitted to be said such things as, “Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim.”

Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim; he’s a Christian. He’s always been a Christian.

But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer’s no, that’s not America.

Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president?

Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, “He’s a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists.” This is not the way we should be doing it in America.

Goldberg commented:

I basically agree with and admire his larger point about trying to be inclusive and all that. [Emphasis added.] But, is there really much evidence that the GOP or the McCain campaign have had anything to do with the stories that Obama is a Muslim? Most of these stories started in the primaries long before McCain was the nominee, and were frankly more intense then than they are now. In fact, I talked to a prominent Democratic consultant last Spring who believed the Clintons were behind it all (which I doubted then and now). Now it’s John McCain’s fault? I thought that was a low and dishonest blow.

Such is the frivolous, immature quality of Goldberg’s mind. Not only does he agree with Powell, but he refers to the momentous idea of electing a Muslim to the presidency of the United States as “being inclusive and all that.” The only consideraton for him is procedural “inclusion,” the ever greater expansion of inclusion to include more and more previously unincluded groups. For him there is no possible substantive reason why a Muslim should not be president. The thought doesn’t even occur to him. His thinking is thus 100 percent pure liberal. And this is an influential “conservative,” who speaks frequently to audiences around the country on the meaning of “conservatism,” and as a representative of National Review.

Jeff in England writes:

So now you’re going to ban people who are legally in America from being President due to their religion? Muslims can’t be President? C’mon Larry, how far out in your fantasy world are you going? Is there no limit? Goldberg is more in reality than you are.

Opposing Muslims coming here is one thing (I do as well), banning them once they are settled from executive political jobs due to their religion is total ghettoised on the fringes fantasy. Ain’t gonna happen in modern America. It is completely the opposite of the essence of what America stands for. You are trying to remake an America that doesn’t and can’t exist. That any law abiding person can be President is the essence of the American dream (note: I oppose the having to be born in America qualification as well, that will probably be changed within 10 years).

Man, you are exasperating. Lucky you got me to pull you back to some form of reality. It’s a tough 24 hour job!!

LA replies:

I thank Jeff for the comic relief.

Apparently he’s not aware that a Muslim by definition is a person who is a follower of Muhammad and his command to fight the unbelievers until all are subjugated to the power of Islam, and who further follows Muhammad in believing that any non-Islamic government is an illegitimate government against which jihad by stealth or force must be waged until it comes under the Islamic law.

Now I agree 100 percent with Jeff that that there is a grave contradiction between letting Muslims immigrate into and become citizens of the United States, and saying that a Muslim cannot be president. But the contradiction is to be sanely and safely resolved, not by saying that a Muslim can be president, but by (1) saying that Muslims in significant numbers do not belong in America and should leave, and by (2) passing a law or constitutional amendment declaring that Islam is not a religion but a political ideology inimical to our society and therefore shall be restricted or banned, and further declaring that no person who professes adherence to the religion and the political ideology of Islam shall hold any office under the United States.

To put it briefly, the unacceptable contradiction between allowing Muslims to immigrate and saying that a Muslim should not be president is to be resolved, not by accepting the idea of a Muslim president, but by reversing Muslim immigration,

The problem with Jeff is, he thinks that once a terrible liberal mistake has been made, such as admitting Muslims into the West, we must simply accept it and accommodate ourselves to it. This gives liberalism the decisive advantage in the culture war. Indeed, just as Muslims say that any territory once captured by Islam must forever remain under Islam, Jeff says that any aspect of our society captured by liberalism and non-Western diversity must remain forever under liberalism and non-Western diversity. The thought of reversing the advances of liberalism and non-Western diversity is beyond his ken and offends his conscience.

Terry Morris writes:

What’s wrong with Jeff? He reminds me of Dymphna at GoV. Here’s what I wrote immediately following Powell’s public abandonment of America.

December 5

Spencer Warren writes:

This is one of the ultimate tests of whether a person is a liberal: Does he believe that the individual’s right to his religious faith is so absolute that it trumps society’s right to live, to defend itself against its biggest enemy (represented by that faith), and to retain its identity?

Powell and Goldberg answer yes, the individual trumps society and tradition, just as with homosexual “marriage,” with the refusal to permit profiling on airlines even though it would have prevented 9/11, and so much more.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 03, 2008 10:48 AM | Send