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Progressives & Conservatives: Is there Common Ground?

May 17, 2013 By 5 Comments
Gleaves Whitney common ground

Gleaves Whitney

by Gleaves Whitney

Common Ground between Whom?

A lot of people are skeptical about what the Hauenstein Center is trying to do. Seriously now: common ground between conservatives and progressives? Each camp has been telling me how much it can’t stand the other. In popular culture, conservatives regard progressives as arrogant, woolly-minded, and un-American; progressives see conservatives as stupid, mossbacked, and greedy. Does anyone seriously think that the Tea Party would make common cause with Occupy Wall Street, or MSNBC reconcile with FOX News?

The gulf between the two camps has been widening in the academy. This is unfortunate because academic rigor requires intellectual diversity. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Conservatism, Gleaves Whitney, Liberalism, Political Philosophy, Politics, Progressivism May 17, 2013

The Imaginative Conjurors

May 16, 2013 By 5 Comments
epic conjurers imaginative

Michael Bauman

by Michael Bauman

Not long after Bob Dylan’s conversion, I heard him give a radio interview.  For obvious reasons, I always considered him a tough challenge in such settings.  He can be moody, unpredictable, combative, and cryptic.  In this discussion, he was true to form.  That, and Dylan continually strummed his guitar in the background, muffling both the interviewer’s questions and his own sometimes mumbled answers.

It seemed to me that the interviewer was growing desperate.  Things were not unfolding smoothly.  So he tried to get on Dylan’s good side.  In reference to Dylan’s newly found Christianity, the interviewer said, “Beauty, truth, and goodness — isn’t that what it’s all about, Bob?” [Read more...]

Filed Under: Beauty, Michael Bauman, Politics, Theology May 16, 2013

Marcus Aurelius and Barack Obama

May 15, 2013 By 6 Comments
Louis A. Markos marcus aurelius barack obama

Louis A. Markos

by Louis A. Markos

After weathering such mad and depraved emperors as Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, and Domitian, Rome was blessed by a succession of five good emperors who brought stability and prosperity to the empire from 96-180: Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius. The last of these emperors was not only a good general, efficient administrator, and just ruler; he marked the closest the ancient pagan world ever came to having a true Platonic philosopher-king.

In his Meditations, a series of Stoic reflections written in the mode of Seneca, Aurelius yearns for a one-world nation united in peace. He rejects extravagance and personal glory to serve Rome and to defend her from the barbarians who would tear her apart. Reflecting back on Aurelius’s reflections, the great Victorian utilitarian John Stuart Mill once wrote that it was a tragedy that Christianity did not become the official religion of Rome while the enlightened Aurelius (rather than the brutal Constantine) was on the throne. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Barack Obama, Louis Markos, Politics Tagged With: May 15, 2013

Capitalism Has Won! And Conservatives Are Confused

May 11, 2013 By 4 Comments
capitalism

Peter Lawler

by Peter Lawler

R.R. Reno,  quite an astute conservative public intellectual, claims that those with eyes to see know that the big news these days is the global victory of capitalism. I’m not following Reno in every respect here, but going with what I would say in support of his position.

The good news is that productivity has soared as a result.  It’s easy to see that people are in many ways better off. Money and power can’t quite buy happiness.  But who can deny that they’re really useful when it comes to being able to enjoy the genuine goods of human life: quality time with loved ones, civilized leisure, meaningful work, good health, and the serenity that comes with a large measure of security?  [Read more...]

Filed Under: Capitalism, Peter A. Lawler, Political Economy, Politics May 11, 2013

Conservatism: True & False

May 9, 2013 By 2 Comments

by Mike Church

conservatism

Here is my interview with Dr. Claes G. Ryn. On this show we discussed numerous topics including modern “conservatism” (or “Neo-Conservatism”) and traditional conservatism.

Mike: So let me start by asking you to flesh the question out a little bit, so maybe those that didn’t hear me talking about it and haven’t read your essay will understand, there is a difference between, I guess we would call it, or I’ll let you define it, traditional conservatism and what passes as conservatism today, which is filled with admiration, it seems, and acceptance of a very large state, and certainly a very large state abroad that wishes to have its way with the world, that’s willing to use military force in order to gain it. That’s not the kind of conservative or conservatism that is traditional, though, is it? [Read more...]

Filed Under: Claes Ryn, Conservatism, Mike Church, Politics May 9, 2013

Reflections on Religious Liberty: Healthcare Mandates just the Beginning?

May 2, 2013 By 1 Comment
religious liberty

Andrew Seeley

by Andrew Seeley

As I looked around the standing-room only board room filled with serious, somewhat anxious fellow faculty members, I could not help the surreal feeling that we were actors at the beginning of a movie about a persecution.  Those who know the end will see all the little signs of the inevitable disaster as they watch vain discussions about whether to fight or to appease an overwhelmingly powerful tyrannical force in the hope of not losing everything.

Of course, Catholic faculty members like us are not being threatened with the loss of everything, but that has been true of other groups at the beginning of a persecution. We do face the loss of health insurance for ourselves and our families together with a significant monetary fine unless we twist or ignore our conscientious objection to artificial contraception, sterilization, and abortifacient drugs. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Andrew Seeley, Catholicism, Christianity, Politics, Religion Tagged With: May 2, 2013

Reconsidering Margaret Thatcher

April 10, 2013 By 6 Comments
Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Thatcher

by Stephen Masty

Plenty of ink will be well-deployed in commemorating Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013), Britain’s greatest statesman since Churchill, who rolled back Britain’s command economy and, together with Ronald Reagan and The Blessed John Paul II, helped to end communism which was the most murderous ideology in human history. So, for now, let us pause only to look at a few paradoxes still surrounding her.

Hours after her death, the hateful glee unleashed by British Leftists and assorted Progressives in media is nothing short of obscene, especially in a country where people scramble to find a kind word to say about even scoundrels and traitors recently dead. Even the majority of UK conservative commentators temper nearly their every paragraph with mumbled half-apologies for how she was perceived, usually by her enemies. It is, alas, a testament to how badly Mrs. Thatcher failed to stop the onslaught of Progressivism, now in utter control of UK culture while busily uprooting our values and destroying our sense of history. The leaders of Britain’s Conservative Party, so keen for gay marriage and the state persecution of Christians while so reluctant to make hard economic decisions, are more the bastard offspring of Progressivism than any children of hers. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Foreign Affairs, Margaret Thatcher, Politics, Stephen Masty April 10, 2013

What a Constitution Can, and Can’t, Do

April 2, 2013 By 2 Comments

constitutionby Bruce Frohnen

I was at a conference recently on the relationship between constitutionalism and liberty.  There were quite a few very smart and learned people there.  Two things struck me in particular from the conversations we had over several days:  first, how little faith scholars today seem to have in constitutional structures, and, second, how little faith they seem to have in the possibility of human virtue.  I have much more sympathy for the second prejudice than the first, but the conversations in general got me thinking about our current constitutional predicament and what it says about the relationships between character and political mechanics. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Bruce Frohnen, Conservatism, Constitution, Federalist Papers, Politics April 2, 2013

Deconstructing Progressives: Why We ‘Don’t Get It’

March 26, 2013 By 11 Comments

progressivesby Stephen Masty

Good people, or even just straightforward souls lacking in guile, often mistakenly attribute to their adversaries their own virtues and values.

Old China Hands explain that newly-arrived gringo businessmen are often surprised to learn that many people in China regard a signed contract not as a solemn pledge, but merely as a further step in a process of negotiation that lasts up until the goods are delivered and the supplier is paid: until then, they say, all details remain “up for grabs.” If true, this is not an example of evil or cunning Chinamen but merely a different culture’s idea of what a contract entails, but it must be frustrating for the Westerners to find that their signed and costly legal paperwork guarantees neither price, quality nor delivery dates, and only gives one an inside track to further negotiate beyond his competitors. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Politics, Progressivism, Stephen Masty March 26, 2013

The Irrationalism of Nationalism

March 24, 2013 By 4 Comments
nationalism

Barack Obama and Abdullah II of Jordan

by Daniel McInerny

The juxtaposition of two posts on The Imaginative Conservative this week has me thinking about U.S. foreign policy in our increasingly fractured world, and, more deeply, the moral stance of Christian humanism within the same encroaching chaos.

Let’s begin with Pat Buchanan’s thought-provoking article, “America’s Role in a Darkening Age.”  In the article Buchanan asks hard questions of Robert Kaplan’s essay, “The Return of Toxic Nationalism.” Kaplan’s essay concludes with the claim that, to combat the rise of nationalism throughout the world and to ensure that it can lead with moral legitimacy, the U.S. needs to put our “values” forward “right alongside its own exclusivist national interests, such as preserving a favorable balance of power.” Without “universal values in our foreign policy,” attests Kaplan, we “have no identity as a nation” and no moral credibility as we seek to quell nationalism in North Africa, the Middle East, Northeast Asia, and the Far East. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Daniel McInerny, Foreign Affairs, Politics Tagged With: , , March 24, 2013

The Demise of Congressional Deliberation: Willmoore Kendall

March 22, 2013 By Leave a Comment
by John Alvis

congressional deliberation

John Alvis

The one teaching of Willmoore Kendall’s toward which all his early thought tended and from which radiated all his later thought was this: America’s vindication of the capacity of men for self-government rests upon its devotion to the idea of a virtuous people, under God, determining national policy by the deliberations of a supreme legislature composed of representatives who should reflect the moral beliefs of the people and should deliberate under conditions free, open, rational, and accountable. How does that teaching fare today, and how might it serve to guide us in our present predicament? The time is seasonable for a reassessment of the grounds of our trust in representative democracy for we have cause to feel concern that recent alterations in the way Congress conducts its business have corrupted its ability to deliberate and threaten to erode the very foundations of rule of law. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Congress, Federalist Papers, Intercollegiate Review, John Alvis, Politics, Presidency, Willmoore Kendall March 22, 2013

Good Governance? Here’s a Slick Little Idea…

March 17, 2013 By 11 Comments
governance

President Obama

by Stephen Masty

A forthcoming book by Vali Nasr, who is Dean of Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, paints a tragic picture of President Obama and the Afghan debacle. Dr. Vasr worked closely with the late and unsuccessful envoy Richard Holbooke, summarised in Foreign Policy, where Mr Obama makes decisions almost in camera with only a few trusted associates, besieged by fratricidal bureaucracies undercutting one another for access and influence, money and power. This must happen a lot.

If only American leaders all took a nice relaxing holiday to London and went to the theatre, this problem could be solved or at least reduced. A popular new West End play shows how. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Government, Politics, Stephen Masty March 17, 2013
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