Back to Basics

OK. We’ve congratulated President-elect Barack Obama on his victory. Now it’s time to get back to basics.

It’s the old question after a defeat in battle. What are we here for?

For the conservative movement the answer is the same as it was always been since Edmund Burke invented conservatism in 1790 with his Reflections on the Revolution in France.

Conservatives stand for a balanced understanding of human life and human meaning. We assert a fundamental ignorance about our human destiny. That is why we stood against the French Revolution, as Burke did. We also stand against communism, fascism, socialism, and all the secular religions of the modern world, including the progressive religion of our liberal friends, the educated elite.

In putting flesh on the bones of this bare understanding of the human condition I turn to the ideas of Michael Novak in The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism.

In Spirit Novak develops the idea I call the Greater Separation of Powers. There are three differentiated sectors in modern society: the political, the economic, and the moral/cultural. They are and ought to be separate and individual centers of power, and need to be separate and independent of each other. Each has its power, and each is checked and balanced by the jealous critique of the other sectors. But no one sector should ever obtain dominance over the others, and no two sectors should be allowed to gang up on the third sector.

Viewing our society through the lens of the Greater Separation of Powers we can see that our society suffers from three major diseases.

The first I call The Rape of Honor. It is a disease of the moral/cultural sector. In his book Honor: A History, James Bowman begins by defining honor. He says that, in men, it is bravery, the courage to stand in line with your brethren and not run away in the face of danger. In women, it is chastity, the reputation for right action, that is, the good opinion of other women. In our society we have allowed a sustained attack on these two anchors of right living, and the more that people allow their lives to deviate from the practice of honor the more their lives wither and decay.

The second disease I call The Weight of Government. It is a disease of the political sector. Our governments in the world today are too big, too powerful, too ineffective, and too bossy. “It’s the spending, stupid,” you might say. And if you don’t believe me, go to usgovernmentspending.com. Big government infantilizes us, and subsidizes the Rape of Honor, because people without honor are people who cannot live outside the sheltered liberal plantation of big government.

The third disease I call The Sweating of Business. It is a pollution of the economic sector by the political and moral/cultural sectors. Back in the 19th century, everyone knows, the world was full of sweatshops that worked people long hours for low pay and no benefits. Well, today, businessmen and women are like the sweatshop workers of old. The political sector uses business like a piggy bank, and the moral/cultural sector uses business like a punching bag. The other two sectors have ganged up on business to humiliate it and to reduce its reputation and its power.

Our conservative destiny to to cure these three diseases of the body politics, and right three great wrongs. We must rise up to end the degradation and the violence of the Rape of Honor, to reform and remove the great Weight of Government, and to liberate our Sweating Businesses.

It’s not that complicated, now, is it?