Calling all Nephews, Nieces, Daughters (Parents, too!)

July 22, 2008

I have a task that requires input from all the smart and well-trained people in my family. These people are probably conservatives, but not entirely, and, I hope, not without reflection, or not reflexively, as if everyone just knows that all the good Christians are conservatives. I think my daughters and nephews and nieces are a sensitive lot, thinking carefully, with lots of worthwhile contacts I don't have.

The task is to consider whether "Right" is right, because conservativism is calling back on the wisdom of the older generations, of the past, and of God. God did not put the 5th commandment where it is for nothing, and it is true that conservatives find wisdom in the past, while liberal-progressives ("liberals") find oppression in the past and seek to grow beyond it. Obviously there is some strength to both positions.

The larger context of this task is to discern the dynamics of both liberal and conservative thought, to see the motives, to see the failings and promises of both. I am writing about the Middle East, and that involves searching into the strange alliance of European-American liberalism with Middle East extremism. The connection has to do with a common suspicion of power, in the Liberals' case, a self-directed suspicion, a bad conscience about things European and American. What is at the basis of this suspicion?

Do I already know where I am going? Well, the honoring of the authority that begat us is biblical--I know that. But I don't know that conservativism is a healthy expression of this idea. I don't know what jewels of self-awareness might be hiding in the Liberal mindset. I suspect some of my younger friends know about this.

The inspiration for this was an article in First Things. http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=6174
It is in April 2008. It is a complex article, but it is a dissection of the mindset that we know now as New Left or as the author calls it, postmodern liberalism. I learned a lot, but I am not sure I entirely trust it. Could we Conservatives be fooling ourselves and missing the mark in our evaluation of these developments?