A piece on Enter Stage Right looks at the increasing uneasyness of the conservative/libertarian coalition that passes for “the right” in America. He notes that things are being shaken up as the hot-button issues of the day change. I’ve written a bit on this myself, and predicted some coalitional juggling as military adventurism, biotechnology, and sexual politics are coming to new prominence. I never thought I’d see a tax cut I didn’t like… but even I can’t work up too much enthusiasm if it’s made possible, not by cutting wasteful or unconstitutional spending, but by taking on debt. That’s just trading off a present tax burden for a future one. Nevertheless, the author thinks that the “right” will continue to hang together on the grounds of a shared commitment to “the dignity of man.”
This is bollocks. First of all, libertarians, left-liberals, and conservatives all have their own conceptions of human dignity and the inherent worth of the individual. The libertarian one gives pride of place to autonomy and inviolability; the left liberal to the positive, material ability to realize our capacities and enjoy a good standard of living; the conservative to our realization of certain virtues. I don’t pretend that any of these groups lacks a conception of human dignity, and what it means to respect that dignity, even if I happen to think the others undervalue the aspects I find more important. And if you put a gun to my head and forbade me from adopting the libertarian conception, I’d probably opt for the liberal as falling less wide of the mark.
It’s also a bit bizarre to see a conservative saying things like “just as conservatives must remember the limits of government, libertarians must understand the importance of virtue.” Well, for one, some of the alleged conservative virtues are highly overrated and stultifying. But there are plenty—prudence, commitment to one’s (chosen) community, fidelity to loved ones—that I’ve never known libertarians to deny. We just don’t see a role for the state in promoting them. The notion that libertarians don’t “understand the importance of virtue” if we don’t want a federal program to promote it is as misguided as the ready inference some liberals make that if we’re not prepared to enforce redistribution and federal antidiscrimination laws, we’re in favor of poverty and racism.
What’s most interesting in this piece is the reference to Frank Meyer’s “fusionism,” the idea that limited government and cultural conservatism are complementary. To the extent that limiting state power also limited liberal social engineering for a time, this was in the past probably the case, and explained the longstanding coalition to some extent. But alas, cultures grow and change, however loudly you shout STOP! as you “stand athwart history.” Increasingly, it’s clear that as cultural attitudes become more liberal, conservatives are desparate to hang on to their own favored laws: attempts to hold back that natural progress—the recent debates over gay marriage and sodomy laws are a case in point. The conservatives are afraid that only legally entrenched inequality can prevent the continuing march away from the Stepford-wives-meet-Ozzy-and-Harriet utopia. Whereas before, they feared social engineering would accelerate this process, now they fear that only social engineering can stop it. They may have been right then; they’re certainly right now. The social reality that made “fusionism” work is past, and with it the commonality of interest between libertarians and conservatives. Good riddance.
