A Conservative Governing Canon
Neglected texts that explore public leadership from a right-of-center perspective
“Why have I never read this?!?!”
As I’ve mentioned, I run a fellowship program for outstanding mid-career public-service professionals who want to learn more about the intersection of conservatism and governing, We just finished the first four-day seminar with the current cohort. It was inspiring and thought-provoking as always. But once again the most common question between sessions, at dinner, and when it wrapped up was, “Why have I never read this before?”
The “this” refers to the giant course reading packet we provide. Just about every member asked some version of that question. I’m especially sensitive to it because I never read much of this material until years and years into my career. The truth is most conservatives involved in public life would ask the same. And so would progressives.
The fact of the matter is that a stack of important conservative books, articles, essays, and speeches don’t appear in undergraduate political science classes, graduate public-policy programs, or really anywhere else apart from niche circles. This is a problem. These works are invaluable. They would help those already on the right better understand the foundational principles of American conservatism and how they influence right-of-center public leaders. As importantly, they would help those on the left understand what animates conservatives.
This matters for public life today. Here are four examples.
Principles and Posture
Most conservative writers argue that conservatism is not an ideology with simple, straightforward tenets. Instead, it’s defined by its desire to preserve and pass on those elements (practices, beliefs, institutions) that have enabled a society to succeed over time. This means that conservatism varies by time and place; 14th c. French conservatism is not 17 c. Chinese conservatism is not 20 c. Iranian conservatism and so on. Also, since conservatism is about protecting what works, in each era it is often understood in opposition to those seeking to undermine particular elements of a society, especially when those movements are seen as radical and/or dismissive of experience. American conservatives today are standing athwart different forces than 16 c. Spanish conservatives.
It is difficult to appreciate this, much less see how it influences governing, if you’ve not read, say, Burke, Kirk, or Oakeshott (for example, Kirk’s 10 Principles are eye-opening if you’ve not come across them before). This way of understanding society and institutions helps explain why conservatives bristle at most “critical theories,” why revolutionary times mobilize conservatives, why “Chesterton’s fence” is always on conservatives’ mind, and why each era always has different brands of conservatism.
This also explains why there is intra-conservative tension today about dramatic school-choice plans in rural communities, why so many conservatives are accused of NIMBYism, why conservatives find destructive protests so dangerous, and why conservatives urge caution when it comes to technology.
Evolved Institutions
Most political-science majors were taught the “state of nature” approach to understanding government. We got heavy doses of Locke, Hobbes, and Rousseau. But most of us weren’t taught the flaws of that approach or why it leads to predictable mistakes. We were not taught the Hayekian or Common-Law understanding of evolved institutions and rights. We were not taught how lionizing science and reason and denigrating experience and practical wisdom can lead to all sorts of social horrors. Indeed, if you aren’t exposed to the right authors, you probably won’t appreciate why nudging, centralization, technocracy, data-based decision-making, and industrial planning can go so wrong.
Civil Society
I was never taught that revolutionary regimes almost always aim to centralize authority and then erase society’s mediating institutions. But this is a profound historical pattern. It is the foundation for essential conversations about atomization, community, solidarity, civil society, distributed identities, distributed authority, and much more. If you’ve not read Democracy in America you are unlikely to understand why localism and social entrepreneurialism are so important here. If you’ve not read Quest for Community you’re unlikely to appreciate how industrialization and the modern state forever changed how humans are connected. If you’ve not read much about subsidiarity or the freedom of assembly or social capital, you might not have a moral, legal, or practical framework for the role of small, organic networks in social life. And then you probably won’t appreciate why conservatives generally prefer an array of nonprofits over a state agency or why the George W. Bush administration created the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.
Disposition
Because conservatives care about healthy traditions and longstanding institutions, they are generally skeptical of swift change and over-the-top promises. They are also very wary of apocalyptic language and defeatist thinking. These things are the stepping stones to unwise reform. So conservatives typically prize prudence, modesty, and hands-on experience. This is why conservatism is often understood as a temperament or disposition. But in history, political science, and policy courses, those who counsel incremental change and going slow are often presented as the villains—those standing in the way of essential reform. Massive legislation, precedent-shattering court decisions, and high-octane protest movements are presented as justice in action. Rarely are the contributions of prudence taught or celebrated.
And because we are not taught the about the conservative temperament or preservation, we have no way of fully understanding the ever-present “recovery” strand of conservatism. That is, in every era, some conservatives believe they have suffered a rout and therefore preservation is no longer the order of the day; instead, they must aggressively seek to recover practices and institutions that have been set aside or razed by revolutionary forces. Accordingly, some of the passionate discussion in right-leaning circles today about family policy, the crises among boys, civic education, and the “long march through the institutions” seems incoherent or worse to left-leaning observers.
There are plenty of other topics along these same lines (e.g., republicanism, civic virtue, originalism, natural law). And all of these topics are relevant in some way to just about every policy area, whether schools, child care, labor-force participation, health care, or something else.
The only way to get out of today’s death spiral of politics-as-tribal-warfare is to ground our debates in governing principles. But that’s hard to do if we fail to acquaint today’s and tomorrow’s leaders with some of the smartest work on public life. This is not to say that everyone needs to share my opinions on Aquinas, Burke, Cicero, CST, Hayek, Madison, Nisbet, Tocqueville, or anything else. But our policy debates would be healthier and more productive if we had a deeper understanding of our own governing principles as well as the other side’s.