A would be conservative

One of my first statements on this blog (scroll down to the bottom of the page) described a "legitimation crisis" inherent within modern society. That is, on the one hand we believe ourselves to be "free" to pursue our own conception of the good while on the other hand we find that there are constraints set upon this pursuit within the limits of the corporate-capitalist state. We find ourselves committed to freedom but at the same time given employment options which amount to a kind of crippling servitude. In the face of this crisis, we might authentically own up to it or we might reconcile the tension by accepting a political ideology which neatly binds together our religious, capitalist, and political values so that no contradiction is felt. Social conservatism is at the root of so much "Nationalism" whose purpose is to reconcile the crisis in this way. While the taking on of this nationalist conservative identity may temporarily alleviate the symptoms of alienation, it will unravel in the long run on account of its running afoul of reality. The idea that we can all be little British Lords in red petticoats foxhunting on weekends while in the work week we service the machine is ludicrous. The would-be conservative will eventually discover that he is not that person who he thinks he is. He will discover that the divisions still exist only his truncated moral lexicon will not allow him to articulate what the problem is. There should be a robust sense of anomie that intrudes upon his consciousness and keeps his spidey-sense tingling.

What is the root of such anomie? Let's look at some basic facts about American life. We are all immigrants. We are uprooted people who, for the most part, establish our identities through our profession. Other "identities" are therefore bifurcated and multiplied across several domains. We are simultaneously members of churches, universities, citizen groups, political parties, regional affiliations, citizens of states and nation, and of course corporations. A permanent feature of human nature, I would argue, is the identification with family and community as situated in a place. This feature is eroded by global corporate capitalism. Just as Marx observed almost two centuries ago, capital dislocates peoples as it roams across the Earth in search of its profits. Well, this dislocation has played itself out in the American fold in a peculiar fashion. It has compounded the dislocation produced by the mass immigrations of the nineteenth and twentieth century. In the depreciation of, if not wholesale absence of, these values of place, citizenship is easily identifiable by the dislocated masses with the empty promises of Nationalism. This Nationalist ideology, in the absence of a true identity established in a place and with a people, is given over to us as an identity based upon three inconsistent discourses (Christianity, Capitalism, and Liberalism) now reconciled through social conservatism. The social conservatives have reconciled these discourses in their creed, but, we may ask, is social conservatism a stable doctrine? Will it survive? Can it survive?

These discourses which comprise social conservatism are fundamentally incompatible each with one another in the following manner. A true Christianity will never rest content with an idolatrous, fetishistic, rapacious capitalism. A true capitalism will never rest content with the antimaterialism and egalitarian humanism of christianity. A true christianity will never rest content with the religious pluralism of liberalism. And a true liberalism will never accept either the social inequalities in a pure capitalism nor the monological Good of christianity. It is theoretically possible to reconcile these tensions, and it could be argued that, when properly balanced, these values serve as a kind of checks and balances on one another. But we should be particularly wary of certain understandings or misunderstandings of the reconciliation of these. At its worst, an ideology may so debase the value of each of these discourses, so as to make it merely formal and therefore meaningless. Social conservatism's reconcilation does this with Christianity and liberalism. It gets the human side all wrong. Theirs is a Christianity for the supply sider. Theirs is a liberalism for oligarchs.

For them a true liberal (an "old time liberal", i.e., a 'neoconservative') is a "christian" capitalist. By emphasizing certain teachings of Christianity to the exclusion of others, their version of Christianity emphasized by such teachings as "he who will not work, let him not eat" and other teachings about sexual morality that come from the Pauline tradition can serve not the liberal progress of history, but the slide back into medieval authoritarianism. The golden calf of capitalism will not be checked, for social conservatism has established virtually no apparatus to criticize capitalism. Free trade, globalization, and the absolute right of corporations as persons tends to go unchallenged. What does go challenged is the liberal state: judicial activism, multiculturalism, pluralism, Federal rights. Social conservative understandings of Christianity forget the spirit of the law. There was a time not so long ago when the Papal encyclicals (such as Populorum Progressio) talked about workers rights and the natural law. This great teaching has gone neglected by the social conservative movement. Christianity is here a kind of fig leaf used to hide the goods from the beleagured and bewildered masses.

You have heard it said by George Bush that "the American way of life is non-negotiable." It is this social conservative synthesis that he is referring to by the "American way of life". You have heard it said by many critics of social conservatism to the contrary that "the American way of life is unsustainable". But verily, verily, I say to you the American way of life is per impossible. Neither is it non-negotiable, nor is it sustainable, nor is it even possible.

We must prioritize our values relative to the practical contexts in which they arise. A clarification of the choice of discourse, to what purpose it is put, what questions it alone can resolve should be advanced.