Andrew J. Bacevich and Sean Wilentz: What Is American Conservatism?

Oh hi I'm max Rudin president and publisher of library of America and welcome to this library of America event for those who don't know Library of America is a non-profit publisher and cultural institution dedicated to publishing authoritative new volumes of great American writers and to keeping the multi-voiced American literary tradition a vital part of our culture for readers and writers to discover and rediscover we're grateful to our partners this evening the Carnegie Council for Ethics International Affairs the American conservative and the New Republic a special welcome to lobby of America fellows and members who support our mission this event marks publication of American conservatism reclaiming and intellectual tradition a collection of 44 writers and thinkers from Henry Adams to Antonin Scalia and Wendell Berry the book is edited by Andrew bacevich who joins us this evening what is American conservatism whatever the core beliefs and values that animate it as a tradition the political thinking do they help us to understand the current administration which claims to be conservative and the conservatives who oppose it that's the conservative conservative tradition include values and aspirations that Americans who don't identify as conservative might share what answers can these writings offer two fundamental questions about the common good the quest for a society that is just and decent the purpose of freedom the responsibilities of citizenship America's role in the world at this critical moment in our history these are the guiding questions of the book and the conversation tonight to discuss and debate them were very fortunate to have with us this evening Andrew bacevich in conversation with Sean Wilentz and the base of itch is president of the Quincy Institute for responsible for responsible statecraft a graduate of the US Military Academy and Princeton University he served as an officer in the US Army for 23 years his recent books include the age of illusions he'll America squandered its Cold War victory the limits of power and America's war for the greater Middle East his writings have appeared in the New York Times the London Review of Books and the American conservative among other publications Sean Wilentz is the George Henry Davis 1886 professor of American history at Princeton University his numerous books include the rise of American democracy Jefferson - Lincoln which won the Bancroft prize and was a finalist for the Pulitzer no property and man slavery and anti-slavery at the nation's founding and Bob Dylan in America he edited the just published Library of America volume Richard Hofstadter anti-intellectualism in American Life the paranoid style at American politics and on collected essays volume number 330 in the library of America series Andy and Sean will talk for about 40 minutes and invite your questions you can submit a question or comment at any time by using the Q&A button on your menu bar if you wish let us know where you're viewing from and now please welcome Andrew bacevich and so I'm go ants well thank you max we can't hear you all out there but it's wonderful to be here with all of you now and obviously with Andy and Max and we're here to talk about this marvelous new book important new book at a very peculiar difficult time Andy and your introduction you say that we we stand at America stood crossroads and I don't think you had could have had any idea how much of a crossovers are going to be standing at when when the book actually appeared and and that's going to be in our minds no matter what I mean there's no way to avoid that but I don't want to simply dwell on that I wanted to range around and talk about the ideas that are in this book what American conservativism is might be could be let me start though ante with with your your subtitle actually reclaiming an intellectual tradition that asserts that there is an intellectual tradition which we'll talk about but reclaiming reclaiming from who why what has to be reclaimed what we're do who does that have to taken away from well thanks also for including me in this and I have to say thanks to Max and his team at the library of America for asking me to do this project is it's it's not my typical sort of of book and I'm grateful to have the chance to do it I think the answer to the question Sean is to save the American conservative tradition from the fraudulent conservatives who have hijacked that tradition in in recent years have so sullied the word conservative that it's it's increasingly difficult for Americans to take seriously the proposition if there is a conservative tradition now I'm with you I don't want to get all hung up and what's happened in the last 72 hours but it does seem to me that the Trump a leader of the Republican Party ostensibly the party of conservatism ostensibly himself a conservative as utterly trampled on conservative values in particularly with regard to a subject that is near and dear to my heart which is the relationship between the nation and the American armed services so I think I think we're trying to say we're trying to restore a tradition that has and despoil my people who claim to be conservatives mm-hmm yeah I was going to add it tramples on it on a traditional call conservative but actually I think is shared by liberals as well which is the principle of the rule of law has also been trampled on by this president it's certainly something that is not a conservative thing to do and and and I would expand on that just a little bit mm-hmm the the tradition of a professional military that is apolitical that sees its primary loyalty to the Constitution even though of course military officers are sworn to obey the orders of the commander-in-chief I think that that notion the notion of duty honor and country a Co a code of conduct which is really more in aspiration than a code is deeply conservative and yet to your point is an aspiration that liberals can't endorse and can appreciate and appreciate the importance if if a nation that is committed to being a great military power needs to have a military that is apolitical and it focuses on on preparing to fight Wars not to bring order to American cities in a time of great crisis well I do want to get to more of the overlap between conservatives and liberalism especially at this time as well as the differences but let me just start with the questions actually two questions and it's a matter of emphasis as many things are I wanted to ask you first what is American conservatism and then what is American conservatism if you see what I'm saying let me start with the second of those American conservatism what is American conservatism we know what it's not very early on but it's not a doctrine it's not a set of what it's not a Dogma and there's something closer to a series of attitudes ideas it's a batch of things out there and we can go through them we will go through some of them community with respective law all of those things but I'm wondering what holds them all together I mean what what is there that can be seen as the glue that holds these various things together as distinctively conservative that's a difficult question sorry and I I think my answer would be a particular concept of the human person as flawed and therefore from that point of departure conservatives are going to be somewhat skeptical to propositions of perfectibility conservatives are going to be wary of big projects that propose to bring about a radical transformation of our consciousness you know one of the people that I included in this book one of my absolute total complete favorite writers is Reinhold Niebuhr I'm pretty sure kneeboard never classified himself as a conservative but his Christian realism if we take that as kind of the core of what he believed in and and wrote about with this continuing warning to be aware of your own flaws the nation's flaws and and therefore in embarking upon some project to to deal with evil never to lose sight of fact that that you yourself our nation is also subjected to to what he would have called sin mm-hmm so I think I think this question of human perfectibility and a human person is that this at the center of what what I understand American conservatism to be about that's interesting though I I I mean I Manny Boreum myself and in this to the extent that and I mean had a tremendous impact on Cold War liberals as you know I mean yes and so forth so the idea of humility in the face of politics and understanding your own limitations and there is no perfect ability and then he or she who preaches perfect ability is going to lead you to damnation I mean that's that's what that's something I think that we we share okay let me change it they'll shift the emphasis to what is American conservatism in some ways you know America was a nation that was born in revolution revolution from an old world a revolution from well and and has turned the rejection of tradition in many ways into a kind of national pastime if you I'm wondering what does it mean to be a conservative what does the American conservatism mean what does it mean to have a conservatism in a revel in an in a nation formed in revolution let me put it slightly differently one of the people that Ronald Reagan most like to quote when he wasn't quoting FDR he loved to quote Tom Paine he was always quoting Tom Paine and he would say that it always quote Payne's line from common sense that we have it in our power to make the world over again now that doesn't sound like a very conservative idea and yet it was Ronald Reagan's credo in some ways when he was speaking so I'm wondering then that gets to the question I'm asking really is what does it mean to be conservative as a conservative in a revolutionary nation well and of course it's not only Tom Paine but then also John Winthrop that he loved to quote studio famous city upon a hill and I guess I guess the a preliminary response would be don't take Ronald Reagan's conservatism at face value I think in many respects if we look at his domestic political role and cutting the size of government hostility to taxes that's conservative mm-hmm but when it comes to foreign policy he was a crusader hmm he was he would his policies would not have found favor with Reinhold Niebuhr I venture to say but let's go back to the revolution mm-hmm I mean you're you're the historian more much more than I am but I guess I've come to believe that our revolution was peculiar and in in some senses it was less than revolutionary he was not radical the aim of the overarching aim of the revolution was to preserve a distinctive society this collection of 13 colonies that had evolved organically in the new world and my senses that the revolutionaries among other things were intending on protecting that and protecting that distinctive society that they themselves has evolved had evolved and in that sense the Revolution the American Revolution was a revolution but it was not a revolution anywhere near as radical as let's say the French Revolution or the Bolshevik Revolution or the Chinese Revolution so there is a there is a conservative element in the revolution that I think persists or you would see a conservative tradition maybe arising from the likes of John Adams you know or governor Morris in other words the Conservatives who were also revolutionaries that wanted to restrain yes forces like that but at the same time there is at the heart of the American Revolution and it's at the heart of the Declaration of Independence and it's the heart of all that is radical or liberal whatever you want to call it which is the principle of equality the principle that all men are created equal which in the 18th century context when Jefferson wrote that those words it was as radical as you could possibly be enough money against an entire set of sense of hierarchy and of order that had been inherited from the old world I'm not disputing what you're saying I'm trying to get at both sides of the Revolution to see how the the radical liberal side is in tension more conservative side and see them as both together that you really can't want to understand one without the other I think I my view of the whole is it not the case and this is a failing of conservatives I think it's also characteristic of liberals or progressives whatever we go then and what we find in the past what we've what we wish to find there you know we find in the past themes that validate our particular disposition point of view I guess that's one of the things that makes history interesting because you can have we can have the kind of disagreement about what the American Revolution signifies mm-hmm well I think though speaking isn't a story and I have to say as a pro isn't work that's a temptation I fight against every single day what do I fight against well why because I think that is restoring say we have to respect the Past nosov the past if unless you're willing to understand the past on its own terms then you end up simply finding what you want to find and and that's a real danger I think in flexural history oh no I certainly concede okay we could talk about the 1619 project here if you want to define what you want to see but but is it honest historians that is to say those who embark upon a study the past without some preconceived agenda that they're going to try to jam down other's throats honest historians are they not engaged in an argument surely what what what does it mean this this event this moment and and honest historians are going to bring to that argument varied perspectives that lead to very fierce disagreements that's makes the whole thing interesting absolutely and we ask certain questions and our questions betray our interests so there's that difference however I I would just say there is such a thing as objectivity that's to say it must be based in facts and budget and without facts and logic we're all slaves that match what you know distinguishes from the true but let's get away from history for a sec let me put it the same question differently what would you say is the difference between American conservatism and conservatism elsewhere say British conservatism or a European conservatism we're all you know ever since World War two in particular we're all embraced as the West and we all seem to have democratic values that are similar to one another's from face off against totalitarianism and yet they can't be identical if we're going to be talking about American conservatism so I'm just curious what your thoughts are about that consider so the professor is quizzing me on my knowledge of British I don't mean to be an Inquisitor let me take a shot at it what's what how is our conservatism different yeah point number one we have a declaration and we have a constitution they are distinctive in their time they were original mm-hm and they are ours and the Brits Europeans you name it they don't have that right so I think I think that that is a that the foundation of American conservatism although I also would be true the foundation of American liberalism hmm is traceable I think to those to those founding documents mm-hmm another difference we have fancied ourselves an anti-imperial and the previous great powers prior to World War two through the 18th and 19th centuries we're imperialists hmm consciously admittedly proudly engaged in the building of empires we have always fancied that were not engaged in the building of an empire now we actually have been but we won't admit it out loud but I think that too becomes an element a mechanism to say we are not like them mm-hmm and I think that also then informs the differences between American conservative conservatism and various European conservatism okay all right well um another aspect of your book that's interesting and I want to dwell on this for in a couplet for a couple of questions is that you start your intellectual tradition you're reclaiming in 1900 I mean the earliest text here is Henry Adams from the education he's remembering a an exhibition he visited in 1900 and he's talking about the Dynamo those of you have read Henry I know this is a very famous passage and he just feels that the history is moving much too fast that you know the machinery and the speed and so forth and what you you actually quote Weber the the the the what is it the the disenchantment of the world that's going on that this is at the heart of the conservative tradition that you want to reclaim right but I was just wondering again and this maybe it evokes Ronald Reagan in some ways there are plenty of places you can find that you know and and you have very eloquent and examples of that in the book I mean you've got the southern agrarians you've got Robert Nisbet who is you know a communitarian of sorts not as sort of the communitarian you have a kind of classicism as well which I appreciated I mean this I suppose the Allan bloom strain in American conservative thought although bloom never said he was a conservative he always denied it but but the idea that there is this you know there are great books out there there are great ideas that should not be trashed on a con political for political reasons all of that and in all of those you get a sense of a kind of yes a reflex against modernity and yeah when I think of conservatism also in terms of I don't know Milton Friedman maybe or others like that you know it's much more it's very Pro capitalists and capitalism dissolves all of those yes it's very anti modern so so how do we square the two or or can we I mean you just have to agree that conservatives are going to come in these two varieties or is there a way we can square the circle I don't think we can square the circle I think they I think conservatives come in a in a multitude of varieties and the object of the book is not to assemble a series of writings that cohere mmm-hmm where a person could read the book from the start to the end and say AHA I can now define the four things that conservatism stands for because because it it contains continent the conservatism contains contradictions and I was trying to present those contradictions to the reader allow the reader to to reflect on them but as you said at the outset of the conversation you know this is not a dogma and I'm not making that claim but it is a disposition it's a it's a tendency and and I think it is a disposition that we can distinguish from liberal or progressive tendency and that's all I'm trying to do is to is to is to to present it in its fullness as it were mmm-hmm mmm-hmm well it's funny I mean it strikes me there's an 80 modern strain and as well and and I mean you can see it in all kinds of places it's not as if liberalism is the incarnation of modernity it seems to me though that that they have a different set of concerns about what kind of breaks if you will they want to put on this modern world that the conservative view is much more as much more to do with morality as much more to do with things of the Spirit as in the disenchantment of the world whereas the Liberals will be much more prone to talk about material of material things you know inequality things like that right but there is yes both a critique of capitalism it's just that you know they start from different places and they may end up in different places but there is this place where they were they trying to have a sense that you know all is not well with the world it goes to what Daniel Bell wrote about a great like it's a great liberal who sometimes is thought of as a conservative but it was a social thinker to talk about the cultural contradictions of capitalism and that that capitalism does have these contradictions in it and but that liberals and conservatives are both going to get it but it going to see it from different angles does that make sense yes it does now to the to the average person walking down the street I'm guessing that they will assume that all conservatives embrace capitalism hmm that that capitalism is of the right and one of the points I'm trying to make in the book is to show that there among conservatives there is this ambiguity about the consequences of capitalism yeah good conservatives are not socialists conservatives believe that the market creates wealth right conservatives also at least genuine conservatives in my view have an awareness of the corrosive effect of the market on on human values that conservatives cherish and in and I think that you know and there be differences but that liberals cherish as well looking at I mean just to give our viewers our web web webinar viewers a sample of what's in the book I mean who would you those that you assemble who would you pick out as an exemplar of that kind of anti-capitalist conservatism if you will or critical of capitalism conservatism Wendell Berry mmm-hmm and agrarian is I think you mentioned a couple of minutes ago Eugene Genovese hmm American historian a communist card-carrying as a radical young historian who gravitated to the right in many respects I think his move to the right either stemmed from or expressed itself as a certain sympathy with Southern thinkers mmm-hmm now he wasn't a racist he wasn't you know buying into the Old South but I think he found value in the critique of industrial capitalism that southern thinkers evolved to some degree honestly the some degree also probably to justify the the preservation of slavery but Genovese yeah I think found value in that and that's why he to I think is a conservative who has very interesting critical things to say about capitalism mmm-hmm okay I mean it is interesting that you'll find you're gonna find people when you pick this book up as I hope you all will you're going to find authors in here that you may not have expected to be in a book on American conservatism nacho machine was a good friend and I watched to move to the right but and remain perfectly consistent at the same time that was what we're so interesting about but you're going to find RINO Lieber you're going to find Wendell Barry you're going to find all kinds of people you might not have expected precisely because they I think they reflect idea which conservatives value even if the person might not align him or herself on that that part of the political spectrum I mean another another person that I if I may know that illustrates that is Randolph born oh yes to his mind there's no doubt about it that he was a progressive his sympathies were his cultural sympathies were very much on the left as a young journalist he's he's writing for the New Republic back when the New Republic was young and was very much on the on the Left but for him the u.s. entry into World War two was a breakpoint his famous his famous quotation war is the health of the state and and although a progressive really becomes the patron saint of American libertarians mm-hmm because his weariness of of state power self a grid' izing state power and his weariness of how war destroys culture and and human values so he - never never would have voted for Ronald Reagan but but to my mind very much deserved to have a part in this in this project it's particularly borne santi militarism I mean he taught you the piece that you pick out is about the state the state has distinct from government and from administration there's this other thing that comes to the fore particularly in times of war but it is it's not that he's a simply a pacifist it's not about that it's about an anti militarism which tries part of his political theory I think and that's well I want to get on to foreign policy in a little bit too but let me let me stick with them with maybe with Jean Genovese you for a second or with another term or another what rubric under which you would put or another set of conservative values and that would be community community in particular the idea of organic it has to do with resisting the atomizing effects of of our life we have to have you know these local bonds very often it's very much along those lines yep um well I mean again there's a tension here right I mean because because deep and conservative tradition results are the idea of individualism as it is deep in the American tradition yep those . so there's always going to be this tension between you know a blob of community and the idea of individualism of libertarian if you will libertarianism that's another one but let me let me dig a little deeper though because there is something that I think is in the back of people's minds that we have to talk about to be honest about it and that's just the extent to which when you're talking about Richard Weaver who you through you include in the book yeah when you talk about gene Jena Vaizey to be sure when you talk about John Crowe ransom and the southern agrarians yep there's a there's a it's not just community it's a particular kind of southern community it's it's tied to a region in America at least in their writings among the agrarians yes yes so it's rural it has that localism to it yep here's my question I understand why you wanted to start the book in 1900 right but you know it's not as if conservative ideas these ideas in particular about community suddenly were born as a reaction from dirty I mean there's a kind of pre modern version of anti modernity if you see what I'm saying and I was wondering why you know why you made that decision to start in 1900 um for example I was just going through the index and indexes are not the best measure I understand it's just it's just a way of looking at it but any of the people that you include in the book certainly we're looking back to the to the 19th century for inspiration I mean I did a quick count and you know there there are more references to John C Calhoun there are more references that and almost as many references to George Fitzhugh as there are to Ronald Reagan and many more than to either William Howard Taft or Robert a Taft there is the sense in which the people you're running must certainly think of themselves as part of a tradition that goes back before 1900 and does go back to the Civil War and it must give us pause and must give us you know it is troubling because you know that tradition for all the things that we can pluck from it was in the end as you say you know much more tied to the cause of the Confederacy than the cause of the Union and that this gets a aspects of conservativism which I think you know we have to talk about which you do talk about in the book in terms of race but I'm thinking about in terms of its historical development in other words is there a connection between what was going on then and what was going on what what happened after 1900 or was there something such a great break that that it really wasn't the same my impression is is more continuity than discontent I think that's probably true although I probably have to think about it longer than we have time right but there is a very specific answer as to why the book starts in 1900 and that is we have to blame max no this is actually very important insight when we were first talking about putting this together and we trying to figure out when to start it in max's insight which i think is exactly correct is if you go back much before 1900 conservatives are going to claim all the big thinkers or the most significant figures as Conservatives and the Liberals are going to do the same question everybody's gonna claim George Washington everybody's gonna claim Abraham Lincoln right and and so arbitrarily I mean it really was arbitrary okay it seemed like 1900 plus or minus however many years was a good start point mhm and also and I you know I wouldn't want to go very far down making this argument but more or less around 1900 that's when they won the industrial juggernaut of modern-day capitalism we're certainly pre-existed before 1900 but it's around 1900 when the stops come off and and capitalism's full effects really begin to to make their mark know again we could say well why not 1890 why not 1877 but but it seemed to make sense to to focus on the more recent past and to try to identify the the dimensions of conservative thought that appeared in response that's why I begin by saying and you know the people will disagree but my view is a conservatism American conservatism did emerge as a as a reaction to modernity that a conservatives again you know no not not Milton Friedman but but but but the conservatives have always been wary somewhat troubled by all that modernity has brought to America the impact of modernity on American society I think that's where I'd answer the question but I think I mean you were you were kind of maybe you were not being as blunt as you might have been because I sometimes yes but I think you were asking whether or not correct me if I'm wrong does conservatism somehow bear the imprint of racism well of the Confederacy or a fourth yeah yeah sure and then let me intervene Andrew and the reason I say Confederacy specifically is that it's more than it's about more than racism it's about a social structure instead that orders or strokes that are based on that when we talk about states rights for example when we talk about localism I mean these have have have resonances in American history that go beyond yep oh it's right you know I'm saying and that's what I'm wondering about not necessarily going back you're absolutely right everybody's going to claim Lincoln everybody's going to claim Washington my interest is more to test more to do with how those ideas resonate today amongst certain conservatives and how they are used a usable past if you will well okay and I think for and I think for example of a man I knew a bit I wish I'd gotten to know him longer he was one of the southern agrarians who was who was Robert Penn Warren and and red water and I had once at a long conversation about this about his evolution you know from the kind of stance that he was taking in the 30s to what he went through in the 50s and 60s and how me to understand how the tradition that he had had valorized was more complicated and had to come to terms with race question and and and and watching his evolution I think was an instruction to me about how ideas actually operate a very intelligent person um so so yes I'm wondering about all of those things and it's a burden I think that America bears but I think that American conservatives bear in a particular way I have to agree with you you know and this is and this is to some degree where we end up then then confronting what appears to be conservative conservatism today in America which clearly is tainted with racism mmm intolerance bluntly belief in white supremacy right maybe I'm making a self-serving argument here but my argument is that those people do not qualify as genuine conservatives they may be throwbacks they are throwbacks to a conservative perspective that existed in 1850 or 1890 or probably 1950 1950 George Wallace is conservative in the back in a way he's a Democrat he's you know in a way you know maybe you're maybe you've identified that weakness on my part that I'm trying to you know I I don't I'd certainly did not set out to sanitize and simplify conservatism I set out to try to say here it is in all its glory or absence of glory I mean to get away from race for example you know I included one of my favorite my favorite historians of your is is his beard yes and so I included in many respects probably an infamous essay by Charles beard arguing against US intervention in the European war so there are these elements of conservatism that will will not find favor in the 21st century right but I was doing my best to try to say here it all is and I think I truly believe taken as a whole what we have in this book is a body of literature that it's not and it's not intended to convert an individual hmm so the don't you know vote for Donald Trump but is intended to suggest that there is an alternative perspective that can have value to us in this enormous ly difficult time that we find ourselves in mm-hmm well I want to talk more about that as a conclusion but before we do that I wanted to go on to you know one of the things I had most admired about writing and he is it has to do with foreign policy and and you know conservative ideas American conservative ideas about America's role in the world and that forms are very important you know theme throughout the book and you make the case that you know conservatives are for prudence are for you know our anti-imperialists in effect right that they that the idea of nation-building and so forth they should be it should be however you begin the chapter I think George will may have picked up on this too you begin your chapter on America's place in the world with Roosevelt who's not exactly miss you know mr. big stick who's not exactly a retiring figure when you talk about America's role in the world so and then I was thinking about something else that was more troubling I mean I can I can I interrupt there please I think Teddy Roosevelt is a man of many parts and yet Teddy Roosevelt was a racist imperialist but Teddy Roosevelt was also this exemplar of what in those days would have been called manly values of a traditional masculinity now I know even as ice those words come from my mouth I understand how retrograde that all sounds but I do believe that that that that notion of a particular notion of masculinity does form part of the conservative tradition it's absolutely today but again the purpose of the book was not to sort of say this is what conservative is today let's say this is what it's been about and I think that's why I put Teddy Roosevelt in so just to clarify that's a kind of the kind of what in England might have been called muscular Christianity I mean this idea of you know okay well let me get to tell me that was a little bit more troubling which has to do with my own experience I mean we're of a certain age but to me you know the most wrenching and formative event about American foreign policy was the Vietnam War and I think you make the point right was ibly not only plausibly quite fairly you know that that was a foreign policy disaster in which the Cold War liberals you know my guys my heroes they didn't get us into it but boy they sure escalated it and boy they sure made it worse and I think you use that as an example of you know what you know a liberal hubris she used to use to use worse conceptions where that can lead arrogance and that you call for a conservative you know a more conservative approach but here's where it's historically difficult for me because I remember those days I must say I don't remember to be furtive is objecting to our mission in Vietnam maybe I'm wrong correct me if I'm wrong I'd like to be corrected but I remember conservatives in fact pushing for the war to be escalated even more there and then it was the Liberals in effect I mean starting with the new left but with SDS but then Martin Luther King eventually gene McCarthy Bobby Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy who are the ones who stood up against oh I'm wondering then how that fits into the your conception of what a conservative foreign policy might be about so it's complicated let's back up the story 15 years before Lyndon Johnson Americanized as the war mm-hmm in the early Cold War era there were conservative critical voices that were challenging pushing back against this expansion of American military power and taking on new obligations who am I talking I'm talking about Robert Taft okay we get to the 1952 election Taft yearns to be the President Eisenhower says that from a foreign policy perspective it is essential to maintain the continuity basic continuity of the Truman administration's approach to the Cold War he ones for the presidency he wins and therefore we have we have we we now have a a Cold War foreign policy paradigm mmm that ends any serious debate mmm-hmm about u.s. foreign policy there is no there is no Liberal foreign policy and conservative foreign policy there's the Cold War there's American global leadership embraced by both party so it is only in my judgment well there ought to have been the emergence of a serious debate over foreign policy when the cold war finally ended in 1989 but there was not there was not in part because liberals were intent on exploiting this expansive American role in the world under the conviction that we could go spread democracy hmm and I think because the people who called themselves conservatives particularly those who flew under the label of neoconservative were infatuated with American military power and eager to wield it so again from my point of view in terms of conservatism conservative perspectives on foreign policy seriously playing in our politics ain't been much because there's there's been this consensus in favor of militarized American global leadership okay I see that our rejoined us and I think yes some questions for us and let's get going great thank you very much for that we have some a lot of questions from our large viewing audience Roland Hirsch says you touched earlier on your inclusion of Teddy Roosevelt what God your selection of American president in this volume that seems to include some less conservative figures like TR and Herbert Hoover and not some apparently more conservative presidents like Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge and so just wondering how you would respond Rowland well so this is a this is a volume of printed works of ideas and I wasn't particularly interested in having any presidents whatsoever the idea wasn't let's see how many presidents I can get it to this thing but I tried to identify those presidents that had interesting things to say about conservatism and that's why I ended up with TR and and Hoover and and and and Reagan you know George will wrote a review of this book and sort of tweaked me because I didn't have a speech I think it was by Calvin Coolidge I confess I was not familiar with that speech by Calvin Coolidge but I will insist that Calvin Coolidge was not a particularly interesting thinker that's not a judgment of whether he was a good president and her bad president but it didn't seem to me that he was a very original thinker and therefore he didn't make the cut but I think the real point here is I wasn't trying to figure out how many presidents to include okay um Jason Bartlett asks which current or recent member of Congress best exemplifies a conservative tradition which you honor I would say were the traditions let's say that you honor in this book maybe we should broaden that beyond members of Congress and say public figures I mean you take the question anyway you like well I don't think I can answer it in terms of members of Congress because I don't you know you know follow sort of politics that that's closely I tried to include some still active public intellectuals who I admire greatly you know Patrick Dineen of Notre Dame would be one example Ross Douthat of the of the New York Times I think both of them are very able and interesting thinkers and that's how they that's how they made the cut but I don't I don't know if I can offhand think of any politician right now that I'm I'm fond of Shawn are you fond of any politicians right now I think I'm trying to answer the question I'm fond of lots of politicians but they're not pretty okay I'm trying to think of someone like for example Connor lamb who's a Democrat but was that was considered a part of the class of 2018 but you know but he was speaking to questions of patriotism for example he was speaking about military issues I think in a way that addressed his his his district his constituents you know he was he was in a relatively conservative part of Pennsylvania and I think if you find in the Democratic Party if you look at the more they call the moderates on what you want to call them I think the more was liberals anyway but at that end of the Democratic Party I think you're going to find something closer to what you're talking about Andy that anything you'd find in the Republican Court today I suspect that's true because to express a personal opinion I think that the Republican Party is so intellectually bankrupt no as so the party has sold its soul to to Donald Trump that I'm sure there are exceptions that I probably should be apologizing to but it just doesn't seem to me that there are very many members of that party of any significance who deserved to be classified as principled John Rock from Mobile Alabama right that's some credit Goldwater Barry Goldwater with the arrival of the modern-day conservative movement at least within the Republican Party followed by Reagan's election in 1980 when did conservatism yes I mean he frames at us when did conservatism get lost when Republican Party is there a defining moment but I mean you did talk about the fact that you you feel in your view the current Republican Party doesn't reflect conservative values as you understand them so I guess the question could be put is when did they part ways I mean when did you know the tradition as you understand it and the Republican Party Parkway's is there a moment as defining moment or error to me that the aftermath of the of the Cold War I think pardon me Sean I think I have an answer to the question but I'm sorry I didn't know give it give the answer Newt Gingrich yeah fair enough yeah I fair enough but I mean that that's not inconsistent with my answer which won't happen after the end of the Cold War but identifying a figure I think you're right I thought I'd be on their complimentary I was saying I was just like jazz I was chiming in on your answer yeah yeah I think it was Newt Gingrich in 1994 and yeah yeah all civic view of politics which is inconsistent with everything conservativism yes American is advanced what I think he is probably if you were to pick a single figure to blame the ruination of the Republican Party as much as I disagree with the Republican Party in the old days they'd have a bless to its to its generation to what it's become now man you described it I think he's the figure you are correct and like cally Randy still with us you know you never can get rid of a guy you take a slightly different tack so M&E you call yourself a Catholic conservatives and there are many questions about the role of religion in your understanding of conservatism I mean obviously their religion plays different kinds of roles in conservative thought in radical thought and liberal thought in America and elsewhere but how what's your personal connection to your conservative beliefs and your religious beliefs well you know I I believe in the sacredness of things you know I am a believer and there's no question that if this book had been done by somebody who is not a Catholic the table of contents probably would have been substantially different that the table of contents a the selections do reflect my conviction that there is a connection between belief and genuine conservatism I hasten to add that does not mean that every conservative has to be a believer but I suppose that somehow stems from my upbringing but I did want that element to be included in a book but again it certainly reflects a personal prejudice there's a question what values does conservatism have to offer to younger people who see challenges like climate change as the as the Lord as the as a large issue looming you know yeah well I mean I I share that view that that concern in the introduction I talk about you know I give my own list of of what conservative principles are again my view and I think one of them are the conservatives believe in this in a sense of stewardship for creation you know that we are responsible for conserving for preserving now I say that and I realize again to the extent that people think the Republican Party reflects conservative views there's all kinds of people in the Republican Party who are climate change deniers I actually believe that climate change may be the the most important issue where conservatives and progressives can come together to realize a new definition of the common good in my judgment there is no current accepted a definition of the common good and that's to a considerable extent one of the problems in our society and I think I think and a determination to preserve the planet can correct that problem if we recognize it and if enough people underwrite and people on the Left are willing to do embrace that notion can I can I just but in just one little thing and say I found it actually very eloquent well put in Andy really but if there's the reader as a person in the book that you might want to look to for the spiritual dimension of of conservation I mean we'd Wendell Barry I mean yeah it's it's it's all there and and it's something that everyone can relate to well said on both your parts maybe we'll we'll have one more question and I think this is probably an appropriate one to end on Peggy Carr Kowski who is Right who is asking from Denver Colorado how does intellectual conservatism the tradition that you've been discussing tonight survived the Trump presidency as conservatism as a word and brand she says has been tarnished questions been tarnished I suspect that one of our challenges that your challenge is max in in selling the book is it it has the word conservatism on the front and and that in and of itself is going to alienate some number of people my own view is that the the crisis in which we find ourselves currently embedded which is an economic crisis it's a it's a crisis that relates to an utterly inept and I think corrupt government a crisis of utterly miss scattered foreign policy that's plunged us into needless and mismanaged Wars I believe it's also a cultural crisis we are we are we are not going to amend that I think without drawing on the conservative tradition reflecting on the ideas of some of the people that are included in this volume not because they have all the right answers but because they do have answers that at this particular moment deserve our serious attention thank you thank you very much to both of you you've been listening to Andrew bacevich and Sean Wilentz discuss American conservatism and the new book American conservatism reclaiming an intellectual tradition edited by Andy bass a and published by the library of America you

Channel: Library of America

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Keywords: Library of America, Sean Wilentz, Andrew J. Bacevich, Max Rudin, concservatism, Republican Party, politics, Reinhold Niebuhr

Id: 1dioWO4EH1E

Length: 60min 48sec (3648 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 05 2020