That’s the title of my review of Daniel Mahoney’s The Conservative Foundations of the Liberal Order: Defending Democracy Against Its Modern Enemies and Immoderate Friends in the current issue of First Things.
thoughts in and out of season
That’s the title of my review of Daniel Mahoney’s The Conservative Foundations of the Liberal Order: Defending Democracy Against Its Modern Enemies and Immoderate Friends in the current issue of First Things.
Time slice
Clarifying review.
It sounds like Mahoney has taken a time slice during which his favoured blend of conservatism and liberalism was optimal – and asked that this balance be made permanent.
Yet this blend was merely a transitional phase between a mostly conservative and a mostly liberal society – and there is nothing to suggest that it could ever be held in check, sustained or prevented from changing into one or other of the more extreme positions.
I think you make a good point about the feebleness of pessimistic, eclectic conservatism – it is essentially a self-gratifying pose (and a way of making a living).
Since Montaigne there has always been a niche for cultured, pessimistic conservatives who make barbed commments on the decline of civilization while listening to chamber music and sipping a glass of good wine. Anthony Daniels/ Theodore Dalrymple is a premier current example, and the British Spectator Magazine and Telegraph newspapers are full of others.
Actually to make a stand would mean descending to the vulgarity of religious commitment, and – in essence – siding with the rednecks against the intelligentsia. Implicitly, the pessimistic conservatives prefer their wine and music, their witty conversation, their good books – and quietistic defeatism.