<![CDATA[The Washington Monthly:
CONSERVATISM vs. EXTREMISM….Over at the Prospect, Michael Tomasky argues that conservative are interested in conservative philosophy while liberals are mostly obsessed by strategy:
I’ve long had the sense, and it’s only grown since I’ve moved to Washington, that conservatives talk more about philosophy, while liberals talk more about strategy; also, that liberals generally, and young liberals in particular, are somewhat less conversant in their creed’s history and urtexts than their conservative counterparts are (my excellent young staff excepted, naturally; I’m mostly wondering if young Democratic Hill aides have read, for example, The Vital Center or any John Dewey or Walter Lippmann or any number of things like that).
Hmmm. I haven’t read any of that stuff….
Extremists of all stripes are always convinced that they’re in possession of ultimate truth. That’s true of Larouchites, Trotskyites, Fallwellites, Randites, Scientologists, premillenial dispensationalists, Black Panthers, Nazis, and Islamic radicals. It’s extremism that cares nothing for empirical evidence, not conservatism.
Read. Read Dewey’s The Public and Its Problems, read John Rawls’ Political Liberalism, read …. Read Mumford (an anti-Deweyan libertarian, but still deeply relevant to how we think about the structure of society), read these things because they aren’t extremist. They are rational and committed, but not committed to overthrowing everything opposite their ideologies.
Last week, one of the neocons visiting here asked what I would call a “real conservative.” I was too long-winded in my answer. Here’s the short, sweet answer I should have stuck with: A real conservative respects their political opponents as much as they do their political allies, as Americans with the best interest of their country at heart.]]>