The Conservative Soul: Fundamentalism, Freedom, and the Future of the Right Paperback – October 9, 2007

In The Conservative Soul, Andrew Sullivan lays out his definition of a conservative in the classic, almost old-fashioned sense of the word, and how it differs from the radical fundamentalism that passes for "conservatism" in American politics today.

He begins with an exploration of fundamentalism: its reliance on certainty of belief, rigid enforcement of rules, and the notion of the State as a force for pushing its citizens in an allegedly ideal direction. He then pivots to conservatism and its defining characteristics as he sees them: curiosity, doubt, skepticism, acceptance of human fallibility, and the notion of the State as minimalist guarantor of security and the individual citizen's ability to pursue his or her own happiness.

All of this is laid out understandably to the lay reader and convincingly to the skeptical reader (including this liberal). Sullivan takes what could be an esoteric exercise in definitions and terms and makes it enjoyable and down-to-earth, with the deeply-felt humanity that his longtime readers have come to expect.

Andrew Sullivan has long been one of my favorite writers, and since I began reading his blog in 2009, he has had an outsized influence on my political philosophy. The Conservative Soul represents the type of long-form expression he intends to return to after years of sharing his thoughts in bits and pieces. If his future books and articles are anything like this one, they will be worth waiting for.

This book does more than explore conservative politics. It takes you on an adventure through philosophy and uncovers the mindset of the fundamentalists who are strangling the Republican Party. Sullivan takes an original, clever look at the leadership style of former President Bush, and shows why conservatism is a unique ideology.

A moving portrayal of what a sober conservative outlook on the world could mean for the future of politics! Sullivan delivers a profound new take on what conservative ideals really are all about.He debunks the myth that conservatives are nothing but old stick in the mud "no" men.

good book!

Believable beyond words. Sullivan is not running for any elective office, which makes his work refreshingly rare. You will not regret the time spent digesting this book.

Andrew Sullivan't book is really in two sections. The first section is an critique of fundamentalism. I'm not convinced by Sullivan's lumping together Christian fundamentalists with radical Islamists, Nazis, et. al. While there are some common threads, I think the differences are much greater.

The second half of The Conservative Soul deals with a philosophical examination of conservatism and I think that the second half of the book is much more interesting and thought-provoking.

Andrew Sullivan was born in 1964 and grew up in Britain during the Thatcher years. The conservatism of this period meant low taxes, less government intrusion, more individual freedom, a robust market economy, and a strong anti-communism. Being gay and Catholic, this philosophy seemed to be agree with his outlook on life. After graduating from Oxford, he came to the United States where he picked up his doctorate at Harvard and became editor of the "The New Republic" at age 27. Sullivan has always been a conservative in principle but not always as a Republican; he voted for John Kerry in 2004. This book is about how far the current Republican party has drifted from conservative principles.

The conservatism that he remembers - this book is a philosophical memoir -from the Thatcher years is no longer recognizable in the policies of the present-day Republican Party, neither in Congress nor at the White House. The GOP is now the party of deficit spending, big government, bribery, corruption, sex scandals, foreign wars, nation building, and more federal involvement in healthcare and education. The direction of the Republican Party has alienated many of the traditional conservatives that I have previously reviewed in this space such as Kevin Phillips and Francis Fukuyama. Even though Sullivan supported the war in Iraq, he now feels that it has become something he can no longer support.

Sullivan argues that the conservative movement - if you can call it that - has been hijacked by religious fundamentalists. When I reviewed Kevin Phillips' "American Theocracy," I felt that Philips was overstating the threat of fundamentalism. I thought fundamentalists were pandered to during election years and forgotten in between. However, after reading this book, I can see how the fundamentalist mindset has taken hold and is leading this country in the wrong direction.

The category of fundamentalism, as Sullivan uses the term, is a very broad one. A fundamentalist is someone who sees only one truth - his or her own - and will not tolerate any dissent or political pluralism. With this definition he lumps together Communists, Nazis, Islamic jihadists as well as extremist Jews and Christians. Religious fundamentalists reject not only liberal democracy but the very notion that religion should be relegated to the private sphere. Admittedly there are many shades of extremism, but this is the virus that is now afflicting the Republican Party.

In this book Sullivan argues for a more modest and temperate brand of conservatism, one that is more open-minded, sceptical, and tolerant of political diversity. This conservatism of doubt borrows heavily from Michael Oakeshott, a British Philosopher who was the subject of Sullivan's doctoral dissertation at Harvard. According to Sullivan, "the defining characteristic of the conservative is that he knows what he doesn't know." (Not to be mistaken with Rumsfeld's known unknowns, they were empirical unknowns rather than metaphysical.) Think of the conservatism of William F Buckley or George F Will, both of whom feel very secure in what they don't know. Conservatives don't know what change or reform will bring so they are against it. (To "stand athwart history" as Buckley would say.) A conservatism of doubt believes that there are few things the government can correctly, therefore things are better left to the private sphere. Minding one's own business, is a very modest philosophy.

With the results of the midterm elections, I think the Republican Party will rediscover the modesty and the open-mindedness that Sullivan is arguing for. I hope that the Democrats also retain some of these values that they should have learned during their 12 years in the wilderness. So far they are not yet your parents' Democrats.

Everything that was advertised