This book covers a great deal of ground but I’ll try to summarize its core points. First, conservatives have a pessimistic view of both human life and human nature. That does not mean that they are cheerless. In fact, their grounding in reality provides them comfort and joy, for it constructs parameters for human expectation which provide a certain degree of security. It also enables them to structure public policy in a realistic way that will, ultimately, prove more useful for human life and more productive of human happiness. Put simply, they believe that Hobbes’s view of life is more trenchant than Rousseau’s. They do not believe that humans are perfectible; they believe that humans are fallen (whether as a theological fact or as a workable metaphor). They are capable of great things but they will also cut you off in traffic or ace you out for the last parking space. If you want them to drive more gently, install a speed bump; that will appeal to their concern for their vehicle (=selfishness) and they are far more likely to respond positively than if you put up a sign, urging them to drive more politely.
Unfortunately, JD argues, this positive and useful ‘pessimism’ has eroded. Conservatives have become too ‘optimistic’ (=soft, dreamy, utopian, liberal/progressive). They have succumbed to attitudes that are ultimately destructive to our society and, in the process, reduced our hope for our country’s future. The areas in which they have succumbed include the following (pp. 249-50): acceding to the ideology of ‘Diversity’; acceding to the growth, expansion and stagnation of federal power; accepting cultural decline; accepting feminization, writ-large; accepting absurd theories of education; accepting some of the conclusions of the human sciences and abandoning conservatives’ traditional metaphysic; abandoning religious conviction; accepting George Bush’s quixotic attempts at nation building through the spread of democracy; encouraging third world immigration; clinging to an improbable notion of national exceptionalism as a charm against unwelcome change, and being complicit in the policies of spending and debt that have crippled our economy.
The rhetoric is engaging. He will move from argument based on conservative journalism and conservative social science to discussions of our moribund popular culture (and offer specific examples); he will then turn and quote Dr. Johnson and the Roman satirist, Juvenal. He will offer exempla, crack jokes, exaggerate broadly and then quote Kipling or Orwell. The book covers a great deal of ground but it reads very, very quickly and is anchored in a good bit of cleverness. It sometimes indulges in off-the-cuff commentary with antinomian throwaways: 1 . . . ; 2 . . . ; I was unable to determine #3. It is a witty and enjoyable book, though it will probably encourage those who disagree with its points to want to throw it against the wall or dismiss it out of hand.
He eschews political correctness (thus further dividing the reading public into armed camps) and he can be so explicit with regard to sensitive, controversial subjects, that he is now being disinvited from speaking on college campuses (which, for some, will be seen as a badge of honor).
My only criticism of the book is that he did not explore some issues in greater detail (naturally, the issues that are closer to my own concerns), but I enjoyed the book and admire its author’s courage and forthrightness. For the record, he is an Englishman who is now an American citizen; he is also somewhere between an agnostic and an atheist. Both of these facts add interesting dimensions to his points of view.
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Top reviews from other countries
- Paul Erik LeopoldReviewed in the United Kingdom on June 12, 2014
Fine stuff but much of it already familiar
