Friday, March 4, 2011

The Conservative Playbook

(See "Academia as a Bulwark Against Conservatism" parts I, II)

As someone who so obviously does not fit into the stereotype of a liberal academic, I believe that I have a special responsibility to advance the sort of liberal academic ideals I have outlined. It is quite possible that I can reach students that others cannot. At Ohio State, we certainly have many students from rural Ohio, part of "red" America; as someone who does not operate on a simple liberals are good, conservatives are bad moral continuum. Such students might be willing to listen to the message I have for them.

Now, I always tell my students at the beginning of the quarter that, while I might refer to present-day events, the class is not about modern-day politics and it is not my wish to see the class turn into a soapbox for my politics or anyone else's. History does not translate into straightforward lessons of "do or do not do this." I do not talk about my politics in class; if students are interested they are free to read this blog. I even ask students to challenge me if they think I have crossed any lines in sticking my personal politics into the class. I think I do a good job at this and have not received any complaints.

That being said, I do discuss certain fundamental historical concepts that serve to undermine conservative modes of thought. For example, one of the things that I have been discussing and debunking in my 111 class this quarter is what I call the "conservative playbook." In essence, the conservative playbook consists of three steps. Step one, talk about how wonderful things were in a given past. Step two, show how poorly the present compares to that "glorious" past. Step three, the conclusion, we need to go back to the way things were and restore those "traditional values" that once made us great.

We see this conservative playbook all over. Cicero argued for a return to traditional Roman republican values. Both Protestants and Catholics in the sixteenth century claimed to be fighting to restore the true original church of Jesus and the apostles. Needless to say, this rhetoric is bread and butter for modern-day conservatives like Glenn Beck. Even liberals often get caught up in making conservative playbook arguments. I gave the example in class of liberals who bemoan the current state of rock and roll, how it has been corrupted by corporate America and MTV, and argue that we need to bring back the spirit of 60s rock when rock was "pure" and was about waging a revolution against the "man."

There are two problems with the conservative playbook. One of them will be present in almost all versions of this argument. The other problem exists by definition. Almost all conservative playbook arguments present a rose-colored picture of the targeted past. Thus, it is the job of the historian to burst such bubbles. For example, Cicero's beloved early Romans, judging by the story of Romulus and Remus and the rape of the Sabine women, were a pack of brigands of bastard parentage, who pillaged and raped anything in sight. Rome was not corrupted by empire and the importation of loose Greek morals; it was a pretty corrupt place from the beginning.

The second more fundamental problem is in the very act of trying to "go back." People who lived in our "wonderful" past did not do what they did in order to reject the values of some future generation, fight some future set of villains and go back to their present; they already lived in their present. As such the very attempt to "go back" marks a fundamental change.

Whether or not the past was so wonderful that we should want to live in it, it is not possible and no one can claim to present the past. This marks a fundamental hypocrisy in all conservative movements. Conservatives are just as much the products of their generation as the liberals they denounce; their values are just as new and also mark an irreparable break with the past. For better or worse, the past is dead and buried and no one knows that better than a historian, who lives every day with the realization of how fundamentally different people in the past were. We have two options; either we openly admit that we are a different people from those who lived in the past with different values and ways of thinking and therefore try to do the best we can to produce the best society our minds can fathom or we can close our eyes and pretend that things really are the same. If we choose the latter, things may or may not turn out well, but I can guarantee you that the society we fashion will not be a conservative one.

Will any of this make one of my Republican students vote for Obama? No, and that is not my purpose. In the long run, though, it might just change how he approaches the fundamental questions facing our society. What those changes might be is beyond my place as a historian. I am just doing my job as a liberal academic, opening up the possibility of change.

6 comments:

Clarissa said...

Did I suddenly alight on a wrong blog? The interface is different and the ideas are very different. :-) :-)

I love this post with a passion. I love it so much I want to kiss it.

Anonymous said...

I would like to provide a reasoned argument for the conservative view. I am of the generation that went through the 1960s when many people thought that we had reached "the end of ideology" (the title of a book by Daniel Bell, who just died) and that all that was left was applying "social engineering" to solve any remaining problems. Charles Reich spoke of Consciousness III and the media touted the ideal of dropping out of the rat race. However, the relaxing of social controls had mixed results. While there is considerable more personal as a result of changes due to the 1960s, there were many casualties. Many young people were hooked on drugs and crime rose. The welfare rolls in NY increased and NYC was only narrowly saved from bankruptcy. The 1960s fueled the creation of the underclass. The point is not that all the changes of the 1960s were negative. They were not. The 1960s were the decade of civil rights, women's rights, and many other positive changes. However, our society has discovered that social controls were necessary and the loosening of these controls will often be accompanied by destructive behavior. We can look at it as a manifestation of the law of unintended consequences. You may think that you are changing something because our society is different from traditional society, but you will find that by changing things you will cause a harmful result that you did not anticipate. This does not mean that we should never change anything, but when we change things we should look carefully at what incentives are created or removed by the change.

Sam said...

As I sit here doing some last minute studying for my history exam, I need to review the conservative playbook's steps. I entered it into google and clicked the first link I came upon. I started reading the blog and everything in it sounded really familiar. Lo and behold I look at the author only to find it's my own teacher! Ha! Very funny! So please, I hope you put the conservative playbook question on the final, because this just gave me the perfect answer!

Justin said...

Just to let you know, I reblogged your post at DFW Alliance of the Libertarian Left.

Thanks for using a Creative Commons license.

Jay Ell said...

The definition of conservative is to keep things the same, move slowly / conservatively. However, is it not a valid argument to want to return to a pre-Bush tax rate for the wealthy and close loopholes for multinational corporations, for example? What about “going back” to a pre-Reagan tax rate? What about going back to protecting our manufacturing base before NAFTA and the flood of third world labor into our workforce.

The Protestant Reformation was about breaking with the past. Rejecting the authority of the Church. The Counter-Reformation was in response to that.

Please don’t get me wrong. I am certainly not arguing for the conservative playbook. I’m just wondering if maybe there are things that were better in some past time. Is it possible to learn from the past?

Izgad said...

There are two different “conservatisms” here. The first is the desire to defend the established rules on the books and society protocols. This form of conservatism is intellectually valid. There also the rhetorical orientation to desire to “return to the past.” This is by definition impossible. Yes we can bring back the Bush era tax cuts, but they would mean something very different for us than people a decade ago. For one thing it would be a return for us when it was not for them. Also we would be putting them into place in the context of a very different economic climate.