I commend H. David Baer’s critique of national conservatism, which echoes some thoughts I’ve had, but with more erudition than I could muster.
One quotation that stood out to me was this, in which natcons declare that nationalism is “the only genuine alternative to universalist ideologies now seeking to impose a homogenizing, locality-d…
I commend H. David Baer’s critique of national conservatism, which echoes some thoughts I’ve had, but with more erudition than I could muster.
One quotation that stood out to me was this, in which natcons declare that nationalism is “the only genuine alternative to universalist ideologies now seeking to impose a homogenizing, locality-destroying imperium over the entire globe.” Besides the question of what’s meant by “genuine,” I wondered: what is the agent that’s “seeking to impose” an “imperium”?
Framing ideology (or liberalism, by implication) as an active imperialistic force is the predicate for a moral equivalency in which the spread of (liberal) ideas and influences through the world, and their acceptance by people in various places, is no more defensible than the forcible subjugation through which the Russian nation was built and through which Putin endeavors to enlarge it today. Or maybe it’s worse, for those who still imagine that Putin is standing up for a traditional culture conceived as a wholly organic reflection of the spirit of a people, and who cast liberalism as “ideological,” i.e. artificial, and destructive of the natural or “pre-political” elements of culture.
So natcons believe that a sovereign people have the right to defend their “cultural heritage” in war. But what if a people want to defend the right to change their culture or make their society more liberal? Is that another matter?
The strangest thing is how the natcon disdain for “global rules-based liberal order” leads into a might-makes-right view of the world, far from solicitude for national and local cultures. I wonder if American natcons would be so hostile toward the rules-based international order if they didn’t live in a large country with a powerful military, surrounded by two oceans and two benign neighbors. Some of them acknowledge those advantages, but as a premise for isolationist indifference to the rest of the world
I commend H. David Baer’s critique of national conservatism, which echoes some thoughts I’ve had, but with more erudition than I could muster.
One quotation that stood out to me was this, in which natcons declare that nationalism is “the only genuine alternative to universalist ideologies now seeking to impose a homogenizing, locality-destroying imperium over the entire globe.” Besides the question of what’s meant by “genuine,” I wondered: what is the agent that’s “seeking to impose” an “imperium”?
Framing ideology (or liberalism, by implication) as an active imperialistic force is the predicate for a moral equivalency in which the spread of (liberal) ideas and influences through the world, and their acceptance by people in various places, is no more defensible than the forcible subjugation through which the Russian nation was built and through which Putin endeavors to enlarge it today. Or maybe it’s worse, for those who still imagine that Putin is standing up for a traditional culture conceived as a wholly organic reflection of the spirit of a people, and who cast liberalism as “ideological,” i.e. artificial, and destructive of the natural or “pre-political” elements of culture.
So natcons believe that a sovereign people have the right to defend their “cultural heritage” in war. But what if a people want to defend the right to change their culture or make their society more liberal? Is that another matter?
The strangest thing is how the natcon disdain for “global rules-based liberal order” leads into a might-makes-right view of the world, far from solicitude for national and local cultures. I wonder if American natcons would be so hostile toward the rules-based international order if they didn’t live in a large country with a powerful military, surrounded by two oceans and two benign neighbors. Some of them acknowledge those advantages, but as a premise for isolationist indifference to the rest of the world