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You are here: Home / Burkean alarm bells

Burkean alarm bells

by DougJ|  February 24, 200910:47 am| 87 Comments

This post is in: Assholes, Blogospheric Navel-Gazing

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This is why I hate conservatives, especially the ones who pretend to be intellectuals:

The people around Obama are smart and sober. Their plans are bold but seem supple and chastened by a realistic sensibility.

Yet they set off my Burkean alarm bells. I fear that in trying to do everything at once, they will do nothing well. I fear that we have a group of people who haven’t even learned to use their new phone system trying to redesign half the U.S. economy.

Where were those Burkean alarm bells when we set out to remake Iraq? (And no, this doesn’t count.) Why do they only go off when a Democratic president attempts much-needed domestic reforms and not when a Republican president forms a Holy Alliance to create democracy in the Middle East?

No amount of masturbating about Burke and Oakeshott and the rest of your little heroes is going to change the fact that the ideology you supported has harmed this country, perhaps irreparably. Maybe it’s time to leave those books (that you probably don’t understand) behind and start reading budget reports and health care plans. That goes for Sully (whose blog I do genuinely like) too. Give it up.

There’s an episode “Cheers” where Diane describes something she’s written as “Joycean”. Carla says “if Joycean means stupid, then I agree.” That’s how I feel when I hear conservatives prattling on about “Burkean” this and “Oakeshottian” that and the importance of “intellectual integrity”. You guys aren’t intellectuals and you have no integrity.

In the end, I don’t think it’s likely that there are many political philosophers of note who would have recommended sending as unaccomplished a man as George Bush to the White House or running four hundred billion dollar deficits during times of economic expansion or persisting with a health care system that costs twice as much per person as any other system and offers worst results. I don’t think that’s likely at all. I think it’s much more likely that people like Brooks (and to a lesser degree Sully) use faux erudition to mask their ignorance of policy details and lack of common sense.

Update: Sully is also mocking Brooks about this, which confirms what the thread already convinced me: that it’s totally unfair to compare him to Brooks.

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87Comments

  1. 1.

    John Cole

    February 24, 2009 at 10:50 am

    So mad you couldn’t come up with a title, ehh?

  2. 2.

    James Gary

    February 24, 2009 at 10:52 am

    Burkean bells! Burkean bells! Burkean all the way!
    Oh, what fun it is to write half-assed op-eds for high pay-ay!

  3. 3.

    Ruth

    February 24, 2009 at 10:53 am

    Fear of inexperience would definitely have been in order when the previous occupier of the White House was running. It’s the latest ruse raised by prophets of right wing ideology. Presently the perpetrators of government by signing statement are trying to insist on private industry’s inviolability from government. Short form; Democrats are the enemy.

  4. 4.

    DougJ

    February 24, 2009 at 10:54 am

    So mad you couldn’t come up with a title, ehh?

    Actually, there was some glitch where it wouldn’t let me publish it, so I copied it all out to a text file, started again, and copied it back in. When I did that, I forgot to title it since that wasn’t part of what was copied.

  5. 5.

    Dave

    February 24, 2009 at 10:56 am

    I do not understand this recent fetish-ization of Edmund Burke amongst the conservatives. What have they done in the past 30 years that could be considered Burkean?
     
    It’s like their obsession with using the Jesus card. They hold both guys up as idols and then do everything the opposite way. It’s always Bizarro World with these idiots.

  6. 6.

    Lesley

    February 24, 2009 at 10:58 am

    Can’t wait to hear Sully’s response to this. I’m not sure it’s fair to call him pretentious, as Brooks can be. Sully’s more your pot smoking, stoner movie loving, well-read, gay Tory. Brooks is a lot less fun.

  7. 7.

    DougJ

    February 24, 2009 at 11:01 am

    I’m not sure it’s fair to call him pretentious, as Brooks can be.

    I agree. But I think he does lean too heavily on philosophy in some of his policy positions.

  8. 8.

    mistermix

    February 24, 2009 at 11:03 am

    I agree that "Burkean" or "Oakeshottean" (like "Rawlsian") are meaningless adjectives, used mainly to intimidate readers who might think there’s something more than name-dropping involved..

    But I have to stick up for Sully. He’s smarter than Brooks about how he uses his book learnin’, and he’s a little more intellectually honest. He tries to have a political philosophy that he applies more-or-less consistently. I agree that the result of that philosophy is often a disaster, and he should re-think it, but at least it grounds his thinking.

    Brooks has no consistent philosophy — he’s just a mouthpiece.

  9. 9.

    cleek

    February 24, 2009 at 11:04 am

    get ready to hear a lot of "you don’t know if conservatism works or not, because it’s never been tried! WAAHHH!"

  10. 10.

    Captain Haddock

    February 24, 2009 at 11:06 am

    I wouldn’t lump Sully in with the rest. Sully’s problem is he thinks that American Conservatives and British Tories are cut from the same cloth.

  11. 11.

    Laura W

    February 24, 2009 at 11:07 am

    faux erudition

    He’s about due for a visit to Maher.
    Hopefully with Hitchens alongside him.
    Yum.

  12. 12.

    bago

    February 24, 2009 at 11:07 am

    Good thing the last administration learned about the google on the internets.

  13. 13.

    SGEW

    February 24, 2009 at 11:09 am

    I’ve quoted it before, and I’ll wind up quoting it again:

    “(I)f (a governmental body) should be actuated by sinister ambition and a lust of meretricious glory, then the feeble part of it, to whom at first they conform, becomes in turn the dupe and instrument of their designs. In this political traffic, the leaders will be obliged to bow to the ignorance of their followers, and the followers to become subservient to the worst designs of their leaders.“

    – Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France.
    (emphasis added)

    If this isn’t a precognitive criticism of the fall of the Republican party, I don’t know what is. Sullivan’s (recent) critique of the G.O.P., based on quasi-Burkean concepts, is pretty spot on, in this regard, despite Sully’s rather blinkered peccadilloes*. Remember, Sullivan’s support for Obama was partially based on his own obscure Oakeshottean principles (kind of).

    So saying, I haven’t the faintest idea what Brooks is trying to do by name-dropping like this. Or how anyone can lay a Burkean critique on the Obama administration as opposed to the Bush years . . . it boggles the mind.

    *E.g., often losing that constant struggle to notice his own front-paged Orwell quote. Oh, irony!

  14. 14.

    Ned R.

    February 24, 2009 at 11:09 am

    The Sullivan defenses (which I generally agree with) kinda remind me how Stuttaford and Derbyshire, to one extent or another, stick out like a sore thumb on the Corner (if they’re still there). Most of their posts, especially anything to do with religion or drugs, have the subtext of "What is WITH you cretinous American right-wing types?"

  15. 15.

    mantis

    February 24, 2009 at 11:09 am

    The thing is, these so-called conservative intellectuals sound just as dumb as the rank and file wingnut bloggers. Something I read just now from one of the idiots at Wizbang:

    A stabilzed housing market may be the only thing that blunts the multi billion dollar fubar that is the Obama mortgage relief plan.

    It’s so incredibly stupid, yet I wouldn’t have been surprised if someone like Brooks or Barnes or Rich wrote it.

  16. 16.

    Lisa

    February 24, 2009 at 11:10 am

    Burkean bells! Burkean bells! Burkean all the way!
    Oh, what fun it is to write half-assed op-eds for high pay-ay!

    _

    That, my friend, was fucking hilarious. That totally made my day.

  17. 17.

    slaney black

    February 24, 2009 at 11:10 am

    Burkean alarm bells!? Brooks is a huge douchebag! ! ! That is what my personal alarm bells tell me! ! !

  18. 18.

    Andrew

    February 24, 2009 at 11:11 am

    Anytime someone mentions Burke or Oakeshotte outside of an obscure academic journal, it’s a clear signal that they are completely full of shit, so in that sense it’s a convenient signal to prevent wasting time on the discussion.

    "Serious intellectual" navel gazers like Reihan Salam, Ross Hitler Douthat, the Culture11 failures, etc. are the right wing equivalent of the moronic NYU activists, with less physical courage.

  19. 19.

    DougJ

    February 24, 2009 at 11:15 am

    I wouldn’t lump Sully in with the rest. Sully’s problem is he thinks that American Conservatives and British Tories are cut from the same cloth.

    You may be right. I wanted to keep him in mind for this so as to be more sympathetic about it (since Sully’s blog is good and Brooks and the others are just jack asses).

  20. 20.

    georgia pig

    February 24, 2009 at 11:15 am

    What I find so fucked-up about these guys is that they seem to think that being conservative means conserving some mythical system predating the New Deal. The New Deal happened eighty fucking years ago, and most everything that has transpired since then can be viewed as a gradual evolution from the New Deal. That is the tradition now, not some laissez-faire shit from a mythical past. Most (not all) self-proclaimed "conservatives" are actually radicals who have co-opted a perfectly reasonable word in an effort to unravel the established social democratic state that came out of WWII. Regarding Bobo’s lament regarding the stimulus, there is an long-established tradition of bold government intervention in the US, for better or worse. Has this fucking moron forgotten Social Security, Medicare, the Civil Rights Act or the Space Program? No, this is just another installment of a disinformation campaign aimed at destroying the reputation of government that started with Reagan.

  21. 21.

    Karmakin

    February 24, 2009 at 11:17 am

    The whole thing isn’t perfect. There’s no way it could be.

    But if you’ve paid attention, you would see that Obama has really cut a pretty clear path for this. Not perfect? Things never are. Especially when they are brought out quickly like this had to be. We fully admit that. So we’ll work on making things better.

    The Obama administration, in a complete departure from every other administration…ever…has set the proper expectations for reasonable, pragmatic governing. So when they go back and self-reflect on what worked and what didn’t work, they won’t be seen as ideological failures, it’ll be seen as pragmatic tweaking around the edges.

  22. 22.

    DougJ

    February 24, 2009 at 11:17 am

    I agree that the result of that philosophy is often a disaster, and he should re-think it, but at least it grounds his thinking.

    Fair enough.

  23. 23.

    Tim C.

    February 24, 2009 at 11:17 am

    And I think Sully is far more "conservative" in the basic meaning of the word, that it is often better not to act than to act rashly. He admits that his straying from that ethos is what led him to support the disaster in Iraq, and he honestly tries to look at the world the way it is rather than the way he wishes it was.

    I think sometimes he’s just honestly wrong, but that isn’t any great sin in and of itself.

  24. 24.

    TR

    February 24, 2009 at 11:18 am

    Are the Burkean alarm bells located near the Applebee’s salad bar?

  25. 25.

    Xecky Gilchrist

    February 24, 2009 at 11:18 am

    There’s an episode “Cheers” where Diane describes something she’s written as “Joycean”.

    It was a campaign slogan, no less – "Wim with Jim."

  26. 26.

    John PM

    February 24, 2009 at 11:19 am

    I think that Sullivan is in fact a conservative in the true sense of the word – I have not seen any other so-called conservative writer or blogger refer to Oakeshott ever, not to mention as often and as in depth as Sullivan. I think 9/11 really unmoored Sullivan, and it was only after Iraq that he saw the error of his ways and what his fear had caused him to support. He still makes me grind my teeth with some of his posts when he gives the Republicans the benefit of the doubt, but that is happening less and less each day. I think that part of Sullivan’s problem was growing up Irish-Catholic and gay in the English boarding school system, which may have caused several layers of inadequacies. I have thought that had he grown up in Ireland we might have a modern day Oscar Wilde on our hands.

    Brooks is a poseur, nothing more. Considering that he graduated from the University of Chicago, he should have a better grounding in the true conservative philosophy. I wonder if he has even read Burke. I have no doubt that he is one of those pretentious New York f-cks that comes to Hyde Park and then continually talks about how much better everything is on the East Coast. Someone should ask him the last time he read Burke. As for Brooks’ Burkean Alarm Bells, Obama would not have to try to do everything at once if Bush and Company had not broken everything over the last eight years!

  27. 27.

    Ailuridae

    February 24, 2009 at 11:20 am

    Hrrmmm. The chance David Brooks was assigned to read "Reflections on the Revolution in France" as a U of C first year in 79-80 academic year trend rapidly toward 0. Small potatoes but when the first sentence you write is almost assuredly a lie it makes it tough to read the rest of your column.

  28. 28.

    Anton Sirius

    February 24, 2009 at 11:20 am

    @cleek:

    Hee hee! Oh, I am so stealing that line.

  29. 29.

    justcorbly

    February 24, 2009 at 11:24 am

    Sullivan clearly argues that today’s American consevatives long ago strayed from the true path of Burke and wandered into a field littered with bigotry, nativism, fear, and general mendacity.

    Sullivan, et al, obviously have a right to try to leverage conservatives back to Burke, but that doesn’t mean Burke, et al, are right.

  30. 30.

    dms

    February 24, 2009 at 11:24 am

    Defense of Sullivan? Girl, please.

    Go back to his Bush days, the Daily Dish of yore. Re-read the tome he wrote after he’d been outed trolling sex-sites known for their danger. The man’s philosophical consistency rarely survives one of his own paragraphs.

    He might be a recent convert, such as John, but he’s still a fraud.

  31. 31.

    John Cole

    February 24, 2009 at 11:25 am

    My defense of Sully is such- he is a heater, and he often quickly and rashly posts to his blog, and his posts have a great deal of emotion. Often times, they turn out to look really stupid as early as a few hours later. As someone who is also a hothead and loudmouth, I completely understand.

    He also appears to be a hopeless romantic, and simply can not help himself. This post about the “return of fiscal conservatism” is an epic of the genre, and I will have a post up about it later. The notion that you could look at that poll and determine that the Republican base is returning to their fiscally conservative roots rather than sheer political cynicism is astounding, and a real blind spot for Sullivan.

    All you have to do is ask yourself, who was the last “conservative” to run a balanced budget.

    The other knock I would have on Sullivan is that he seems to simply hate some people disproportionately to their “sins,” and nothing they say or do changes his opinion on them.

  32. 32.

    Beej

    February 24, 2009 at 11:26 am

    @georgia pig: You’re absolutely right. Much of the conservative agenda in the last 30 years has been an attempt to roll back the New Deal and return to the halcyon days of Calvin Coolidge when white men were firmly in control of everything, the rich didn’t have to share their power with the "masses" and if someone was hungry or homeless it could all be traced to their "unworthiness" in the sight of God. Puritan ethics, Puritan morals. We lose sight of this agenda at our peril.

  33. 33.

    norbizness

    February 24, 2009 at 11:29 am

    He really wants to turn into as big of a twat as George F. Will.

  34. 34.

    A Mom Anon

    February 24, 2009 at 11:29 am

    I don’t understand even a fraction of economics,but it seems to me that alot of this "missing" wealth was based on made up shit. As far as I can tell,rich people are hoarding the fuck out of money and resources instead of it being re-invested in stuff like infrastructure,schools,etc. I will never understand the concept of a wealthy person being in personal debt,what the hell ever happened to owning shit outright? I don’t get how you can be supposedly worth a billion dollars or whatever and not own your home or cars or plane or yacht. That’s stupid.

    When I was about the same age my son is now(14),my dad sat me down,gave me a checkbook register and proceeded to show me how to pay bills and set up a household budget. One thing he made sure I understood was that I was never to write a check until the paychecks cleared and that money was in the bank and accounted for. The next thing he made sure I understood was that no matter what I owed,I could NEVER write a check for more than I had in the bank. WTF is so hard about this? I’ve lived my whole life like this,and so far,even though times are tough,it’s served me well.

    Maybe I’m an ignoramous,but without tax revenue the gov’t essentially has no money coming in,causing them to have to keep borrowing just to maintain the bare minimum. So cutting taxes fucks everything up from stem to stern. A big bridge like the Golden Gate has workers who work on that bridge from one end to the other and back again,over and over. So the damned thing doesn’t collapse and problems are repaired as they come up. We should have been doing this all along with every element of our infrastructure. Had we done this,the cost would have been spread over decades instead of playing catch up/big money now.

    Or am I wrong about this? I’m really trying to understand this without all the intellectual accessorizing.

  35. 35.

    Zifnab

    February 24, 2009 at 11:31 am

    Has this fucking moron forgotten Social Security, Medicare, the Civil Rights Act or the Space Program? No, this is just another installment of a disinformation campaign aimed at destroying the reputation of government that started with Reagan.

    No, they haven’t. That’s kinda the big deal. They don’t accept these programs as being fundamental to the state. These are excesses or perversions.

    The modern conservative movement – from a fiscal angle – embraces "drown it in the bath tube" mentality. From a social angle, its just another breed of do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do fascism. It is conservative in the sense that it aims to conserve the number of people with authority. It is the polar opposite of populism (which is what makes popular and movement conservatives such a joke).

    When Burkean alarm bells go off, they are warning against government that doesn’t put the Burkeans first. Screw everybody else. That’s why a $700 billion bank bailout is grudgingly accepted and an $800 billion tax cut would have been approaching acceptable, but $400 billion of construction, unemployment, and health care aid in a $787 billion stimulus plan sends up the red flag.

    Burkeans demand a bigger cut (i.e. all of it).

  36. 36.

    Brian J

    February 24, 2009 at 11:31 am

    You have to love the high number of straw men, flip flops, and generally bizarre statements he includes in a single column. Among many:

    I fear that we have a group of people who haven’t even learned to use their new phone system trying to redesign half the U.S. economy.

    Um, probably not. Maybe I’ve missed it, but I haven’t heard much about any sort of plan to design the economy away from consumerism towards something else. Unless you count development in alternative energies, which most would count as a good thing but where the administration has hardly handed down an iron-clad plan, or trying not to live off debt until the last possible second, in what ways has he suggested anything concrete? I don’t see how trying to lower the cost of health care, improve schools, and have a functioning financial and banking system count towards "redesigning" the economy, only that they count towards a functioning economy and avoid riots and panic.

    Deficits are exploding, and the president clearly wants to restrain them. But there’s no evidence that Democrats and Republicans in Congress have the courage or the mutual trust required to share the blame when taxes have to rise and benefits have to be cut.

    Actually, there’s plenty of goodwill on the Democratic side towards fixing the deficit and debt issues. The solutions might not have been agreed upon, but I doubt Brooks would have a hard time finding a bunch of Democratic members in each house that weren’t interested in the deficits. They might not be focused on it now, but that’s because the issue for the next two years isn’t cyclical deficits, it’s preventing mass unemployment and the breakdown of the financial system. Once these issues are resolved and the economy begins to climb out of a hole, I have no doubt Obama will focus on the deficit.

    The problems really lie with the other side, as it remains allergic to any sort of tax movement besides slashing them for the wealthiest members and organizations of society. The Republicans remain all too content with spending freely but delaying the bills until years down the line.

  37. 37.

    bootlegger

    February 24, 2009 at 11:33 am

    Oh, it says Burkean, at first I read it as Bukkake. Same damned thing I suppose.

  38. 38.

    ed

    February 24, 2009 at 11:33 am

    David Brooks is an elitist fuckhead.

  39. 39.

    Dave

    February 24, 2009 at 11:34 am

    @John Cole:

    It depends…do you want to consider Eisenhower or Nixon as a "conservative" ?

  40. 40.

    Ash Can

    February 24, 2009 at 11:37 am

    David Brooks doesn’t have the horse sense God gave the average clothespin.

  41. 41.

    joe from Lowell

    February 24, 2009 at 11:37 am

    No amount of masturbating about Burke and Oakeshott and the rest of your little heroes is going to change the fact that the ideology you supported has harmed this country, perhaps irreparably

    No no, it was poor people, minorities, and Democrats. Especially gay ones.

    Everything would have been awesome, if the only remaining stable leg of our financial system – federally insured deposit institutions – hadn’t been encouraged to devote a tiny fraction of their lending business to neighborhoods overrun by predatory lenders who weren’t subject to those laws.

    Obviously, it was the more-responsible lending practices of the banks that are still solvent that put us into this mess.

  42. 42.

    Brian J

    February 24, 2009 at 11:38 am

    Hopefully with Hitchens alongside him.

    Pretty much the only good thing I have to say about Christopher Hitchens is that he once faced the audience on Maher’s show and yelled out, "Oh, FUCK YOUUUUUUU!" while giving the finger as the audience loudly booed a point he made. It was just plainly funny.

  43. 43.

    AmIDreaming

    February 24, 2009 at 11:39 am

    I loved the part about his "epistemological modesty."

    Indeed. He has much to be modest about in the epistemological department.

  44. 44.

    jenniebee

    February 24, 2009 at 11:40 am

    @cleek:

    get ready to hear a lot of "you don’t know if conservatism works or not, because it’s never been tried! WAAHHH!"

    That was the whole point of Burke in the first place! He would have said that if you can’t try a thing on a small scale and prove its success first, you shouldn’t try doing it on a large scale. Burke wasn’t opposed to change, but he was strongly opposed to non-incremental change. If "conservatism" is a thing that can only work if it’s implemented radically, Burke’s position is that it’s not a good plan. Period. And Burke’s reasoning on that wasn’t ideological, it was practical in nature.

    Gaaah! GAAAAAHHHHHHH!

  45. 45.

    random asshole

    February 24, 2009 at 11:41 am

    Ooh, I love fake intellectualism.

    For the next two weeks, I’m going to mention something from F.A. Hayek in every conversation I’m a part of, no matter how irrelevant it is to the actual topic.

  46. 46.

    Dave

    February 24, 2009 at 11:43 am

    @jenniebee:

    You are so right. And if the GOP is serious about being conservative again, I hope they get behind the wave of same-sex marriage bills starting to filter through state legislatures. Trying it out on a small scale, it has seemed to work well so far. Small, incremental change on the state (small) level. What could be more, dare I say it, Burkean?

  47. 47.

    bootlegger

    February 24, 2009 at 11:44 am

    It would have been nice if these neo-Burkeans had paid attention to one of Burkes principles when Bush was president (from Wikipedia):

    Burke took a leading role in the debate over the constitutional limits to the executive authority of the King. He argued strongly against unrestrained royal power

  48. 48.

    Gus

    February 24, 2009 at 11:46 am

    The second Sully starts mentioning Oakeshott, my eyes glaze over, and I’m on to the next blog entry. Maybe I just need more of that fancy book larnin’.

  49. 49.

    Dave

    February 24, 2009 at 11:46 am

    @bootlegger:

    He was also opposed to the death penalty.

  50. 50.

    DougJ

    February 24, 2009 at 11:50 am

    Pretty much the only good thing I have to say about Christopher Hitchens is that he once faced the audience on Maher’s show and yelled out, “Oh, FUCK YOUUUUUUU!” while giving the finger as the audience loudly booed a point he made. It was just plainly funny.

    I dislike Hitch, but I’d respect Brooks a lot more if he let himself be waterboarded.

  51. 51.

    bootlegger

    February 24, 2009 at 11:56 am

    @Dave: As were Cesare Beccaria and Jeremy Bentham, both of whom supported the idea of punishment for deterrence. They reasoned, correctly it seems, that capital punishment would never deter because it would have the stronger effect of breaking the social contract between the people and their government: "if the state can kill, so can I."

  52. 52.

    bago

    February 24, 2009 at 11:57 am

    Tiabbi is fun. Not exactly waterboarded, but went undercover to some of those psycho churches that I grew up in.

  53. 53.

    DanF

    February 24, 2009 at 12:02 pm

    Conservatives are monarchists at heart, and where monarchy is not possible, fascism will do. The goal is to live and be ruled in an orderly society in which boundaries are labeled in stark black and white. The goal is not to be fiscally responsible or hew to some mythical ethical standard – it never was. Sometimes it’s convenient to use budgetary restraint as an argument, and sometimes it’s necessary to do the opposite. Monarchy isn’t an articulated or even conscious goal of most conservatives, but their policy and leadership choices scream it. "Daddy Party" anyone?

    Power is the goal, and for their base, there is a belief that it will be used benevolently and for the greater good. They aren’t interested in self-consistency or the truth as the end result will be a paradise where we are all the same and all our foes have been vanquished. Ponies. If only we’d STFU and listen to our betters.

  54. 54.

    low-tech cyclist

    February 24, 2009 at 12:05 pm

    I fear that we have a group of people who haven’t even learned to use their new phone system trying to redesign half the U.S. economy.

    There’s an incredible amount of stupid packed in that short sentence.

    Thanks to the f***ups who preceded them, the current White House team has little choice but to try to redesign half the U.S. economy. Would that it weren’t true, but it is.

    And if they can do a good job and save our collective asses, we won’t care if they ever master the White House telephone system. It’s not like that skill is a prerequisite for insight into rescuing the economy.

  55. 55.

    Mazacote Yorquest

    February 24, 2009 at 12:08 pm

    To draw up an adequate picture of Brooks’ intellect, you need to insert a list of 200 trendy political names into one of those Newsweek "thumbs up, thumbs down" features. No thinker gets more than a sentence.

    Obama (thumb sideways): Brilliant, but will the philosopher-king learn phone system before Burkean restraint?

    Burke (thumbs up): Boo-hoo for Marie; whoa-whoa for Barack.

    etc. etc.

  56. 56.

    Andrew

    February 24, 2009 at 12:09 pm

    While it’s nice to discuss conservative philosophy on a meta level, I think that it’s important to keep mistermix’s point at the forefront:
    "Brooks has no consistent philosophy—he’s just a mouthpiece."

    There is no philosophy there. There is only what his masters want him to say.

    I would say that the fractional minority of conservatives who do think in philosophical terms (probably only dozens of people), do so purely to build psychological barriers against the intellectual corruption of their own ideology. Sullivan is probably the only one who is remotely self-aware of this.

  57. 57.

    Mazacote Yorquest

    February 24, 2009 at 12:15 pm

    Agreed Andrew– I would put contemporary conservatism it like this:

    Republican in the White House? Hurray, Strauss!!

    Democrat in the White House? Hurray, Burke and von Hayek!

    Campaigning? Hurray, Carl Schmitt!

  58. 58.

    Phoebe

    February 24, 2009 at 12:16 pm

    Sullivan is allowed to say "Burkean" because he actually knows what he’s talking about, and he has been consistently pounding this drum since his blog began. And he actually does support small, incremental change on the same-sex marriage front, over a federal mandate, despite being as behind it as anybody could be, substantively.

    Is he naive about the repubs? It’s the naivety of hope. And Ron Paul is a repub, and Ron Paul got the war right, so I guess there is one shining beacon of republican fiscal purity to point at. And Sullivan flogs himself over his own former wrongness enough for my satisfaction.

  59. 59.

    Graeme

    February 24, 2009 at 12:17 pm

    @cleek: I was telling my dad EXACTLY that last May. Basically, the GOP is going to sound a lot like my commie professors from college. They’re going to talk endlessly about how glorious their ideas are, and what a shame it is that they’ve never been tried.

    That’s also why I’ve given up on the Libertarians. I like some of their ideas, but… Most of the philosophy is just too much mental masturbation. There’s no precedent for it, and there’s no reason to believe it will work in the real world.

    Basically, even when I disagree with him, I have to say I think Obama is the best thing that’s happened to our national politics in decades, and possibly in my lifetime. He’s trying to get things done instead of pointing fingers. He may get the wrong things done, but he’s LEADING.

    Unlike, say, most politicians or CEOs these days.

  60. 60.

    Phoebe

    February 24, 2009 at 12:18 pm

    And Jesus God I miss Diane on Cheers. Netflix here I come.

  61. 61.

    jrg

    February 24, 2009 at 12:29 pm

    God created the heavens and earth 200 years ago, so Edmund Burke did not really exist. Much like the fossil record, his writings were placed on earth by a supernatural entity, in order to trick scientists and historians.

    We should all take pride in the rich intellectual tradition of the conservative movement.

  62. 62.

    bootlegger

    February 24, 2009 at 12:33 pm

    @Graeme:

    There’s no precedent for it

    Sure there is. The North American west in the 19th century, or Somalia today. Both had limited to no government. Good times, good times.

  63. 63.

    BongCrosby

    February 24, 2009 at 12:50 pm

    Sullivan also had a serious nut going on about Hillary Clinton, and about the only thing that stopped that was he traded it for an equally serious nut going on about Sarah Palin.

    Similar to Gus at 11:46, all Sully would have to do is post *anything* about Hillary and it would be, whoosh, right to the next post.

  64. 64.

    Church Lady

    February 24, 2009 at 12:53 pm

    @John Cole:

    "Sulivan… seems to hate some people disproportionately to their "sins", and nothing they say or do changes his opinion on them."

    Hmmm, could you possibly be referring to the Clintons?

  65. 65.

    Will

    February 24, 2009 at 1:12 pm

    I haven’t read a David Brooks column since October 2004, when he published this piece of garbage:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/19/opinion/19brooks.html

    Kerry’s third attack is the whole Mary Cheney thing. That’s been hashed over enough. But remarkably, Kerry has not apologized. You use somebody’s daughter to attack the father and his running mate. The parents are upset. The only decent thing is to apologize. If anything, an apology would make Kerry look admirable. But Kerry, in his permanent attack dog mode, can’t do the decent and politically advantageous thing.

    Brooks, a supporter of gay marriage, couldn’t even bother to explain what exactly HE felt was offensive about Kerry describing an openly gay person as gay. He just knew he wanted Kerry to apologize for it anyway. That kind of rampant media stupidity pretty much summed up the entire 2004 campaign.

  66. 66.

    Cris

    February 24, 2009 at 1:12 pm

    @Graeme: He may get the wrong things done, but he’s LEADING.

    I understand what you’re trying to say, but this statement is no indicator of virtue. GWB got plenty of the wrong things done, and we all really could have done without that kind of leadership.

  67. 67.

    binzinerator

    February 24, 2009 at 1:33 pm

    I think it’s much more likely that people like Brooks (and to a lesser degree Sully) use faux erudition to mask their ignorance of policy details and lack of common sense.

    Nah. At the very root of it, it’s more like John Kenneth Galbraith once said:

    "The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."

    Bobo Brooks with his Burkean bullshit is just more of the same.

  68. 68.

    Tonal Crow

    February 24, 2009 at 1:34 pm

    I love this "Burkean" dance, and ‘specially so when evolution-deniers hit the floor. Burke’s beloved "tradition" is nothing if not a social species, honed by thousands of years of natural selection, its inner workings as inscrutable as those of biological species, and for similar reasons.

    Sorry cons, but Darwin is *everywhere*.

  69. 69.

    binzinerator

    February 24, 2009 at 1:46 pm

    @georgia pig:

    What I find so fucked-up about these guys is that they seem to think that being conservative means conserving some mythical system predating the New Deal.

    That system is called aristocracy, and the social structure they have in mind is called feudalism.

  70. 70.

    TenguPhule

    February 24, 2009 at 1:48 pm

    And if they can do a good job and save our collective asses, we won’t care if they ever master the White House telephone system.

    And then comes the glorious purge of the Republican party.

    By fire.

  71. 71.

    Dennis-SGMM

    February 24, 2009 at 1:52 pm

    I just checked out my super-trick alarm clock. One of the available sounds is "Burkean Alarm Bells." So I tried it and it just goes "Dung! Dung! Dung!"

  72. 72.

    Tonal Crow

    February 24, 2009 at 1:52 pm

    @TenguPhule:

    And then comes the glorious purge of the Republican party. By fire.

    So, who shall be Robespierre? And can we get advance tickets for all the installments of The Great Terror?

  73. 73.

    Mazacote Yorquest

    February 24, 2009 at 2:10 pm

    @Dennis-SGMM:

    Yeah, I think those Burkean alarm clocks tend to malfunction after eight years of hitting their snooze button. Bobo’s bedroom, a recap:

    Afghanistan: Bzzzzz (slap) Just 15 more minutes…

    Iraq War: Bzzzzz (slap) Just 15 more minutes…

    Patriot Act: Bzzzzz (slap) Just 15 more minutes…

    Gitmo: Bzzzzz (slap) Just 15 more minutes…

    Executive Privilege: Bzzzzz (slap) Just 15 more minutes…

    Designing new Social Security accounts: Bzzzzz (slap) Just 15 more minutes…

    FEMA: Bzzzz Whuh– what is it? (yawn) Hey, let’s not think we can be too "rational." You take over, Brownie.

    Young, intelligent, liberal black President takes office:
    Bzzzz – What in the FUCK is going on? WHY IS NO ONE AWAKE? Mayday, mayday! Too many crises, can’t be too rational!! Someone help us!

  74. 74.

    edmund dantes

    February 24, 2009 at 2:34 pm

    Sullivan’s other blindspot is Reagan. He has this idealized version of Reagan that doesn’t match up with history at all. He still buys into a lot of the mythos of Reagan that’s pure bs, and he won’t (or can’t) connect the dots from the reasoning and execution of Iran-Contra to the mess of the recent repub admin of screwups (even when they often involve the same damn people).

  75. 75.

    ricky

    February 24, 2009 at 3:48 pm

    The people around Obama …are bold but seem supple….

    Yet they set off my Burkean alarm bells.

    Trying to top Lowry, are we Brooks? Real men only name their penis. They draw the line at their nuts.

  76. 76.

    The Confidence Man

    February 24, 2009 at 3:49 pm

    @Mazacote Yorquest: Spot-on.

    When DougJ says:

    I don’t think it’s likely that there are many political philosophers of note who would have recommended sending as unaccomplished a man as George Bush to the White House

    … he’s leaving Strauss right out of the equation.

  77. 77.

    burnspbesq

    February 24, 2009 at 3:57 pm

    @DanF:

    The fallacy to which you have fallen victim is to think that Republican = Conservative. That hasn’t been true since at least 1964. You get a pass because the Republicans have done a fantastic job of convincing us that "conservative" means "theocratic crony capitalist."

    The typical Republican thinks Oakeshott = three ounces of Jack Daniels in a wooden cup.

  78. 78.

    Mike in NC

    February 24, 2009 at 4:03 pm

    Republican thinks Oakeshott = three ounces of Jack Daniels in a wooden cup.

    Honestly, the only philosophers today’s GOP needs are Limbaugh, Coulter, and Hannity. Everything else is bogus noise.

  79. 79.

    Wile E. Quixote

    February 24, 2009 at 4:05 pm

    Brooks’ "Burkean alarm bells", Lowry’s "little starbursts". What’s wrong with these guys? How much fucking glue are they sniffing over at The National Review? Don’t they know that doing that shit will seriously fuck you up? Someone should cut off K-Lo’s supply of Testors before it’s, oh wait, never mind, she’s a loss.

  80. 80.

    les

    February 24, 2009 at 4:37 pm

    Sullivan may be consistent and principled and such, as claimed–although the list of cited issues he’s stupid or crazy on appears as extensive as his "strong" suits–but he sure seems to spout a lot of wingnut talking points, for all his "Repubs are lost" shtick. My problem with him stems from the fact that his principles are fundamentally (and I use the term advisedly) irrational–his positions are "informed" by unquestioning acceptance of Catholicism and conservatism, a pair of imaginary data sets. So his conclusions tend to lack a certain sense. For Jeebus sake, he’s a conservative Catholic gay working for gay marriage–coping with that level of cognitive dissonance isn’t good for the logic organ.

  81. 81.

    ricky

    February 24, 2009 at 4:41 pm

    Brooks’ "Burkean alarm bells", Lowry’s "little starbursts". What’s wrong with these guys? How much fucking glue are they sniffing over at The National Review?

    It is not the sniffing they enjoy. It is squeezing the tube.

  82. 82.

    robertdsc

    February 24, 2009 at 4:42 pm

    The other knock I would have on Sullivan is that he seems to simply hate some people disproportionately to their “sins,” and nothing they say or do changes his opinion on them

    Sarah Palin and amniocentesis spring to mind.
    I am fully aware that she’s a wingnut’s good time and a perfect illustration of what the Republican Party has become, but Sully’s intrigues against her go a wee bit too far.

    Love the guy, but come on, now.

  83. 83.

    Gus

    February 24, 2009 at 4:52 pm

    Everyone appears to have consumed enough coffee today. This is the funniest comment thread I’ve read in some time.

  84. 84.

    HyperIon

    February 24, 2009 at 6:34 pm

    "On the Sublime and Beautiful" by Burke is actually a pretty good read on what "excites" one’s esthetic senses.

    Brooks is a dimwit.
    Sully isn’t dim. But IMO he is a jerk at heart.
    He gets a pass in the US just because he has a brain and an accent.

  85. 85.

    KS in MA

    February 24, 2009 at 7:17 pm

    Cole, you’re fabulous. From your mouth to God’s ear!

  86. 86.

    BobPM

    February 24, 2009 at 8:03 pm

    Historically conservatism never meant Burke and Oakeshott. Conservatives have historically been those that defended the aristocracy and the elite, while the word liberal traditionally meant those seeking to push political and economic power down to the masses.

    In this sense, the Republican party is traditionally conservative, in that their policies consistently attempt to concentrate and reward the elite. Burke and Oakeshott are about process and timing, and have nothing to do with conservatism. Sullivan’s silly philosophical musings on the need for measured change are well and good and apply to both parties. However, I am liberal because I have the goal of ultimately achieving a broader base of economic, and political power. I am also Burkean to the extent that I understand that change should be considered and slow, and ultimately tested and rejected if it doesn’t achieve the liberal democratic goals I believe have merit.

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    February 24, 2009 at 1:07 pm

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