Dissecting Conservative
Reagan, Michael
THE FUTILITARIAN SOCIETY, by Wiliam J. Newman. George Braziller. 1961. 412 pp. $6. William J. Newman's theme can be expressed in a loose syllogism: America's problems call for change and...
...And in criticizing his specimen authors for digmatic rigidity, Newman displays the same characteristic himself...
...Finally, the book evidences occasional lapses in consistency...
...Therefore conservative ideas are a "menace" to the nation...
...At a lower level, if Lippmann is a conservative then does it become conservative to advocate a non-commercial public television authority, which Lippmann has done...
...It is generally considered bad form to criticize an author for what he has not tried to do, yet Newman's explicit disavowal of any attempt to examine conservative actions and the sociology of conservatism and his decision to confine himself to the dimension of self-proclaimed conservative thought seem to me to produce an unreal and essentially futilitarian analysis...
...His conclusions are "sound," and his comments on the implicit conservatism of the Luce-ian national purpose literature are perceptive and amusing...
...William J. Newman's theme can be expressed in a loose syllogism: America's problems call for change and innovation...
...One hopes the author will follow it with a fuller, more tightly reasoned statement of his own position—of the alternative he would suggest to the futilitarian society...
...For example, it may make sense from a purely academic viewpoint to call Russell Kirk probably the most important figure of American conservatism in the twentieth century, but in any wider perspective—and in terms of political importance—wouldn't Robert A. Taft be a stronger contender for this title...
...However, he goes on to say that even when natural law is used radically "there is an important vestige of conservatism in this doctrine...
...The author recognizes this problem in passing but does not resolve it satisfactorily...
...Yet one has some reservations...
...Despite this—perhaps partly because of it—Newman's book is a provocative and lively study...
...Secondly, can one discuss American conservatism without considerable emphasis on the economic doctrines of the ideology...
...George Braziller...
...Thus in discussing natural law concepts Newman admits that "use of natural-law thought as such will not tell us whether a thinker is a conservative or liberal...
...When one examines conservatism on the higher plane of belief in original sin, the role of hierarchy and the nature of the Constitution, as Newman does, the question necessarily arises of the connection between abstract principles and the concrete political positions to which these are purported to lead...
...The theme is elaborated through a delightfully breezy and ironic dissection of the writings of Old Conservatives (Felix Morley, William H. Chamberlain), New Conservatives (Kirk, Rossiter, Viereck) and academics who write in a Conservative Mood (Louis Hartz, Daniel Bell...
...Daniel Bell is aptly criticized for his recent anti-ideological writings, and Newman insists on the value of the "right kind" of ideology in improving "one's sense of reality by giving a point of view...
...Such inconsistencies (even though the essential direction of his meaning comes through intact) suggest a failure to think through his own position thoroughly...
...I question, that is, the utility of analyzing theoretical positions apart from their concrete applications...
...But it must be noted that he comes close to dogmatic pragmatism himself when asserting that American can make decisions without an ideology or ridiculing the notion that 170 million people can have any collective purpose...
...But conservatives are "stasis seekers...
...While many observers have noted the greater compatibility of socialism with the conservative's concept of organic community than with the liberal's emphasis on individualism, Newman insists on mutually exclusive liberal and conservative syndromes, thus solving by over-simplification the problem of relating philosophic to political positions...
...Hayek may derive his conservatism from "non-American roots" but it is in America after all, that he became a fad and the inspiration for a vast secondary literature of laissez-faire conservatism...
Vol. 8 • September 1961 • No. 4
