June 17, 2020
NATIONALISM + SOCIALISM ISN'T ACTUALLY CALLED CONSERVATISM:
The Rebirth of the Left-Conservative Tradition: A blend of left-wing policies--like support for Social Security and infrastructure spending--with favored conservative ideas, like nationalism and immigration reform, is finding its voice (ERIC KAUFMANN, JUNE 15, 2020, Tablet)
Left-conservatism foregrounds nationalism more than religion. Where the religious right was evangelical and universalist, thus dovetailing nicely with neoconservatism's missionary liberalism, national conservatism is traditionalist, particularist, and isolationist. National conservatives endorse left-wing policies such as protectionism, infrastructure spending, and support for welfare programs like Social Security alongside conservative ideas such as immigration restriction and nationalism. In Europe, the mix is similar, albeit with a stronger focus on taxing the rich.In the mid-2010s, British "post-liberalism" has come to coalesce around the online magazine Unherd. One of its leading avatars is David Goodhart, who founded the center-left periodical Prospect in 1995. Influenced by Lind, Goodhart wrote a controversial article in Prospect in 2004 titled "Is Britain Too Diverse" arguing that diversity and solidarity existing in tension, and that high levels of the former were incompatible with the desire to protect the welfare state. His Road to Somewhere (2017) juxtaposed socially mobile "Anywheres" who attach primarily to credentials rather than the nation with rooted "Somewheres" who lack degrees, live near their place of birth and cherish national traditions. The new Social Democratic Party (SDP) of William Clouston, fireman-intellectual Paul Embery, and the patriotic Blue Labour wing of the Labour Party share similar beliefs and positioning.Perhaps the essence of left-conservatism is its plea for social cohesion and a concomitant rejection of post-national elites with their one-two punch of economic liberalism and the adversary culture. At root, the New Class/Anywhere elite is attached to a transnational status culture, much like Europe's aristocracy prior to the age of nations.
Posted by Orrin Judd at June 17, 2020 12:00 AM
