RELIGHT THE FUSE:
Reagan’s Philosophical Fusionism: Conservatism’s political power is derived from its ideas, not the other way around. (Donald Devine, Apr 4, 2014, American Conservative)
How did Meyer, Buckley, and Reagan think about fusionism? Fusionism to them was a philosophical concept. It was a philosophy that considered the principles of freedom and tradition as naturally interrelated in a tension whose resulting moral force created Western civilization and its American offshoot. Tension (the term Meyer preferred to fusion) was a force that could hold traditionalism and freedom together, which made both part of one potential whole. It was not the unitary logic of an ideology from a single principle deducing necessary conclusions, but a synthesis, a synthesis that Reagan said described modern conservatism. Yes, he conceived a city on a hill, but one always fighting to uphold both principles; for he also argued “freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.”
The idea that both principles were required was lost when progressivism insisted that tension, balance of power, duality, pluralism, and decentralization could all be unified under a single science of administration. By mid-20th century, the triumph of progressivism was complete. Both freedom and tradition would be subject to science. What Meyer et al.—explicitly following F.A. Hayek—did was to give the old ideal of synthesis new life. In fact, it did take a “debating club” at Buckley’s old National Review to draw out its conclusions. The freshly stated fusionist synthesis inspired a generation on the right and did become successful enough that some of its principles did have a brief life under Reagan’s administration. Once he left, however, political leaders only interested in the coalition as a step to power lost the sense of interrelatedness between the two principles and became confused and then exhausted. That is the problem today.
Even under Reagan there were factions that only viewed their own single ideology as the whole. There was always a coalitional aspect to “fusionism,” but those leading the coalition at the beginning understood the necessity of both freedom and tradition. They also understood that while communism was the preeminent threat, it was—as the founding conservative document, the Sharon Statement, put it—only “at present” the greatest threat. Anti-communism was not a principle but one aspect of a tradition that justified self-defense, a pragmatic necessity to preserve freedom and tradition. Likewise, libertarianism by itself had no rooted value structure even to minimize theft under the guise of reducing inequality. Traditionalism alone could become authoritarian and rigid but, as libertarian Hayek noted, free societies require customs and traditions to sustain them.
While factions will always exist, leaders of such single ideological perspectives necessarily will be viewed as partisans of that faction and will not be accepted as movement-wide leaders. Only one who internalizes the necessity of both liberty and tradition can make it work. That was Reagan’s secret to success and the only path forward. He was not a carpenter of stools but a synthesizer of Western wisdom, recognized as such by a sufficient number to be granted power. What the conservative movement needs most today is more philosophical debating clubs and less talk about power. If it gets the former right, the latter will follow.