Correspondence

The following letters were received from readers immediately following the coverage that tNP received in The New York Times (July 17, 2004: 1A) this summer.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for finally arriving.

Tami Hughes

It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.
     After reading the new pantagruel.

congrats!

Tony Carnes
Senior News Writer
Christianity Today

Came across you via today’s New York Times “Post Buckley” article.

I’ll cram my reaction to your “Welcome to the New Pantagruel” essay into one short sentence.

Christianity will continue imploding inexorably as long as there are hungry wretches living in squalor, sparkling young theoreticians with unlimited time to philosophise about America’s grossly overrated view of herself and a vast, vast majority, sadly in the first instance, mercifully in the second, who, frankly, don’t give a damn.

Regards,
David Marsden
Baruba W.I.

Dear Mr. Stegall,

Once upon a time, I read Chesterton, T. S. Eliot, and every copy of First Things – and reached for the kind of wit and wisdom you seem to be bringing together at The New Pantagruel. I’m glad to have been reminded. And I admire your “back page” piece on human-scaled sin. Thank you and best wishes.

Sincerely,
Ien Cheng

The definition of conservative was never more a problem than today when an officially ‘conservative’ government is in office that turns out to be anything but, tending as it does more towards the authoritarian or neo-fascist, interventionary style, hugely costly and insensitive to the environment and human rights.

From the time I read both Aristotle and Burke in the same term in graduate school, I have thought of conservative as meaning concern with the individual. The identification and realization of the qualities of the individual, the useful application and fulfillment of an individual’s nature and worth in society are the bedrock of responsible conservative thought, it seems to me, whether in the context of ancient Greece or 18th-Century England.

If we had a clear definition of the philosophical and practical under- pinnings of the conservative view, there would be more clarity in politics today, and more effective function of our Democracy. Perhaps one way to approach this is to say what ‘conservative’ is not.

Let’s look at some ideas, perhaps disabuse some illusions, on what the conservative movement, by its original definition, is not. First, it is not an obstacle to change. It nurtures and cohabits with change, manages it, uses it. Man is a rational animal, and if we do not use our heads to absorb and implement knowledge and insight learnt over the ages by the combined mental efforts of mankind in science, social politics, technology, psychology - then we are not being ourselves. Ideas cannot be resisted; they can only be delayed. In political terms, “conservative” has come to mean for many “reactionary.” Hold to the status quo. Never learn but never forget. Isolationism. All these terms are thrice-familiar throughout the centuries, and if there is one thing we have learnt, or should have, it is that resistance to change only leads to a big bang in the end, whether it is the French Revolution, World War, or economic depression and disaster or the music of Arnold Schoenberg.

Another thing conservatism is not is greed, or narcissism – though it often presents itself as such. One thinks immediately of the present US administration, which in the most shockingly obvious way is being first and foremost run for the betterment of it’s ministers and their business interests. One also thinks of Ayn Rand (1905-1982), the novelist (The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged) and proponent of Objectivism philosophy who was, incidentally, a close friend and mentor to Allen Greenspan when he was first starting his career. These entities are always tagged ‘conservative.’ They could not be further from it! The conservative citizen is at his best a caring person, a person who in one religious or ethical belief or another, recognizes an obligation to care of his neighbor and regard the integrity of context, i. e. Nature and environment. He is thrifty, but not foolishly so; he abides by the law, he thinks for himself and works for what he thinks is right. Liberals also do these things, but the classical conservative practitioner is a person who looks at man as a sacred entity and his realization as a sacred, and practically desirable, duty. His starting point is the individual, one might say, to the liberal view, which has a starting point of the group, just to differentiate – admittedly with a simplification. The conservative does not approach education as a matter of “testing,” rather as a matter of challenge, opportunity and support. And he regards as one of conservatism’s principle well springs the worth of Nature over that of the New York Stock Exchange or The First National Bank. He knows that Nature abounds in art forms and crafts of all kinds, and he equates the mind as equal to the body. He would, at least in theory, champion an Olympics of the mind, something the ancient Greeks should have established but never got round to. They were good thinkers and formulators but, alas, got overly involved with matters corporeal.

In the end, I suppose, there is no great difference between liberals and conservatives for we are all human beings who want the best outcome to our lives. Disparity comes in the process of getting there. The two Roosevelts, Theodore and Franklin, are good symbols for what I am saying here – T. the quintessential proponent of healthy and I would say “true” conservatism, and F. the pragmatic liberal at its best, the man with a view towards doing a great deal to realize the potential of the individual, yet practical and not a socialist. I also like the late Senator Henry Jackson of Washington State who was wont to say: “Yes I am a liberal, but I’m not a damn fool!” More of these gentlemen, please.

James A. Van Sant
Santa Fe, New Mexico