By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, August 28th, 2012 
There was an interesting exchange on my Facebook page following my last post. I am re-posting it this afternoon because I think it opens some important points and may serve as a guide to understand more deliberately this week’s Republican National Convention. The dialogue reveals alternative positions on conservative politics and the way progressives engage with conservative thought and practice. I think it is an interesting beginning of a discussion beyond partisan intellectual gated communities, as Gary Alan Fine has called for in these pages. I welcome the continuation of the discussion here, hope it illuminates theoretical and pressing practical questions . -Jeff
I opened on Facebook by quoting a central summary of the post. The irony: “Ryan’s nomination, I believe, assures the re-election of President Obama. The basis of my belief is a judgment that Americans generally are guided by a conservative insight, an American suspicion of ideological thought. Conservative insight defeats the conservative ticket.” And then a debate followed.
Harrison Tesoura Schultz: Would you say that the conservatives have become too extreme for most people to believe that they’re still actually ‘conservatives?’
Alvino-Mario Fantini @Harrison: What I always want to know is: “too extreme” in reference to what? Public opinion? (It seems to shift.) In comparison to conventional wisdom? (It, too, seems to change over the centuries.) The problem, I would suggest, is not that conservatives have become too extreme for people but that basic conservative ideas and principles are no longer known or understood, and increasingly considered irrelevant.
Jeffrey Goldfarb: Extremism in defense of liberty is a vice and it is not conservative. So, I think you are both right. People who call themselves conservatives are often not, rather they are right wing ideologues. Too much for the general public, I think, hope. On the other hand, . . .
Read more: Conservative Principles vs. Conservative Practices: A Continuing Discussion
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, August 24th, 2012 
In the past week, I have published in Deliberately Considered and posted on my Facebook page a series of reflections on the implications of the nomination of Paul Ryan as Vice Presidential candidate of the Republican Party. And I have explained that the basis of my understanding of the present situation is a conservative insight concerning the dangers of ideological thought. The replies have been quite illuminating. The discussion starts with an interesting American irony: amusing, perhaps more.
Ryan’s nomination, I believe, assures the re-election of President Obama. The basis of my belief is a judgment that Americans generally are guided by a conservative insight, an American suspicion of ideological thought. Conservative insight defeats the conservative ticket.
Yet, on the intellectual front, there are few conservative thinkers who would illuminate this. Exceptions? Andrew Sullivan, perhaps also David Frum. (Anyone else?) But because these two are so guided, few, if any, conservatives recognize them as comrades in thought.
Aron Hsiao in a reply to one of my posts on conservative intellectuals explains the factors involved:
“The essence of the moment is that the mainstream demographic blocs of the Right have, as an ideological move, adopted anti-intellectualism as a central tenet of conservatism. Any marriage of democratic practice and political epistemology at the moment therefore precludes the conservative intellectual; if someone is intellectual in the slightest, the Right will disown him/her. They are the oft-maligned “RINOs” (Republicans in Name Only). To make matters worse, any intellectual at the moment of any value is loathe to be associated with the totality of the present (i.e. recent form of the) conservative project in America and thus tends to gravitate toward the (D) party. My suspicion is that rationally informed self-selection (they have careers and statuses, after all) results in a state of affairs in which few serious intellectuals can be found in the (R) party…”
Aside from the way he uses the term ideology, I agree completely with Hsiao. The implications are indeed scary. I explained my understanding in my last . . .
Read more: Reflections on an Irony of American Conservatism: More on the Ryan Nomination
By Alvino-Mario Fantini, March 1st, 2012 
In an interesting reply to an earlier post, “Mario” presented an insightful overview of the conservative landscape and summarized what he takes to be the foundational commitments of conservatives. I then asked him a question: How could they be applied to considering deliberately the events of the day in a way that might convince people who are not conservative? Alvino-Mario Fantini presents his response in this post. -Jeff
I think that a meaningful principle of the conservative tradition is that local customs and experiences most often do a far better job at responding to people’s needs than do centralized national systems. I think this is of special importance, even though it does divide the “conservative community.” While, the neo-conservatives seem to believe that there is a formula or pattern or idea that can be applied everywhere regardless of cultural or anthropological or historical context, the paleo-conservatives tend to be more respectful of the local or native traditions of people around the world. (Of course, certain things — female genital mutilation and honor killings, for example — raise other ancillary questions about the need for modernization and whether or not we outsiders should attempt to change such things, but that is another discussion.)
In short, I think that by knowing more about how and why the state has so often and so frequently failed in other contexts, and how political leaders have so often become enamored of power and state influence (leading to horrible atrocities in many countries), we will understand that government is too often — though not always — the main problem or obstacle in the development of people and the flourishing of human societies. Furthermore, I think we’ll see that ideological or utopian visions are almost always the source of policies and state actions that end up being inhumane, unjust and violent in the name of a great progressive leap forward.
Jeff asked, more specifically, how could conservative commitments be applied to the events of the day? I think the main idea is to work towards greater local involvement, smallness of scale and . . .
Read more: Towards the Good Society: A Conservative View
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