Evaluating conservatism's place within the mission of the College

Holding Fast: The importance of considering the ambiguity of Obama's legacy

On January 10, 2017, former President Barack Obama delivered his farewell address to the nation. It was a classic showcase of the rhetorical skill that brought Obama to the national spotlight years ago, which served him well in his two terms as president. But tension lay at the heart of his message between his attempt to frame the successes of his presidency and his rather urgent call to action to save our democracy in the face of Trump’s presidency. The tension between his promise of change and his ability to keep those promises raises questions about how his presidency will be remembered, especially in the face of the uncertainty surrounding the new administration. I know I am painting with broad strokes here, but I believe Obama will be remembered for his largely successful domestic policies, failed foreign policies and dangerous expansion of executive powers.
As far as domestic policy goes, I believe his record on the economy will be remembered as quite successful. Our recovery from the 2008 recession has been long and slow, but it has been much stronger than recoveries in most other developed countries and employment has rebounded to higher levels. How much of this should be credited to Obama’s leadership is certainly up for debate, but as presidents usually receive blame or praise for the state of the economy when they leave office, I think Obama will be well-remembered on this score.
Obama’s single greatest accomplishment in domestic policy was the Affordable Care Act. Healthcare reform was one of Obama’s central campaign promises in the 2008 election, and whatever you think of the law, everyone can agree that he did accomplish something significant. Twenty million people gained insurance as a result of the law, many of whom would have previously been denied coverage due to preexisting conditions. But the law remains deeply controversial, mostly because of the structuring of the heavily regulated individual exchanges and individual mandate that requires everyone to purchase health insurance. As premiums rise and competition in the state exchanges decreases, it is possible that some of Republicans’ worst fears will come true and the law will end up costing taxpayers more than originally promised. That is, of course, only in the unlikely event that Republicans don’t pull the plug on the law before it gets that far.
In foreign policy, Obama came into office with a fairly promising agenda. He intended to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and reorient our priorities away from spreading democratic values through unilateral military action. Throughout his presidency, Obama remained deeply suspicious of military intervention and even used the mantra “Don’t do stupid shit” as a sort of guiding philosophy for his foreign policy.
While no one will disagree with the wisdom of that statement, it is an open question whether this skeptical attitude really helped him develop coherent foreign policy positions in response to international conflict. If we look at his policies in the Middle East, it seems he has not fully succeeded in this regard. There are still American troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan—granted, there are far fewer than when he came into office. We have engaged in bombing campaigns and supported various factions in civil wars in Syria, Libya and Yemen, all of which are far worse off than they were eight years ago. Obama’s skepticism toward increasing military commitments may be wise, but that doesn’t change the fact the U.S. is today just as involved in military conflicts with no clear aim and no end in sight.
Of course, it is unfair to blame Obama for things out of his control, such as the rise of ISIS and foreign civil wars that would have happened regardless of his actions. But the president does have considerable power to shape the strategic objectives of American foreign policy and take actions consistent with those ends. I believe his main problem was a lack of clarity in his view of America’s place in the world. He rejected the idea that America is endowed with a certain moral authority to enforce democratic values around the world, but his actions in response to the Arab Spring and Ukrainian uprising show that he was just as willing as his predecessor to use American power to shape the world in our image. And despite his skepticism of “nation-building,” our troops are committed to that very task in Afghanistan for years to come.
Finally, the Obama administration has continued to expand the powers of the “Imperial Presidency,” which refers to a president’s executive powers that have grown unchecked for the better part of the past half-century. His ordering of extrajudicial drone strikes, expansion of National Security Agency surveillance capabilities and liberal use of executive orders are a legacy that even Democrats have expressed concern with. Especially now that all of these tools have been handed to Donald Trump, a man whose lack of respect for rule of law and restraint are, shall we say, not exactly encouraging.
All things considered, I believe President Obama had his share of successes and failures, but his inability to bring about much of the change he promised leaves his legacy in an ambiguous position. And although many will remember him more kindly as the Trump presidency wears on, I think it is wise to reflect critically on Obama’s accomplishments before donning our rose-colored glasses.

Holding Fast: Debunking misconceptions about conservative values

In this column two weeks ago, I tried to write about my understanding of the relationship between conservatism and the mission of the College. At the risk of harping too much on the subject, I want to expand a bit on that column and be a bit more specific about what I mean by “conservatism.” There are a lot of misconceptions and unfair caricatures surrounding the term, no thanks to our current commander-in-chief, and I thought it would be helpful to clarify for the sake of improving dialogue between the left and right.
At the outset, I should note that conservatism is not a single political ideology. According to British political theorist Michael Oakeshott, it is a disposition which inclines people to prefer “certain kinds of conduct and certain conditions of human circumstances to others.” The vagueness of this definition leaves a lot of room for interpretation in particular cases, but there are some defining characteristics of the conservative disposition that remain more or less the same.
Conservative thinker Russell Kirk drew some of these traits from the intellectual tradition he carefully traced from Irish statesman Edmund Burke to T.S. Eliot in his seminal book “The Conservative Mind.” These include adherence to custom, belief in the principle of prudence and the preference of voluntary community over forced association. At its heart, the conservatism Kirk describes is not inherently political but is a way of seeing the world that intimately informs the way we live and act within it. This has definite political implications, but these are always secondary to conservatism’s primary concern for ordered and peaceful life.
When these general traits are applied to more specific political programs, it should not be a surprise to see some variety and disagreement. In fact, this is one of the great strengths of conservatism. There is room for those who put an emphasis on liberty and classify themselves as libertarians, as well as “crunchy cons” like “American Conservative” blogger Rod Dreher who place more value upon the communal and traditional side of conservatism. Because there are no thought police to enforce uniformity among its ranks, conservatism has always thrived on vibrant debates over its foundational principles.
Of course, if you think I am painting too rosy a picture of conservative unity, then you are correct. It would be a stretch to say that all conservatives are equally devoted to the principle of prudence in politics, for example. But my point is not to justify what every conservative believes or says as a legitimate expression of conservative principles. Rather, I wish to give a slightly more personal take on conservatism and why I think it is so important to recognize the virtues of that self-identification.
For me, the most important aspect of conservatism is its tendency to approach politics with caution and not to endow it with the characteristics of a life or death struggle. There is a temptation in modern politics to engage in a “politics of the eschaton” where every battle will lead either to salvation or Armageddon. In contrast, the conservative recognizes that politics is a necessary but secondary realm of human activity. It is not important as an end in itself, as if political action could save souls or usher in the Kingdom of God. Rather, it is necessary as a means to living a peaceful collective life, where every individual is left with a sphere of freedom in which he or she can live out a moral and meaningful life.
This is an especially important outlook to have in today’s political climate. It allows us to focus not on the grand political schemes but to turn the light on our own souls to determine whether we are using our freedom in an appropriate manner. As the recently departed scholar Michael Novak noted, there are two kinds of liberty: “one precritical, emotive, whimsical, proper to children; the other critical, sober, deliberate, responsible, proper to adults.” If the former type of liberty dominates among a population, no amount of state control can maintain order. But if the latter does, then order can be maintained with a limited amount of state action and the individual can be truly free to pursue the good life for him or herself.
So as a conservative, I am far more interested in cultivating the virtues in my own life that are conducive to sustaining a free society and in assisting my neighbor in doing the same. I have no grand vision for society that I would like to impose on everyone else. Contrary to popular perception, being a conservative does not mean wanting to bring society back to some “golden age” where everything was supposedly better. I know that history is always far more complicated than the narratives we build to explain it, so I don’t have any illusions about the dangers of naïve nostalgia. But if reclaiming the virtues necessary to sustaining our republic means going back in time to determine how we can be better citizens, I am all for using the wisdom of past ages as our guide.
With these brief thoughts on my own political inclinations, hopefully I have at least done a little to reclaim some intellectual respectability for conservatism. Given the current political climate, I think that’s a necessary first step to improving political dialogue on campus.

Holding Fast

Evaluating conservatism's place within the mission of the College

This piece represents the opinion of the author:

Ryan Ward

Columnist

February 9, 2017

Last Friday, the Joseph McKeen Center for the Common Good partnered with a number of student organizations to put on an event called “Partisanship on Campus: Confronting a Culture of Caution.” In keeping with President Clayton Rose’s mission to foster intellectual diversity on campus, the discussion focused on both the nature of the problem of political homogeneity and ideas for possible solutions. There were a number of good questions and comments, but one student posed a question that particularly intrigued me. Essentially, he asked whether conservatism is underrepresented on campus because its values are in fact opposed to the mission of the College to advance values of equality and inclusiveness.

The thrust of the question may have been aimed more at the appalling opinions held by some Trump supporters than at conservatism in general, but I think there is a point to be made about the incongruity of conservative values with the mission the College has set for itself today. If this is the case, then it is possible that the deficiency of political diversity on campus is driven by more than just a dearth of conservative students. The problem lies instead with the fundamental assumptions of the College that directly contradict the core values of conservatives.

For at least the last half-century, the American academy has on the whole viewed conservatism with skepticism at the very best and downright hostility at worst. This is probably not due to any personal animus on the part of individual professors, but is largely a function of how colleges and universities frame their own role in society. By seeking to advance scientific knowledge in both the natural sciences and the humanities, some colleges largely disregard conservatives for their stubborn insistence upon the value of the past and their reticence towards the very notion of historical progress. When the goal is not to preserve the wisdom of past ages but to change this one for the better, the conservative can only act as an impediment to the very goals of higher education.

New York University moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt has done extensive work to point out the inherent biases in the social sciences and in academia more generally. He is the director of “Heterodox Academy,” a site that provides a great primer on how the underlying assumptions of disciplines such as sociology psychology and to an extent, political science, actually constitute a very particular way of envisioning human nature. These assumptions happen to be based entirely upon what we might generally call a liberal worldview. Haidt identifies several of these “entrenched but questionable” assumptions, including the view that humans are “blank slates,” that humans naturally possess universal human rights and the role that society plays in “constructing” the individual through impersonal social forces.

These beliefs provide the foundation for those disciplines which hope to not only describe social conditions, but also to change them. This outlook has spread beyond the confines of the social sciences and has affected how many modern academics envision their task—that is, to draw attention to unjust social relations, to expose them to critical analysis and to work toward reform in the name of social justice. These are such verities in academia today that to question them does indeed seem very heterodox, perhaps even heretical. Indeed, you might say that any worldview that denies these accepted facts is not really worthy of inclusion in an academic environment.

But I submit that conservatives offer a perfectly reasonable alternative to many of the orthodoxies held by academics and students today, for conservatism is not simply a political ideology. It is a disposition that inclines people to regard any attempt to change human nature for the better with skepticism. It recognizes that man is a flawed creature and that any attempt to improve society by reducing man to an object of study is bound to end in failure and will often make us worse off.

The goal of the social sciences and humanities to improve the world we live in is laudable, but only insofar as they take into account the accumulated wisdom of the past and the inherent limits to human endeavors. The conservative acts not only as a boring scold who puts roadblocks in front of human progress, but rather as someone who questions the very notion of historical progress in the first place. For conservatives, the academy is important not because of its revolutionary capacities, but because of its function as a repository of the wisdom of the past. It is at this unique place that we meet with the great minds who came before us and dealt with many of the same perennial problems that we encounter with human nature. What we find may challenge our most deeply held convictions, but that is precisely the point of a liberal education.

The liberal assumptions challenged by this outlook are deeply entrenched in our campus culture, and many will find it offensive even to suggest that they are open to questioning. But if we are truly interested in intellectual diversity on campus, we must allow this alternative worldview to have a place in academic discourse. Rather than writing off the conservative view of human nature as outdated and wrong-headed, we would do well to take it seriously enough to chasten some of the assumptions that lie at the heart of the College’s mission.

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