At the top of every conservative’s reading list for 2023 should be Yoram Hazony’s latest book, Conservatism: A Rediscovery. Hazony offers a comprehensive look at how liberalism has failed and given birth to a rising cultural Marxism; how the rediscovery of true, Anglo-American conservativism offers our best hope for the future; and how advocates of tradition must be willing to do more than spout conservative ideas but must actually live a conservative life.
To understand Hazony’s ideas it is important to understand that much of the American “conservative” political agenda of the last half century has actually been a form of right-leaning liberalism. Americans often use the term “liberal” to exclusively describe Democrats, “progressives,” and various left-wing ideologues. But this is a recent and rather novel application of the word and many of today’s so-called conservatives are, in fact, liberals in the classical sense.
Liberalism, as Hazony explains in great historical detail, is a modern political philosophy that dates back to John Locke, based on the assumption that the “free” individual is the basic unit of society. Liberalism posits that human beings can use pure reason to arrive at universal political principles to organize societies based purely on personal consent. Liberals believe that the main purpose of government is to maximize individual liberty, freeing us from the constraints of tradition, which is always viewed as backward and oppressive.
Hazony contrasts liberalism with conservatism, which takes many forms across different cultures. His interest is in the specific tradition of Anglo-American conservatism, which emerged from the British constitution and was best embodied by the ideas of key American Founders associated with the Federalist Party, including George Washington, John Adams, and Alexander Hamilton, among others. These Founding Fathers did not see the new American republic as a radical departure from tradition, a new order based on pure reason and the idolization of the individual, but rather as the restoration of a British heritage dating back to Magna Carta in 1215 A.D.
Anglo-American conservatism honors the dignity of the individual (based on key principles rooted in the Judeo-Christian religious tradition), but sees a far more robust and complex purpose for government than merely the protection of individual rights. Conservatism recognizes that human beings are born into social structures, including the family, clans, tribes, and nations. It is through these social structures that human beings learn to exercise honor and live virtuous lives.
“Political obligation is a consequence of membership in families, tribes, and nations,” Hazony explains. Governments exist to help preserve these traditional social structures and reason alone cannot guide us in determining the best course of policy for any given people in a given time. Good government includes democratic structures that allow groups with varying interests to peaceably compete with one another without resorting to violence. These structures include a strong executive, separation of powers, and a respect for private property, but also a deference to religion as the moral foundation of society and a concern to balance individual liberties with the protection of the common good (thus conservatives favor trade policies that ensure the nation’s economic independence and immigration policies that welcome newcomers but expect a level of assimilation to the overall national culture).
These principles of Anglo-American conservatism generally guided much of U.S. political affairs at all levels of government until the end of the Second World War (Hazony discusses the notable trauma of the American Civil War and how the Confederacy and its legacy of racial discrimination was based on principles that contradicted core values of the Anglo-American tradition).
However, after the World Wars Western nations universally adopted a modernist, liberal point of view, falsely believing that the honoring of traditions was what contributed to the rise of fascism. Religion was summarily rejected from the public square and the focus of the entire culture became the elevation of the individual and the maximization of personal freedom. Even people who thought of themselves as conservatives tended to adopt this worldview, endorsing open borders and free markets in ways that eroded national sovereignty and the integrity of local communities and traditional families. By the end of the Cold War, Anglo-American conservatism had been utterly marginalized and the values of liberalism were universally accepted everywhere.
The results, as we know, have been devastating. In a particularly lucid chapter, Hazony describes how the blind spots of liberalism, which refuses to recognize the importance of any institution that stands between the individual and the state, inevitably leads to totalitarianism. Liberalism is especially incapable of mounting a defense against the rise of cultural Marxism.
The greatest concern of liberals is to free the individual to maximize personal choices. And since Marxists see oppression of the individual everywhere, the liberal is far too willing to allow accommodations that expand the power of the state in the name of freeing the individual from their oppressors. Thus liberals cooperate repeatedly with the steady expansion of the Marxist agenda until they, too, are made subservient to its goals.
Hazony shows how traditional conservatism provides time-honored, effective ways to make adjustments in public policies to redress the legitimate grievances of minority groups without destroying the very fabric of the culture that gives rise to such concerns in the first place. But the only way to turn back the Marxist tide, Hazony argues, is for liberals to acknowledge the danger and make alliance with traditional conservatives to openly oppose their “woke” agenda.
The last section of the book includes some personal reflections about Yoram Hazony’s own life journey as a conservative. In perhaps the most powerful chapter of Conservatism: A Rediscovery, Hazony argues that those who see value in conservatism must ultimately commit to living a conservative life. This means, among other things, committing to marriage and having children, being a part of a religious congregation that preaches and practices traditional values, and investing in the local community.
No matter what kinds of choices one has made in the past, Hazony argues that it is never too late to take up the work of living a conservative life. Our own well-being, and definitely the well-being of future generations, is at stake.
Conservativism: A Rediscovery is a vitally important book for anyone who wants to make sense of why it feels like American society is coming apart at the seams. Yoram Hazony shows what we’ve lost as a culture, and why. He also points a way back that requires much more than just voting a particular way. In fact, the conservative agenda is far more than a political program. It is a way of life, and one we should commence to live more fully.
About the Reviewer:
Gary W. Houchens, PhD, is professor of education administration at Western Kentucky University. A former teacher and school administrator, Gary serves as a policy advisor for several Kentucky education reform organizations. From 2016-2019 he served on the Kentucky Board of Education.