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Entry: Right From the Beginning Link: http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/right_from_the_beginning#22904 Post contents: I wonder if such paleos came to the movement the way I did. Despite living only 30 miles away, I had no idea the Rockford, Ill. Institute even existed, let alone know of the existence of Chronicles magazine while growing up in Beloit, Wisconsin. The first time I heard either mentioned at all was in the hit piece done on them by David Frum in his book Dead Right which came out in 1993. It wasn’t until 1997 that I picked up my first edition of Chronicles at the newsstand section of my local bookstore in Shawano, Wisconsin where I was working at the time. The reason I so identified with the paleo movement after reading Chronicles was the fact that while I considered myself nominally a conservative, those who were the dominant conservatives in the 1990s as pundits, political leaders and talk show hosts were repugnant to me. Maybe it was my Midwestern humility, but I never was able to identify with a right so filled with smart asses and arrogant jerks. They were simply mirrors of their leftist counterparts. When I found out that the writers and editors of Chronicles felt the same way, I knew I had found a home for my then still formulating beliefs. I also realized that what I was reading was far different than any other opinion magazine I had read up until then. It gave a context to conservative thought that was more important than writing about the next election or the latest up and coming politician. Other magazines dealt with politics and policy, Chronicles dealt with what makes politics and policy and that is culture. I will also add the fact I lived and worked in small farming towns since graduating from college also added to Chronicles’ appeal because it is written from the point of view of such communities rather than the point of view of the coasts. What are we creating for future generations? Chilton Williamson Jr. nailed it during a column in a recent issue of Chronicles. What are we, as young paleocons, writing or creating that is relevant, new or long lasting? If all we are doing is just blogging or writing internet columns, heck that’s what Jonah Goldberg does too everyday. What does it say when National Review Online is more relevant to so-called conservatives than National Review the magazine? Austin Bramwell also put it well in his recent American Conservative article: “Whatever its past accomplishments, the conservative movement no longer kindles any “ironic points of light.” It has produced fewer outstanding books even as it has taken over more of the intellectual and political landscape. This trend will only continue. Worse, no reckoning will be made: they hope in vain who expect conservatives to take responsibility for the actual consequences of their actions. Conservatives have no use for the ethic of responsibility; they seek only to “see to it that the flame of pure intention is not quelched.” The movement remains a fine place to make a career, but for wisdom one must look elsewhere.” I recently went to a Borders book store to buy a DVD for my father’s birthday and was just amazed at the number of books in the politics section. The problem was, for all the quantity of books out there, the quality is just utter crap. Most are either ghost-written screeds from talk-show hosts or pundits, self-serving biographies or short-term political party strategy books. There is a movement out there. I read a story in a newspaper recently about a small town in rural Virginia that’s trying to use what has to sell itself as a place live rather than sell out to the god of progress and try to lure some big industry to town with basket full of tax breaks or build big box stores over cornfields. That’s important because it shows that resistence to globalization isn’t just confined to leftist college towns. One can find it all across the country in the rural areas of the Midwest, West, South and New England or what remains of cohesive neighborhoods in large cities. Rod Dreher hit upon this with his book Crunchy Cons. Now I think Dreher should be sued for plagerism because much of what he’s written about comes right out the pages of Chronicles itself but I’m sure TRI is content to know its work has not been done in isolation. What thiis shows is that there is a large pool of tradition-minded, local-minded, patroon-like people out there caught in between the squeeze of multiculturalism, globalism, the mammon worshippers and the neoconservatives. This is why we’ve rejected the conservative movement, because it wasn’t about conserving anything anymore and because we couldn’t figure out which side of the “fusionist” coalation its victories were due to. Not to mention the fact its promoters are some of the most repulsive, annoying and stupid people on earth. A Georgia farmer can call himself a conservative like his neighbors do, but if he willingly takes his peanut-subsidy from Feds, what good is his conservatism? For many its simply a standard of tribal loyalty they’ve really give little thought to other than they know who they are and who the “other” isn’t as Bramwell also points out: <i>“Conservatism is entertaining. Understanding the world, though rewarding, provides nothing like the pleasures of a “Two Minute Hate,” a focused, ritualized denunciation of enemies. To induce its own Two Minute Hates, conservatism, like Ingsoc in 1984, manufactures bogeymen such as “judicial activists,” “so-called realists,” or “moral relativists” that become symbolic representations of detested outsiders. Meanwhile, like the Inner Party in 1984, conservative leaders tolerate the more vulgar, angry purveyors of ideology—think talk-show hosts or authors of bestselling political books. The most vicious attacks, meanwhile, are reserved for turncoats, like Goldstein in 1984. (Of course, as many paleoconservatives could attest, the hatred is usually mutual.) Rooting for conservative ideology is as engrossing to its partisans as rooting for the local football team is to its fans. The roots of ideology lie deep in our cognitive limitations and instinct for group loyalty. One could make similar observations of any ideology. The most distinguishing feature of conservatism is its misleading name. Lexically, “conservatism” denotes caution, prudence, and resistance to change. Conservatism the ideology, however, has if anything tended towards recklessness. “Nuke ‘em!” has always been a popular conservative sentiment, never more so than today with respect to the Muslim world. For frantic boast and foolish word / Thy mercy on thy people Lord!</i> No movement can exist without ideas, likeminded people and a place where they all come together. Certainly the original conservative movement could not have existed without a book like Witness and a place like Southern California. With TRI and other institutions we can create the ideas, with magazines like Chronicles and the American Conservative and a book like <i>The Politics of Human Nature</i> along with a few leaders we can find and bring together the likeminded people and with decentralization we can create the places where it all comes together. Sent at: 2008 10 12