Statecraft as Soulcraft: What Government Does 0671427334

Table of contents :
The care of our time --
The defect --
Out of the wilderness --
Second nature --
The broken chain --
Conservative political economy --
Eternity warning time.

Citation preview

IPmrGMRNMEW DOES

$13.95

George book is

Will's

F.

a

long-awaited

full-length

first

profound inquiry into our national Its surprising con-

character and destiny.

clusions are certain to startle

conservatives

and

and challenge

liberals alike.

Will urges us to reconsider some of the most fundamental beliefs in our national history, for he concludes that they have contributed to producing a society that is deeply troubled and in very real danger. Specifically, he examines the belief, which dates back to the founding of the

nation

itself,

that "there

is

no

right principle of

He

action but self-interest."

questions the

moral balance and national cohesiveness will be supplied by the government's doing little more than encourag-

Founding

Fathers' faith that

ing the free operation of "opposite interests."

Two hundred

years

later,

and

rival

says Will,

it

worked out that way. Instead, we have become a nation of individuals and inter-

just hasn't

est

groups given to habitual self-indulgence in

unchecked pursuit of material acquisitions and private passions, and we have been weakened as a civilization to the point that there is some question whether a society so morally and spiritually reduced can long endure. the

Much of the fault, says Will, may be traced to our inadequate understanding of the shaping and guiding role that government can and should play in determining the moral character of its citizens. We have settled for too narrow a definition of government. Although economic policy there

is

moral choices too, government than eco-

consists of

much more

nomics, says Will.

A

to

free-market

economy

not, in itself, a sufficient goal for a

conservative government.

The proper

statecraft, says Will, are justice, social

is

properly goals of

cohesion

and national strength. Therefore, he urges the (continued on back flap)

Also by George Will

The The

Pursuit of Happiness and Other Sobering Pursuit of Virtue and Other

Tory Notions

Thoughts

STATECRAFT AS

SOULCRAFT WHAT GOVERNMENT DOES GEORGE

E

WILL

SIMON AND SCHUSTER

NEW YORK

©

Copyright 1983 by G.F.W., Inc., A Maryland Corporation All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form Published by Si?non and Schuster Division of Gulf Western Corporation Simon Schuster Building Rockefeller Center 12 so Avenue of the Americas New York, New York 10020

&

A

&

Simon and Schuster and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon

& Schuster

Designed by Edith Fowler Manufactured in the United States of America 10

987654321

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Will,

George

F.

Statecraft as soulcraft.

Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. State, The. 2. Conservatism. 3. Welfare state. I.

Title.

JC251.W53

3203

1983

83-455

ISBN 0-671-42733-4 The author is grateful for permission to use excerpts from the following works:

©

Daniel Patrick Moynihan in The New Yorker, 1981. Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Roy P. Basler, ed., copyright 1953 by the Abraham Lincoln Association. Reprinted by permission of Rutgers University Press. The Federalist, by James Madison, copyright 1961. Reprinted by permission of Wesley an University Press. Democracy in America, by Alexis de Tocqueville, The Henry Reeve text, rev. by Francis Bowen, Phillips Bradley, ed., copyright 1963, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Reprinted by permission. Adams Family Correspondence, L. H. Butterfield and Marc Friedlaender, eds., copyright 1913, Harvard University Press. Reprinted by permission.

The

©

©

©

©

The Life & Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Adrienne Koch and William Peden, eds., copyright © 1944, The Modern Library,

The Shock

Random House, Inc. of the New, by Robert Hughes,

©

copyright Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Reprinted by permission. "Prometheus Unbound" from Shelley's Poetry & Prose, selected and edited by Donald H. Reiman and Sharon G. Powers, copyright Co. 1977, W. W. Norton 1981,

©

&

©

of Law, by Lon Fuller, copyright 1964 by Yale University Press. Reprinted by permission. Troilus and Cressida, by William Shakespeare, Jackson J. Campbell, ed., copyright 1959 by Yale University Press. Reprinted by permission. Poems, 1 92 5- 1 940, by Louis MacNeice, copyright i960, Faber Faber, London. Reprinted by permission. u Little Gidding," in Four Quartets, copyright 194s by T. S. Eliot; renewed 1971 by Esme Valerie Eliot. Reprinted by permission of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. History of the United States During the Administrations of

The Morality

©

©

&

©

Jefferson and Madison, by Henry Adams; field and Otey M. Scruggs, eds., copyright Hall, Inc. Reprinted by permission.

George Danger-

©

1963, Prentice-

To

Frederick L. Will

Philosopher

Contents

ONE

TWO THREE

FOUR FIVE SIX

SEVEN

Preface

ii

The Care of Our Time The Defect

i5

25

Out

47

of the Wilderness

Second Nature

The Broken Chain

66 97

Economy Eternity Warning Time

140

Acknowledgments

167

Notes

169

Index

'79

Conservative Political

122

Well, then, a commonwealth

is

the property

of a people. But a people is not any collection of human beings brought together in

any sort of "way, but an assemblage of peonumbers associated in an agreement with respect to justice and a partnership for the common good. The first cause of such an association is not so much the weakness of the individual as a certain social spirit which nature has implanted in man.

ple in large

—Marcus Tullius Cicero

Preface

On a

those infrequent occasions when readers want to confer

compliment on

are apt to praise

mean

is

columnist (or

a

on

at least,

this

one) they

him for not being "predictable." What they

that there

is

an element of surprise, an unanticipated

turn or outcome in what he writes. But a political commentator

who

really

is

rudder, and

When

a

respond:

unpredictable

whose work

kind reader

To

the Oxford

anyone

is

me

calls

who

a writer

reflects

no

unpredictable,

sufficiently familiar

Movement,

circa

1842,

and no

is all sail

discernible philosophy.

all

I

am tempted

to

with the minds of

my

conclusions are

predictable.

However, the most

ment

is

because he bears

It is

a

by

the reading public that the arguer,

a particular political label,

ticular predictability.

being

frustrating aspect of a life of public argu-

the assumption

This gives

must have

a par-

a writer a dispiriting sense of

captive of conventional— but inadequate— categories.

not unreasonable for people to think that ideas

clusters, like grapes.

They

think that

if

a

person holds

come

in

a certain

11

STATECRAFT AS SOULCRAFT

12

then he probably subscribes to certain other specific

belief,

ideas— not because the others are logically entailed by the

but because the others

idea,

to

come stuck Most

together with the

from

politicians flee

because

"conservative,"

first

seem, as a matter of custom,

just

first idea.

and

political labels like "liberal"

the

may

labels

circumscribe

their

constituencies. But labels are reasonable, because a

political

The

reasonable person's political judgments are not random.

familiar clusters of ideas manifest congruences and affinities that express political temperaments as well as political philosophies. Political ideas

there are moments, and this

portant

to

suggest

people cluster, politically. But

cluster; is

one,

cluster of ideas that

when

commonly thought

is

particularly im-

it is

clusterings.

alternative

to constitute con-

servatism should be pried apart and reconstituted. This is

intended

am

I

if

belief in strong

all

do

ing for

not,

Be

essentials of the I

am

intelligent persons of goodwill should covet

which

tastes.

yourself a conservative

call

question usually pertains to

try to answer those questions here.

the label conservative.

up the

The

government, including the

state. I will

not arguing that

ingly,

do you

believe" this or that?

welfare

book

such prying apart.

"Why

often asked:

you

my

as a lever for

the

Specifically,

I

just

know many goes to

that as

it

such persons who, amaz-

show

may,

that there

now

a

is

is

no account-

good time to tidy

idea of conservatism. Classifications should classify; they

should include and exclude in ways that ing.

The

classification "conservative"

that

it is

becoming an impediment to

dent government.

My

aim

is

is

facilitate

understand-

so frayed at the edges

clear thinking

and pru-

to recast conservatism in a

form

compatible with the broad popular imperatives of the day, but also to

change somewhat the agenda and even the vocabulary

of contemporary politics. those

who

difficult

call

To

those

who

themselves conservatives,

than you think.

I

are liberals and to say: Politics

is

more

PREFACE

My

I

primary concern

is

dition. Inevitably, society

not with a theory, but with a conis,

to

some

extent, an arena

interested parties conflict and compete.

But

it

is

where

neither in-

evitable nor acceptable for a society to be, as ours increasingly is,

an arena where big battalions clash by day and night.

yet that

is

to license

apt to be the case it

by low

when

the public philosophy seems

expectations, and

seem unconcerned with the bridling of

What follows all

seasons. It

is

is

when

public institutions

egoistic motives.

one person's persuasion, but a persuasion for

the distillation of

and professor of

And

two decades spent

political philosophy, a

member

student

as a

of the staff of

the United States Senate and a commentator on public

These experiences have

left

me

affairs.

feeling moderate dismay about

modern government, and somewhat more dismay about the likely long-term consequences of the philosophic assumptions

that underlie the culture

So

I

which modern governance

reflects.

have tried to strike a middling tone, between that of a

tinkling

cymbal and

a firebell in the night.

CHAPTER ONE

The Care of Our Time Our country

is

not a thing of mere physical

locality.

—Edmund Burke

In

barbarians sacked

a.d. 410,

Rome, and Augustine, was

pundit, reached for his pen. His aim

from the charge result

was De

that

it

hausted. Lest

you be

have to say

on

is

ability so

undertaking

is

When

down

to defend Christianity

Saint Augustine picked

until a large subject

me

anxious, let

a

that

what

I

have no provocation,

as those of Saint

Augustinian in two senses.

up

had been ex-

you

assure

a less exhausting scale. I

grand

born

was culpable for the calamity. The

Civitati Dei.

pen, he didn't put

aim or

it

a

Augustine. But

First, I

my

am concerned

about the possibility of a kind of slow-motion barbarization

from within of the few

which

polities

are

that stand be-

all

tween today's worst regimes and the fulfillment of baric ends. Second, to explain

my

concern,

I

their bar-

must commit

political philosophy. I

am

become

a lapsed professor of political philosophy. a

commentator on public

seat of the central

government,

quickened interest in the

state

affairs, I

have

and

But having

a resident at the

a continuing,

and standing of

even

a

political philoso-

STATECRAFT AS SOULCRAFT

1

phv.

subscribe to John

I

Stuart

"governing" and ''controlling."

Mill's

A

between

distinction

small cadre governs; the

people control the governors. As regards the principle of representation, the people

cide

who

shall

the political problem."

1

And

class.

good

get

good governors, and

to get consent to

this

thought must be given to gen-

erating a satisfactorv (let us not flinch

erning

"To

decide— their representatives. Thus

government means is

do not decide the questions: they de-

That there must be such

from the phrase) gov-

a class

is, I

think,

bevond

peradventure.

Andrew could

Jackson, the original populist, said anv American

anv

fill

office.

Lenin, expressing himself with uncharac-

"Anv cook

teristic concision, said,

recent populist

who

tried to

can run the

state."

The most

run the United States (Jimmy

Carter) learned to his sorrow that Washington politics

complex profession— a vocation, not an avocation. ing in Congress with professionals,

before he came to town, and after he left. a legislator's

The dav

who

of

whom

schools

were there

planned to be there long

of the "citizen legislator"— the dav

A

great state cannot be run

bv

mav

tremble for

I

mv

when

"citizen legisla-

country when

I

think that

who are Although, God

be sending forth into government people

too proudlv "practical" to take ideas seriouslv.

His servant Senator Pat Movnihan) knows, such "prac-

tical"

people have government prettv

days.

Movnihan

I

a

and amateur administrators.

However,

(like

is

deal-

primarv job was something other than govern-

ment—is gone. tors"

manv

He was

have served

dents.

I

meeting

in the

to themselves these

Cabinet or sub-Cabinet of four Presi-

do not believe a

much

writes:

I

have ever heard

at

a

Cabinet

serious discussion of political ideas— one con-

cerned with

how men,

rather than markets, behave. These

are the necessarv first questions of government. stitution of the

United States

is

The Con-

an immenselv intricate

THE CARE OF OUR TIME judgment

1

how men

as to

will behave, given the circum-

which it was written. It is not at all working well, given the circumstances of

stances of the time in clear that

it is

the present age. But this

Actually, there

and

it is

"What

"How

is

is

never discussed. 2

only one

we

should

we want

kind of people do

Moynihan's basic point

is

question" of government,

"first

live?" or (this

is

the same question)

our citizens to be?" But

bang on: Statesmen

who

are

unaware

of the ideas that shaped the institutions currently in their custody, and uninterested in the ideas that shape the expectations

and tolerances of the citizenry, are statesmen governed by forces they cannot comprehend.

Such statesmen

are apt to think

they have more range for effective action than they actually have.

And

they are apt to have

than they would have were

less

they more aware of the connections between the

mind and the "There

is

life

A

university can be a world of ideas

room

(although Montaigne in his tower

many

emulated by

And

professors).

is

there

not the model

should not be one of them.

Washington,

a

What

I

have seen in

proudly "practical"

spheres

are

society that can be spheres of practice, purely. But

my

of the

the world of ideas and the world of practice,"

wrote Matthew Arnold.

in

life

of society.

a

city, has

of

government dozen years strengthened

conviction that ideas have consequences, and that the con-

templation of ideas

Government specialists.

is,

is

an intensely practical undertaking.

increasingly and necessarily, conducted

by

Progress requires specialization. But specialization

entails neglect of

many

necessary things. That endangers prog-

ress and, ultimately, civilization.

the intellectual

soil in

An

awareness

which today's

is

necessary of

practices and problems

grew.

The United by

articulate

States

had

a

founding moment, presided over

Founding Fathers. They produced one founding

document (the Declaration of Independence)

that

is

a highly

I

STATECRAFT AS SOULCR 1

8

charged declaration of

document

(the Constitution)

whose

interpretation has shaped

every phase of American history and has produced,

Court rulings and is

in

Supreme

body of public philosophy. So

dissents, a

I

and mother

philosophy,

political

a

1

it

mistaken to say that America has got along nicely without

The

political philosophizing.

nation has produced few great

on

political philosophy,

but that

this nation,

more than any other,

work

treatises

phy. However,

if

a

is

is,

in part,

institutions are to maintain the pulse of

they must be animated by constant recurrence to

My

doctrine.

because

of political philoso-

argument

that

is

life,

a justifying

some thinkers long dead have

defined the tasks of today's government, and their definition

is

inadequate and, in the long run, dangerous.

philosophy

Political

But

social experience.

of complaint and

a

is

it

quest for coherent principles of

also often

heeded.

tion of ill

I shall

my

founded.

and

come

events and prophecy of worse to is

is,

is

in

my

case, a

blend

prophecy— complaint about the course of unless the philosopher

not disguise, or delay deploying, the implica-

argument.

It is

If true, this is

that liberal democratic societies are

an especially melancholy bulletin for

the most thoroughly liberal democratic nation, the United States. Aristotle said

about reasoning that a

beginning becomes a big mistake

little

mistake at the

at the end. In politics, a

big

mistake at the founding can bring on the end of what was

founded.

The

greatest

moment

of

American rhetoric culminated

in

the resolve that this Republic "shall not perish from the earth." I

am

that

not predicting that

we

it

will

are systematically (that

system) ignoring advice

soon perish, but is,

Abraham

I

am

saying

as a result of a philosophic

Lincoln gave four years be-

fore his adjuration at Gettysburg. In 1859 he said: It is said

to invent

an Eastern monarch once charged

him

a sentence, to

his

wise

men

be ever in view, and which

should be true and appropriate in

all

times and situations.

THE CARE OF OUR TIME

They

1

presented him the words:

"And

pass

this, too, shall

away." 3 But, Lincoln continued, let us

we may

and that cal

hope

that that

is

not quite true,

endure by "the best cultivation of the physi-

world, beneath and around us; and the intellectual and

moral world within us." 4

Through two

centuries of cultivating the physical world,

Americans have been prodigies of productivity. But for two centuries

some persons— often

and Henry

ville

conservatives, like

Adams— have worried

De Tocque-

that this preoccupation

with the physical world, and with commerce, has meant reckless

neglect of the "moral world." This

because

it

concerns

fitness for

a political

is

worry,

republican government. "Per-

haps the only moral trust with any certainty in our hands," said

Edmund

Burke,

the care of our

"is

fulfillment of that trust

most important of

all

we

By

inadequate

what Burke

called "the

own

are risking

time." 5

revolutions," a "revolution in sentiments,

manners and moral opinions." 6 It will

be

said, instantly

and energetically and broadly, that

"sentiments, manners and moral opinions" are none of the

government's business. Are they not "private" and properly

beyond the

No, they

legitimate concern of public agencies?

are not.

Keats said the world craft

is

is

a "vale of soul-making." I say state-

soulcraft. Just as all education

cause learning conditions conduct, legislation because

it

is

moral education be-

much

legislation

life.

generally considered obvious that government should

not, indeed

frequently;

thing

moral

conditions the action and the thought of

the nation in broad and important spheres in It is

is

cannot it

legislate morality.

But

should do so more often; and

more important. By the

in fact it

it

does

so,

never does any-

legislation of morality

I

mean

the enactment of laws and implementation of policies that proscribe, mandate, regulate, or subsidize behavior that will,

20

STATECRAFT AS BOULGRAFT

over time, have the predictable effect of nurturing, bolstering or altering habits, dispositions and values on

a

Ever since the church replaced the citv been

virtue, the political order has

broad

custodian of

as the

at best

scale.

ambivalent about

the need to be concerned about the inner lives of the people.

The modern

hvperactive as

political order,

it is,

must of neces-

have large consequence on the character of

sity

And

it

among

is,

avoid doing.

more

is

deny

to

that

Government would do

would admit what which

other things, untidy and aesthetically dis-

government

pleasing for

it is

doing.

The aim

come about

apt to

if

does what

it

better

what

Therefore

it is

intelligent people say

what, in

fact,

it

odd, though

it

is

cannot

does

it

of government

government

and forthright about, the fact that statecraft

of,

soulcraft.

citizenrv.

its

is

if it

justice,

more aware

is,

inevitably,

explicable, that so

manv

government cannot or should not do

does in manifest and manifold ways.

In a famous opinion in a famous case (one concerning com-

pulsory flag salutes in schools), Justice Felix Frankfurter wrote:

Law inner I

am

said

concerned with external behavior and not with the

is

life

of man. 6

not sure what Frankfurter meant.

cannot be true.

that proposition

Having

is

The purpose

radically

said that,

I

I

am

of this

sure that

book

is

what he

to say

why

wrong.

can sense the "clicks" of minds closing.

Most Americans probablv consider Frankfurter's statement not just true,

when It

but a truism. But

Felix Frankfurter

has never been true of

it

was not true of American law

was teaching and construing the law.

American government. The

governments should be neutral values

is

major

conflicts about social

only slightly more peculiar than the idea that govern-

ments can be neutral.

why

in

idea that

It is

important to understand not

Frankfurter was wrong, but

be so wrong.

whv

a

man

just

that wise could

THE CARE OF OUR TIME

2

few

has been said that

It

I

things can be as embarrassing as

learning the pedigree of one's ideas. Frankfurter's idea has a

long and distinguished pedigree that includes names important to the founding of this Republic: Locke, Jefferson, Madison.

Their thoughts help explain the great paradox of modern poli-

As government

tics:

become omnipresent and omniprovi-

has

dent regarding material well-being, the jurisdiction of politics has contracted and the dignity of the political vocation has

withered.

But

a philosophic tradition that supports a different

sion than Frankfurter reached about

man"

has a longer and,

This book

aim

is

is,

I

believe,

law and "the inner

more

back to

to bring that tradition

what do you do

to

and to

light,

keep track of

all

these ideas

its

It is

life.

Even allowing

you keep gen-

two

ideas in

my

for the fact that Einstein evidently

had exacting standards concerning what counts it is

of

meeting Albert Einstein, asked: "Master,

erating?" Einstein replied: "But I've had only life."

life

distinguished pedigree.

in part, an exercise in intellectual archeology;

said that Paul Valery,

whole

conclu-

as a

new

idea,

fun to think that you have generated only two fewer than

new

he did. But dusting off old

ideas,

my aim.

be fairly said of the ideas advanced

Whatever

else

here, they will not,

my

main point

Western

is

I

may

not generating

that they involve a core consensus of the

political tradition as first defined

American

is

hope, be stigmatized as novel. Indeed,

by

Aristotle,

added to by Burke and others. The ideas are not even the

ones,

political context. If

they seem

so, that is

and

as

new

in

because

they have been only hesitantly and sporadically advocated here,

and because Americans have

moved— sometimes march-

ing self-consciously, sometimes wandering absentmindedly—

away from

propositions

have been considered

My thesis

is

that the

cans as a polity

is,

which

common

in other places

and other times

sense.

most important task confronting Ameri-

in part, a philosopher's task.

The

task

is

to

STATECRAI

22

BOULGRAFT

\s

1

reclaim for politics a properly great and starch- jurisdiction.

from the

It

notion that government

is

to rescue politics

is

always and only an instrument of coercion, making disagree-

able (even

understood It

when as

may seem

stale, false

necessary) excisions from freedom, which

Hobbes understood

it,

as

is

"the silence of the law."

strange to hear such a notion

from someone who

counts himself in the conservative tradition. But today the values of that tradition are threatened

by "big" government

less

than by an abdication by the government. There

away

withering

is a

of the state regarding concern for the intangible prereq-

uisites of free

government.

For several centuries there has been abroad

in the

according to which almost

social romanticism,

world

a

institutions

all

almost always suffocate the natural virtue of the individual.

Nowadays, many people inclined themselves

to think that

way

count

and yet are not reluctant to expand the

liberals,

and number of the

institutions of the state. Conservatives,

the other hand, are temperamentally inclined to

size

on

worry about

the insufficiency of virtue. Yet their visceral hostility toward

government causes them

to agree with liberals that govern-

mental institutions should strive to be indifferent

to,

or neutral

about, the "inner life"— the character— of the citizenry.

There

is

a tension

between the

temporary liberalism

belief

in the natural,

still

professed

by con-

spontaneous flowering of

the individual's spirit and the statism of the liberal program for material amelioration.

However, there

a

is

comparable tension

within contemporary conservatism. Conservatives worry in collective categories ism.

They

and govern in terms of severe individual-

are anxious about the moral

yet believe that the public interest

is

makeup

of "society,"

produced by the spon-

taneous cooperation of individuals making arrangements in free markets.

And

this

is

philosophic premise. the public interest

is

often not an empirical conclusion, but a

The

conservative's point

usually best served

by

is

not

just that

private arrange-

THE CARE OF OUR TIME ments; the point

23

that the public interest

is

duced that way. The

good

social

bv

is,

is

necessarily pro-

definition, the aggregate

of whatever effects individuals produce through voluntary

arrangements. In the argument between contemporary liberals and conservatives there

the ear.

My

how

about

is

good

a

deal less than

argument with both

political

meets— than assaults—

liberals

and conservatives

is

My

to

argument ought to proceed.

aim

is

inoculate contemporary political controversy with a kind of

complexity

My thesis has this perhaps

find lacking.

I

ing implication: Just as the nation "conservatism," tives,

I

am

be saturated with

arguing that there are almost no conserva-

properly understood.

Common

sense, reason

and history

government conservatism"

My

said to

is

entertain-

is

not

all

teach that "strong

contradiction in terms.

a

support for popular sovereignty stops short of passively

accepting the

common

usage of the

word

obscures— indeed, turns inside out— the tism.

will

I

do many things for

pretend that the careers

of, say,

my

"conservative" that

real nature of conserva-

country, but

I

will not

Ronald Reagan and Franklin

Roosevelt involve serious philosophical differences. Reagan's fierce

and ideological liberalism of the Manchester school and

F.D.R.'s mild and improvised social-democratic

program

are

both honorable persuasions. But they should not march under

borrowed banners. They

are versions of the basic

the liberal-democratic political impulse that

Near the core of the philosophy of

Machiavelli and Hobbes.

modern

liberalism, as

inadequacy that

called conservatism eralism.

enterprise, is

descends from those two men,

is

glaring.

which

it is

And what

in

too

is

is

an

is

America

only marginally disharmonious with

This kind of conservatism

liberalism because

prise

it

becoming

is

program of

was born with

is

lib-

an impotent critic of

a participant in the

modern

the subject of the next chapter.

political

That

enter-

a radical revision of the political objectives of ancient

STATECRAFT AS SOULCRAFT

24

and medieval

wrong because

it

it

politics,

conforming

The

even because

revises, or

wrong because

Rather,

is

philosophers.

political

enterprise it

not

revises radically.

lowers, radically.

it

is

deflates

It

and commonest

politics to the strongest

impulses in the mass of men. Aristotle

because of

was the his

consciously conservative philosopher

first

premise that what

over what ought to be. But he properly understood, because

by

a

is

a

generally predominates

founder of conservatism,

his realism did

politics that takes its bearings

United States acutely needs

is

not preclude

from what ought

a real

to be.

conservatism, characterized

concern to cultivate the best persons and the best

sons. It should express

less

It

should challenge the liberal doc-

one important dimension of life— the "in-

ner life"— there should be

now,

in per-

renewed appreciation for the ennobling

functions of government. trine that regarding

a

The

less

government— less than there

than there recently was,

less

is

than most political phi-

losophers have thought prudent. Political

philosophy

is

about "the polity," which

is

much

more than governmental

institutions. It includes all the institu-

tions, dispositions, habits

and mores on which government de-

pends and on which, therefore, government should strive to

have

a

shaping influence.

cal locality."

dents.

A

hotel

is

No country is

its citizens,

mere physi-

a physical locality; hotels

Countries do not have residents:

Democratic government must be to

"a thing of

because citizenship

is

have

they have

a tutor as a state of

resi-

citizens.

well as a servant

mind.

CHAPTER TWO

The Defect

This policy of supplying by opposite and val interests, the deject of better motives

ri.

.

.

—James Madison

In the first century before the birth of Christ, a lawyer in

Rome tice

said that "high-mindedness,

and generosity are

magnanimity, courtesy,

much more

than pleasure, riches or even

life

in

itself."

century after the birth of Christ point,

exactly

Hobbes),

a

two

centuries

lawyer in Virginia

kind, black as

it is,

to their interest."

(or,

after said:

jus-

accordance with nature 1

In the eighteenth

perhaps more to the

Thomas "Those who know manthe

of

birth

must know that mankind are

.

.

attached

.

2

Well, now. Strong-minded fellows

like

Cicero and John

Marshall cannot be expected to agree about everything. But their stark disagreement about tous.

One

practice

porten-

two

mil-

change exemplified by these two statesmen

not only especially striking;

At

is

expects a bit of change over the course of

lennia, but the

we

fundamental things

it is

is

the defining fact of politics as

it.

issue are

two

reflective statesmen.

ostensibly empirical propositions

At

stake are

by two

two understandings of the 25

STATECRAFT AS SOULCKM

26

purpose of

bound

One

politics.

proposition, Cicero's or Marshall's,

to be truer than the other, but

I

is

notoriously difficult

it is

to determine the truth of such propositions. So the question

for statesmen is

is

not so

which understanding of the

Cicero's proposition a

much which

may seem

proposition

political task less plausible

description of everyday experience, but

an animating principle of

politics.

two

is

the heart of the matter, and

about which

("the natural"

it is

is

shall

first

things

and

first)

my

I

spend

a

concept to which

is

more prudent.

is

more prudent

as

modern

for

the idea of nature.

approach

it

through

my heart.

things close to

Baseball (to put ties

I

it

than Marshall's as

The problem

persons considering Cicero's proposition

That

"true" as

is

a lot of

politics are

life I

two

activi-

thinking. Naturally

have a

shall recur), I

strong desire to justify this investment of time. If you accept the premise of our political system, is

natural that

my

rationalization for tics.

So

reason should serve

my

my

the fact that

desire

by

a

which

ness (another subject to

some cynics who masquerade

devising a

confession of self-interestedI

shall recur).

as philosophers,

According to

and some philos-

ophers whose philosophy conduces to cynicism, philosophy generally a rationalization of desires. that

my

aim

is

it

preoccupation with baseball and poli-

begin this book with

I

you accept

to explain

noble undertakings than

why is

I

politics

disagree, but

I

is

admit

and baseball are more

today generally understood. As-

serting the nobility of baseball

may seem merely peculiar, but may seem per-

asserting the nobility of the political vocation verse.

To

you must

understand a reassertion of the grandeur of risk a crick in

your shoulder it

at the

was invented by

The Greeks in a

politics,

your neck. You must look back over

long sweep of political philosophy, since

Plato.

believed that sports were a religious and civic—

word, moral— undertaking. They are morally serious be-

cause man's noblest aim

is

loving contemplation of

worthy

THE DEFECT

27

By

things, such as beauty.

using our bodies beautifully

teach the soul to understand and love

much

to facilitate, as

is

want what they ought

purpose of politics

prudent, the existence of worthy

as is

passions and the achievement of

sons

A

it.

we

worthy

aims. It

is

to help per-

to want. Politics should share one

purpose with religion: the steady emancipation of the individual through the education of his passions.

The

Man

is

essence of the ancients' philosophy naturally social, so his happiness

congruence of

his society

and

was

contingent upon the

is

his nature.

The

political philosopher to take the ancients'

Burke.

He was

a

man

This

torical gifts.

is

this proposition:

greatest

modern

view of things was

of Ciceronean (and Lincolnesque) rhe-

not coincidental: If you believe in the

better angels of our nature, and that the purpose of politics to

summon

as

Cicero did, that

them, you

disposed, to look species." 3

He

human

do so with rhetoric. Burke believed,

beings "are bound, and are generally

up with reverence to the best patterns of the

said the best patterns are

tocracy, without

The

shall

which there

is

from "a

'natural' aris-

no nation," and added:

which necessarily generates this Nature— and much more truly so savage and incoherent mode of life. For man is by

state of civil society

aristocracy

than a

is

a state

of

nature reasonable, and he state

but

when he

is

is

never perfectly in

placed where reason

his natural

may

be best

cultivated and most predominates.

4

Because

a prerequisite for

a

well-ordered polity

cellence, the political vocation

ernment .

.

.

is

is

is

good and the

such ex-

estate of

gov-

grand:

the state ought not to be considered as nothing better

than a partnership agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico, is

is

some such low concern. ... upon with other reverence, because it

or tobacco, or

to be looked

It is

not a partnership in things subservient only to the gross

STATl.CKM

28

SOI

\S

I

I.( :i


versity of California Press, 1981) 18.

D. H. Lawrence, ed.,

Matthew

ville:

J.

The White Peacock, Harry T. Moore,

Bruccoli, textual ed. (Carbondale and

Southern

Illinois

University Press,

1966), pt.

gen.

Edwardsii,

ch.

2,

p. 161 19.

Lionel

Beyond

Trilling,

Learning

(New

York:

20. Trilling, ibid., p. 3 21. Paul Cezanne, cited in

Culture:

The Viking Hughes,

Essays on Literature and Press, 1965), p. xvii

ibid., p. 125

24.

Cezanne, cited, ibid., p. 124 Mark Rothko, cited, ibid., p. 262 Percy Bysshe Shelley, Prometheus Unbound, III, iii, 193, in Shelley's Poetry and Prose, selected and edited by Donald H. Reiman and Sharon G. Powers (New York: W. W. Norton

25.

D. H. Lawrence,

22. 23.

&

Co., Inc., 1977)' P- I0 4

Women

in

Love (Franklin Center, Pennsyl-

vania: Franklin Library, 1979 ed.), ch. 13, p. 144

NOTES 26.

27.

173

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, The Henry Reeve Text, rev. by Francis Bowen; Phillips Bradley, ed. (New

York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1963), Emerson, ibid., p. 152

vol.

II,

p.

334

CHAPTER FOUR: SECOND NATURE Taylor Coleridge, "Zapoyla" Prelude, The of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, James Dykes Campbell, ed. (London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., 1906), p. 406 Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, in The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke (London: Samuel

Epigraph:

Works

Poetical

1.

&

Rivington, Ltd., 1808), vol. 5, pp. 122-23 "Observations on a Late Publication intitled 'Present State of the Nation' " (1769), ibid., vol. 2, p. 170 George Santayana, The Works of George Santayana (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1933), vol. IV, The Life of Reason, p. 139 Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, in The Life and Selected F., C.

2.

3.

4.

J.

Burke,

cited,

Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Adrienne Koch and William Peden, eds. (New York: Random House, The Modern Library, 5.

1944), p. 275 Jefferson, cited

6.

Frisch and Richard G. Stevens, eds. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1 97 1 ), p. 37 Plylerv. Doe, 102, S. CP. 2382, 2397 (1982)

7.

Ibid., at

8.

Brown

9.

Political

Thought, Morton

J.

2397

Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 493 (1954) Abingdon School District v. Schemp, 374 U.S. 203, 230 (1963) J.,

concurring)

Am bach v. Norwick, 441

11. Ibid., at 12.

American

v.

(Brennan, 10.

in

U.S. 68, 76 (1979)

77

John Adams, cited, Clinton Rossiter, Conservatism in A?nerica, 2nd ed., rev. (New York: Random House, Vintage Books, 1962), p.

in

14.

U.S. Congress, Third Article of the Northwest Ordinance, Continental Congress, 1787 Daniel J. Boorstin, The Americans: The Colonial Experience

15.

Boorstin,

13. First

(New

York:

Random House,

1958), pp. 179-80

The Americans: The National Experience (New

16.

Random House, 1965), pp. 153, 155 California State Constitution, Article IX, Section

17.

Jefferson, Letter to

York:

The p. 41

Edward

Life and Selected

I

Carrington, January

16,

1787, in

Writings of Thomas Jefferson,

ibid.,

not is

174 1

8.

First Inaugural Address, 1801, in The Complete Jefferson, Saul K. Padovcr, cd. (New York: Tudor

Jefferson,

Thomas 19.

Publishing Co., 1943), P- 3^> Jefferson, Letter to William C. Jarvis, Monticello,

September n The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Ford Leicester, ed. (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1892-99), vol. 10, p. 161 Jefferson, Letter to George Washington from Paris, January 28, 1820,

20.

4,

Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Andrew A. Lips(Washington, D.C.: Thomas Jefferson Memorial

1786, in

comb,

ed.

Society, 1904), pp. 24-25 21.

John Marshall, Letter to Charles Mercer, April 7, 1827, Jurisprudence of John Marshall, Robert K. Faulkner Brunswick, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1968),

22.

23.

The

(New 143

A4arshall, ibid.

David Hume, Philosophical Essays on Morals, Literature, and Politics, First American Edition (Georgetown, D.C.: W. Duffy, 18 1 7), vol.

24.

p.

in

Hume,

I,

essay XII, p. 471

Robert S. Hill, "David Hume," History of Philosophy, Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey, eds. (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1963), p. 511 Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, in Lochner v. New York, 198 cited in

Political

25.

U.S. 45 (1905), p. 76 26.

Burke, Correspondence, Charles William, Earl Fitzwilliam and Lt. Gen. Sir Richard Bourke, K.C.B., eds. (London: 1844), vol.

27.

Lon

I,

p. 332

Fuller,

The Morality

of

Law (New Haven:

Yale Univer-

sity Press, 1964), p. 5

$-6

28. Fuller, ibid., pp. 29. Fuller, ibid., p.

9

30. Fuller, ibid. 31. Fuller, ibid.

32. Fuller, ibid., pp.

9-10

33. Fuller, ibid., p. 10 34. Fuller, ibid., p. 17 35.

Mill, Utilitarianism, Liberty and Republican Government, A. D. Lindsay, ed. (London: J. M. Dent and Sons,

John Stuart

Ltd., 1962), p. 73 36.

James Fitzjames Stephen, A History of Criminal Law in England (London, 1883), quoted in Leon Radzinow icz, Sir James Fitzja?nes Stephen and His Contribution to the Development of Criminal Law (Seldon Society Lecture) (London: Bernard r

Quaritch, 1957), pp. 229-30 The Life and Selected Writings of

37. Jefferson, in

ferson, ibid., p. 2 74 38. Justice Felix Frankfurter, W. Va. State Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943) 6$$

Thomas

Jef-

Board of Education

v.

NOTES 39.

175

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, The Henry Reeve Text, rev. by Francis Bowen, Phillips Bradley, ed. (New

York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1963),

vol.

I,

p.

46

John Harlan, Cohn v. California, 403 U.S., 24, 1971 Aristotle, Politics, The Loeb Classical Library Edition, 1253a, 30-33, H. Racklan, trans. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univer-

40. Justice 41.

sity Press, 1950), bk.

I,

ch.

2, p. 13

42. Santayana, ibid., p. 132

44.

Learned Hand, The Spirit of Liberty, Irving Dilliard, ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1952), p. 32. Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, ibid., vol. 5,

45.

Burke,

ibid., p. 152

46.

Hand,

ibid., p. 113

47.

Burke,

ibid., p.

43.

P- 151

CHAPTER Epigraph:

FIVE:

Edmund

126

THE BROKEN CHAIN Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France

The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke (London: F., C. & J. Rivington, Ltd., 1808), vol. 5, p. 37 Daniel J. Boorstin, The Americans: The Colonial Experience (1790), in

1.

(New York: Random 2. 3.

4. 5.

Boorstin, ibid., p.

7.

8.

10.

555

Adams, ibid., pp. 382-83 George Washington, 1783, cited in The Writings of George Washington from Original Manuscript Sources, 1745-99, J. C. Fitzpatrick, ed. (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing 1

),

vol. 26, p. 485

Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert N. Linscott, ed. (New York: Random House, The

Modern Library, i960), p. 369 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy

in

America,

The Henry

Reeve Text, revised by Francis Bowen; Phillips Bradley, ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1963), vol. II, p. 334 Henry Adams, History of the United States During the Administrations of Jefferson and Madison, George Dangerfield and Otey M. Scruggs, eds. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1963), vol.

9.

p.

Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams (Cambridge, Mass.: The Riverside Press, 1961), p. 382.

Office, 193 6.

House, 1958),

1

II,

ch. IV, pp. 172-73, 176, 182

Richard Hofstadter, The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1973), p. 31 Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia 1782, in The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Adrienne Koch and

NOTES

176

eds. (N.Y.: Random House, The Modern Library, 1944), P- z8 ° Jefferson, Letter to William Short, November 28, 18 14, ibid.,

William Peden,

11.

p. 12. 13.

654

John Melish, January 13, 181 3, ibid., p. 621 John Marshall, The Life of George Washington (Philadelphia: 1839), vol. II, p. 192; cited in Robert Faulkner, "John Marshall," in American Political Thought, Morton J. Frisch and Richard G. Stevens, eds. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, Jefferson, Letter to

i97i),p.

76.

14.

Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt

15.

William Leggett, cited

(London: Jonathan Cape, i960), p. 12 in Marvin Meyers, The Jacksonian Per-

(Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, i960), 200 De Tocqueville, ibid., vol. I, p. 290 Karl Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy, Second Observation, suasion p.

16. 17.

ii,

1,

C. P. Dutt and

V. Chattopadhyaya,

eds.

(New

York: In-

ternational Publishers, 1936), p. 92 18. De Tocqueville, ibid., vol. I, p. 252 19.

20.

21.

De De De

Tocqueville, Tocqueville, Tocqueville,

ibid., vol. II, p. ibid.,

257 pp. 136-37

ibid.,

pp. 318-19

Hector St. John Crevecoeur, Letters From an American Farmer 1782 (New York: Fox Duffield & Co., 1904), p. 61

22. J.

23. 24. 25.

Crevecoeur, ibid., pp. 61-66 De Tocqueville, ibid., vol. II,

p.

99

Abraham Lincoln, The First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861, in The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Roy P. Basler, ed.

(New

Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1953),

vol. IV, p. 271 26.

Lincoln, Peoria, Illinois, October 16, 1854, ibid., vol. II, p. 255 Paine, Rights of Man (London: Penguin Books, Ltd., 1969), pp. 186-87

27.

Thomas

28.

Burke,

ibid., p.

chapter

six:

149

Conservative Political

Economy

Epigraph: Benjamin Disraeli, in a speech to the House of Commons April 25, 1843 1. Ronald Reagan, October 27, 1964 2. Reagan, Address to a Joint Session of Congress, February 15, 1981 3.

4.

Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite, Munn v. Illinois, 94 U.S. 1 13—126 (1876), p. 126 Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica of St. Thomas

NOTES

177

Aquinas, trans, by The Fathers of the English Dominican Prov(New York: Benzinger, 1914), no. II, pt. II, question 58,

ince art. 5.

1

War Memories: The Call to Honor 1940(New York: The Viking Press, 1955), p. Woodrow Wilson, cited in Richard Hofstadter, The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It (New York: Charles de Gaulle, 1942

6.

1

Alfred A. Knopf, 1973),

7.

8.

9.

10.

p. 234 Introduction, pp. xxx-xxxi James Madison, The Federalist, Jacob E. Cooke, ed. (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1961), No. 51, p. 349

Hofstadter,

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, The Reeve Text, rev. by Francis Bowen; Phillips Bradley, ed.

Henry

(New

York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1963), vol. II, p. 123 David Hume, "Of Commerce," Philosophical Essays on Morals, Literature,

D.C.: 11.

ibid..

John

and

Politics, First

American Edition (Georgetown,

W.Duffy,

1817), p. 282 Stuart Mill, Review of Democracy in

America by Alexis

de Tocqueville (Edinburgh Reviews, October, 1840), in Essays on Politics and Culture, Gertrude Himmelfarb, ed. (New York: 12.

Doubleday & Company, 1962), p. 248 Benjamin Disraeli, Speech to House of Commons, February

13.

1859 De Tocqueville,

ibid., p.

14.

De

ibid., vol.

Tocqueville,

28,

159 I,

p.

416

CHAPTER SEVEN: ETERNITY WARNING TlME Epigraph: Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, The Henry Reeve Text, rev. by Francis Bowen, Phillips Bradley, ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1963), vol. II, p. 7 1. Plato, The Republic, viii, 545-46, trans, with introduction and notes by Francis MacDonald Cornfeld (New York: Oxford University Press, 1958), p. 2691 2. Edgar Allan Poe, "To Helen" (1831), st. I, 2, in The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, Hervey Allen, ed. (New York: Random House, Inc., The Modern Library, 1938), p. 3.

4.

5.

1017

Robert Browning, "Paracelsus," pt. V, 742-43, on The Works of Robert Browning, Centenary Edition, F. G. Kenyon, C.B., ed. (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 191 2), vol. I, p. 164 Father Ronald Knox, The Belief of Catholics (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1953 ), p. 6 John Milton, Areopagitica, John W. Hales, ed. (London: Oxford University Press, 1961),

p.

44

NOTES

178 6.

Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, Jackson (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959), 101-1 1, p. 23

7.

August Kubizek, The Young Hitler

8.

ton Mifflin Co., 1955), p. 84 De Tocqueville, ibid., p. 98

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14. 15.

1

Knew

Campbell, cd.

J. I,

iii,

lines 83-85,

(Boston:

Hough-

Learned Hand, The Spirit of Liberty, Irving Dilliard, ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1952), p. 77 Robert Peel, cited in Ian Gilmour, Inside Right: A Study of Conservatism (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1977), p. 9 Lord Balfour, from the Introduction to the English Constitution, The Collected Works of Walter Bagehot (London: Oxford University Press, World Classics Edition, 1952), p. xxii Thomas Jefferson, in The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Adrienne Koch and William Peden, eds. (Random House, The Modern Library, 1944), p. 277 Walter Lippmann, The Public Philosophy (New York: The

New American Library, 1956), p. 95 Hand, ibid., p. 118 Frederick L. Will, "The Rational Governance of Practice," American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. XVIII, No. Ill, July 1981, p. 192

16. 1

7.

18.

Will, ibid., p. 193 Will, "Reason, Social Practice, and Scientific Realism," Philosophy of Science, vol. 48, No. 1, March 198 1, p. 8 Will, ibid., p. 2

20.

James Madison, The Federalist, Jacob E. Cooke, ed. (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1961), No. 56, p. 378 William James, Memories and Studies (New York: Longman,

21.

T.

22.

George Santayana, The Works of George Santayana (New

19.

Green &

Co., 191

1

),

p. 58

Gidding," V, in The Complete Poems and Plays 1909-1950 (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., S. Eliot, "Little

i97i),p. 145

York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1933), Reason, p. 1 3 2

vol.

IV,

The

Life of

Index

Attlee, Clement, 161

abortion, 71, 84, 85, 125, 151

Adams, Abigail, 36 Adams, Henry, 19, 98, 102-3, Adams, John, 36-37, 73, 97

Augustine, Saint, x

15,

146

32

agriculture vs. industry, 100,

103-5 altruism, 120-21

Apollo program, 87 Aquinas, Saint Thomas, 131, 146

Babbitt (Lewis), 106-7

Bagehot, Walter, 153 Balfour, Arthur, Lord, 153 Bentham, Jeremy, 32, 35-36 Bernard, A. P., 74

aristocracy, "natural," 27, 40

Bicentennial celebration, 162

Aristotle, 21, 79, 157, 163

"big" government, 22

as conservatism's

on man and

founder, 24

Blackstone, Sir William, 33 "boat people," 68

in reasoning,

Boorstin, Daniel, 98 Boston, Mass., 108

90, 149

on mistakes

Arnold, Matthew,

1

154 Articles of Confederation, 74, 99 aspiration, morality of, 79-82

Athens,

Bismarck, Otto von, 126

society, 42, 60,

17,

38, 42, 44, 91,

164

Breuer, Josef, 61 British Labour Party, Browning, Robert, 141

1

19

79

INDEX

i8o Burke, Edmund,

21, 76, 146,

163, 164

on adjusting

politics to

human

nature, 68

on country, 15 on "best patterns of

Civil War, 48, 97 coercion, 22, 35, 42, 88, 95, 96, 160

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 66 species,"

colleges, 74, 76

passions,

Columbia University, 74 Columbus, Christopher, 61 Commentaries on the Laws of England (Blackstone), 33 commercial nation, 37, 75, 116,

27,40

on economics, 119 on government and

civil-rights laws, 48, 86-87

66

on liberty, 97 and "little platoons," 129 and noncoerciveness, 95 on political reasoning, 93, 155 on politics and morality, 19,

"7»*33i '35 compassion, 33 conformity, 132 Congress, U.S. Carter and, 16

79

on rights and passions, 42 on well-ordered state, 27-28,

civil-rights laws of, 86-87

under conservative majorities, 128, 130

29

early protectionism of, 105

and welfare California State Constitution,

74 y6 .

128

:

capitalism, 85, 105-18, 124-26

and changing conditions, 150 and romanticism, 133

Wilson on,

1

32

Tocqueville on, 136 Carter,

Jimmy,

16

Castro, Fidel, 149

censorship, 77, 89 Centennial celebration, 162

Cezanne, Paul, 63 Chautauqua, 72-73 checks and balances, 37-38 Chicago, 108 Christianity, 15, 56, 61

Cicero,

Marcus

Tullius, 25-26,

defined, 23-24

and education, 157 and "free-market" economics, 110-20

and individualism, 140-51 and libertarianism, 152 and national character, 150 need for, 24, 90-96, 1456*. as political biology, 156

primary business of, 78 and statism, 151-52 and totalitarianism, 144-48 and tradition, 154-55 and voluntary groups, 15152

and welfare cities,

state,

consciousness raising, 57 conservatism, proper

$$-56

Aristotle on, 149 Jefferson on, ^6, 108-9

state,

126-31, 151

"conservatives" (opponents of

big government), 22, 28,

35-36,95, 122-24

INDEX

181

Constitution, U.S., 104-5

laws and, 87 as "fundamental law," 78-79 civil-rights

and

education (Cont.)

aim

judicial review, 18, 40, 106

Moynihan

on, 16-17

separation of powers in, 79, 109 Constitutional Convention

of, 157

in conservative welfare state,

130 "liberation" and, 63, 90

moral, 19 public and private, 130 self-,

6$

(1787), 74,99 Continental Congress, 73

Einstein, Albert, 21, 30, 59

Cooper, James Fenimore, 98 Crevecoeur, J. Hector St. John,

elites, 40,

112-16, 117

Crito (Socrates), 91

Cromwell, Oliver,

161

culture, imperatives of, 76-79, 91

Eliot,

T.

S., 146,

158

90

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 98

on civilization, 47 on education, 6$ on the individual, 149 on money, 102 on Washington's America, 99 English Constitution,

Darwin, Charles, 58, 60, 109, 156 De Civitati Dei (Augustine), 15 Declaration of Independence,

equality of opportunity, 130-31,

17-18,48,49,51-52,54-55,

De

75 Gaulle, Charles, 161

The

(Bagehot), 153 Enlightenment, 144 «35t*3* "extensive republic," 37-38, 50

Depression, 124 desegregation, 87 determinism, 62

factions in democratic society,

De

families,

ville,

De

37-41

Tocqueville, see TocqueAlexis de

Federal

Vries, Peter, 90

dialectics, 58

Disraeli,

importance

of, 129, 151

federalism, 37-38

Highway Administra-

tion, 95

Benjamin, 122, 126, 136

Douglas, Stephen A., 47, 49-50 Douglas, William O., 89 Dred Scott decision, 54

Federalist Papers, The, 37, 54, 55, 132

First

Amendment,

34, 89, 162

flag salutes, 71

Durkheim, Emile, 149

Frankfurter, Felix, 20-21, 88

duty, morality of, 79-82

freedom (liberty), 66 Burke on, 97

dynamism, 58

modernists' idea of, 22, 31, 42, 60

economics,

classical,

education, 72-76, 77

1

18-19

free markets, 22 see also laissez-faire

INDEX

182 free speech, 88, 93, 123-24

Freud, Sigmund,

58, 61-62, 78

98

nature, 66rT.

lume, David

on consciousness, 62 on envy, 40 on government by passions,

Gauguin, Paul, 64 Geneva, 38 George III, King, 52 Gettysburg, 18

'34

on legacy of culture, 76, 77 on man as "knave," 34 on reason and passions, 32

"gilded age," 132

Gogh, Vincent van, 59 Goldwater, Barry, 122 Gorgias (Plato), 44

Hustler magazine, 89

as coercion, 22, 35,

immigration, 108-9

42, 88, 95,96, 160

Grant, Ulysses

S.,

55 Gatsby, The (Fitzgerald),

Great

bound (Cooper), 142

homosexuality, 83

I

government

as

human

Lon, 70-82

Fuller,

Home

Homer,

see also obscenity

60

Impressionism, 63 individualism, 141, 149-51

"conservatives" and, 22

Great War, 140

and and

cities,

56

"self-realization," 6$

see also self-interestedness

Hamilton, Alexander, 6, 109,

101, 103-

industrialization, 97, 98, 100,

103-5, 119-20

139

Hand, Learned, 91,92,

150, 154

Israel,

144

Harlan, John, 88 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 58, 60, 69, 155

Henry

II,

King, 161

Hitler, Adolf, 37, 143, 144, 146-

Hobbes, Thomas,

23, 25, 86, 88,

and government

as coercion,

J

32

Jefferson,

Thomas,

cities, 56,

102

108

his Declaration,

^

on education, 75-76

22,95

and common-

wealth, 37 self-interestedness doctrine of, 28-32, 117

Hofstadter, Richard, 103, 132 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 33-34, 79

16, 105, 106,

Jacksonians, 105, 106-7,

and

163

leisure

Andrew,

161

James, William, 161

49

on

Jackson,

Hamilton, debate with,

ior,

103-6, 109, 139

on limiting government,

21,

74-75,87

and Louisiana Purchase,

49,

76, 109

on

national character, 153-54

INDEX

I8 3

Jefferson,

Thomas

(Cont.)

and practical idealism, 97 on religious toleration, 71-72 and self-evidence doctrine, 5o-5i,53-55

on Adam Smith, 34 Jews, 143-44 Johnson, Lyndon, 87, 161 Joyce, James, $6

liberalism (Cont.)

and government

as coercion,

95

and "liberation," 63, 89-90 Manchester school of, 23, 135

and moral

legislation, 87

astronomy, 1 $6 and responsive government,

as political

158-59

Justinian, 83

and

social contract, 30

libertarianism, 89-90, 152

Kansas-Nebraska Act, 48-49 Kant, Immanuel, 31, 155 Kapital, Das (Marx), 28, 61 Keats, John, 19

J

freedom

Abraham

and American

aspiration,

64-

65

Keynes, John Maynard, 77, 107 Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhallah, *43,

liberty, see

Lincoln,

49

Knox, Ronald, 142

on "mystic chords of memory," 11 6-1 on preserving Republic, 1819, 141

Kubizek, August, 146

and self-evidence doctrine, 54-56 self-interestedness, opposition

laissez-faire, 123, 125-26, 133

see also free markets

land-grant colleges, 76 Last Hurrah, The (O'Connor), 101

Law, Thomas,

53

Lawrence, D. H., 63, Lawrence, T. E., 64

64, 91

heather stocking Tales

(Cooper), 6$ Leggett, William, 108 Lenin, Nikolai,

16,

146

from an American Farmer (Crevecoeur), 112-

Letters

to, "little

47-50, 117, 131

platoons," 129-30, 151

Liverpool, Robert Banks

Jenkinson, 2nd Earl Lippmann, Walter, 154

Locke, John, 94 political philosophy

of, 154

of, 21, 31,

33,88,95

on preservation of property, 39

Louis XIV, King, 161 Louisiana Purchase, 49, 76, 109 Luther, Martin, 61

16

liberalism

and conformity, 60 and conservatism, 22-24, 95 and First Amendment, 34

Machiavelli, Nicolo, 23, 28-29, 163

MacNeice, Louis, 61 Maddox, Lester, 86

INDEX

184

Madison, James, 21, 102 and "extensive Republic,"

Montaigne, Michel 38,

l

de,

7

Montesquieu, 133

50

on good human

qualities in

republic, 156

property doctrine

of, 39, 41,

morality, legislating of, 70-96

Morrill Act (1862), 76 motion, principle of, in society,

107

and

Eyquem

34-35. 44

self-interest (factions),

25,38-41,50,54,67, 132 and structure of Union, 37-41

Moynihan, Daniel

Patrick, 16-

*7

Munich

putsch, 147

majorities, tyrannical, 37-40

Munn

Manchester school of

Muskogee, Okla., 108

liberalism,

v. Illinois, 127

Mussolini, Benito, 149

23, 135

Manhattan Project, 87 Mann, Thomas, 146

Mao Tse-tung,

37, 149 Marshall, John, 25-26, 33, 76, 105-6

Napoleon

Marx, Karl, 58, 109, Marxism, 28, 146

national character, 88, 102-3,

133

I,

34, 126, 147

Gamal Abdel,

149 national bank, 105, 106, 107

J

5°,

153-54

natural law, 30, 41, 69-70 "natural state," 27, 29

see also socialism

M*A*S*H,

Nasser,

142

Mather, Cotton, 161

New

Mencken, H. L., 57 Metternich, Klemens von, 147 Michigan State University, 76

Newman, John

military conscription, 31, 137-38 Mill,

John

Stuart, 16, 82-83, 135

Missouri Compromise, 49

modern

art, 59,

63

modernity, political philosophy

Cardinal, 146

Newsweek, 126 Newton, Isaac, 156 New York Civil Liberties Union, 89 North, Frederick, Lord, 52 Northwest Ordinance, 73-74 Notes on Virginia (Jefferson),

of, 28-46, 120

and cities, $6 and commercial

Deal, 72

7i

nuclear weapons, 137-38 society, 37,

Nuremberg, 147

75

and free speech, 88-89 and justice, 131 and legislating morality, 79,

obscenity, 71, 89 71,

83-88

Puritans and, 108 see also self-interestedness

Monroe, James,

51

On

the Psychological

Mecha-

nism of Hysterical Phenomena (Freud/Breuer),6i Origin of Species (Darwin), 60 Osborne, John, 61

185

INDEX Paine,

Thomas,

"Report on Manufacture" (Hamilton), 105 "Report on Public Credit" (Hamilton), 105

35, 117

passions as basis of

human

actions, 30, 31-33,42-43

see also self-interestedness

The

Pater, Walter, 62

Republic,

patriotism, 91

Revolutionary War,

Paul, Saint, 15b

"right to life"

Peel, Robert, 150

rights, basis of, in

Penn, William, 34 Pennsylvania, religion

(Plato), 141 99, 152-53

movement,

1

3

modern

political philosophy, 42, 43

112-

in,

Rockefeller, John D., 125

Pericles, 38, 44

romanticism, 133, 143 Roosevelt, Franklin D.,

Plato, 26,44,52,76,83, 141

Rothko, Mark, 64

pleasure principle, 32, 159 political economy, conservative,

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques,

23, 128

38, 77

122-39 political philosophy,

need

for,

polity (defined), 24, 66

Pony

Express, 136

popular sovereignty, limits

to,

49-50 populism, 16, 97

Scoop (Waugh), 93 Second Thoughts on Instinctive Impulses (Law), 53 self,

32,

concept

of, 57-58,

60-65

"self-evidence," 31, 50-55

pornography, 84-85,

self-expression, 57, 63, 89-90

151

see also obscenity

self-interestedness (basis of

modern

progressives, 97, 107

Prohibition, 85-86

property, doctrines of, 39, 107 Proust, Marcel, 62

phy), dangers

political philoso-

25,

30-45 passim

of, 149, 150, 153,

159-60

Founding Fathers and,

psychoanalysis, 62 public-spiritedness,

Santayana, George, 68, 91, 164 school prayers, 71

15-24

need

for,

25,

38-

Puritans, 98, 108

41,50,54,67, 132-33 modern education and, 75 and public interest, 31, 132-39

railroads, 108

and public-spiritedness, ^6 and rights, 43 and slavery, 48-50, 117

rationalism, 143, 155

Tocqueville on,

*33-35, *59

Reagan, Ronald, 23, 122-23 reason and passion, 31-33

sense data, 62

religion, politics and, 27

religious toleration, 71-72, r

5

33, 44, 133-34,

140 "sensibility," 59-60 1

12—

separation of powers, 37-38, 79, 161-62

1

86

INDEX

Shakespeare, William, 142, 146 Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 64, 153

tolerance, 32-33, 44 see also religious toleration

slavery, 47-50, 87, 100, 117

totalitarianism, 142, 144-49

Smith,

Adam,

tradition, 154-55, 163—65

34 social contract, 30 socialism,

1

Trilling, Lionel, 63

18-19, 133, 136

see also

Marxism

social romanticism, 22

Ulysses (Joyce), 89 vs. uniformity, 142-43

social sciences, rise of, 118

unity

Socrates, 91

urbanization, 97, 108-9,

!

r

5

Soviet Union, 137, 146 Spinoza, Benedict, 34 sports, Greeks'

view

26-27

of,

Valery, Paul, 21

Stalin, Joseph, 37, 146, 147

Van

Star Wars, 142 states' rights, 49,

84

statism, 144-45, 151-52

Gertrude, 59 Stephen, Sir James Fitzjames, Stein,

86

Supreme Court,

18, 73,

Buren, Martin, 106 Vienna, 147 Virginia, University of, 75 Virginia Declaration of Human Rights, 75 virtue (defined), 134

in Waite, Morrison R., 127

Taft, William

War

Howard, 44

of

1

81 2, 102

Taney, Roger Brooke, 54

Warren, Robert Penn, 54

taxation, 122-23, I2 9~3° Tennessee Valley Authority

Warren

(TVA),

6$, 98

on capitalism, 136 and commercial republic, 109-12, 116, 117

34, 140

social condition's influ-

ence, 88

Waugh, Evelyn, Webb, Beatrice, welfare

19,

on individualism, 149 on man's possibilities, 64, 101 on Puritans, 108 on self-interest, 33, 44, 133— on

1 1

71,

90-

100, 152-53

87

Thoreau, Henry David, Tocqueville, Alexis de

Court,

Washington, George, 93 107

state, 72, 120-21, 126-31,

137, '51

Wellington, Arthur Wellesley,

Duke of, 161 Whitman, Walt, 6$ Wilde, Oscar, 63 Wilson, Woodrow,

6^, 92, 106,

132

Wordsworth, William,

World War

I,

140

62

(continued from front flap)

development face,"

of a "conservatism with a kindly

capable of respecting private enterprise

and at the same time espousing "an affirmative doctrine of the welfare state," which Will sees as "an embodiment of the wholesome ethic of

common

provision." Proper government, Will

says, involves

in citizens.

the cultivation of

This

is

good character

what is meant by

statecraft as

soulcraft. is an important and one of the country's most

Statecraft as Soulcraft

timely statement by

influential conservative thinkers, presenting his views

with

all

and eloquence. a permanent addition

his grace, wit

But more than that, it is our nations literature of self-definition.

to

About

the

Author

Will was born in 1941 in Champaign, and was educated at Trinity College in Connecticut, at Oxford and at Princeton. His syndicated newspaper column appears in more than 380 newspapers in both the United States and Europe. He is also a contributing editor of Newsweek, for which he writes a biweekly column, and is a regular member of the Agronsky fc? Company television panel, as well as a political commentator for ABC News. In 1977, George F. Will was awarded the

George

F.

Illinois,

Pulitzer Prize for distinguished

He

is

commentary.

the author of two critically acclaimed

The Pursuit of Happiness and Other Sobering Thoughts and The Pursuit of Virtue and Other Tory Notions. collections of essays,

©

1983 by Robert Anthony, Inc. Photograph of the author by Sigrid Estrada

Jacket design

A.

05A3- 135D

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