How Paleo and Fusionist Conservatism Differ
By Daniel Larison, Albuquerque

Having already read Mr. Francis' article, I appreciated your thoughtful response. Though I cannot speak for anyone at Chronicles, and I certainly cannot claim to be a greater authority on paleoconservatism than the gentlemen who run that magazine, my sense is that paleoconservatism is principally distinct from "fusionist" conservatism in three things: paleoconservatism possesses a greater, overt hostility to Enlightenment assumptions about human nature and social organization; it takes a much more critical view of the culturally coarsening effects of commercialism and the market; arguably, while it does not deny the great importance of the inheritance of Israel for Western civilisation, it also essentially rejects the idea of a "Judeo-Christian" hybrid tradition as such and consequently emphasises the importance of Christian tradition that much more. These are, for the most part, differences in degree rather than in kind.

Fusionists can also be skeptical of or hostile to the fictions of social contract, the idea of the perfectibility of man or imaginary equality, but it seems to me that they tend to try to push these criticisms into the background, while paleoconservatives persistently put them at the forefront. In the proper fight against the regulatory state, all conservatives have been fighting so hard to justify the virtues of the market as against the state that many do not then want to say anything against the sometimes corrupting work of market forces.

Referring to "Judeo-Christian values," fusionists generally probably believe they mean precisely the same thing that paleoconservatives mean when they invoke Christian tradition, but for paleoconservatives, such as Mr. Francis, I think that such a phrase indicates a certain vagueness and a certain secularism on the part of those saying it. It is a phrase that attempts to fit what American Christians regard as absolute truths and obligatory virtues into the vague, fluid category of "values," with its changeable, economic connotations; it attempts, however unconsciously, to pull the moral precepts of an historical religious tradition out of that history in an effort to keep those precepts 'relevant' and 'acceptable' to secular society. In so doing, however, the use of this phrase deprives those precepts of their concrete meaning and the historical transmission of them from a Christendom towards which many American Christians feel ambivalent or even hostile. Perhaps I would go too far to say that paleoconservatism would prefer conservatives to be more generally orthodox Christian and traditionally European in their orientation and thinking, but this is how it appears to me. This is not universally applicable, as the ACU properly notes, as Chronicles and paleoconservatism more broadly have been treated so shabbily on account of ideological purges that there is neither the desire nor the habit of mind to standardize or regularize a common paleoconservatism.

Paleoconservatism is the name that has become a useful shorthand for those American conservatives who desire not only an old republican, constitutional system but perhaps also an older social structure that once accompanied and created that system but has since disappeared. I do not mean to relegate paleoconservatives (including myself) to being simply nostalgic, but I believe it is in this light that Mr. Francis' complaints about conservatism lacking a vital social base should be understood. For a political movement to be a representation of vital social forces, it does not require that movement to create a new victim class (which would indeed be regrettable), but that it represent the aspirations of sections of contemporary society. It is not so much fusionism's failure to represent some part of society, but that the people whom it represented have probably ceased to be a majority of the country, and even within that section much of what fusionism stands for has lost its significance for ordinary folks.

That is not to say that fusionism's positions are therefore necessarily mistaken on principle, but that they do not connect with contemporary Americans. It is my impression that paleoconservatism's explanation of why this is so has as much to do with the corruption of Americans as it has to do with the supposed sterility of fusionism. It is not that there is not still a middle class with certain essentially conservative instincts, but that social and cultural changes have corroded even this section of society so much that the appeals of the old "fusionism" no longer resonate as strongly.

Where once the dual appeal to liberty and tradition motivated a broad middle class, the appeal to tradition has been blunted by the very abstractions and slogans used to such great effect in political campaigns.

Unqualified emphasis on generalised terms such as equality and choice, with which conservative Republicans have enjoyed beating liberals since at least the 1970s, have been especially detrimental to appeals to traditional religious and historical authorities and hierarchical orders in society. In essence, paleoconservatism has reacted against the perception that certain aspects of libertarianism effectively trumped traditionalist concerns among fusionist conservatives on economics and immigration, while accommodation by fusionist conservatives with the security state became a habit that failed to die out after 1990.

Chronicles' interpretation is not an interpretation that encourages electoral success, but the gentlemen at Chronicles have long since rejected any realistic possibility of electoral remedies for fundamentally cultural ills. It is there, perhaps more than anywhere else, that paleoconservatives and "fusionist" conservatives really differ: the former do not believe that the managerial democratic system that helped destroy traditional American society can be reformed and kept from doing harm, while the latter still hope that it can be.

I don't suppose this offers any solutions for the predicament of fusionist conservatives and paleoconservatives. It does seem clear to me that genuine fusionists and paleos have so much in common that it only makes sense for the two groups to work closely together, at least in formulating arguments and ideas, even though there are a number of areas in which the two will invariably disagree. I hope that this poor contribution may be of some use in helping that cooperation.