The Conservative Dilemmas

In a thoughtful, critical piece, entitled, "Creating a Conservative Counterculture: Harder Than It Sounds," Alex Wainer not only laments the "fact" that liberals dominate American popular culture but also observes that conservatives are going to find it very difficult to take back culture, evidently because they lack the creative passion of liberals and they are too blatantly political in expressing their creativity.  Wainter writes, "Maybe conservatives, instead of trying to score political points, might try aiming higher, creating real art that touches people in their souls."  The article concludes with this advice to American conservatives, "So tell your stories, lots of them, in various media, but tell them because you love stories that express what you believe is true and real."

As I read this piece, I felt mixed emotions welling up in my liberal-ish heart of hearts.  On the one hand, it was good to read an article from the Right devoid of demonizing the Left (and, yes, we demonize the Right, too) and to gain a little bit of insight into the soul searching of one American conservative.  The failure to defeat President Obama last November has evidently had a profound effect on many thinking conservatives, which can only be seen as a good thing.

However, I was also painfully aware of two fundamental dilemmas facing American conservatives.  The first has to do with the reality of 21st century society and culture.  Ever accelerating change is built into the very fabric of society today, put there by science and technology.  The very definition of being conservative is resistance to change, especially rapid change, and the doubt that change is a good thing.  An article by Russell Kirk, cited by Wainer, elucidating, "Ten Conservative Principles,"makes it clear that the core of the conservative approach to life is to limit and restrain change.  That's a problem in a world where change keeps coming faster and faster and still faster.  We stand on the verge of still greater changes in the next few decades, and there doesn't appear to be any force on Earth to halt our plunge onward.

The second dilemma facing conservatives is that they are anti-homosexual.  They stand on the wrong side of the moral divide between justice and injustice.  In the past, conservatives have upheld slavery, institutional racism, the marginalization of women, and most recently have done all "they" can to thwart the full and fair social inclusion of those who do not share their sexual orientation.  This is not true, of course, of all conservatives.  There are, after all, Log Cabin Republicans.  Yet, as seen in Wainer's own article, there is a link between conservatism and the suppression of homosexuals—a link that is unjust.  It is also rapidly falling into disfavor, as conservatives themselves painfully realize  (see the Christian Post article, "Survey: Fewer Americans Believe Homosexuality Is a Sin; Nation's View 'Evolving' With Obama's?").

The second dilemma is the one most easily addressed.  There is nothing that says that a conservative philosophy has to be anti-homosexual.  Truth is, many good conservative folks are not (or are less so), often because someone they love  does not share their sexual orientation.  The first dilemma is the harder issue.  The great majority of Americans of all political persuasions embrace the scientific and technological changes inundating our modern world.  We live in a world dominated by the reality of change, and we know that the pace of change is accelerating exponentially.  What does it mean to be a "conservative" in an age when rapid, systemic change waits on no one?