Amerika

This article seemed to fly under the radar at first, just a few months after three European heads of state admitted multiculturalism is failing:

A Populus poll found that 48% of the population would consider supporting a new anti-immigration party committed to challenging Islamist extremism, and would support policies to make it statutory for all public buildings to fly the flag of St George or the union flag.

Anti-racism campaigners said the findings suggested Britain’s mainstream parties were losing touch with public opinion on issues of identity and race.

The poll suggests that the level of backing for a far-right party could equal or even outstrip that in countries such as France, the Netherlands and Austria. France’s National Front party hopes to secure 20% in the first round of the presidential vote next year. The Dutch anti-Islam party led by Geert Wilders attracted 15.5% of the vote in last year’s parliamentary elections. – The Guardian

Interestingly, this is the voters telling the conservative right what it needs to do in order to succeed. It should listen, because if you have a goal, the methods needed to accomplish that goal are negotiable, but the goal itself is not.

It would be a shame for the right to insist on methods, not goals, and thus repeat its past failures without achieving its possible future successes. Conservatism is an outlook and with that, an ideal which represents an ongoing goal, and we should be open to any method of achieving it.

Specifically:

• End the violence. Citizens do not want to endorse any party whose primary method is fighting, or who looks to start wars. They are looking for diplomatic solutions within our legal system. This does not mean they oppose strong acts, like deportation or ending welfare, only that they fear the heavy hand that tends toward violence. The far right suffers for its support of shaven-headed young men who drink too much and listen to angry toneless music while beating up foreigners; in addition, these young men suffer from the same lifestyle. It can change and it should.
• Have a comprehensive plan. We get it; nationalism means that each country is centered on one culture, one ethnic group and one values system. However, that concept is a starting point, not a solution. The ideas of the right regarding the environment, overpopulation, nuclear proliferation, education and other concepts need to be fleshed out in a direct form, or the only people it will attract are single-issue voters.
• Affirm general rules; do not attack specific groups. We know that Muslim integration in Europe has failed. It has failed because diversity has always failed. We should stay focused on that idea: diversity doesn’t work. Whether the ingredients of that diversity are Muslims, Africans, Jews, Scientologists, Cylons or hypermilers is irrelevant. We also know liberalism fails. We don’t need to bash specific liberals.
• Make your vision clear and clearly different. It’s one thing to say what you don’t like, and another to suggest what you do like. We live in ugly utilitarian cities wracked by dishonesty, crime and corruption. We have dedicated our lives to tolerance of individuals instead of finding values we share. We need a clear vision of what a society that has gotten beyond these problems looks like.
• Be responsible. A number of far-right parties seem entrenched in the methods of old, and seem to run their finances like low-rent crime syndicates. You have to be kidding. If you want us to trust you with a nation, you need to be on the up-and-up all the way. No exceptions.

The media image of the far right is skinheads who like to hurt people, sadistic toothless rednecks, and investment bankers who grinningly endorse Social Darwinism. They profit from selling this fear — and that’s what it is, repackaged fear of inferiority — at the expense of the far right, who have not been able to effectively combat it. That needs to change.

It is also worth noting that conservative parties succeed when they tune their various parts according to a common note, which should be as literal as race, but an organic vision like unity of culture and purpose.

Modern society is *soft* in precisely this fashion – its rulers have lost the ability take tough decisions: to seek long term benefits when these come at the price the cost of short term costs to themselves.

The ultimate reason is, I believe, that humans can only make tough decisions when these are supported by *transcendental aims*, in the sense that humans do not want to forgo short term gratification in this world unless life is about something *more* than gratification – and where non-worldly realities (God, heaven, truth, beauty etc.) are seen as more real and more enduring than immediate gratification – and therefore more important. – Bruce Charlton’s Miscellany

He’s right: we need some transcendental unity here or we’ll lose sight of the big picture and focus on what is immediate, including the material, the personal and the convenient.

Whether that vision is old school religion, a new religious hybrid (most likely a Vedic-Christian hybrid like Scientology and the New Age religions) or a simple agreement on transcendence itself, as enumerated by some powerful thinkers, will be decided in the future. For now, let’s recognize we need something higher than the material to unite us.

The right was thrown into disarray by World War II, which led to it abandoning many of its core principles, to our mutual failing as European-derived civilizations. A kind of bitterness set in, by which conservatives adopted public “neoconservative” and “neoliberal” (same thing) views, but in private smirked with an I-told-you-so grimace. Conservatives no longer believed they could be heard, so they let the disaster unfold, getting ready for that moment of bittersweet victory.

That outlook, and the kind of defensive reactionary paranoia that begets street violence where none is needed, holds the right back. At this point, liberalism has failed; it had a century and change to fix our problems, and it made them exponentially worse. The only people who are endorsing liberalism these days are the hopeful social climbers who want to mask perceived low origins with what they hope are aristocratic opinions.

But for the right to succeed, however, it needs to return to its principles and goals — and move on from its failed methods.

Tags: conservatism