Tea at Trianon: What Does Being Conservative Actually Mean?

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, April 12, 2022

What Does Being Conservative Actually Mean?

From Crisis:

Although the speakers never really came to a clear definition of the new fusionism (which, to be fair, is difficult to do in a one-hour dialogue), they laid the groundwork for one, which I’ll venture to make. Factoring in the ongoing changes in politics and the world in general, I believe the new fusionism will be a coalition of traditional populists and classical liberals.

At first, these two sides may look irreconcilable, with each deriding the other as hopelessly out of touch and hypocritical, but these differences are mostly superficial. The classical liberal emphasis on freedom and limited government complements the traditional populist focus on family, faith, and fairness. In a recent discussion on this topic at The Spectator, Stephanie Slade observes of old fusionist Frank Meyer: “he said that both Judeo-Christian virtue and freedom from coercion (whether carried out by a bandit or by an agent of the state) are goods to be cherished and protected.”

In other words, the new conservative fusionism, like the old, looks more like the friendly dialogue between Helen Andrews and Michael Brendan Dougherty and less like the heated debate between David French and Sohrab Ahmari. It is made between two people of good faith who want to see all Americans not only enjoy better lives but enjoy them together as a community. (Read more.)