Josh takes a break from the guests to cover a little conservatism 101. Russell Kirk’s pithy list Ten Conservative Principles: begins with what Kirk called an enduring moral order: “The conservative believes that there exists an enduring moral order. That order is made for man, and man is made for it: human nature is a constant, and moral truths are permanent.”

The full implications of this idea—not to mention the arguments in favor or disapproving of this view or the thorny business of trying to agree upon a working definition of “moral order”, “human nature”, or “permanent truths”—is precisely what makes this so challenging to untangle. But untangle we must for, if we ever hope to understand conservatism, we must first understand the foundation conservatism rests upon.

It would be difficult to overemphasize the importance of order. It’s not some idea relegated to trivial conversations amongst people with a lot of time on their hands, it is quite literally the glue that holds reality together. “Either order in the cosmos is real, or all is chaos,” explained Kirk, “In a vortex of chaos, only force and appetite signify.” Everything conservatism defends as worth conserving rests on the idea that there exists some standard by which we can truthfully distinguish what things have value from mere popular preferences. Our ability to make these distinctions is important, but such efforts would be utterly hopeless if order did not exist. In that case all we could say is that some people prefer some things while other people prefer other things; we couldn’t make actual truth statements about those things.

Edmund Burke put it more succinctly: “Good order is the foundation of all good things.” The connection between order and foundation is key. The existence of order—that is, something that is fixed, absolute, immutable, and completely outside of humanity’s ability to create or destroy—is precisely what grounds reality. Without it, all that’s left is chaos and appetite. Humans don’t submit to the gods they create; and if we come to believe there is no truth greater than whatever “truth” we create for ourselves we shouldn’t act surprised when a spirit of benevolence and comradery is insufficient to hold barbarism at bay. Without order, we don’t have a basis for justice or a universal argument for natural rights and liberty from coercion.

If Kirk’s assertion of the existence of an enduring moral order is true, we’re faced with an abundance of questions, such as:

• Can we define this moral order, or at least discern it? If so, how?
• What is the relationship between societal order and the order within each individual in society?
• Where does this order come from? Is it spiritual in nature?
• What political and legal implications does a moral order impose?
• Doesn’t the flirtation with ideas of a moral order quickly descend into authoritarian theocracy? How does the conservative guard against that?
• What implications does this have for politics or the state? Or is this a matter of faith that should be left out of political considerations altogether?
• What is the relationship between order and liberty? Are these ideas in conflict or can they be reconciled?

Josh tackles all that and more in this episode

The conservatism I wish to defend in the pages of this blog rejects a simplistic, bilinear paradigm that pits every political viewpoint on a scale of Left vs. Right. Nevertheless, the familiar Left vs. Right model is frequently used to express our political differences as it’s easy to absorb visually. In these series I’ve compared and contrasted conservatism to many ideologies that might be considered “on the Left”—such as classical liberals, socialists, populists, and secularists—but I have not yet compared and contrasted conservatism to the collectivist “Left” because no such monolithic ideology exists.

But just because “the Left” doesn’t represent a single-minded ideology it may not be entirely fruitless to compare and contrast conservatism with contemporary progressivism; the closest thing to a uniform “Left” we have in the United States. To that end I would like to dedicate this series to untangling progressivism, both how it might be understood to be part of the broader Left as well as how progressives differ from one another. And, of course, to explore what the conservative has to say on the matter.

The fact that those who may broadly be called progressives very much do differ from one another should not be taken for granted. It is often challenging to spot the nuanced differences in some group when one is standing outside looking in. Just as some on the “Left” are guilty of viewing conservatives too narrowly as being alike in motives and mindsets—“Anyone who voted for Trump must be a racist”—it can be just as easy for conservatives to attribute some uniform malady or nefarious intent to explain the complexities of the modern Leftist.

With that caveat in mind, I would like to begin this series by attempting to define progressivism from my admittedly disadvantaged perspective of viewing the “other side” from a biased, conservative lens. However, I dare say that reading progressive sources attempting to define progressivism themselves can sometimes be no better. Attempting to define the very things you believe creates its own special kind of bias. As a Twitter follower, Daniel Zene Crowe, rightly observed: “Today, ‘Progressivism’ is as doctrinally opaque as ‘Liberalism’ was in its day, largely for the same reasons. Self-description invariably begins with platitudes and descends from there: To be a Progressive means to bravely stand against exploitation, cruelty, heartlessness, injustice, and despotism—you know, the evil platform of The Enemy.” In other words, “we stand for good things and those other guys stand for bad things.”

Couldn’t a conservative claim to be all about pretty much the same thing? If we’re going to make any—if you’ll pardon the pun--progress in understanding progressivism we must be able to understand progressives as they understand themselves shorn of platitudes and banalities that confuse more than they clarify. Further, we’ll need at least some understanding of how progressivism differs from the past to the present and how progressives in the present differ from one another.

This is an enormous endeavor, and I will admit to only being capable of laying out some cursory thoughts in the posts ahead that will, I’m afraid, fail to satisfy all or even most progressives who read this series that I have correctly defined their views—Let alone persuade them that conservatism is a better alternative!

With those stipulations out of the way, let’s charge ahead. In Part 2 I’ll explore some of the history of progressivism and how it differs from the progressivism of today. Then in Part 3 I’ll attempt to define some of the differences between progressives today. After that, I hope to share some thoughts on how progressivism differs from conservatism.

For thousands of years the ways in which cities and towns developed has provided us with a of blueprint for what human habitats need to flourish. Yet today many of our cities and towns have forsaken these tried-and-true methods and instead imposed rational planning and an overreliance on pricey infrastructure projects to foster growth and further development. What are the potential downfalls of departing from these practices of the past?

Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis is joined by Chuck Marohn of Strong Towns to traverse the world of urban planning and discuss the need for a return to the ancient models of development, the terrible costs of over-indebted infrastructure projects to younger Americans, whether or not Wal-Mart is a net boon or detriment to local communities, and how conservatism can help us form a more prosperous and enjoyable world.

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About Charles Marohn

Charles (or “Chuck” to friends and colleagues) Marohn is the founder and president of Strong Towns, a nonprofit that supports thousands of people across the United States and Canada who are advocating for a radically new way of thinking about the way we build our world. Marohn is a professional engineer and a land use planner with decades of experience. He holds a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering and a Master of Urban and Regional Planning, both from the University of Minnesota.

Marohn is the author of Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity (Wiley, 2019). He hosts the Strong Towns Podcast and is a primary writer for Strong Towns’ web content. He has presented Strong Towns concepts in hundreds of cities and towns across North America. Planetizen named him one of the 10 Most Influential Urbanists of all time. He is a long-time commentator on KAXE Northern Community Radio. He currently co-hosts KAXE’s Dig Deep program, a monthly examination of public policy issues affecting Minnesotans.

Marohn grew up on a small farm in central Minnesota. The oldest of three sons of two elementary school teachers, he joined the Minnesota National Guard on his seventeenth birthday during his junior year of high school and served in the Guard for nine years. In addition to being passionate about building a stronger America, he loves playing music, is an obsessive reader, and religiously follows his favorite team, the Minnesota Twins. Chuck and his wife live with their two daughters in their hometown of Brainerd, Minnesota. You can find him on Twitter @clmarohn

Listener Mail

Josh responds to a listener’s question about conservatism’s challenges with appealing to minorities and whether our nation’s institutions are worth conserving given the history of American slavery and other past sins.

In 1976 historian George H. Nash wrote The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945, a celebrated historical accounting that established much of the narrative for how we think about the development of modern conservatism even today. George Nash joins Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis to discuss the various strands of thought that emerged after the second World War that eventually evolved into a political movement on the Right. Along the way, Dr. Nash shares his insights on the colorful individuals who shaped the debate, how they fought one another, and how an eventual loose consensus was brought forth. Finally, he offers some thoughts on what a lifetime of studying the history of conservatism can teach aspiring conservatives today.

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About George H. Nash

George H. Nash is the epitome of a gentleman and a scholar. A graduate from Amherst College who received his Ph.D. in History from Harvard University, Dr. Nash is an authority on the histories of American conservatism and the life of President Herbert Hoover. Dr. Nash is an independent scholar, historian, and lecturer. He speaks and writes frequently about the history and present direction of American conservatism, the life of Herbert Hoover, the legacy of Ronald Reagan, the education of the Founding Fathers, and other subjects. His writings have appeared in the American Spectator, Claremont Review of Books, Intercollegiate Review, Modern Age, National Review, New York Times Book Review, Policy Review, University Bookman, Wall Street Journal, and many other publications. He has lectured at the Library of Congress; the National Archives; the Herbert Hoover, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson presidential libraries; the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum; the Hoover Institution; the Heritage Foundation; the McConnell Center; and at various universities and conferences in the United States and Europe. Several of his lectures have been featured on C-SPAN. He has also been interviewed by C-SPAN, National Public Radio, numerous radio stations, and the print media. Dr. Nash lives in Massachusetts.

Listener Mail

At the end of the episode, Josh responds to a listener’s question about a comment he made in the episode that dropped on Election Day 2020. Josh had expressed his views that that time that neither major party candidate represented an existential threat to the United States and the listener askes, given what we now know about the election aftermath, accusations of widespread election fraud, the incursion on January 6, and the subsequent white washing of the Republican party, would Josh now view Trump as an existential threat to the country?