From literature, to American politics, technology and the life of nations, the theme this past summer seemed to be freedom.
The question of Iraq’s freedom is at the forefront of the American mind, and celebrated novelist Jonathan Franzen’s newest offering is entitled, as many pundits have helpfully noted, “Freedom.”
Freedom, along with revolution, is also a watchword of this summer’s continued conservative protests against President Barack Obama’s spending, agenda and vacation schedule.
It’s strange to hear the conservative movement in terms of revolution and rebellion, because the base of conservative idea is that great revolutions must be tethered to central truths about the human state and autonomy must be leavened with order. It’s also strange because of the un-revolutionary character of the people revolting.
As National Review’s editor Rich Lowry wrote in his column about Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally, the protesters didn’t seem like the protesting kind, suggesting that they seemed more likely to mow the grass than storm the keep.
This “revolt of the bourgeois,” this rebellion of the responsible, is a compelling image in a troubled time, as people wait in fevered anticipation for any number of different things, depending on their political leanings; for something to change in stride, or for something brittle to snap.
Yet even Lowry admitted there is something chaotic in this conservative moment, hence his caution to a possible future GOP majority to avoid “scaring anyone or trashing the place.” Any movement that needs such instruction is not solely an alliance of the staid and sane, even if the predominant instinct actually is restraint rather than revolution.
But Lowry’s central point seems right: It is the more sober aspect of the conservative face that should be presented in these times — the pocket protector instead of the pitchfork. The country has perhaps had enough of apocalypse, and even if it hasn’t, it is not the job of a responsible party to stoke those particular fires.
Even beyond the momentary political advantage that is, or at least should be, present in restraint, there is a more central understanding of freedom that escapes not only many liberals but also their more radical critics.
Virtue is a quaint word to today’s world. But virtue, understood in the context of America’s public lexicon, is simply an ordering structure — a governor on passions or a fetter that turns license to true liberty. It is a sense of “ought” that pervades our sense of “can” and a cursory look at the American scene underscores its neglected importance.
A lack of order often appears as excess. The rabid materialism decried by the environmental ascetics of the Left and by the more religious on the Right, is a symptom, as are the spoiled fruits of technology without rules.
From the relatively innocuous annoyance of spam to the more expansively harmful syndromes like deteriorating skill in language, loss of attention span, misuse of communication technologies by children and young adults, and widely available pornography, ills aplenty come from unchecked liberty.
The greed that prompts people to buy houses they can’t afford, the entitlement that leads athletes to break rules for competitive advantage and the corruption in politics and big business are not problems that can be solved by regulation alone. They are an epidemic in a concept of liberty that accepts no restraint.
In what now seems to be the inevitable November wave that will provide the Tea Partiers their moment of cathartic victory, conservatives should remember there is another side to freedom — an obligation to go along with the right and a responsibility along with the gift.
Reach Will at wmunsil@asu.edu.
