http://full.mingpaonews.com/20051204/tae1.htm
The article, entitled Internalization of the New Conservative Foreign Policy of the US, tries to make four claims. (1) Whereas Old Conservatism sees in human nature a tendency towards evil, New Conservatism sees therein a tendency towards good; (2) New Conservatism, whose followers come quite often from the lower classes, with leftist experience, has a strong populist component, which joins forces increasingly with rightist Evangelicalism; (3) the gradual shift from Old Conservatism to New Conservatism marks also a process of internalization of the latter by US domestic politics; (4) recent foreign policy gestures of the US should, therefore, be read as anything but realistic moderation.
Some of these claims are, with qualifications, valid. I am not so sure, however, as to the informativeness of Shen's rather idealistic way of reading American politics. By idealistic, I mean the attempt to read policy shifts as genuinely reflective, even wholly consequent, of changes in ideas, sometimes to the exclusion of a whole array of other factors. But even in the historiography of ideas, I am not particularly persuaded by Shen's characterization of the two Conservatisms.
First, no one can so surely say, that there is such a thing called New Conservatism, or Neo-conservatism, that flows from Edmund Burke, unless one devotes himself to interpreting ideological changes in the world through, and only through, the lens of certain events between 1789 and 1815. If, with Shen, Old Conservatism - whatever that means - receives a greater protection under the original US Constitution, such a Conservatism can certainly not flow from Burke: The Constitution, drafted in 1787, actually predates La Revolution. Old Conservatism, if any there be, must have long been part of the British political tradition - one thinks of the various ideological factions in England brought into existence by events since 1640; even more broadly, reaction to radical social transformation is prevalent in many societies and in many times. How can Burke, at Shen's bidding, dare monopolize such a venerable spirit?
Second, the statement, that Conservatism receives greater protection under the Constitution than does Liberalism, depends immensely on how one reads the two big terms Conservatism and Liberalism. A casual look at the Bill of Rights - first ten Amendments to the Constitution - must convince the
reader that liberalism as the championing of certain individual rights is clearly there in the Constitutional document. And the Constitution itself clearly stipulates that no titles of nobility shall be created in the US, something squarely contradicting the conservative vision of society put forth by E. Burke.
Third, there is certainly some agreement among historians that the US revolution is quite conservative in some respects. But which respects? Not anything to do with the human tendency towards good or evil, but everything to do with socio-economic arrangements: No class overthrown (except the colonial officers representing the Crown), no property confiscation (unlike the French, who must deal with the antagonistic Nobility and Church), no slave emancipation. Why does Shen not mention these more materialistic aspects of the game, in reading the conservative character of the American Revolution, but focus so exclusively on the spiritual underpinnings, some of which are more his wishful thinking than history?
To jump from E. Burke and J. Adams to the contemporary Powell is a wonderful leap in terms of historical explanation. Better, I think, to characterize the contemporary form of conservatism, than to engraft it onto whatever historical roots there seems to be. As for Shen's characterization of the Old and New Conservatisms, in the contemporary US, and the shift of dominance from one to the other, I am quite astonished to hear his total silence on US isolationism and the international politico-economic reasons working to sustain or undermine it, which I do take as one key difference between the so-called Old and New Conservatisms. Shen does not mention the Cold War, the Fall of Berlin Wall in 1989, etc. There is no doubt an imperial vision in New Conservatism which differs markedly from that in the Old, but the difference, again, is not driven by any diligently differentiated disagreements about human nature, but by changes in international power constellation, as well as domestic politics.
I agree with Shen, that the rise of the religious factor is significant; that its combination with neo-conservative Realpolitik can be deadly; and even that the final product might penetrate US values and civic life to a tremendous extent. These are positive claims, which I think are very worth investigating. But as to their cause, I must reject a simplistically idealistic explanation.
Fifth, Shen's idealistic reading of American politics nourishes itself a tendency towards deterministic totalization: Once the changes in ideas are charted, and their roots identified, everything then becomes for Shen almost a natural realization of this Hegelian Geist. This leaves no room for assessing whether certain foreign policy gestures by the US of late might indeed be realistic moderation, in face of the souring undertaking in Iraq, the (however interpreted) rise of China, and, not the least, very politico-capital consuming catastrophes in New Orleans, etc. When ideas are seen to drive everything and explain everything, pragmatic concessions on the plain of international relations must be dismissed a priori. This, I think, is a fatal weakness of Shen's reading.
Y.T.
December 3, 2005.