In Defense of the NatCons

A few months ago, a group of scholars, journalists, thinkers, and gadflies signed a statement of principles organized by Yoram Hazony and others, around his theme of national conservatism. Among the signatories were John O’Sullivan, Daniel McCarthy, Ryszard Legutko, Christopher Rufo, and Peter Thiel. To be clear about my sympathies, I signed as well and am writing now from Hazony’s National Conservatism Conference in Miami.

As is often the case, a statement like this is meant to draw out debate, and thankfully it has. Another group of thinkers, peers, and friends — including Rowan Williams, former archbishop of Canterbury; Catholic thinker Thomas Pink; and Red Toryism’s chief exponent, Phillip Blond — signed an open letter registering their dismay. In fact it accused the NatCon statement of being “neither conservative nor Christian.”

“Finally!” I thought, upon reading the letter: a fight worth having, and friends worth having it out with.

And yet, the dismay turns out to be mutual. Outside of its accusation of political and religious apostasy, I found myself nodding along to most of the principles and ideas it wanted to champion against the NatCons.

For instance, the NatCon critics write:

As critics of contemporary liberalism from both Left and Right, we believe that the just nation must take account of the principle of subsidiarity — that power should be devolved to the lowest appropriate level.

Agree to agree! The NatCons articulate a similar principle though in a distinctly American key:

We recommend the federalist principle, which prescribes a delegation of power to the respective states or subdivisions of the nation so as to allow greater variation, experimentation, and freedom.

The NatCon critics write:

We are born into social relations, Burke’s “little platoons”; and these are the first object of our affections. The care that has been extended to us before we could reciprocate, we learn to extend to others: particularly to those weakest among us. We learn to love and care for family and friends, community and country. This love creates a sense of attachment and affection that gradually extends to our fellow citizens and humankind — the strangers in our midst who become our neighbours. On this basis we can start to displace a globalism of surveillance and suspicion with an internationalism of friendship and reciprocity.

Again, beautifully said. And much of it reflected in the NatCon statement’s eighth principle, on family and children.

Where the letter tries to offer a sharper complaint, it misses the mark. The NatCon critics write:

The absolute sovereignty of the nation-state presented in the Statement of Principles is a modern myth, which traditional conservatives such as Edmund Burke questioned because, as with the French Revolution, it can lead to terror and tyranny. Burke’s alternative was a ‘cultural commonwealth’ of peoples and nations covenanting with each other in the interests of mutual benefit and flourishing.

This is the chief defect of the critics’ letter: arguing with a straw man. Nowhere does the NatCon statement champion an “absolute sovereignty of the nation-state.” Instead it champions a “strong but limited” nation-state as a means to establish “a more perfect union” and to provide for common goods. Likewise the critics announce, “We cannot outsource our political prudence solely to the nation-state; rather, we must pursue the common good, and the substantive goods of men and women, at every level of social organisation, from the family to international bodies.” But who ever said otherwise? The critics refer to “a pure nationalism” — but at no time do the NatCons promote such “purity” or put nationalism forward as a check on all other values or the measure of all political virtues. Nor, as the critics allege, does the statement “uncritically embrace the nation-state as the one true political form” or set itself in favor of nations “seeking their own interests in perpetual implied conflict.”

Quite the opposite, in fact. The NatCon conferences and movement, defiantly international and collaborative in practice and in conviction, vowed: “We support a system of free cooperation and competition among nation-states, working together through trade treaties, defensive alliances, and other common projects that respect the independence of their members.”

The NatCon “rejection of imperialism and globalism” is described in a perfectly legible way:

We oppose transferring the authority of elected governments to transnational or supranational bodies — a trend that pretends to high moral legitimacy even as it weakens representative government, sows public alienation and distrust, and strengthens the influence of autocratic regimes.

One detects here that everyone is shying away from saying what they mean. Perhaps the NatCons can be dinged for being coy and not just saying, “We oppose the direction and anti-democratic drift of institutions claiming to act in the name of universal liberalism like the EU. And implicitly we support the nationalists in Poland and Hungary who seek to restrain the EU’s overreach, or the Brexiteers who rejected it.”

But if NatCons’ critics want to argue for the fundamental legitimacy of the current EU’s arrangements and exercise of power, they should do so, rather than resort to this uncharitable accusation of heresy.