Yuval Levin’s new book, The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left, is aptly titled. Both men were supporters of the American Revolution, but they famously split of the revolution in France, giving us this “great debate” which has lasted until this very moment.
Burke, of course, is widely considered the father of conservatism, while Paine is a consummate radical. But in recent years — since at least the rise of the tea party — I have noticed modern conservatism sounding a lot more like Paine than Burke. During a recent discussion about the book, I asked Levin to explain. Here’s an excerpt of his take:
“When conservatives look for ways to describe in philosophical terms the view of the world they’re trying to conserve, they do very often reach to a set of arguments from the American founding era that come from the radical side of the debate … And so, a lot of times, when we talk we sound much more radical than we actually are in practice and in action and even in belief … You certainly do see that in this moment where there’s an inclination among the tea party and among some other elements in the Republican coalition to speak in terms that are very radical, even when the actual program they’re advancing is actually quite conservative … I think that’s a problem. I think that’s a very real practical problem, and it’s part of the reason for my writing this book is that I think conservatives need a rhetoric of conservatism … and we’ve lacked that, and therefore we’ve lacked a theory that is adequate to our practice.
“We’ve lacked an actual conservative explanation of the American founding and of the American system. And one of the effects that has is that it tends to make us disinclined toward policy; It tends to cause us to think in abstract terms, rather than to approach politics with an eye to fixing problems before they open the path to more radical solutions and transformations … so that they don’t grow so large that they invite much more radical solutions that disturb that order.”
This is just a sampling of what we discussed. You can listen streaming audio of our full conversation here (and download the podcast on iTunes.)