Toward A Unified Theory of Conservatism: Ideology and Partisanship
- Joshua Bianchi
- Oct 22
- 7 min read
In the following series, I will outline the origins of cultural Marxism, the neuroses of American conservatism, and a solution to unify conservatism beneath the banner of ideology.
This article concerns the various schools of conservative thought in America, their internal contradictions, and the path to unity.
Many who consider themselves 'right-wing' cannot seriously define the term "conservative." For starters, the term sounds antiquated, smacking of Republican partisanship and conjuring images of grey-haired news pundits who passionately comment or whine about current events. Household 'conservatives' include impressive names like Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Glen Beck, Tucker Carlson, and Ben Shapiro. Many Republicans are careful to call themselves conservative, but Republican partisanship alone does not adequately indicate any serious degree of conservatism. It is a timeless truth that ideology and loyal partisanship tend to unravel one another; a glance at the growing divide between moderate liberals and hard-line Marxists proves this.
Since the 1950s, conservatism in the United States has not been cohesively bound to any particular ideology. Instead, it has functioned as a reaction to the increasing pace of liberalization in culture, with each subsequent increase in liberalization eliciting an increasingly stronger conservative reaction. However, the conservative reaction itself proceeds from aversion or alarm rather than a philosophical strategy. The reactionary nature of conservatism has been a critical weakness, one of many reasons why conservatives today are losing the culture battle. It is also why the Republican Party has shifted its tone on so many issues over time.
In short, Marxism survived the fall of the Soviet Union because the core tenets of its philosophy were codified into an ideology and injected into the public consciousness via academia and global finance. Meanwhile, American conservatism has consistently declined since conservative leaders are hesitant to do the same.
Defining Conservatism
A proper definition of conservatism should begin with its underlying philosophy, which follows the tradition of thinkers such as Edmund Burke and Russell Kirk. John Locke first articulated many of the principles debated within conservatism, particularly those concerning liberty, government, and individual rights, as rationalist philosophy. However, Locke himself is not a conservative at all. Rationalism, particularly the notion that individuals can establish a strong government using pure reason, is a classically liberal position. Burke vehemently critiqued Lockean rationalism, arguing instead that societies are best preserved through historical continuity and inherited wisdom rather than enlightened minds and abstract natural rights. The issues of rights would become especially contentious later, when liberalism would begin to empower the government to be the sole purveyor of rights.
Locke’s corpus of theory on individual liberty and private property became a cornerstone of the Anglo-American political tradition, influencing the English Parliament and the American Founding Fathers and shaping the tradition of constitutional governance. However, his rationalist and contractarian approach left open questions about the roles of tradition, inherited institutions, and moral order. These questions later became the primary focus of concern for conservatives, particularly Edmund Burke.
Objectively speaking, natural law, as a term of politics and jurisprudence, may be defined as a loosely knit body of rules of action prescribed by an authority superior to the state. These rules variously (according to the several differing schools of natural-law and natural-rights speculation) are derived from divine commandment; from the nature of humankind; from abstract Reason; or from long experience of mankind in community. But natural law does not appertain to states and courts merely. For primarily it is a body of ethical perceptions or rules governing the life of the individual person, quite aside from politics and jurisprudence. When many persons ignore or flout the natural law for human beings, the consequences presently are ruinous. . . .
Burke essentially created the modern iteration of conservatism. His defense of tradition, gradual change, and the importance of inherited social institutions set the foundation for a conservative worldview that values order, stability, and moral authority. In Reflections on the Revolution in France, Burke argued that society is an organic inheritance, not a contract to be discarded at will; that radical upheaval destroys the accumulated wisdom of generations. Although Locke’s emphasis on constitutional government influenced him, Burke rejected the notion that societies should be founded solely on abstract principles, such as natural rights, warning that such rationalist idealism often led to social disorder and tyranny.
Drawing on Burke's writings, Russell Kirk remains one of the few Americans who truly understood the need for a unified conservatism in the United States. Before Kirk's writings in the 1950s, the Christian foundations of the United States had not been challenged internally.
Kirk's writings are dense; he scarcely writes a full sentence without cross-referencing several other works and philosophers, but what he lacks in brevity he makes up for in richness of content. In his book The Conservative Mind, he lays down the "six canons of conservative thought:"
Belief in a transcendent order, or body of natural law, which rules society as well as conscience. Political problems, at bottom, are religious and moral problems. [...] True politics is the art of apprehending and applying the Justice which ought to prevail in a community of souls.
Affection for the proliferating variety and mystery of human experience, as opposed to the narrowing uniformity, egalitarianism and utilitarian aims of most radical systems; Conservatives resist what Robert Graves calls “Logicalism” in society. This prejudice has been called “the conservatism of enjoyment” - a sense that life is worth living according to Walter Bagehot "the Proper source of an animated conservatism."
Conviction that civilized society requires orders and classes as against the notion of an “classless society.” With reason, conservatives have often been called “the party of order.” If natural distinctions are effaced among men, oligarchs fill the vacuum. Ultimate equality in the judgment of God, and equality before courts of law are recognized by conservatives; but equality of condition, they think, means equality in servitude and boredom.
Persuasion that freedom and property are closely linked. Separate property from private possession, and Leviathan becomes master of all. Economic leveling, they maintain, is not economic progress.
Faith in prescription and distrust of “sophisters, calculators, and economists” who would reconstruct society upon abstract designs. Custom, convention, and old prescription are checks both upon man's anarchic impulse and upon the innovator's lust for power.
Recognition that change may not be salutary reform: hasty innovation may be a devouring conflagration, rather than a torch of progress. Society must alter, for prudent change is the means of social preservation; but a statesman must take Providence into his calculations, and a statesman's chief virtue, according to Plato and to Burke, is prudence.
The roots of American conservatism are planted squarely in these six statements.
What Conservatism Means Now
The banner of conservatism is held aloft by many in the United States who would disagree with at least one of Kirk's canons of thought.
Evangelical Christians call themselves conservative because they wish to conserve the traditional American religious and moral values, but not necessarily the civil or economic liberties of a free market, which they tend to condemn. The war on drugs required significant legislation and an increase in the power of the government, but many evangelical conservatives supported it on moral grounds.
By contrast, libertarians and many rural Americans consider themselves conservative in their championing of individual liberties. Freedom of speech, the right to bear arms, and the legalization of recreational drugs are popular among this group, who are more concerned with liberty than with defending our moral and religious foundations, which would significantly impede a lifestyle of hyper-individualism.
On another axis, the divide between neoconservative and paleoconservative Americans centers around the myriad of foreign powers involved in our government, both economically and militarily. Such an issue cannot be easily resolved by the application of traditional values. The Reagan and Bush administrations were certainly more interventionist than many paleoconservatives would have liked. Yet, the case can also be made that a style of Pat Buchanan's isolationism would likely lead to future diplomatic issues that could be better resolved proactively.
There must be a unified and coordinated effort made by conservatives to combat the Marxist stranglehold on American culture. This requires that conservatism be defined by more than a devotion to traditional values, which are being actively written out of our history books, or by determining the appropriate size of government, which increases daily and cannot be decreased without tremendous effort.
There must be a core of ideology that unites conservatives under a shared system of philosophical thinking. It must facilitate social change on a platform other than the presidential because that is a losing strategy. While conservatives agonize over electing a republican president, Marxism continues to erode the hearts and minds of the American youth day by day.
The electoral battle between two opposing parties is a red herring; the real solution lies in correcting the trajectory of American culture before it collapses into complete disunity. Conservatism needs to formulate a socially directed response to what is effectively a socially transmitted disease. The infiltration of Marxist philosophy and rhetoric within American institutions of learning and policy, without tolerance for opposing points of view, has mortally wounded the American spirit; we now must turn to our youth as the last hope for restoring order to a spiraling society.
A new conservative corpus of theory would certainly alienate some of the current base; indeed, it must, because it cannot contradict itself. That does not change the imperative. Just as Marxist theory outlasted the USSR, there must be a conservative force that exists independently of American politics. There will undoubtedly be some disenfranchised libertarians, paleoconservatives, neoconservatives, and evangelical Christians, but we must guarantee that future generations of conservatives do not find themselves standing alone, unarmed, against a hostile ideology.
A unified conservative theory will not result in a landslide election in the next cycle or even in preserving the America that once was, but it will preserve the heart of what American conservatives desire, even after they have long disappeared. If American conservatives believe that what they know is right and that there are good and absolute truths, then they must commit it to a formal ideology, not for their own sake, but for the sake of a world wherein a force as immense and terrible as modern Marxism does not prevail against righteousness.
Moreover, turning back the clock on American culture will require more unification and cooperation than is currently possible under the loosely affiliated banner of conservatism in the United States. Such a change must be enacted immediately if the desired outcome is to preserve America at all.
In summary, the conservative movement in the United States is ontologically bound to its progressive counterpart. Whereas the liberal or progressive movements have a general agenda and desire for change to be enacted, the conservative movement is primarily motivated to resist these changes. Every push towards universal healthcare or environmental quotas is met by conservative resistance. This stems from the philosophical devotion to small government and the principle that societal change should be enacted by voluntary associations rather than through government mandates. According to this philosophy, each new increase in government power is viewed as another millstone around the taxpayers' necks. While true, this is not a winsome platform, nor is it prescriptive. There is no unifying aspiration, only a distaste for using the government as a cure-all.
We must gain direction. We must decide to be more than resistant; we must choose to take control of this culture.