FAQ - What are Paleoconservatives?

Paleoconservatism (sometimes shortened to paleo or paleocon when the context is clear) refers to a branch of American conservative thought that is often called Old Right. Paleoconservatives in the 21st century often focus on their points of disagreement with neoconservatives. The term was coined in the late 20th century and derives from the Greek root palaeo- meaning "ancient" or "old." Chilton Williamson, Jr. describes paleoconservatism as "the expression of rootedness: a sense of place and of history, a sense of self derived from forebears, kin, and culture — an identity that is both collective and personal.” Paleoconservativism is not expressed as an ideology and its adherents do not necessarily subscribe to any one party line.

Paleoconservative thought incubated in the pages of Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture.1 Patrick Buchanan was heavily influenced by its articles and helped create another paleocon publication, The American Conservative. Its concerns overlap those of the Old Right that opposed the U.S. New Deal in the 1930s and 1940s, as well as the American social conservatism of the late 20th century.

Core beliefs

Many paleoconservatives also identify themselves as "classical conservatives" and trace their philosophy to the Old Right Republicans of the interwar period who successfully kept America out of the League of Nations, successfully reduced immigration with the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924; opposed Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, the Immigration Act of 1965 and Civil Rights laws of the 1960's.

Paleoconservatives are most easily distinguishable from other conservatives in their emphatic opposition to open immigration, their strong opposition to affirmative action, and their general disapproval of U.S. intervention overseas.

Most paleos are concerned with the "culture-eroding" effects of popular culture. Economic issues are not high on their agenda, and in this they are divided. Many reject the ideology of free trade and laissez-faire economics, arguing that it leads to the deterioration of America's industrial base. Other paleos, however, support laissez-faire economic policies articulated by classical liberals such as Frédéric Bastiat in the nineteenth century.

Intellectual precursors and modern expositors

In America, the Southern Agrarians, Charles Lindbergh, Albert Jay Nock, Garet Garrett, Robert R. McCormick, Felix Morley, and Russell Kirk, among others, articulated positions that have proved influential among contemporary paleoconservatives. Some paleos enthusiastically embrace the extreme decentralizing tenets of the Anti-Federalists, such as John Dickinson and George Mason. The southern conservative thread of paleoconservatism embodying the statesmanship of nineteenth-century figures such as John Randolph of Roanoke, John Taylor of Caroline and John C. Calhoun has proven influential as well, and has found a modern expositor in the late Mel Bradford. These American conservatives often embraced the Irish-born Edmund Burke. The German-born Johannes Althusius and his tract Politica with its core emphasis on the principle of subsidiarity has proven influential, as well.

Historians such as Paul V. Murphy and Isaiah Berlin have traced the paleoconservatives' intellectual ancestry to anti-modern writers who defended the hierarchy, localism, ultramontanism, monarchy and aristocracy. European precursors to paleoconservatives include Joseph de Maistre, Donoso Cortes, Klemens Wenzel von Metternich, and Pope Pius IX, though they tend to carry influence limited to the Roman Catholic traditionalist subsect of paleoconservatism.

Some modern European continental conservatives, such as Frenchmen Jacques Barzun, Alain de Benoist, and René Girard, have a mode of thought and cultural criticism esteemed by many paleoconservatives.

Paleoconservatives in the modern United States

Paleoconservatives consist of a disparate pool from all walks of life, including Evangelical Christians and Roman Catholic traditionalists, libertarian individualists, Midwestern agrarians, Reagan Democrats, and southern conservatives. The most prominent paleoconservative is Pat Buchanan. The two leading paleoconservative publications are Chronicles and The American Conservative, which Buchanan helped to create. Other contemporary luminaries include Donald Livingston, a Professor of Philosophy at Emory; Paul Craig Roberts, an attorney and former Reagan administration Treasury official; commentator Joseph Sobran; journalist Chilton Williamson; classicist Thomas Fleming (author), and historian Clyde N. Wilson. There are many followers of the late Murray Rothbard and Lew Rockwell who embrace paleolibertarianism, and being culturally conservative, espouse many of the same themes of paleoconservatives, but they are wholly committed to economic laissez-faire. While Congressmen Rep. Ron Paul (R -TX) and Rep. Tom Tancredo (R -CO) are not avowed paleoconservatives, their political positions are consistent with a great number of paleos.

Many American paleoconservatives see themselves as iconoclasts, breaking what they regard as liberal taboos. Particular targets of their ire include "Political correctness", Martin Luther King, Jr., the Civil Rights Movement, the Frankfurt School, and Franklin Roosevelt. Some paleo figures, especially the late Samuel Francis, have been accused of having ties to allegedly racist groups such as the Council of Conservative Citizens, American Renaissance and the journal The Occidental Quarterly. Many of these views are also championed by the John Birch Society, which is considered a paleo group.

Paleoconservatism has recently become the principal operating philosophy of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI). In its publications and conferences it often champions pre-WWII Old Right ideas, such as isolationism, limited government and cultural regionalism. While they favor free-market solutions they tend to recognize the limitations of the market, or as economist Wilhelm Roepke says, "...the market is not everything." ISI promotes various agrarian and distributist works, and the idea of a humane economy.

The deaths in 1951 of publisher William Randolph Hearst and in 1955 of Chicago Tribune publisher Robert R. McCormick cost the movement its most important newspapers.

Since the end of the Cold War, the rift within the conservative movement has deepened with the ascent of the neoconservatives and the fading from power of the paleos. There are no prominent paleos in the Bush administration. Harsh words have been exchanged between David Frum of National Review and Patrick Buchanan of The American Conservative. Frum charged that paleocons, in their sometimes harsh criticism of President George W. Bush and the war on terror, have become unpatriotic and, at times, anti-Semitic. Buchanan and others have retorted that neocons influence the U.S. government toward the pursuit of global empire and for the exclusive benefit of Israel and multi-national corporations with whom they have close ties.

Paleoconservatives vis-à-vis neoconservatives

Historian Thomas Woods elaborates on the divergence in the conservative movement, and the ascent of the neoconservatives, and their distinguishing features from more traditional conservatives:

The conservative’s traditional sympathy for the American South and its people and heritage, evident in the works of such great American conservatives as Richard M. Weaver and Russell Kirk, began to disappear... [T]he neocons are heavily influenced by Woodrow Wilson, with perhaps a hint of Theodore Roosevelt...They believe in an aggressive U.S. presence practically everywhere, and in the spread of democracy around the world, by force if necessary....Neoconservatives tend to want more efficient government agencies; paleoconservatives want fewer government agencies. [Neoconservatives] generally admire President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his heavily interventionist New Deal policies. Neoconservatives have not exactly been known for their budget consciousness, and you won’t hear them talking about making any serious inroads into the federal apparatus.[1]

The phraseology "paleoconservative" ("old conservative") was a rejoinder issued in the 1980s to differentiate traditional conservatives from "neoconservatism". The rift is often traced back to a dispute over the director of the National Endowment for the Humanities by the incoming Reagan Administration. Reagan nominated paleo leader Mel Bradford. He was dropped after neocons argued that his hatred of Abraham Lincoln ill suited a Republican nominee. The origins of the schism between paleo and neocon can be traced back decades. In the 1960s the new neoconservative movement articulated a vision much different from the Old Right. Neoconservatives were not opposed to the New Deal, but they thought LBJ's Great Society went too far. Neoconservatives embrace an interventionist foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East. They espoused especially strong support for Israel and believe the United States should ensure the security of the Jewish state. What made this movement so potent was the number of influential neoconservative intellectuals who attained positions of power in the federal government and in the mass-media, in sharp contrast to the marginal status of the paleos.

The paleoconservatives argued that neoconservatives were illegitimate interlopers in the conservative movement. The paleos feel they are purists who have been crowded into a corner by a corrupt element tied to special interest groups and to globalization.

Paleoconservatism and civil society

Paleoconservatives esteem the principles of subsidiarity and localism in recognizing that one must surely be an Ohioan, Texan or Virginian as they are an American.

They usually embrace federalism within a broader framework of nationalism and are typically staunch supporters of states' rights. They tend to be critical of overreaching federal power usurping state and local authority. For example, they did not support the Religious Right's efforts to federalize the Terri Schiavo case in 2005. On the other hand, they joined with other conservatives in denouncing Kelo v. City of New London, even though the Supreme Court came down on the side of local decision-making.

Many paleoconservatives are sympathetic to the critiques of economist Wilhelm Roepke and sociologist Robert Nisbet. Roepke was critical of political and economic centralisation, and "the cult of the colossal." Roepke recognized the interplay between the political and economic order, and held that a decentralized political federal polity was conducive to the ideal economic order most compatible with the human condition. Nisbet posited that the preoccupation with community was a result of the displacement of the intermediary institutions between the individual and the state whether the family, neighborhood, guild, church, or voluntary and civic associations. The corps intermédiaries—that is the intermediary institutions between the individual and the state—served as the only effective restraint against the centripetal forces of centralized political and economic power. The displacement of these institutions so vital to civil society and the accompanying obsession with community was precipitated by the activities and structure of the modern state. Nisbet held that the centralised state has dissolved the natural bonds and allegiances of civil society. And with totalitarian movements in Europe, there was actually a conscious effort by the state to dissolve those allegiances. Much of the later twentieth century social pathologies, dependency, poverty, and rampant crime perhaps owe to authentic community being grinded in the millstone of central state authority. As a result, paleoconservatives hope to restore authentic community by devolving power and authority back to the corp intermediaries while curtailing state power.

Paleoconservatives, Culture War and Political Correctness

The ideas of Culture War, Political Correctness and Cultural Marxism have played a large role in paleoconservatism. Culture War has been a major subject of the writings Robert H. Bork and Patrick J. Buchanan among others. In Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline, Bork argues that the social movements of the 1960s, such as the sexual revolution, led to dangerous and moral decline and eliminated the morality necessary for civil society, and are inherently opposed to the ideals Western civilization. Buchanan delivered a controversial keynote address at the 1992 Republican National Convention which has since been dubbed the culture war speech, in which he declared a “Cultural War for the Soul of America” was being fought in the U.S..[2]

Paleoconservatives often attack “political correctness,” which they see as a form of censorship and social control. Many conservatives such as William S. Lind claim “political correctness” is a form of “cultural Marxism” and a product of the Frankfurt School’s Critical Theory:

If we look at it analytically, if we look at it historically, we quickly find out exactly what it is. Political Correctness is cultural Marxism. It is Marxism translated from economic into cultural terms. It is an effort that goes back not to the 1960s and the hippies and the peace movement, but back to World War I. If we compare the basic tenets of Political Correctness with classical Marxism the parallels are very obvious.[3]

Paleoconservatives have often urged people to push against what they call "the limits of permissible dissent," on such topics as immigration and race relations. In some cases this has led to strife among the Paleoconservatives themselves.[4] For example some paleoconservatives have attacked the Civil Rights Movement and called for the repeal of all anti-discrimination laws.[5] Such statements have led many to accusations some paleoconservatives of promoting racism or White nationalism. The Charles Martel Society calls for a "third school" to emerge from paleoconservatism in the from of an ideology of European identity politics. Some paleoconservative, such as Samuel Francis and Virginia Abernethy and groups such as the Council of Conservative Citizens, American Renaissance and the journal The Occidental Quarterly, embrace this idea. But others, such as Thomas Fleming, reject racialpolitik. [6]

Paleoconservatism's economic concerns

No issue divides paleos more than trade policy. Many paleoconservatives hold protectionist conceptions of trade policy. Pat Buchanan, author of The Great Betrayal: How American Sovereignty and Social Justice Are Being Sacrificed to the Gods of the Global Economy, and William R. Hawkins, of U.S. Business and Industry Council Education Foundation, are the chief expositors of economic nationalism in our time. They warn of the peril posed by free trade and globalization. They see an erosion of America's industrial base unfolding and they lament the exorbitant trade deficits between the United States and its trading partners, particularly China.

However, the southern conservatives and paleolibertarians are generally in favor of economic laissez-faire and free trade. They may even concede America has some economic ills, but they do not scapegoat foreign competition, as they recognize the value of free trade, economies of scale, comparative advantage, and specialization of labor. Many among them place culpability for America's economic ills on bad fiscal, tax and monetary policy, as well as over-regulation by the government, and accept the Austrian Theory of Trade Cycle. Nonetheless, its adherents concurrently reject the edifices of globalization such as the WTO, GATT, NAFTA, CAFTA, and FTAA. Lew Rockwell summarizes this position:

NAFTA is imperialist. It preaches to other countries about what kinds of laws and regulations they should have-the social democratic mixed economy that is impoverishing us. NAFTA is, of course, not the free trade of Jefferson, Randolph, Taylor and Calhoun. It is trade for the few and not the many, for the particular interests and not the general interests.

Thus, both paleo free traders and protectionists tend to recognize the sovereignty-eroding effects of globalization, and they are generally opposed to so called free trade treaties, and the machinery of international finance.

Paleoconservatism's foreign policy concerns

In relations with other nations, paleoconservatives are more willing to question the logic of globalization, they are more critical of immigration policy and the lack of enforcement against undocumented immigrants and they characteristically embrace an isolationist foreign policy.

A central pillar of paleoconservatism is a foreign policy based upon non-interventionism or isolationism. American isolationists have opposed political and military commitments, or alliances with, foreign powers (or for that matter international bodies,) particularly those in Europe. They find support in the wisdom of the founding fathers and a subsequent generation of antebellum statesmen. George Washington had declared, "It is our true policy to steer clear of entangling alliances with any portion of the foreign world." John Quincy Adams avowed, "America does not go abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own."

In the 1930s, paleo predecessors joined with the isolationist left, including Charles Beard, to oppose American entry into any European war. Similarly, they saw no interest worth protecting in Asia. In the eyes of isolationists of the 1930s, for the United States to commit itself to the Dutch East Indies and Singapore, it served as a back door to war, and it antagonized the Japanese. Paleoconservatives often esteem the America First principles of 1940 as being commensurate with those of the founding fathers as embodied in the Neutrality Act of 1794. During the Cold War a few paleoconservatives supported overseas commitments as necessary to the defense of the United States against communist aggression. Though Senator Taft and most paleos opposed NATO almost from the impetus, and this was a central issue in the contest between Robert Taft and Dwight Eisenhower for the 1952 Republican nomination. But Taft lost; his death early in 1953 deprived the Old Right of its most articulate leader.

In his 1995 book Isolationism Reconfigured, Eric Nordlinger, a Brown University scholar, observed, "[t]here is virtually no disagreement about isolationism having served the country exceptionally well throughout the nineteenth century" and he further surmises "the strategic vision of historical and contemporary isolationism is one of quiet strength and national autonomy." In the eyes of paleos, foreign interventionism is demonstrably counter-productive, and "[t]he United States is strategically immune in being insulated, invulnerable, impermeable, and impervious and thus has few security reasons to become engaged politically and militarily." Thus, while many paleos may echo old republican concerns about large standing armies, most conceptualize a foreign policy based on strategic independence, armed neutrality, and non-interventionism.

Paleoconservatism's cultural and immigration policy concerns

Where immigration allows foreigners into a nation, it then becomes a domestic policy concern. Cultural cohesiveness and some degree of cultural homogeneity are important factors for paleoconservatives. Though some celebrate differences and vibrant regional cultures in America, most are opposed to multiculturalism and runaway Third World immigration. They see non-European immigration as being averse to their interests because it threatens to displace the historic European cultural homogeneity of the United States. Thus, many they tend to reject the aphorism E Pluribus Unum since it has been co-opted into a mantra for diversity and multiculturalism. These paleoconservatives look back to a different tradition, such as the one suggested by John Jay in Federalist #2, that emphasizes cultural homogeneity:

Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people — a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs... This country and this people seem to have been made for each other, and it appears as if it was the design of Providence, that an inheritance so proper and convenient for a band of brethren, united to each other by the strongest ties, should never be split into a number of unsocial, jealous, and alien sovereignties.

Likewise, in modern times, the prophetic 1949 warning of British observer T.S. Eliot has elicited the attention of paleoconservatives:

The real revolution in that country was not what is called the Revolution, but is a consequence of the Civil War; after which arose a plutocratic elite; after which the expansion and material development of the country was accelerated; after which was swollen that stream of mixed immigration, bringing (or rather multiplying) the danger of development into a caste system which has not yet been quite dispelled. For the sociologist, the evidence from America is not yet ripe.

In 1965 Ernest van den Haag wrote in the National Review:

The wish to preserve one's identity and the identity of one's nation requires no justification—and no belief in superiority—any more than the wish to have one's own children, and to continue one's family through them need be justified or rationalized by a belief that they are superior to the children of others, or more fit, or better in business. One identifies with one's family, because it is one's family—not because they are better people than others. For no other reason one identifies with one's national group more than with others. Else there would be no nations.[7]

Conservative commentator Pat Buchanan's recent book The Death of the West: How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Country and Civilization, the late Samuel Francis' anthology of essays entitled Revolution from the Middle and Chilton Williamson's book The Immigration Mystique are contemporary paleoconservative expressions of immigration and cultural stances. Paleoconservatives perceive Balkanization, social and ethnic strife will be the end result of runaway immigration, and the attendant failure to cope with illegal immigrants, and the myth of America being the universal nation.

Some are less apt to emphasize cultural homogeneity, and place weight on the value of diversity and regional subcultures with a nation. They might acquiesce with this sentiment by Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, a monarchist and reactionary traditionalist, who declares:

Patriotism, not nationalism, should inspire the citizen. The ethnic nationalist who wants a linguistically and culturally uniform nation is akin to the racist who is intolerant toward those who look (and behave) differently. The patriot is a "diversitarian"; he is pleased, indeed proud of the variety within the borders of his country; he looks for loyalty from all citizens. And he looks up and down, not left and right.[8]

Still, other American paleos may emphasize appreciation for a vibrant regionalism and the varied subcultures while recognizing the need for some degree of European-American cultural homogeneity.

Further reading

• Crunden, Robert, ed. The Superfluous Men: Critics of American Culture, 1900-1945, 1999. ISBN 1882926307.
• Francis, Samuel Beautiful Losers: Essays on the Failure of American Conservatism, 1993. ISBN 0826209769.
• Gottfried, Paul The Conservative Movement, 1993. ISBN 0805797491.
• Raimondo, Justin Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement, 1993. ISBN 1883959004.
• Scotchie, Joseph, ed. The Paleoconservatives: New Voices of the Old Right, 1999. ISBN 1560004274.

Notices

Copyright (c) 2006 InternetPundit.com. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.

1. 1. Francis, Samuel, "The Paleo Persuasion," The American Conservative