The curious thing is that many agriculture specialists and “agribusinessmen” see themselves as conservatives. They look with contempt upon governmental “indulgence” of those who have no more “moral fiber” than to accept “handouts” from the public treasury – but they look with equal contempt upon the most traditional and appropriate means of independence. What do such conservatives wish to conserve? Evidently nothing less than the great corporate blocks of wealth and power, in whose every interest is implied the moral degeneracy and economic dependence of the people. They do not esteem the possibility of a prospering, independent class of small owners because they are, in fact, not conservatives at all, but the most doctrinaire and disruptive of revolutionaries.
Wendell Berry, “Margins” in The Unsettling of America
I’ve written in this vein before, and I’m glad to get some confirmation of this feeling from Wendell: today’s conservatives are anything but conservative, in terms of the policies and priorities they put forth. There is nothing conservative about wanting to radically tear down or alter institutions and programs. Many so-called conservatives today are instead radicals, driven by an ideological commitment to capitalism and nationalism. In fact, as I wrote recently, everyone is a radical now, on all sides. And there are a few of us, moderately inclined (tempermentally) who are taking up the task identified by William F. Buckley half a century ago of standing athwart the on-going social media fights and political games, yelling “stop!”
On a unrelated note, this is the last of my posts recently detailing the things I wanted to pull from Wendell Berry’s What Are People For? and The Unsettling of America. Onward to new obsessions!
Justin DaMetz 