One of the things I recommend to friends and colleagues, in my paternalistic moments, is to occasionally take time away from one's dissertation project. The temptation, I find, it to write too much for too long, with the result that energy flags below the level necessary to work at a sustained pace. If one turns to other things, especially fiction and good short-form essays, then problems with the argument one wishes to make have a way of getting worked out in one's subconscious: hence a few days off have turned, for me, a shapeless mush of argument into seven typical stages of a humanitarian intervention, which contemporary theorists attempt to solve in four broad ways--but I digress.
In the course of reading, I found an interesting essay by Hazlitt called "On Reading Old Books." I don't mean to speak of his politics, but he expresses a sentiment early on which I believe can be identified as 'conservative:'
I do not think altogether the worse of a book for having survived the author a generation or two. I have more confidence in the dead than the living. Contemporary writers may generally be divided into two classes--one's friends or one's foes. Of the first we are compelled to think too well, and of the last we are disposed to think too ill, to receive much genuine pleasure from the perusal, or to judge fairly the merits of either... All these contradictions and petty details interrupt the calm current of our reflections. If you want to know what any of the authors were who lived before our time, and are still objects of anxious inquiry, you have only to look into their works. But the dust and smoke and noise of modern literature have nothing in common with the pure, silent air of immortality.
On my first reading, I took this to be just a stronger form of the same idea Montesquieu puts in the pen of Uzbek in Persian Letters (Letter 108): "The great mistake made by reviewers is that they write only about new books, as if the truth could ever be new. It seems to me that until a man has read all the old books he has no reason to prefer new ones instead." That is to say, old books are or can be a font of wisdom in a way new books cannot, because we have not just the evidence of the work itself, but knowledge of the approbation of many generations. One may read, so far as possible, with impartiality, not having to make much of a judgment about the deserved greatness of the work. I take this to be at the basis of conservative attempts to defend the canon, or a broad, deferential respect for tradition.
One of my favorite conversation-starters when in the company of political theorists is the 'who would you kick out of the canon' game? (Hegel and Kant are common answers, you will not be surprised to hear). Insomuch as it works, it does by highlighting the reverence for tradition we professionally maintain: I may think Rousseau is wrong about virtually everything, and establishes in his politics several trends I find disturbing (and I do), but that's only after considering its attractions at some length that I come to this view. That is, the disagreement comes only after broad deference to the history that has made his work an integral part of the story of political theory.
Now this is, I think, the right attitude towards the old. But what of the new? This comes to mind as a reflection on the view, expressed in various parts around the blogosphere, that perhaps what conservatism needs is fewer people in Washington, D.C., and more people living according to correct notions of virtue out there in the world. Then comes to mind the long passage in Cakes and Ale where the narrator discusses the literary merit of Edward Driffield. A sample:
The elect sneer at popularity; they are inclined even to assert that it is proof of mediocrity; but they forget that posterity makes its choice not from among the unknown writers of a period, but from among the known. It may be that some great masterpiece which deserves immortality has fallen still-born from the press, but posterity will never hear of it; it may be that posterity will scrap all the best sellers of our day, but it is among them that it must choose.
Hazlitt, in his single-minded focus on the past, entirely neglects the present because he finds the task of judgment, of sorting out biases and trying to be objective, too difficult, perhaps impossible. To which Maugham would reply: but that's nevertheless our task, however distasteful, and we should remember the long-term consequences of failing to confront what is incorrect or misunderstood now.
(I recommend Emily Hale's thoughts on feminism and conservatism as a model of productive engagement, and any of Helen's thoughts on tradition, especially here)
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