Conservatives Are Getting Lost in “Ideas”

“Shapiro’s most recent bookHow to Destroy America in Three Easy Stepspresents the United States’ problems, which he sees as near-fatal if left unaddressed, as rooted in the world of ideas and political philosophy.”

Conservatism, in its American variety, is supposedly all about ideas. According to conservative pundits and thinkers, ideas are the main factor in altering and influencing the direction of politics. Those who have not read very much proclaim that “politics is downstream of culture,” mimicking the libertarian bomb-thrower Andrew Breitbart. On a higher plane, we learn from those who see Richard Weaver as the beginning and end of political-philosophy that “ideas have consequences.” Both of these statements hold some merit and are appropriate in their place.

The problem is not the statements and thoughts behind them but what they leave out. As an outside spectator, contemporary American conservatism is invested in idealism, lost in the clouds of abstraction to the exclusion of concrete material realities, both in physical and structural terms. This epistemic gap leaves the incoherent fusion of social conservatism with economic liberalism standing on unstable foundations. To become more effective at both winning the political game and governing once in office, the Right should rectify this lack.

The most well-known example of this tendency on the American right is arguably Ben Shapiro, the political commentator and podcaster. Shapiro’s most recent book How to Destroy America in Three Easy Steps presents the United States’ problems, which he sees as near-fatal if left unaddressed, as rooted in the world of ideas and political philosophy. Looking at the contents page, one is immediately struck by the order and priorities. Over six chapters, split into three opposing couplets, Shapiro begins with American philosophy and its disintegration, then American culture and its disintegration, ending with American history and its disintegration.