By American Farmer
May 20, 2009
In response to this article:
Nock is my favorite author, and his philosophy has literally changed my life in very significant ways. Thank you for writing this article, and for putting it on the web. The more exposure he gets, the better for all of us.
I take issue with some of your conclusions though.
“And that is why the Right is in so much better shape than it was during Nock’s time, even as liberals are mounting a statist revival. ... Moreover, the American people are not nearly as Neolithic as Nock believed, proof of which can be found in the slow and uneven unraveling of statism since his death, as with the still-unfinished Reagan Revolution. ...Nock was content with failure, his heirs are not.”
Nock was absolutely right. He was not content with failure so much as he was accepting of the inevitable. I don’t see how you can assert that there has been a “slow and uneven unraveling of statism since his death”, when Europe has become more explicitly socialist in that time, and here at home, budgets, taxation, regulation, and government intrusiveness have all increased exponentially. When we elect a Republican president, we get expanding budgets, No Child Left Behind, and Medicare Part D. This isn’t an unraveling of statism, this is just a slightly slower march towards it. Then that very same electorate giddily elects Obama, who makes no effort whatsoever to hide his collectivist world-view. I see no evidence at all of any significant long-term movement away from statism, in fact, long-term, we’ve been sliding towards it rather rapidly, exactly as Nock predicted. From his point of view, and mine, we have no real opposition in this country anymore. There are progressive Democrats, and Republicans that are virtually forced to campaign and legislate as progressives in order to stay relevant, because that is what the people want.
I applaud your efforts and the efforts of others at NR to continue saying “stop”, but I see it as a compromised, nearly wasted effort. Real conservatives, like Nock, are selling an ideology that is old and stale, involving such passe concepts as self-reliance, hard work, manners, and the primacy of the individual over the state. The populace of this country has spent 70 years marinating in progressive ideology, and the words of a true old-school conservative sound bizarre and foreign. You folks at NR, while fighting the good fight, have to tailor your message to keep it acceptable to the populace, meaning that whether due to actual belief or sheer practicality, old-school Nockian conservatism doesn’t get much play. You are constrained to the realm of practical politics, while Nock threw politics out and entered the realm of pure ideas, appealing to what is right and what is best regardless of how it would be received.
Nock insisted on seeing things as they are, and living accordingly. Early on, he saw what would be the result of mixing democracy and progressive populism, and all events since then have proven him right. He focused his efforts on the Remnant, because he knew they and only they would stay true to what is right and good through thick and thin. Any exposure Nock gets these days is a good thing, because like echoes, his words reverberate through time, bucking up the Remnant, reminding them that they are not alone, and encouraging them to continue doing what is right even in the face of opposition. That will only become harder and harder, as yet another generation grows up with a statist status quo, and with real conservatism becoming a more and more distant cultural memory.
Sincerely,
American Farmer
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