I'll confess, I am writing these words two days before the election. If, as I hope, John McCain prevails against all odds, these words will nevertheless be a rallying cry for conservatives; if, as I suspect, Barack Obama carries the day, I hope that this will be both a call to arms and some slight balm for our wounds.
As a Christian, my conservatism is of this kind: I know that good governance will fail in the end. In the last days, humankind will put aside faithfulness to God and hold itself up against Him. But even if I did not believe that, it would nevertheless be true that the conservative's task cannot be more than to preserve what is good against the forces of unthinking Change. We exist to protect the permanent things, to fight those who see human society as a subject of experimentation. We exist to defend civilization, a trust built up and inherited across countless generations, against innovation that takes that civilization for granted. We exist to fight the deification of Reason, of Equality, of Liberty, insofar as they are separated from faith, order, and responsibility, and made into absolute ideals. Against the statism that liberalism sets forth as a tool for human progress, we insist that true human dignity and happiness cannot be codified, cannot be legislated.
As the state expropriates morality, the citizenry becomes increasingly demoralized. Americans grow more juvenile and more trite, less responsible and less relational. Our society grows ever closer to considering pain an absolute evil. Ease, comfort, and satisfaction become our idols, and it is easier to vote for morality than to embody it. In such a climate, a politics of personal responsibility, of social obligations, of family, community, and faith becomes increasingly unpopular. On Tuesday, Americans didn't take a risk; they chose something that was easy.
However, that does not distinguish Election Day 2008 from any other day. The liberal triumph of November the Fourth merely gives this movement an air of officiality. The cancer began long ago, and has metastasized more significantly even than the recent election might indicate. The fatal conceit lies not in the laws or in the public authorities, but in our own hearts.
This is no occasion for gloom. It is an opportunity to remember the truths that, in part, led us to conservatism in the first place. God is in control of all things, and His plan is perfect. There is a purpose in this, though it may be difficult to discern now. Second, no matter how they try, their ideologies can never efface our humanity. Should the very worst happen, we will rebuild again. Finally, although private morality may be discouraged, still our ability to live that morality can never be appropriated by any committee, any council, any authority that the world can contrive.
Stern Lawgiver! Yet thou dost wear
The Godhead's most benignant grace;
Nor know we anything so fair
As is the smile upon thy face:
Flowers laugh before thee on their beds,
And fragrance in thy footing treads;
Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong;
And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are fresh and strong!
(From William Wordsworth's "Ode to Duty")
In the end, our society is but another city of man. Even should its lights go out after a long daylight, yet we shall keep our vigil. And then we shall rejoice not in the receiving of light, but in the giving.
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