Episode 171: Breathing Fresh Life into Humanist Conservatism with Jeffrey Tyler Syck

[00:00:00] The road not taken in American conservatism. This is Church and Main.

[00:00:09] [Music]

[00:00:35] Hello and welcome to Church and Main, the podcast at the intersection of faith and modern life.

[00:00:47] I'm Dennis Sanders, your host. Church and Main is a podcast that looks forgotten and missed

[00:00:53] the issues that are affecting church and the larger society and you can learn more about the podcast,

[00:00:58] listen to past episodes and donate by checking us out. You can find out at our website at Church

[00:01:04] and Main.org or ChurchandMain.substack.com. If you go to our substack you can also access

[00:01:15] some articles that I write and either place, consider subscribing and also consider leaving a

[00:01:24] review. That helps others find the podcast. So I hope you are enjoying things in this winter

[00:01:31] time, some places like we are here in Minnesota. Don't have any snow. It's very odd winter.

[00:01:40] Well, as we are continuing going into the year, this podcast name is actually Church and Main.

[00:01:51] And I've called it that because I like to talk about religion and also public affairs

[00:01:56] and where those two things intersect. Now, over the past year or so, I've done a lot about

[00:02:02] the Church side of this podcast, but I haven't done as much about the main side of this podcast.

[00:02:08] So that is because I've been pretty busy. I'm a bi-vocational pastor and also since July of last

[00:02:15] year, I've had to take care of my mother after she suffered a stroke. But I also felt kind of odd

[00:02:22] being a pastor and talking about politics. So for a while, I've kind of backed off on the

[00:02:29] political side of this podcast. But the thing is, is that I've noticed I don't necessarily ignore

[00:02:37] politics when I preach, and that doesn't mean that I'm partisan. I'm not in the pulpit,

[00:02:42] but I do talk about politics and the light of the gospel. So especially in this year,

[00:02:49] this is a presidential year, in some ways a very monumental presidential year. I want to talk

[00:02:55] about where faith and politics intersect. And so I'm starting with this week's podcast,

[00:03:01] which is about American conservatism. And when we talk about the American right, right now,

[00:03:08] at least we talk about two kind of different streams. That first stream has at least really

[00:03:16] came into the fore in the 1960s and really became prominent with the election of Ronald Reagan

[00:03:24] in 1980. This is the conservatism of small government, low taxes and regulation and a strong

[00:03:32] foreign policy, especially back then towards the Soviet Union. This has been the dominant form

[00:03:38] of conservatism in the United States until recently. The rise of Donald Trump brought a

[00:03:45] new movement to the fore that has in many ways displaced Reaganite conservatism.

[00:03:53] This is kind of a new but also older form of conservatism. This kind of national conservatism

[00:04:00] is not as concerned about the size of government as the kind of fusionist sign of conservatism

[00:04:09] once did. In fact, they favor energetic government, a government that goes after its enemies.

[00:04:18] As its name suggests, it tends to be much more nationalistic. It's somewhat at times almost

[00:04:26] isolationist when it comes to foreign affairs and all of that can be very, at the same time,

[00:04:32] very jingleistic. Those are the two main streams of conservatism right now in the United States,

[00:04:41] but there is a third stream, a stream that's not as strong here in the United States but is

[00:04:47] found in other democracies, especially democracies like Canada or Germany. The best way to describe

[00:04:54] that is humanist conservatism. And this version of the right, as our guest today will describe,

[00:05:01] it is a tradition that is, as he says, "driven by a desire to preserve the dignity of everyday

[00:05:09] human existence, those mundane practices of life that sit outside the grandiosity of constitutional

[00:05:16] systems and national traditions." My guest is Jeffrey Tyler Sick, and he will talk about

[00:05:23] this forgotten branch of conservatism and how it might be able to take on the times that we

[00:05:28] find ourselves in. Jeffrey is an assistant professor of political science and history

[00:05:33] at the University of Pikeville in his native Kentucky, and he's also the founding editor

[00:05:38] and president of Vital Sector Magazine. We'll talk about these three streams of American

[00:05:44] conservatism and where religion plays a role. So here is my conversation with Jeffrey Tyler

[00:05:50] Sick.

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[00:06:27] What Jeffrey is good to have you on the podcast, and to talk a little bit about kind of an, I

[00:06:34] think, an unheard story of conservatism. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me.

[00:06:43] So you wrote something in Persuasion magazine, kind of, and the title of that is "Conservatives

[00:06:51] Road Not Taken." And I think for people who are familiar with American conservatism, most of

[00:07:01] us are familiar with people, such kind of the folks with national review and fusionism,

[00:07:11] and that whole kind of story has been kind of a well-known story about American conservatism.

[00:07:20] The second story that you kind of bring up is national conservatism. That's the one that has

[00:07:25] a strain that has come to four, maybe in the last eight to ten years or so, especially with

[00:07:31] the rise of Donald Trump. But your essay talks about a third road that is present, but it's not

[00:07:42] always as visible. Could you go about kind of just giving a quick synopsis of what that road looks like?

[00:07:52] I think I see this in articles that conservatism is usually best defined by what it's trying to

[00:07:57] conserve. And with fusionism, they're trying to conserve American founding as they understand it,

[00:08:02] which for them is kind of a limited constitutional government. National conservatives are trying

[00:08:10] to preserve a particular cultural tradition as they understand it. And all these cases are kind of

[00:08:16] as they understand it, because people are with you, understandably. Humanist conservatives are

[00:08:21] really very much concerned with trying to sort of preserve the dignity of everyday life. I was

[00:08:28] trying to explain it to a friend, I said, it's kind of like Hobbit conservatism, if you know

[00:08:32] Lord of the Rings, that you're obsessed with kind of the niceties of just being a regular person,

[00:08:38] trying to preserve that way of being four people, which requires all kinds of, which may require

[00:08:45] policy, but in some ways is also just a disposition that you kind of like, that peaceful, tranquil

[00:08:52] life. And how would you define, because I think one of the things that has been interesting

[00:09:00] over the years is someone who's kind of followed American conservatism is, you know, the national

[00:09:08] conservatism, at least in my view, has always been, there are just so many dark sides to it. I think

[00:09:15] that there are some things that they bring up that make some sense, and especially dealing with

[00:09:22] people of the working class, but it seems to be too bound up in a lot of ways of, at least

[00:09:28] to, for what I see grievance, but also very limited in their understanding of the kind of

[00:09:35] American cultural background, in some ways. And then when it comes to fusionist conservatism,

[00:09:42] it's, I probably would find more agreement there, but it seems like they don't always

[00:09:49] answer the questions of, again, of the working class of people who are working and are not

[00:09:56] entrepreneurs. And so that doesn't, it always going to fall short there on that side.

[00:10:02] Yeah. I have a friend who wrote a really good article about the failure of the two different

[00:10:08] approaches to conservatism to kind of reconcile themselves to modern oralist society in some

[00:10:15] ways. He says, "The fusionist, I think this is right, they just see what modern capitalism

[00:10:21] does." And I said that this is our political ideology, isn't it great? And it does do some

[00:10:26] great things, but all is wrong. The national conservatives say, "We will just reject a modern

[00:10:33] pluralist society also." And there's a kind of conservatism of rejection of the modern

[00:10:39] world in that sense. Both of them are not really workable solutions. The world changes,

[00:10:47] it evolves over time. There's not a lot you can do about it. You don't have to like it,

[00:10:52] but it does. And so both of them kind of fail to reconcile themselves. I think to how you

[00:10:57] actually help people adapt to a changing society. One doesn't want to change at all.

[00:11:03] The other fails to see any need for adaptation to begin. And in the end, both become political

[00:11:12] and political. The fusionism, I think, is in some ways failing, alienating a lot of working-class

[00:11:17] people. It was never, to be clear, a very working class, I think, all in jeep. What working class

[00:11:24] it had, it was significantly alienated in the amount they've been to. Now, the national

[00:11:30] were willing to them, but they're ultimately doomed to fail for separate and then somebody's more concerning reasons.

[00:11:39] So who would you define as some of the people who would be the examples of what you're calling humanist conservatism?

[00:11:48] In modern politics? No, I think more philosophically. Right. Yeah, I think the big models.

[00:11:58] Alexis De Tocqueville, I think, is a big model. I mean, he's a self-professor liberal, but I don't think philosophic liberalism and political sort of humanist.

[00:12:07] I think there's a overlap there. More contemporarily, I think Michael Oakeshot, who's a British conservative thinker and a described conservatism very much in terms of a disposition and kind of limit,

[00:12:21] the things that can ruin everyday life for people. Then I think Christian democracy is it's understood in Europe can play a very helpful role in understanding.

[00:12:33] That's the political heart of you because the Democrats, better than most ideologies, get the dignity of humans, the dignity of human life.

[00:12:42] And when you understand that dignity, the humanist conservatism starts to make a lot more sense in a way.

[00:12:50] And so the Christian Democrats and their writers, like J. Kuebner Tae, are, I think, really great philosophic examples.

[00:13:05] It does seem to be more of a European thing. They've had something like Cubanist conservative for a long time. We've had it when I was gone in the United States, but it's not been invoked last 60, 70 years.

[00:13:20] What do you think that is? One of the things that fascinates me, and again, because I kind of somewhat are tangentially around in the more fusion of circles,

[00:13:31] there's a lot of talk about the Anglo-American tradition. And I think there is something to that. I don't want to diss that.

[00:13:40] There's always somewhat of a rejection of the more continental conservatism.

[00:13:46] But it also seems that there's a lot about continental conservatism that could be mined, and you could learn from it.

[00:13:53] We don't always. Christian democracy, as you're talking about, has been one. I think it was, it's Pope Leo VIII, because his letter,

[00:14:04] encyclical about workers, was something that was important, that kind of sprouted the Christian democratic movement.

[00:14:12] Or people who like Abraham Kripier, the Dutch politician, but I guess I'm just very curious, what is it that there is always seem to be that rejection of European conservatism as opposed to the Anglo-American tradition?

[00:14:28] Yeah, that's a good question.

[00:14:30] For the thing, I think, even the Anglo-American tradition, we're very different from the English in a way as I think people know.

[00:14:36] There's ways in which the English are a lot more continental than New York. And I think you're right, there's not a bit could learn from European conservatives.

[00:14:44] I always say, the thing about European conservatives, they come in one of two types, either Christian Democrats, or they're like the worst sort of white nationalist.

[00:14:53] Yes, exactly.

[00:14:54] Not a lot of in between. I'm probably for Christian Democrat. I mean, purely conservatives.

[00:15:00] But I think one of the reasons is America began in par as a rejection of European society.

[00:15:08] In some ways, it brings a lot of European society with it, but the people who come here actively left, for whatever reason.

[00:15:15] And so they bring with them a culture that is different from the rest of the people who decided to leave.

[00:15:24] And I think that in a kind of complicated psychological way begins to affect the American tradition that these are the people who chose to piece out of European society.

[00:15:39] As part of that, one of the biggest effects of that is America is a very individualistic culture as compared to Europe in a lot of ways.

[00:15:47] Europe tends to be a lot more status politically, which has a significant problems, I think. But they also tend to be sometimes a lot more socially communitarian than Americans.

[00:15:58] Community has been struggling all over the world, but has always been a lot more vibrant in Europe.

[00:16:05] And it has been in the United States in some ways.

[00:16:07] Alexis de Tocqueville talks about how when he comes to the United States and he journeys out into the cities, he says, it's so strange.

[00:16:14] He said, "If it just lives in their houses, and there's a house, a little ways down."

[00:16:18] And this is just their own little island of the world, which is unthinkable to him in the European world, where maybe you do have some farmers, but even the farmer's houses are kind of close together in the land.

[00:16:30] So there's a way in which we're just a much more individualistic society.

[00:16:35] That said, I think the 20th century made America even more individualist than it normally is.

[00:16:45] The rise of modern capitalism, which I think is a little bit different from regular capitalism, was hugely impactful on American culture, much more than it was in Europe in some ways.

[00:16:56] Europe has a much more socialist bent, but because of their lack of individualism, compared to Americans, but our sort of already lack of individualism made us particularly susceptible, I think, to the worst problems of a capitalist culture,

[00:17:14] which is different than a capitalist economy, I think, but the idea of a very competitive business-like society, we were easy prey for that, and we got caught in the 20th century.

[00:17:26] I forgot the leaves.

[00:17:29] Kind of looking at this from a religious perspective, and talking a little bit, as you said, about Christian democracy, there are several strains of Christian democracy there, especially its religious strains,

[00:17:45] in that it both comes from some, especially from arising from Catholic social teaching, but also from reformed theology, and that that movement, I think, kind of arises from the churches.

[00:18:02] And at least for me, as someone who has grown up, hearing about the caring for the poor, and helping in dignity, especially for working people, it kind of makes you wonder, how do you have that?

[00:18:24] Where does religion in this case fit in with that type of conservatism? Because I think, here in America, the conservatism and religion that comes up is more moral, and I'm not here to say it's good or bad, but that's kind of where it comes from, but it doesn't always deal with the social,

[00:18:44] where it seems like in Europe, the religious conservatism that came up there was far more socially concerned than it was here.

[00:18:56] Part of it is, for whatever reason in America, the similar movements that you see in Catholic social fought, and in the Reformed tradition, happen to a point in early America in the late 1800s early 1900s, but they're all on the left.

[00:19:14] And there's someone on the left in Europe too, with Christian socialists and things like that, but they're almost all on the left here.

[00:19:21] And that makes that kind of religious thinking a lot more left wing in the mind of most Americans, I think.

[00:19:29] And as the left in America has become less religious, we've seen the decline of that sort of expression of religious morality I guess you could say.

[00:19:42] Whereas the more right wing version of that morality, which is very much worried about how people behave and act and that kind of thing, has remained pretty strong in America in the Christian community.

[00:19:56] Why it didn't emerge on the right in America, I don't know my suspicion, and this is only a suspicion is, for a long time, the right in America was kind of a combination of the farming, more individualistic farming class that was not wealthy, but independent of a company.

[00:20:17] They were subject to unions and things like that, so this was never going to be one of their huge concerns and business.

[00:20:24] And neither of those is going to be really good. So the American right is always since late 1800s, when these movements were kind of emerging in the United States.

[00:20:34] This had this problem. Now, if you go back to the early 1800s, you see a lot of this kind of thing.

[00:20:41] What I would consider to create conservatives and more left leaning progressive people in the early 19th century have both John Quincy Adams, in many ways as a philosophic conservative deeply deeply concerned about social justice.

[00:20:57] And you also have people who are clearly on the left, like a lot of the have abolitionists were equally concerned with problems of social justice.

[00:21:07] That begins to fade in the wake of the Civil War. For whatever reason, I confess I don't have a great explanation for that is an interesting question.

[00:21:16] I know I'd be interested to know the answer to it.

[00:21:20] So, do you think one of the things I remember a few years ago, someone that's on Twitter that I talked to.

[00:21:29] And these days, it seems like I'm the old man on the Twitter. These days.

[00:21:35] And I kind of brought up the question of why do we not hear much about certain thinkers on the right, like our leaders on the right, like Benjamin Disraeli here in the United States.

[00:21:49] The answer, I can remember the answer just kind of wasn't, it's basically it was kind of like they didn't feel like it fit or something to that extent.

[00:21:59] But do you feel that sometimes thinking when it's, you know, on the right here in America conservatives is too limited that we're not really thinking more broadly, more that it's too constricted in many ways.

[00:22:19] Either by economics or by social issues, but it's too constricted in how it's thinking goes.

[00:22:28] I think that's right. Yeah, it's too constricted. It kind of begins, which is not particularly conservative in a philosophic sense.

[00:22:38] It begins with its own kind of central premise. It begins with the thesis and then kind of compiles its evidence and heroes from that.

[00:22:48] Desverteism, if you read people like Burke or Oksha or Disraeli is really kind of supposed to begin the other way around.

[00:22:56] It's supposed to be in a lot of ways, a lot less philosophic.

[00:23:01] of an ideology kind of begin from evidence of worker way to what is the right thing. And as a result though, starting with the mid to late 20th century, we begin with kind of the fusionist idea, which, so free market economics kind of Christian traditionalist social issues, but we're maybe limited government way, maybe not kind of depends. You'd give us that.

[00:23:25] And so then people like Benjamin Disraeli just really don't fit. These people who deeply concerned about economic poverty and economic inequality or economic inequality might be, but helping the poor is probably the best way to put it.

[00:23:47] But deeply communitarian, there is none of them not an ounce of him as an individualist is just so counter to what people like William Buckley, who was founding the fusionist movement in America really thought of as conservatism.

[00:24:06] The Intercollegiate Studies Institute, which was founded to be kind of a place to train young conservatives in America for a long time was called the Intercollegiate, no, the individualist studies Institute.

[00:24:20] There's this way in which that kind of communitarian conservative just was not accepted because they began with the premise that what makes me different from a liberal is my concern for the individual over the collectivity.

[00:24:35] So, how would you, you know, if you're looking at someone that is a communitarian conservative, be different from someone say on the left.

[00:24:45] No, because I think there is always a lot of fear that, you know, well, if you start talking about the state, well, then that makes you a leftist and it's like, I don't think so, but how would you find that.

[00:24:56] So I think it depends, I mean, one way you can do it's been national conservative and then the differences from the left are going to be obvious that you know, you're going to ban porn and regulate what people do in their private homes to full extent of what you can do.

[00:25:13] And that'll be, you know, what lives up this time about third husbands and so that's one way you can be different from the left.

[00:25:23] What made this really, I think in some ways is he's older now I mean as 1816 but some ways a very good example of a communitarian conservative what made him really different from the left in his day.

[00:25:36] And it is concerned that every little change be worked in to the tradition of the English people somehow that every every change was building on something that was already there.

[00:25:51] And this made it the change a lot slower when you were trying to do social progress.

[00:25:57] And so in his eyes anyways would have made the change a lot more organic. So what you want to help poor people you don't do it by overturning the aristocratic system.

[00:26:09] Let's say Benjamin Israel you do by building something within the system has already evolved. So I was radical in that respect.

[00:26:18] And then there is probably going to be a difference on social issues.

[00:26:23] And I'm you don't have to take the National conservative stand but there's going to be a difference.

[00:26:29] I'm from East drink and Tucky of any stricken Tucky.

[00:26:32] We used to be and there's still a lot of old blue dog Democrats.

[00:26:37] And not, I should say not the not the late 20th century we're just kind of racist people who liked welfare.

[00:26:44] But people who really believed in helping the poor but who also might be pro life instead of pro choice.

[00:26:53] And who in a way were a lot more like a communitarian conservative the big Democrats didn't and also being local politics or something huge reason to pitch themselves as such.

[00:27:05] And that kind of those people have been in recent years kind of replaced by the national conservatives.

[00:27:11] Politically in their various electoral districts.

[00:27:15] And in a lot of ways they were much closer to a humanist conservative.

[00:27:20] These kind of working class.

[00:27:22] Blue collar.

[00:27:24] Democrats in America.

[00:27:26] And the last 30 40 years they were closest to a humanist conservative probably.

[00:27:31] So what do you think has caused a decline of of humanist conservatism could you said it earlier that you think it was kind of somewhat there in American culture till about 70 years ago.

[00:27:44] So you think brought its demise.

[00:27:47] I think a couple of things one of them is the Cold War we were fighting communism which is a communitarian collectivist ideology.

[00:28:01] Something that is hyper individualistic that is hyper camp and a list is just any easier.

[00:28:07] For all communism politically and I think a lot of people fell oh we've seen the way anything remotely communitarian can go with fascism with communism.

[00:28:22] We don't want that so part of it I think is a reaction against World War two in the United States.

[00:28:27] Europe interest me has kind of a renaissance of humanist conservatism after World War two but we don't have that part of it I think they already had that kind of individualist mindset.

[00:28:36] And so the combination of our kind of revulsion at that communitarianism and are already kind of inclination towards big very individualistic made humanist conservatism seem outdated.

[00:28:50] We're also in the mid 20th century this is America kind of the height of its imperial power.

[00:28:58] This we become the superpower and I'm just feeling like humanist conservatism is not a great fit for like an imperial world.

[00:29:08] If you're very concerned with like preserving the dignity of everyday life.

[00:29:13] It becomes difficult if that's your primary concern then tremendous economic growth and these other things that are really important if you want to dominate the world or not is likely to happen quickly.

[00:29:27] I'm not going to say that won't happen, but they're never going to be the center writers. I think these two things really undermined it.

[00:29:35] And I also think there was a humanist concerns at the time but did rather bad politically for a number of reasons.

[00:29:44] There were a lot of them were kind of in the middle and they struggled to differentiate what made them a real conservative.

[00:29:55] Instead, they just kind of seemed on the Republican side like watered down Democrats and on the Democratic side like watered down Republicans.

[00:30:05] And in the end, both sides kind of got wheezed out. There's a hilarious video of FDR and I won't try to learn impersonation or anything, but he's running for reelection.

[00:30:17] He says, well, this is what the Republican says is he said, please, we love social security, we love welfare.

[00:30:25] We want to give you more social security, give you more welfare, but we're going to do it better, we're going to do it cheaper, we're going to do it smarter, leave it up to us.

[00:30:34] And he's pointing in front of them because he says, well, why would you vote for Republican if they're identical to a Democrat.

[00:30:42] People like Wendy Wilke who were running against FDR had significant differences from him, even though they may be like someone as well for policies, but they did a very bad job making that clear.

[00:30:54] And in the end, that also underlines humanist conservatism, I think.

[00:31:00] Hmm. So, do you see any type of a room today for a revival of humanist conservatism? And if so, do you see it happening now?

[00:31:13] I think there is room for revival. I don't know if it's, well, I'll say in fact, I think it's happening in a minute, but I think there is great room for a revival.

[00:31:24] I think the Trump faction of the Republican party, the national conservatives have kind of horned in on humanist conservatism's natural place.

[00:31:35] But I think if candidates can get into those districts and into other districts that are maybe just a lot more moderate and feel lost in the current political climate, so I think there's kind of two openings.

[00:31:47] One is the politically lost left behind, which a lot of people feel that way.

[00:31:53] And the other are the economically distressed politically left behind in a different sense and that they feel that the country has left them behind.

[00:32:02] Because it's a more moderate, it's a more appealing and Protestant shop.

[00:32:08] And so I think you could, I'm not going to say you can pick up a lot of people, but you can pick up some people who I think would be inclined to support national conservatism.

[00:32:14] You can pick up a whole bunch of moderates, especially in the suburbs, where we'll show the voters, particularly.

[00:32:24] They feel a little like nobody really represents their viewpoints. I think even as conservatism is great appeal in those places.

[00:32:33] It will take 10, it'll take political leaders willing to go out and sell it, which is an important skill that are.

[00:32:42] Rhetoric is in a lot of ways more important than ideas, because if you can't sell the ideas, doesn't matter of how good they are.

[00:32:50] So it will take that, and if it's happening, there's a small chance, I think, that it's happening.

[00:32:57] The Bludidong caucus in the House of Representatives recently kind of reconstituted itself and follows a lot of these policies,

[00:33:09] or the principles I kind of outline in this.

[00:33:14] And they certainly see themselves as being appealing to rural, red-leaning, congressional districts.

[00:33:22] I think it's an open question, how successful they'll be.

[00:33:25] If they're very successful, I mean, this can be a municipal conservatism world.

[00:33:30] Otherwise, it will take people, rural innovators, and the Republican Party probably to build it up in areas that have been dominating the White Child, but it's kind of an alternative to China.

[00:33:43] And probably should have asked this earlier, but I'm kind of curious, where do you feel that both fusionist and national conservative fall short?

[00:33:57] And why are they falling short? Because I think that's even the bigger question right now is, especially with fusionist conservatism, one could say that back in the '70s and '80s, that was a today that one was doing very well.

[00:34:12] Well, Clinton is more fusionist than Donald Trump. I think we're getting into the better than '90s or something.

[00:34:19] But somehow that branch is not, or it doesn't seem to be a working now.

[00:34:26] Yeah.

[00:34:27] So I'm kind of curious, what is it that has brought them short?

[00:34:31] are for sure and why. Yeah. With usionists are hyper concerned about a tyrannical government,

[00:34:38] which is completely fair. Government can become tyrannical. They're especially concerned

[00:34:45] about tyrannical government and economics. I think it's bad. There are many of them devotees

[00:34:51] of Milton Friedman, of Reaganomics. They believe in deregulation. They believe in low taxes.

[00:34:58] They believe that private companies should be allowed to do what they want, that it is

[00:35:01] not the government's business. A lot of this has led to tremendous economic growth in the

[00:35:09] United States and in Europe. We are a wealthier country than we have ever been. What it has

[00:35:15] also done is it has led to huge innovations and technology. They have created the mechanization

[00:35:25] of a lot of industrial jobs. It has led to free trade that causes jobs to go overseas.

[00:35:34] Any number of these innovations that remake the way the American workforce is constituted.

[00:35:42] Fusionism, as a result, has done some really great things. It has also left a lot of people

[00:35:49] behind. Data shows that while the economy has grown significantly, it has grown almost entirely

[00:35:58] in urban areas, while leaving behind most of rural America. Instead of sort of really

[00:36:08] understanding this is a problem, a lot of fusionists have been blown off. There's not

[00:36:13] a job in your area, just move. Things like this. I always say, there's a housing crisis

[00:36:21] in urban America. If I said, there's no houses, why don't you just move? It seems so uncaring,

[00:36:26] and that's exactly how these people who have been, or in areas that have been economic

[00:36:33] with a fine bill. They feel as though nobody cares about it. They in return have revolted

[00:36:40] against the people that they blame for this. The people who are not caring, the people

[00:36:45] who have executed the policies that seem like have trotted about. And that's the political

[00:36:50] establishment and the fusionists haven't dominated the Republican Party since at least Reagan

[00:36:55] times before our huge part of the political establishment until relatively recently.

[00:37:05] I remember in 2016, during that presidential election, hearing that phrase a lot, because

[00:37:14] there was a lot of talk again about the working class and how things weren't going in certain

[00:37:18] areas and that people would always say, well, they could move. My response to that is, have

[00:37:24] you ever read the grapes of wrath? Moving is not always a great option for people. It's

[00:37:33] not always so easy and it can be, people don't always want to leave their communities that

[00:37:40] they have been long part of. And this is what makes it so unconservative, in a way.

[00:37:48] Collaritism is at the end of the day, no matter what. It's a lot about roots. It's about

[00:37:52] being tied to the past, tied to where you belong. A lot of people, my family has lived

[00:37:58] in Appalachia since the 1790s. I don't want to leave if I don't have to. It isn't rational

[00:38:04] and no. But conservatism has always been philosophically, at least, about embracing

[00:38:12] the level of irrationality in the human life, about embracing the fact that there's a kind

[00:38:17] of romantic, emotional element to human existence that you cannot just sort of push away.

[00:38:24] This is a huge part of Edmund Burke, it's a huge part of Benjamin Disranley. It's an important

[00:38:29] part of people like Russell Kirk, who are more modern. So to kind of lose the sense

[00:38:33] of this just completely bloggers. Now, national conservatives maybe take that to different

[00:38:39] overcorrect the problem, I think, in some ways.

[00:38:44] Well, and I think that's been the frustration I've noticed with national conservatism is

[00:38:49] that they go to the other extreme and it becomes very particular. And as I think you've said

[00:38:59] earlier, they kind of want to shut out the world and not deal with change. And that's

[00:39:05] not helpful either, because the world is changing, our American society is changing. And we can't

[00:39:12] just put blinders on and think that we can just go to another time and that everything

[00:39:18] will be okay. That has not worked. And I think part of national conservatives is also seems

[00:39:27] to be too willing to kind of play with some of the more darker forces that have been a

[00:39:35] part of American society in the past.

[00:39:37] Oh, yeah. Well, the thing is if you, I mean, they're all about embracing their cultural

[00:39:42] tradition. And by kind of all the way, their cultural tradition and a particularly narrow

[00:39:46] interpretation of their culture, but that's an other thing, embracing a cultural tradition

[00:39:52] entirely and kind of making that all their ideology is about, is you lose sight of other

[00:39:59] universal truths that you can, that you also, dignity of all people, equality of all races,

[00:40:08] these other sort of important things that we know to be true through human reason. They

[00:40:14] have a kind of abandoned that rational sort of things often, I mean, not all of them are

[00:40:19] racist and not all of them are, they have abandoned that. And they refuse to kind of

[00:40:26] admit that traditions also are a kind of evolving thing. I'm not a Catholic before a Catholic,

[00:40:33] it is not as though the Catholic tradition stays the same forever, the energy changes

[00:40:39] and all ends of the church changing a ball, that's the point.

[00:40:44] Traditions supposed to be a moving thing has some relevant relationship to its past,

[00:40:52] but it moves and involves. It kind of a fell to acknowledge that. I like to say that one

[00:40:58] of the mingles of humanist conservatism is the world will always change. The world will

[00:41:02] always have ups and downs. And so for the humanist conservative, the question is, how

[00:41:08] can you bring people and help maintain a flourishing society for them through the ups and downs,

[00:41:15] regardless of whatever it will be. National conservatives begin in a very ideological

[00:41:20] way, but they're ideal society. It happened in the past. They don't want to move on. Whatever

[00:41:25] has moved on, they want to take it back. And that's just not a helpful way to think because

[00:41:33] things do change. Things will always change. There's a great Italian book called "The

[00:41:40] Leopard" and one of the characters says in this, and I think it's a great line. He says

[00:41:44] the only way for things to stay the same is for everything to change. And this is just

[00:41:50] true to human existence, I think. We have to adapt or die.

[00:42:00] Well, and I think that may be something to consider that, at least it should be that

[00:42:05] conservatism is about adaptation. Because I think too often it's about either trying

[00:42:12] to keep things the way they are or what have you.

[00:42:17] Yeah. Well, in this has been the case for a while. I mean, wait, Buckley has the famous

[00:42:25] quote from the opening of "National View" that being a conservative is really about

[00:42:29] standing through our history and yelling stuff. I think if you look at actual conservatives,

[00:42:35] like Edmund Burke or Benjamin DeGioid, people would call themselves conservatives up to

[00:42:38] that point. There's very little, there is less conservative than standing through our

[00:42:43] history and yelling stuff. Maybe standing through our history will slow down. Let's

[00:42:47] do this at a reasonable pace. Sure. I don't know if that could catch a tagline I admit,

[00:42:54] but that's sort of the point of conservative philosophical tradition. People act Israeli,

[00:42:59] people like Burke, people like Michael Hoopshah is that the world has complexities, the

[00:43:04] world evolves. Embracing those complexities of that evolution and making the best of them

[00:43:10] is kind of the key to politics. We've lost that in America. There's always big conservatives

[00:43:18] who sort of abandoned that. The way of the French Revolution there were a lot of reaction

[00:43:22] areas, for instance, but still. We've completely lost that in America recently, I think, in

[00:43:29] some ways. Do you think that there is any hope to use the word of flourishing of a humanist

[00:43:37] conservatism in the next five to ten years? Well, things are completely chaos right now,

[00:43:44] I think politically, and it's terrible. I don't think anybody can pretend that it isn't.

[00:43:49] The one virtue chaos has is that it can become a great time to build new things. I was thinking

[00:43:59] recently, for instance, the Republican Party, because I think it's serious risk of making

[00:44:04] itself a regional party. Completely losing touch with the national electorate, which

[00:44:11] seems deeply concerning, and it is, but it's happened several times before in American

[00:44:17] history. Every time that it has happened, the party that emerges out of the wake of that

[00:44:23] tends to be better than the one that existed before it, because it's a party that has had

[00:44:28] to face its biggest demons and figure out how it can continue to win, or the faction.

[00:44:36] The Federalist Party is the most big example, because the party itself completely collapsed,

[00:44:41] but the big party that in some ways embraced the Federalist tradition was a lot better

[00:44:47] than the Federalist Party, a lot more in touch with a changed post-1800 America that

[00:44:55] the Federalists were attempting to reject. There's important ways in which things are

[00:45:02] terrible, but I think there's all the hope in the world that things could get better,

[00:45:07] the right things could happen, and suddenly start to flourish.

[00:45:15] Do you see of any type of politicians that are out there that aren't embracing this philosophy?

[00:45:21] It seems earlier, a lot of them would probably be currently in the Democratic Party.

[00:45:27] Yeah. I thought, like I said earlier, I think a lot of Blue Dog Democrats, in the modern

[00:45:34] Blue Dog Democrats, led by Mary Petola and Jared Golden and stuff like this,

[00:45:40] seem to be in this vein. There's a wonderful feature on them in the Washington Post.

[00:45:44] I highly recommend where they lay out a political philosophy that is not dissimilar to something

[00:45:49] like feminist conservatism. The question to me is if there's actually a place for them

[00:45:56] in the Democratic Party, I think that's a live question. Obviously, they think there is.

[00:46:01] I'm not sure every Democrat thinks that there is. And also, there right now there are electoral bases, rural America, where Trump won by just a little bit. He did win, but he didn't kill in that region. That's not a whole lot of places, so can they start to win in these places that Republicans have won by a lot more expand into other areas that are more

[00:46:30] entrenched, blue or entrenched red. There's only so many swing districts in America, from which you can base a faction of your party. And cherry manring means there's a lot less than there used to be.

[00:46:43] So to me, I think it's a really live question if they become a flourishing part of the Democratic Party or not.

[00:46:49] There's a potential, nobody really seems to be pushing this right now, but if Trump loses in 2024, if things go a particular sort of way that maybe a wing like this in the Republican Party will start to emerge.

[00:47:04] I've already seen this. I live in Kentucky, like I said, there's already increasingly of one party state. There's already a faction emerging and one sort of the Republican Party that is a lot more moderate on social issues, particularly pro-Trump.

[00:47:24] It's still like the blue-seller democratic, a live question, what kind of faction this will end up being, how large a faction, how important a faction, but in both cases, there's real hope that they could become bastions of human conservatism, I think.

[00:47:40] Yeah, you know, one of the things that I found was a hope and that ended up dashed was a person with JD Vance.

[00:47:53] And when he kind of came on the scene in 2016, he seemed to, in some ways, represent that in a way.

[00:48:02] Yeah.

[00:48:03] And for whatever reason, my guess is more politically chose more of a nationalist track, but I think had he maybe stayed on that or he was kind of an example of what could have been of a more humanist conservatism out there.

[00:48:22] I think that was right. He could be the poster child for this now, if he had wanted to be, and he didn't.

[00:48:30] He went the Donald Trump round, either out of genuine change of opinion or being a grifter. I hate to judge for sure.

[00:48:39] But whether we did it, he did do it. And he was a great place for that. But I think something similar could emerge, especially in states like North Carolina and Georgia, especially as the South becomes a little bit more urban.

[00:49:00] And thus, the states become a little bit politically more moderate or winnable to Democrats, a different kind of Republican, different kind of Democrat may emerge as competitive in the state.

[00:49:13] JD Vance is an Ohio Republican. I don't think it's any particular surprise that for a while, he seemed to be in this tradition being a kind of rural Ohio from Appalachia Republican.

[00:49:25] That's the natural place for a humanist conservatism to emerge, I think.

[00:49:31] And do you think that you could see that type of conservatism arise from churches in a way that as we talked earlier, the roots of things like Christian democracy in Europe?

[00:49:44] Yeah, I think so. There's a way in which humanist conservatism is less political, I think, than fusionism and nationalism, this sort of celebration of a life just well lived with family and friends and community.

[00:50:06] And that's a great thing to have in the church. In general, I think that's in line with a lot of what the church is about, and this kind of filling of social justice and personal responsibility.

[00:50:18] I think churches that emphasize that, and then emphasize without being partisan, without saying, you know, you have to be conservative, but emphasize that that kind of life is a good life.

[00:50:32] And that kind of life should be the foundation for everything, including our politics, can become a great source.

[00:50:41] And then the church doesn't have to do the work of necessarily of sending people out there to do it.

[00:50:48] Explicitly, they'll have always been a prepared and laid the ground for it.

[00:50:52] So I think there is an important way in which the church can play a role here.

[00:50:57] I think one of the things that's kind of wrapped things up is, I'm reminded of is a book I read years ago by Arthur Larson, who was a, I'm trying to remember what role he had, but it wasn't the Eisenhower administration and the book that he wrote, it was in the late 50s was called a Republican looks at his party.

[00:51:18] And I think he would more fulfill that type of humanist conservative, and he has a tale of, and in his ways was dealing with the more conservative people who are just kind of like, or against the status or state in some ways, or on the taking on the, or accepting some parts of the New Deal.

[00:51:42] And he talks about two women, two grandmothers.

[00:51:48] One grandmother is in wearing kind of these old clothes that are kind of tattered and in a covered wagon with a horse, and they're going off to the casino.

[00:52:03] And there's another older woman that's been kind of dressed for a modern in a sports car.

[00:52:10] And you may think she is going off to the casino. Nope, she's going to church.

[00:52:15] And I thought that that represented what was talking about what he was trying to talk about as a conservatism that one of them is is living a life of dignity.

[00:52:26] Through the workings, accepting parts of the New Deal and all that.

[00:52:32] Another one isn't. And so it just seems that was what he was trying to get at in some ways.

[00:52:38] Yeah, and I think that's actually a very good parallel.

[00:52:43] Yeah, I think so.

[00:52:45] Because I think in a lot of ways, we do have the option of the conservatism that accepts, now it's not an economic new deal.

[00:52:53] Now in some ways, it's a social world. It's a social world.

[00:52:58] It's a world that's changed, a multi-racial, multi-cultural society, multi-cultural West.

[00:53:03] And do we accept that and move on with our lives and try to create a conservatism society that is reconciled with that?

[00:53:12] Or do we try to reject their whole cell and then the process try to do the impossible and drag a whole lot of people down with us?

[00:53:21] And I think that's kind of the choice.

[00:53:23] I don't think you can always pitch it that way to voters. I don't think that this is it.

[00:53:28] That's what they always need to hear. But I think that's the choice we have for conservatives today.

[00:53:37] Okay.

[00:53:38] Well, it's going to make it for an interesting something to think about as we go through.

[00:53:44] It was going to be an interesting election year, at least not one that I'm looking forward to.

[00:53:51] Supposed to believe that most people are not so.

[00:53:55] Yes, yeah.

[00:53:56] But it does leave some hope for, I think, for things where things can go in the future.

[00:54:02] Even though this year might not be the year for that.

[00:54:06] I think that there's still some hope out there.

[00:54:09] I think so too. There's always hope.

[00:54:12] Yeah.

[00:54:14] It does full of shelf make up.

[00:54:16] So if people want to follow your writings online, where can they find you?

[00:54:22] So you can find me on Twitter, Jeffrey Tyler sick. I also have a personal website, J Tyler sick calm.

[00:54:32] Where I post my commentary regularly, it doesn't sound like a blog.

[00:54:36] So it was an email you when I post, but you can check that either one of those pretty often.

[00:54:41] Okay.

[00:54:42] Well, Jeffrey Tyler sick, thank you for taking the time to talk and we might have you back here in the near future just to talk a little bit more about, especially where politics and religion intersect.

[00:54:52] Yeah, I would love that. Thank you so much.

[00:54:54] All right. Take care.

[00:55:08] Thank you so much for taking being a part of this conversation with Jeffrey.

[00:55:34] There are several links that are related to this episode in the show notes. I do hope you will take advantage of them.

[00:55:40] Also, just want to remind you of the other podcast that I do call election.

[00:55:45] This podcast focuses on looking at a text from the revised common dictionary and adding in a reflection and asking some questions.

[00:55:54] It's something that I've been trying to do was started in the fall of 2022 and took a break and started up again late last year.

[00:56:04] You can find it and subscribe to the podcast by going to lecture.

[00:56:10] Also, as we finish up this episode, please consider sharing this once you've listened to it.

[00:56:19] Pass it on to a friend or family member that might want to hear stories about where church and public policy intersect.

[00:56:28] And that's it for this episode of church in Maine.

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[00:56:45] I'm Dennis Sanders, your host.

[00:56:48] Thanks again for listening.

[00:56:50] Take care.

[00:56:51] Godspeed.

[00:56:52] And I'll see you very soon.

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