G. Branden's Reviews > The Conscience of a Conservative

This book is not impressive given its near-scriptural reputation among conservatives, and is every bit the match of a contemporary political convention speech in terms of both puff and pabulum. There is practically no analytic depth on any of the numerous topics he (or, rather, his ghostwriter, L. Brent Bozell--see the front matter) forwards, and much of the book isn't even an argument, but just a recitation of assertions which are only weakly interrelated, if at all. Richard Posner (judge for the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals) is a much more formidable champion of right-libertarianism, but suffers the ignominy of not really being a "thought leader" on the political Right--probably because he does too much actual thinking in place of the obligatory Two Pages of Hate (or twenty, or two hundred).

I've long had a prejudice that conservatives were more about ideological pageantry than intellectual rigor, let alone empirical verification, and sadly for my attempts at a dialogue with conservatism, this book and its reputation validate my biases rather than challenging me. The garden-variety conservative of the past thirty years is is a specimen whose brain, to all appearances, can't conceive of a market model any more sophisticated than David Ricardo's. For all the reverence in which Adam Smith's name is held by free-market advocates, these folks haven't yet caught up to him. You'd think this would strike them as odd, given that Smith's views, more nuanced and empirical than Ricardo's, actually antedate the latter's economic writings. I guess the fact that Smith published in 1776 is supposed to lend The Wealth of Nations a mystique that, like a wine of ancient vintage, is better prized for its age than actually engaged by the palate.

The modern conservative movement is preoccupied with victimization, whether it contemptuously mocks the phenomenon in the brutal pasts of some criminal defendants; ridicules the disadvantaged, disabled, and others who benefit from "leftist" public welfare programs; or embraces it in the case of crime victims' rights bills and its own imagined status as a savagely oppressed minority (being mostly white, mostly male, mostly Christian, and mostly middle-class--or better). This perhaps explains why 1964, not exactly a watershed year for Republicans electorally, is regarded as seminal by conservatives. In reading this title, I came to feel that it was the political reorientation of the Republican Party that year (including the welcoming with open arms of archetypal segregationist, Strom Thurmond) that carries Goldwater's manifesto in its draft, and not the other way around.

As noted above, the rhetorical thrust of this book is not persuasive. I don't state that evaluatively--I mean that it doesn't even try to persuade. It is mostly a roster of policy propositions baldly asserted. This is not the sort of work that brings people into the movement; it tells them what creed they need to recite if they want to be a member of the (then) New Guard. Necessarily, the wrangles and disputes that produced it, like those that wring party platforms into being, are hidden from view.

Alternatively, a true Goldwater believer can assert that this book is merely a collection of reflected rays from his scintillating intellect--but again, the mechanism is concealed. If that is so, is it because Goldwater's reasoning processes are unimportant?

On 7 October 2008, Aaron posted a goodreads review with which I found myself in vigorous agreement; I will quote the most relevant part.

"While advocating protection of Constitutionally reserved state powers and excising the Federal Government from Constitutionally prohibitted activities, Goldwater's work does not thoroughly resolve the fundamental questions and issues that this adjustment to federal powers would leave unresolved or potentially exacerbate.

Maybe such a diagram was unnecessary in Goldwater's day. Maybe his contemporaries knew how to resolve these tensions in neat local solutions, but I think in our day that many of us either never knew those communities or have been so long in the brine of the pervasive contemporary progressive philosophy that we don't remember. This is what I had hoped most to find, and mostly didn't."

Aaron gave the book four stars; given the denotations of goodread's star-rating system, I find this startling.

So that's a counter-recommendation. Don't waste your time, unless you want to be able to say honestly what so many College Republicans furtively imply of themselves--you have actually read this famous book. Because I am the sort of person who derives some satisfaction from reading purportedly holy texts and not being blinded on the road to Damascus, and I reckon I am not alone, it may be a worthwhile experience even if an unpleasant one. I cannot help the suspicion that there were other political books published in 1964 that were every bit as poor as this one, and are now deservedly forgotten.