Constructive Conservatism: Upholding UVA’s Values
Last week at the Blue Ridge Center, we were joined by Dan McLaughlin, an alumnus of Harvard Law and a columnist at National Review. McLaughlin’s talk, entitled “American Conservatism and the Two-Party System”, was an enormously informative dissection of the role that conventional American conservatism might– indeed, can– play in the Trump-led modern and populist American right. McLaughlin touched on the history of American conservatism: from its origins in the classical tradition and Burke, to its early representatives in Hamilton and Madison, to its major 20th-century champions such as Buckley, Goldwater, and Ronald Reagan. One of McLaughlin’s most interesting assertions was what makes American conservatism American– what distinguishes it from related European political traditions. McLaughlin argued that the most compelling conservative defense of the U.S. Constitution is as simple as “it works, and it’s ours.” In contrast to competing postliberal ideas percolating on the American right today, McLaughlin asserted that a truly American conservatism by necessity incorporates the classical liberalism of the founding– again, because it works, and because it’s ours.
This specific point by McLaughlin was derivative of the wider framing which he developed in his talk - that what makes conservatism conservative is its recognition of universal human nature, and that nature’s expression in particular cultures. Therefore, an American conservatism cannot exist while repudiating American culture, including the ideals of its founding. Beyond being an interesting perspective on the various ideas competing in American public life today, the principles that McLaughlin outlined as being constitutive of conservatism have applications to other areas of life, including our work here at the Blue Ridge Center.
As we do our work here in Charlottesville and with the University of Virginia‘s students, we recognize that we belong to a specific culture– that of the university– and the ideals we strive to uphold and disseminate, namely open discourse, viewpoint diversity, and intellectual humility, are themselves integral ideals to the culture of the university itself. The Blue Ridge Center does not exist to change the University of Virginia from the outside, but rather as a pillar within the cultural life of the University seeking to uphold the values most central to its identity.