Conservatism in America today is undergoing an identity crisis. There is a multitude of reasons why, but anyone can examine the debates among conservatives and find that the splintering of the movement is a real possibility. Conservatism has lost its purpose and its vision. In spite of this, there is hope for a new union between the differing groups, and a look back at conservatism’s history can teach us that the troubles we see today are quite similar to the ones seen in its beginnings. 

In his 1964 essay “The Conservative Search for Identity,” Stephen Tonsor provides some valuable insight into the same types of problems conservatives are facing today: 

“The blunt truth is that most conservatives do not know what manner of men they are, they have no clear conception of the society they wish to create, and have no organic relationship either to the present or the past, hold no grand design, entertain no enduring principles, and are responsible to no whole and healthy vision either of man or society.”

This is because conservatism itself is paradoxical, a tension between freedom and order; between justice and liberty. Continuing in his essay, Tonsor wrote, “[C]onservatism is a synthesis of contradictory principles, the principle of authority and the principle of freedom. These principles are ever held in precarious balance by individuals and by societies; the resolution of their forces is never final; their synthesis is never complete.” Tonsor’s point begs another question beyond the type of society conservatives wish to create: what principle comes first—the principle of authority and order, or the principle of freedom and liberty? 

This is the first question that must be asked which reveals the conundrum facing conservatism today. Some conservatives want to keep some of these principles (for example, order and virtue) and discard the rest (freedom and liberty), but they find it difficult to do so. Many, with the best intentions, want to make conservatism an intellectually consistent philosophy and find themselves frustrated by apparent contradictions they see within their philosophy. In order for conservatives to become successful as a philosophical and political movement, they must accept these paradoxes and move onward together to build the society and culture they wish to create. 

Conservatives must realize that perhaps, while there might be tension between freedom and order (also described as authority), the bigger tension is the fact that freedom and authority are conjoined at the hip, working together. M. Stanton Evans once wrote, “Freedom and virtue have declined together and must rise together. They are not opposites; they are not even…separate matters to be dealt with independently. They are complementaries which flourish or wither in a direct and dependable ratio.” As Evans said, they are complements to one another. From a surface-level view, this tension seems enough to break conservatism apart, and many conservatives have failed to move beyond the surface which has created today’s identity crisis. 

Moving beyond the surface to a deeper look into our present troubles finds many questions left unanswered. Perhaps the biggest question of all is the one that has caused the biggest split among conservatives which Stephen Tonsor alluded to: what kind of society do conservatives wish to create? It is from the answer to this question in which conservatives can find their identity. 

When a society is being created, the tension between freedom and order increases exponentially; enough so to even kill itself before it has even been born. This is a substantial, inherent challenge for conservatism because its philosophy is based upon these two competing yet complementary principles. So, when finding the right balance between freedom and order in their society, conservatives should heed the words of Garry Wills in his essay, “The Convenient State.” Wills wrote, “It is useless, therefore, to debate whether the emphasis should be on freedom or order, or to adjudicate between major political systems by discussing the degree of freedom desired, or the extent of order, as if these were constant substances varying only in quantity. The question should be what kind of order, what kind of freedom, is at issue.” Wills explains that there are two competing views of order and freedom, and this makes the new conservatives’ search for identity even more confusing, but ever more important. 

When thinking about order and authority, the role that religion and the state play are important in determining what kind of society will be created. The conservative who wants order and authority to come first must figure out where this sanctioning of authority comes from. The state and religion represent two different kinds of authority, with one kind leading to tyranny, the other to virtue. As Plato stated, the order that the state wishes to impose is justice. However, that justice can quickly lead to a tyrannical justice if it is not tempered with a more religious outlook on the world. Religion teaches man virtues that cannot be taught by an ever-more intrusive state eager to crush freedom in the name of order. Religion seeks to give man purpose and meaning, while also teaching him the characteristics of a good society. Yet, using religion as a tool to impose a certain way of life on a society can degrade that society as well, and undermines the very virtues that religion seeks to encourage in man. This is why the state and religion must remain apart, lest conservatism finds itself favoring a version of religious tyranny that imposes the order it wishes upon society. 

Because virtue not freely chosen is not virtue, this implies that freedom must always come first. Lord Acton made such a point when he wrote, “Liberty is…not a starting point, but a result, of government.” This does not mean, however, that conservatives place the utmost importance on freedom just for freedom’s sake. Rather, the emphasis on freedom that should be placed first should be placed within the context of the ordered society some conservatives desire. Returning to Lord Acton, conservatives should heed his words in his 1861 essay in which he wrote, “Liberty is not the power of doing what we like, but the right of being able to do what we ought.” Conservatives must be careful to ensure that the expansion of freedom that they wish to have must also be placed within the bounds of order and authority in which the moral influences the political. This is the same point that M. Stanton Evans was making when he wrote, “The conservative believes man should be free; he does not believe being free is the end of human existence. He maintains that man exists to form his life in consonance with the objective order, to choose the good…Freedom is thus the political context of moral decision.” 

Finding its new identity, conservatism must find accommodation between these differing principles. This means finding what unites conservatism, not what divides it. As Gary Wills notes, “The problem of the Western world has been to find a new kind of order to act as a foundation for its fugitive new kind of freedom.” Luckily, conservatives do not have to look far to discover how to move forward together with order and authority, freedom and liberty. In fact, a simple look back to the founding of the United States is where conservatives of all stripes can find that what should become their new identity is not that “new” after all.

The American founding brought together the two competing but complementary principles of order and liberty to successfully create a free nation. The founders put forth both of these principles at the same time to build their own version of society. Examining the two most important founding documents of this country reveals each competing but complementary principle being properly represented in both the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution. Starting with the Declaration, the case for liberty is stated when it says, 

“[T]hat all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” 

The society that conservatives wish to create recognizes that liberty is, and should be, fundamental.

But where in the founding documents is the “foundation,” as Gary Wills noted, of order for this liberty the Declaration speaks of? The answer is found in the preamble to the next great founding document, the United States Constitution. As the preamble states:

“WE THE PEOPLE of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

The words justice, tranquility, common defence, and general welfare are the foundation of the type of order that conservatives should desire and defend. These virtues listed out in the Preamble as laid out by America’s Founding Fathers are the virtues that an ordered society should build in order for freedom and liberty to thrive. 

So to answer the question of what kind of society conservatives wish to create, the answer is this: a society in which the individual has the most freedom to live virtuously within the principles laid out in America’s founding documents. This answer also enlightens conservatives to their purpose: conserving the American founding. Conservatism’s task is not necessarily to create a new society, but rather preserve the principles of society that were present at our nation’s founding and within its founding documents. 

Matthew Continneti has said, “Freedom is an ends to the means politically, but a means to the end socially.” In order to have the society it wishes to create, conservatism must recognize this fact. The fundamental task that conservatives must take on is to encourage man to pursue freedom no matter the cost, but to use that freedom to live in an ordered, principled, and virtuous manner within the context of the principles laid out in the founding. If conservatives learn to do this, then conservatism will have found its identity once again.