The Times' New Conservative

Word is official that the Atlantic's Ross Douthat will get the coveted Times Op-Ed slot left vacant by Bill Kristol. Notwithstanding my desire to see more women on Op-Ed pages (and in the pages of the Nation!) I think this fantastic choice. I consider Ross a friend, so you can take this with a grain of salt, but he's genuinely principled and thoughtful. He's a very fine writer, and always interesting to read. He believes in a lot of things I think are misguided or, particularly on social issues, just flat out, irredeemably wrong. But that's the nature of political disagreement, and Ross' particular brand of conservatism really is both difficult to precisely classify and genuinely, deeply, "conservative" in the sense that it carries with a kind of wistful sorrow at the fallenness of the modern world. Here's an excerpt of a review I wrote of his first book:

But what permeates the book is a sense that the Harvard he had expected to be a "scholarly island, a place in the world, but not of it, like the monasteries whose power and dignity universities long ago usurped" is instead a kind of glorified pre-professional school where students are caught in the adult rat-race before they even turn 20. If meritocracy is a parody of democracy, as the Christopher Lasch epigram that opens the book reads, then Harvard, in Douthat's view, mirrors our money- and power-obsessed society: students climb over each other to gain acceptance to exclusive clubs, embezzle student association funds and even engage in campaign finance violations during student elections, followed by a full-out Clinton-style impeachment frenzy. All of this, Douthat argues, is the result of a school culture that, like the culture at large, worships success above all else. Because the entire ethos of Harvard, from its administrators to its students to the author himself, is so caught up in the pursuit of worldly success, Douthat fears the living wage movement was "trying to put a Band-Aid on a machete wound--a wound that wasn't Harvard's bottom-line mentality but an entire system of selfishness in which our university was just a small wheel turning within larger ones."

I think this captures what I like best about Douthat: his conservatism has within it a healthy skepticism for many of the trappings of modern capitalist society.

Comments (18)

1. Sounds more like a leftist extremist in worstedwool clothing wearing a bowtie!?

   Posted by comancheamerican at 03/11/2009 @ 6:13pm

2. RIO, John Boehner is a likely pinko to YOU.

   BTW, what's your escape plan?

   Posted by Mask at 03/11/2009 @ 7:03pm

3. I concur, Chris.

   I saw Ross on Moyers Journal some time ago and though I find much to disagree with --quite strongly even-- I think he's also probably much more nobly principled than the unctuous Bill Kristol.

   Posted by b_kool_66 at 03/11/2009 @ 7:21pm

4. Great, we can look forward to more editorial foolishness of the angry, sad and pathetic.

   the nytimes should cut its losses and leave the drooling anger to the washington times and fox.

   Do we really need another right wing nut in the main stream media? We're overrun with dithering and anger as it is...

   Posted by erazma at 03/11/2009 @ 7:29pm

5. By the way, nice blog entry Hayes.

   Particularly the wrap up:

   In University Inc. (Basic Books), a thorough and disquieting portrait of the state of American higher education, Jennifer Washburn argues that this separateness from the market, and the distinct ethos of free inquiry with which it dovetails, is threatened by a creeping corporatism. "In higher education today," Washburn writes in the introduction,

   "a wholesale cultural shift is transforming everything from the way universities educate their students to the language they use to define what they do. Academic administrators increasingly refer to students as consumers and to education and research as products. They talk about branding and marketing and now spend more on lobbying in Washington than defense contractors do."..........

   Washburn is not urging a retreat into the Ivory Tower, but rather a set of checks and balances that will mitigate some of the more pernicious effects of the "commercial ethos" she has so ably described. In tandem with the policy reforms, there must be a cultural change as well. Higher education's stakeholders, perhaps most crucially the parents who pay tuition, must vocally demand schools return their focus to "knowledge for knowledge's sake," producing a well-rounded educated citizenry, and furthering the public interest through the expansion of the knowledge commons. There are just a few spheres of American life left--church, family, friends--where we explicitly assess value independent of price, profit and revenue potential, and there's good reason to return to the notion that the university should be regarded as one of these spheres, allowed to prioritize considerations other than the bottom line.

   End quote.

   To which I add........"Bravo!"

   Posted by b_kool_66 at 03/11/2009 @ 7:40pm

6. Why does the political movement that brought about the decline of American prosperity and security, a decline culminating in the current economic and security crises, deserve yet another babbling pundit on the pages of the NYT? Yet another poofy pseudo-philosophical David Brooks type? Another reactionary culture warrior reaching for the golden age of the Republican party? This is one of the most discredited political parties and movements in the entire national history. Why is it given another media bully pulpit?

   Posted by syfriendly at 03/11/2009 @ 7:54pm

7. If the most that Douthat can muster is a mere "skepticism for many of the trappings of modern capitalist society" then he may be safely relegated to the "part of the problem" side of the equation. Because of our penchant for unbridled corporate/financial greed we are dragging the world's economy into a Depression the likes of which haven't been seen since 1933, and "skepticism" borders upon journalistic catatonia. Wake up, Ross. Entire families are living in their cars, and you present yourself as entertaining some doubts? No outrage? No focused condemnation? Conservative tepidity has its place in Manhattan's oak-paneled salons and tony clubs--not in the real world. Oh--pardon: the NY Times IS an oak-paneled salon...

   Posted by Stonewhite at 03/11/2009 @ 7:56pm

8. Mr. Hayes,

   After 8 years, that's it? Sick.

   Provide anything where Douthat proposed something distinctly different than Cheney/Bush on:

   invading / occupying Iraq

   US Attorneys

   GITMO/torture

   Plame

   Harriet Myers

   signing statements

   Did he openly criticize McCain's choice of Phil Grahm?

   Posted by winyahn at 03/11/2009 @ 8:14pm

9. You guys MIGHT want to encourage conservatives like Douthat....because...

   as Karl Rove and many on the Right have learned...

   there is NO SUCH THING as a "permanent majority"!

   Posted by Mask at 03/11/2009 @ 8:31pm

10. For those who might be interested here is the link to the Moyers episode with Douthat and his conservative colleague, Mickey Edwards:

    www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07112008/watch.html

    Whatever one's opinion of the views of these guys, I think you'll find both of them worthy of a reasonable conversation. Which is a far cry from much of the Republican "leadership" these days.

    Posted by b_kool_66 at 03/11/2009 @ 8:33pm

11. even Michael Savage?

    Posted by winyahn at 03/11/2009 @ 9:55pm

12. Posted by winyahn at 03/11/2009 @ 9:55pm

    Might insist people use their REAL names.

    Posted by Mask at 03/11/2009 @ 9:58pm

13. Actually, this is not an easy call. The most realistic, electorally-relevant sort of conservative leader is the sort that most connects with those proverbial "working whites" that nearly got us "you will know their names my friends" McCain.

    But, the backlash against this sort of conservative may be the bigger factor.

    Perhaps the US is at a point where the Limbaugh / Clinton-working-white demographic is not only not able to lynch randomly, but not able to stop a black man from being elected because there's enough disgust on the other side of the scale.

    This is certainly Raum's insight in coronating Leader Limbaugh.

    It's not real blatant, but Kristal was always something like the ivy league extenstion of Limbaugh. Overall, given Limbaugh's aggregate negative effect, I'd prefer Kristal with his long Bush-kissup history remain.

    Posted by winyahn at 03/11/2009 @ 10:13pm

14. Posted by b_kool_66 at 03/11/2009 @ 8:33pm

    Thanks for this. Interesting.

    Posted by srjenkins at 03/12/2009 @ 09:22am

15. A couple of points.

    1. Oddly enough, liberals like us probably were better off in the long run with Kristol embarrassing the whole idea of conservatism in such a prominent forum. Douthat clearly has a brain and something of a moral compass, which is harder for our side to answer. Since I enjoy the debate, that's great. But some on our side are no better at debating than Kristol was, so it will be interesting to see.

    2. Does anyone remember John Tierney? He was William Safire's choice to succeed him, I believe. He was a failure, proving as dishonest and muddled as Safire became in his later years. This goes to the point that The Times's most recent op-ed appointments have tended to come from outside. Safire himself was the great exception. Most of the Times's columnists had been reporters who distinguished themselves in some form--Russell Baker as a writer, Tom Friedman for his Middle East coverage, Maureen Dowd as knowing nothing about policy but a lot about popular culture. But Krugman and Brooks were brought in. I wonder if this suggests The Times's editorial page editors aren't seeing as much potential column-writing talent within the news pages, or maybe The Times doesn't feel it has to keep reporters by offering them columns.

    Posted by Michael Green at 03/12/2009 @ 12:11pm

16. Posted by snowball666 at 03/12/2009 @ 08:18am

    No, actually, if you listen to RIO/comanche's over-the-top rhetoric (which has actually included "Obama=Hitler" analogies and "we conservatives and Christians will be the 'Jews'"...

    the point is, either he's suicidal (waiting to be rounded up by the 'Demoncrat Gestapo')...

    or he doesn't even believe his own crap!

    Posted by Mask at 03/12/2009 @ 12:15pm

17. I'd like to see a conservative who is against all big government including military interventionism, special rights for heterosexual couples, abortion restrictions,drug laws, and bailouts of companies "too big to fail. That's a principled conservative and it's nonexistent outside of the Libertarian, Green, or Constitutional parties. I know that a few of you might be deluded into believing Bob Barr and Neil Boorst are genuine Libertarians but you just can't support Bush on so many issues and call yourself libertarian - although it will get you a talk show on Westwood one. You don't automatically qualify as a Libertarian if you are pro choice on abortion. It should be noted that Bill Buckley and Milton Freidman had serious issues with the drug war and foreign interventionism. Safire recognized "free trade" as crony capitalism and actually advocated less protectionism for companies that opt out of some financial regulation [that sure went over big with the "free market" wing of the GOP... OMG, we can't have that!].

    Posted by rimchamp77 at 03/12/2009 @ 6:10pm

18. Likable or not personally, conservatives like Douthat have never contributed anything significant to social justice and progress of the human race. We would have no social security, medicare, consumer protection, clean water, clean air, environmental protections, social services for the poor, restraints on torture or regulations of any kind on unbridled capitalism based on the ideology of Douthat. The NYT should play to their base and accept the fact that putting a right winger on their Op-Ed page will not gain them readers or subscribers.

    Posted by libertyforall45 at 03/16/2009 @ 10:58am