For various reasons, not the least because it's so rarely done, I am planning to teach a course on 'modern conservatism' this Fall. I've been canvassing folk on what to teach, and what I should read first. Friend of these digressions, Chris Brooke alerted me to
This is a nice piece, and I agree with the general drift of the reconstruction of conservatism, in particular along the lines of a strategic position. The only matter I missed mention of, particularly in the latter part on neo-cons, is that as much toward the end of Weimar Republic, as now wherever conservatives join hands with populists in electoral programming and party-lines, there is a lot of conservatively revolutionary (as Schmitt also was) rhetoric and political self-positioning. In the "wokism" movement, it is the LIBERALS and LEFT who advocate the status quo of institutions of routine democracy as we know it (independence of the judiciary, free and independent educational institutions and academia, constitutional protections against government prohibitions on bodily matters, etc). So this should affect or modulate your summary concept of conservatives as institution-preservationists who most of the time are reactive against reform-projects (presumably by the left or liberals). The ones who are most institution-averse right now are neocons who use the "woke" slogan. I think of it more as a revolutionary dogwhistle than a call to preserve institutions (as opposed to preserving TRADITIONAL SOCIAL POWER-POSITIONS like patriarchy, white supremacism, women-in-their-place-sexism, etc).
On the functional role of 'Woke;' Huntington, and Abstract, Imaginary Threats.
This is a nice piece, and I agree with the general drift of the reconstruction of conservatism, in particular along the lines of a strategic position. The only matter I missed mention of, particularly in the latter part on neo-cons, is that as much toward the end of Weimar Republic, as now wherever conservatives join hands with populists in electoral programming and party-lines, there is a lot of conservatively revolutionary (as Schmitt also was) rhetoric and political self-positioning. In the "wokism" movement, it is the LIBERALS and LEFT who advocate the status quo of institutions of routine democracy as we know it (independence of the judiciary, free and independent educational institutions and academia, constitutional protections against government prohibitions on bodily matters, etc). So this should affect or modulate your summary concept of conservatives as institution-preservationists who most of the time are reactive against reform-projects (presumably by the left or liberals). The ones who are most institution-averse right now are neocons who use the "woke" slogan. I think of it more as a revolutionary dogwhistle than a call to preserve institutions (as opposed to preserving TRADITIONAL SOCIAL POWER-POSITIONS like patriarchy, white supremacism, women-in-their-place-sexism, etc).