Expensive Lipstick

An article on the front page of the Times today (you see, kids, the NYT also comes in this hard-copy format called a 'newspaper'...) documents a change in tactics among conservatives keen to expand their influence on the nation's campuses. Instead of aggressively polemical attacks on the usual betes noires (postmodernism, multiculturalism, ethnic studies, feminism, etc.), right-wing financiers and foundations now tout their pet projects as nonpartisan efforts to 'embrace a broader range of thought'. In practice, however, it amounts to funding initiatives by conservative academics that adopt a more positive stance to 'Western culture' and offer a 'triumphal interpretation of American history'.

There's no need to see in this some kind of insidious plot: it's perfectly legitimate to be concerned about the way American history is being interpreted and transmitted to the next generation. But--to quote Edmund Burke out of context--'in order for us to love our country, our country must be lovely'. There may be much we can learn from conservative political thought: those who disagree with Burke's ultimate assessment of the French Revolution may still have much to learn from his ideas concerning the value of the past or the most prudent pace of change; those who recoil from Carl Schmitt's politics may yet benefit from a tussle with his political theory. But that is a different kind of education than what these determined triumphalists and soft-sell culture warriors seem to be proposing.