George Will’s Mixed Sensibility

Last updated on: October 23, 2020 at 8:00 am by Coyle Neal

George Will’s Mixed Sensibility 2020-10-17T10:26:45-06:00 Coyle Neal

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Image: Hachette

In 1953, Russell Kirk published the groundbreaking The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot. In this book, Kirk set out to articulate the inarticulable–what it is that binds conservatism into a coherent worldview. Three years later Peter Viereck published his much-less-groundbreaking book Conservative Thinkers from Adams to Churchill attempting to do the same thing as Kirk in a more manageable form (~200 pages, about half of which is excerpts from classic conservative texts; as compared to Kirk’s 500+ page survey of conservatism). In both cases, the argument is made that there is something inexpressible about being a conservative. Later writers would talk of conservatism as an inherent ‘disposition’, rather than a carefully reasoned system of ideas and policy positions.

Clearly George Will is aiming to add his voice to these earlier conservative voices with his new book The Conservative Sensibility. Yet he is also standing slightly at odds with these earlier voices. Will writes:

“European conservatism has generally sought to conserve institutions and practices, such as social hierarchies and established churches, that were produced by the slow working of historical processes spanning many centuries. American conservatism seeks… to conserve or establish institutions and practices conducive to a social dynamism that dissolves impediments to social mobility and fluidity. So American conservatism is not only different from, it is at bottom antagonistic to British and continental European conservatism. The latter emphasizes the traditional and dutiful, with duties defined by obligations to a settled collectivity, the community. Because American conservatism is about individual liberty, it cultivates spontaneous social order and hence encourages novelty.” (xxviii-xxix)

Both Viereck and Kirk would disagree–each clearly placing American conservatism on a wider spectrum that includes thinkers from other nations and cultures (though the two disagree as to who exactly fits into the movement). They would have identified what Will defends more as ‘classical liberalism’ or even outright ‘libertarianism’ than as a kind of conservatism. I don’t want to push this point too hard, both because there has always been a classically liberal streak in the American style of conservatism (to defend Will’s definition) and because as the book goes on it become clear that his ideas concerning culture, history, institutions, and tradition (especially in the third, sixth, seventh, and tenth chapters) are much more in line with Kirk, Viereck, and conservative European thinkers than Will would like to admit in his preface.

All that to say, this is a work that brings together an inherent conservative sensibility and an explicit classically liberal sensibility. Which is entirely appropriate for a conservative like George Will who has a worldview forged in the mid-to-late 20th century under the aegis of figures like William F. Buckley, Irving Kristol, and other great minds of American conservatism.

As for the book itself, it’s maybe a touch longer than it really should have been. I say this with the full understanding that George Will is a better writer on his worst day than I am on all my best days together. Still, this book could have said what it needed to say in two hundred fewer pages and not necessarily have been the worse for it.

That said, The Conservative Sensibility is still worthwhile, particularly Will’s chapter on religion. Must one have a theistic worldview in order to be a conservative? The answer is clearly ‘no’, give that Will himself is an atheist and is a conservative. And yet, most conservative intellectuals are quite clear about the religious foundation of the conservative worldview. Heck, Kirk makes it the very first “canon of conservatism” in the first chapter of The Conservative Mind. Will responds by walking back our sense of the divine into a sense of “wonder” at existence, specifically at the complexity and beauty of the natural order and at the apparently spontaneous coherence of mankind’s place within that order. Will argues that embracing the apparent truth of, say, Darwinism need not have the effect of automatically reducing mankind to little more than a complex animal. Instead, it can give us a yet greater sense of wonder that something so incredible as man crawled out of the primordial goop. That the apes may be distant genetic cousins need not devalue the beauty of human achievements.

What’s more, will may very well be right. At least, so far as conservatism is concerned. It may be that he is right and Kirk was wrong and that one can embrace a secular humanist worldview and still retain the conservative sensibility. That such happens rarely is no counterargument so long as it does happen and has defenders like George Will. Obviously as a Christian I find Will’s perspective at the very least deficient, and generally a deeply sad perspective. It may be that we can close our eyes to the coming judgment, embrace the ‘whirl’ of a universe without an ordering Providence, and live a decent life according to the conservative sensibility (or the progressive sensibility, for that matter). But I’d not encourage it. Doing so involves suppressing a part of human existence that Will is clearly quite aware of: the sense of coming judgment–the sensibility that there is something more to good and evil than what people have devised in civilization as we have built cathedrals and airports and nature preserves. Morality isn’t founded on the primordial muck, whether we crawled from it first or not. As he says elsewhere even in this book, there is something universal and lasting about human nature. And as long as that is the case (and it will never not be the case), any view of the cosmos which fails to account for that–as atheistic views ultimately most if they are to be even remotely consistent–must ultimately collapse in on itself.

Which again isn’t to negate the value of The Conservative Sensibility. It is certainly a book worth having on your shelf if you’re interested in conservatism as understood as one of its ablest living champions.

Dr. Coyle Neal is co-host of the City of Man Podcast and an Associate Professor of Political Science at Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, MO

Books

conservatism

Politics

Previous Post

October 20, 2020

Common Grace, 2.6

Next Post

October 27, 2020 Common Grace, 2.7

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Action AFI Top 100 Animation Best Picture Winner BFI Top 250 Biography Biopic Books Childrens Christian Classics Classics Comedy Crime Documentary Drama Editor's Choice Family Fantasy Fantasy Films Foreign Historical Historical Fiction History Horror Horror IMDB Top 250 Indie Memoir Modern Novel Musical Mystery Non-Fiction Oscars Philosophy Poetry Popular Literature Reading and Writing Reality Romance Science Fiction Science Fiction Silent Sports Thriller TV Show Uncategorized Western Westerns Young Adult

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 June 2017 January 2017 December 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which prophet saw a vision of a flying scroll?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Zechariah Daniel Jeremiah Ezekiel