Forward-Looking Conservatism

Modern conservatism isn’t conservative.  It is therefore time we stopped thinking of it that way.  Its partisans no more want to prevent progress than progressives always support advances.  The difference between liberals and conservatives is actually in how they want to make improvements—not whether they do.

Thus conservatives believe in smaller government, a capitalist economy, a stout national defense, stronger families, and personal liberty.  Liberals, in contrast, promote a larger federal government, a socialist economy, a weaker military, the dissolution of families, and total equality.

For the moment, let us set aside a demonstration of why the liberal agenda cannot work.  We will merely assume it is unable to deliver the prosperity and justice its advocates trumpet.  Let us instead concentrate what is necessary to bring modern conservatism to fruition?

If conservatives do not intend to freeze society in amber, which sorts of changes should they support?  What modifications are necessary to reduce governmental controls, strengthen the market economy, protect us from external enemies, reinforce the family, or preserve liberty?

As the conditions in which we live mutate, the mechanisms that once served our needs become less workable.  Our goals may remain, but the means of achieving them differ.  It is therefore necessary to look forward toward what might be successful.

Ours has become a mass techno-commercial society.  Most Americans are no longer farmers.  Nor do they live in small towns.  A majority are better educated, better fed, and better housed.  They also live longer, have fewer children, and interact with diverse strangers.

Their jobs have, as a result, changed.  Many more are professionals or semi-professionals.  As doctors, engineers, managers, nurses, and police officers, they must be self-motivated experts at the work they do.  More often than previously self-supervised, they must care about their assignments and be disciplined enough to perform them well.

The question then becomes: how do we produce the sort of person who can assume these responsibilities?  Without such folks, a techno-commercial market would falter from a lack of trust.   But where are they to be found?  Peasant communities and male dominated households are not the ideal cradle.  So what is?

Forward-looking conservatives may favor vibrant families, but these are not the families of our ancestors.  They are not places where husbands consider their wives servants or parents demand that children be seen and not heard.  The contemporary family is plainly evolving into something new.

Liberals, especially feminists, would have us believe that women should stand entirely on their own.  Men are depicted as brutes whose services became obsolete as women developed the skills to be self-supporting.  Unwed parenthood is, for that reason, deemed perfectly acceptable.

Except that it isn’t.  Research demonstrates that children raised by two committed parents do better than those who are not.  They are much more likely to acquire the attributes needed to become professionalized.  In short, fathers, mothers and loving relationships matter.

But if we are to look forward, we must also recognize that women now demand greater control over their lives.  Precisely because they are better educated and capable of participating in a technological economy, they refuse to be regarded as chattel.

This perforce changes the nature of heterosexual relationships.  Spouses must now be moral equals.  Although the radical feminists claim that androgyny is essential, this is absurd.  Men and women differ and hence denying this cannot be the solution.  What is required is fairness, not coerced equality.

The point is that the dealings required for successful intimacy are transforming before our eyes.  Men and women are, for instance, learning to better negotiate their differences.  This, however, is not a violation of conservatism.  It is evidence of its coming to fruition.

Conservatism does not mandate that tradition be untouched.  Rather it seeks to build on long standing customs.  The idea is not to reinvent the world, but to modify what has to be revised, while preserving what works.  Love works, whereas a male hegemony no longer does.

The future should not scare us; but neither should it erase everything that preceded it.  Accordongly, we must possess the wisdom to identify what deserves amendment and the courage to innovate prudently.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

The Corruption of Sociology

I am often asked by readers of my columns how I survive as a sociologist.  They know that I am a conservative, whereas my discipline is extremely liberal.  In fact, it is difficult.  Most of my colleagues are neo-Marxists.  Outside of my own department, many regard me as a traitor.

Some years ago, the husband of a close associate ordered me—point blank—to stop writing for the Marietta Daily Journal.  He told me that my views did not represent sociology and therefore I should desist.  My Ph.D. in the field was canceled out by my apostasy.

 Similarly, when I attend conferences, I have literally been told to shut up.  Instead of being heard out, I am treated to a lecture.  Academics, who do not know me, take it upon themselves to reeducate me.

With the advent of President Donald Trump, things have gotten worse.  My wife (who is also a sociologist) and I usually enjoy attending the Southern Sociology Society (SSS) meetings in New Orleans.  We like the town, but are having second thoughts about going.

What triggered this decision was the “call for papers” put out by the organization.  Professional societies, such as the SSS, are supposed to promote science.  They are intended to be places where scholars get together to share their results.  This cross-fertilization is meant to advance our collective understanding.

It should go without saying that a true science is empirical.  Neutral observations of the real world are expected to be confirmed—or disconfirmed—by other neutral observations.  Bias is supposed to be weeded out as a source of error and confusion.  This way the truth can emerge.

But those days are gone.  No longer does the SSS see this as it mission.  Today the goal is to promote a political agenda.  In addition, no one should be surprised that this is a left wing agenda.  Political correctness has so corrupted the social sciences that even mainstream sociologists have become activists dedicated to destroying Trump.

If this sounds extreme, let me quote an extended passage from the SSS’s call for papers.  The reader can judge for him or herself the purpose of a conference entitled “Racial Theory, Analysis, and Politics in TrumpAmerica.”

The call begins, “We want all Trump-related sociological analysis to be the focus as our nation…needs answers and explanations.  How did a patently unqualified person like Trump get elected?  Why did we not predict his election?  Why did so many whites support him.”

It should be evident that this statement is harshly judgmental.  The outcomes of the desired studies have been predetermined.  Conservative explanations are not welcome.  Neither are dispassionate analyses.

But let me continue.  “Is Trump’s election a short-term development or a political egg that has been hatching for a long time?  What is our analysis of Trump’s core supporters?  Were [they] just expressing their ‘class anxieties’.  What are the politics needed to undo TrumpAmerica?”

Bear in mind that these are southern sociologists.  Bear in mind as well that the current president of the SSS is from Duke University.  These are not a bunch of kooks from a marginal association.  They epitomize the deep-seated attitudes of academics in one of the most conservative parts of the country.

One last line that stands out in this call for papers is, “Will Democrats cave into the idea that to get back to the White House they need to stop relying on ‘identity politics’?”  The import of this injunction is that sociologists must defend identity politics.

Identity politics, of course, stresses the special needs of “minorities” such as blacks, women, gays, and the poor.  The idea is thus not to investigate the truth, but to find ways to help those our culture exploits.  In other words, the truth is known; it is just a matter of applying it.

This, however, is standard Marxist thinking.  Marx, having discovered what he believed to be the driving force of history, told capitalists they needed to stand aside or be run over.  Furthermore, he, and his associates, would organize a proletarian revolution to see that they did.

The folks at the SSS have the identical mindset.  Only now their archenemy is that capitalistic icon Donald Trump.  He is clearly in their sights.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

War with North Korea?

I am not a general.  I am not an expert on tactics or logistics.  Nor do I receive intelligence reports about the comparative assets of the United States and North Korea.  What then qualifies me to make projections about a potential conflict on the Korean peninsula?  The answer is very little.

So why am I about to engage in this exercise?  It is because a great many less qualified commentators are doing so.  Furthermore, because most of them have a pacifist bent, they are eager to point out how destructive such a clash would be.  With hundreds of thousands, and perhaps millions of potential casualties, they imply it would not be worth it.

Although these observers typically say that all options should be on the table, many express a willingness to accept a nuclear-armed North.  I am not.  Not only would this rogues state represent an existential threat to us, but its ability to sell its technology is terrifying.

What if Hamas got these weapons?  What about Boko Haram?  We have a nuclear nonproliferation treaty, but what does this mean if there is no way to enforce it.  The prospect of a worldwide arms race is unthinkable.  Something must be done!

As it happens, the opponents of a military intervention usually make a huge mistake.  They point out that over twenty million residents of Seoul are within artillery range of the DMZ and that the North has thousands of these weapons.  Ponder, they ask, the extent of the devastation?

What they leave out of the equation is that Seoul can be evacuated—just as Miami was prior to Hurricane Irma.  Why would people allow themselves to be sitting ducks?  Wouldn’t moving south reduce their risk?

So here is my suggestion.  The United States should send Kim Jung-On an ultimatum.  Destroy your atomic weapons, the means of producing them, and your ICBMs or we will use stand-off armaments to do this for you.  Furthermore, you must allow inspectors to verify that you have done so.

Americans do not need to deploy ground troops.  Nor do a majority of inspectors need to be American.  The Chinese can be permitted to do the job.  They must also be made to understand that we have no desire to remove the North as a buffer against the West.

If the Chinese refuse to accept this and begin moving troops over the border, we can speed up our timetable.  But what if the South refuses to evacuate.  This is possible, but it is difficult to imagine a politician surviving a refusal to protect his people.

If this sounds bellicose, it is not much more than what was done during the Cuban missile crisis.  Back then president Kennedy found the prospect of nuclear armed missiles on our doorstep intolerable.  He thus regarded it as his duty to protect our welfare.

Today the reach of the North Koreans is greater and so it is their ability to hit us that should be the trigger.  Lest we forget, Kennedy was willing to risk nuclear war to deter the Russians.  He dispatched warships to blockade Cuba and to confront the Soviets.

Would On back down the way Khrushchev did?  Would the Chinese be satisfied with preserving their hegemony over the North?  It is impossible to say.  This makes the danger of precipitating a confrontation substantial.  Our calculations could go wrong.

But consider the alternative.  If we are never willing to use our military assets, it is as if we did not have them.  If all we are prepared to do is rattle them—and our enemies know this—we might be challenged at any moment.  Each time we backed down, our adversaries would be emboldened to push a bit harder.

The protection of democracy is not free.  Our ancestors knew this and therefore they took chances from which we benefit.  Did they shed their blood so that we can retreat into appeasement and cowardice?

It is now our turn to step up to the plate.  But we should not be reckless.  We ought never be heedless of the consequences of our actions.  But neither should we be pusillanimous.  If strategic patience means never defending ourselves, it will not be long before there is nothing left to defend.

Melvyn L, Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

The Great Middle Class Revolultion

When I first moved to Georgia, one of my colleagues at Kennesaw State University explained how her ancestors acquired land in Cherokee county.   They won it in the lottery associated with the Trail of Tears.  This story brought home to me how recently Georgia had been on the frontier.

It was, in fact, not that long ago that our ancestors were pioneers.  Whether they braved the hazards of the trek west or confronted the dangers of taking a sailing ship across the Atlantic, they voluntarily accepted the risks of dealing with the unknown.

Today we are infinitely more prosperous than our forebears.  We do not dread Indian attacks or need to obtain work in sweatshops.  We might occasionally have to put up with a natural disaster, but we know that relief will be coming.  There will surely be enough to eat and drink—and it won’t be long before the electricity is restored.

Nonetheless, we too are pioneers.  We have also entered unfamiliar territory.  The world is changing around us—and changing radically.  We are participants in a great middle class revolution.  This is new!  No other peoples have ever had to deal with the challenges we are experiencing.

Because we are in the midst of it, we seldom realize that ours is the first predominately middle class nation in all of history.  Never before have so many individuals been in the middle class.  Never before have these middling level folks exercised so much power.

The question is what to do with this good fortune.  We are no longer farmers.  Most of us are not even factory workers.  Instead of laboring with our hands, we are more likely to work with our heads.  Many more of us have thus become professionalized or semi-professionalized.  We have been transformed into self-motivated experts in complex activities.

Ours is a mass techno-commercial society.  We are surrounded by millions of diverse strangers upon whom we depend for survival.  They feed us; they clothe us; they build our homes.  Were their services erratic, we would be in serious jeopardy.

What is more, because the tasks they perform are often technological, they must master complicated skills.  They must also acquire the social aptitudes to cooperate with people very different from themselves.  This requires that they be educated far beyond what was demanded of their ancestors.

Today we must cope with the uncertainties of selecting and preparing for an occupation.  We will not simply do what our parents did.  We must instead choose from a panoply of possibilities that we do not fully comprehend.  What is available and what will we be good at?

Today marriage and family have also become optional.  If we decide to take a spouse, who will it be?  And if we make such a commitment, can we be sure it will not end in divorce?  Isolated as we are in separate nuclear households, it is up to us to make our intimate relationships work.

Today we must likewise decide whether we will have children.  But if we have them, how will we raise them?  Which techniques must we employ to prepare them for a successful middle class adulthood?  The old practice of demanding that the young be seen and not heard is no longer appropriate.

And how about politics?  Once city hall seemed so far away that fighting it was inconceivable.  Today we are so affluent and well-educated that more of us participate in self-governance.  But how are we to do this?  The split between conservatives and liberals is evidence that we fiercely disagree.

Our grandparents might have been wonderful people, but they are not adequate role models for what we need.  Like it or not, we must figure out new ways to do many things.  While we can learn from the past, we must also innovate.  This ensures we will make mistakes that require flexibility to rectify.

Despite the sense of entitlement that many young people feel, nothing about our future is preordained.  Unless we make suitable choices, our good luck could run out.  Unless we are responsible, and intelligent, and hard-working, the progress we nowadays expect could come to a screeching halt.

Melvyn L, Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University