LIBERALISM AND CONSERVATISM
109
sounding goals rather than in opponents who shared a common respect
for moderate means and non-utopian hopes. The polarization of "liberal"
fellow-travellers and "conservative" xenophobes badly corrupted political
discourse and obscured the central importance of the civilized middle
ground both liberalism and conservatism have in common.
Neither liberals nor conservatives alone can create the kind of
society Shils describes, in which there is relative institutional autonomy
for the sake of responsibility, a sanctioned diversity of loyalties among
citizens who are not urged to become homogenized, and a pervading
amateur spirit to inhibit the provincial or fanatic specialization that
makes men suspicious of the purposes and values of those whose work
differs from their own. But both liberals and conservatives can con–
tribute to the growth of such a society by acknowledging their common
rejection of the apocalyptic politics of salvation practiced by extremists
at either end of the spectrum, who have more in common with each
other than either has with liberalism or conservatism.
Whatever their past sins, liberals no longer nurture illusions about
Communism, and it was a determined group of conservative senators
who finally brought McCarthy to book. Perhaps the process of polari–
zation has been decisively halted, though it is ominous to hear the
populistic rumbles of indignation from conservatives against the recent
Supreme Court decisions.
If
the process has been checked, then there
is
a real possibility for liberals and conservatives to profit from a genu–
ine philosophical dialogue. That would be a refreshing and perhaps
liberating novelty.
Liberals might then discover that their "happy pragmatism" is no
substitute for a reasoned analysis of "the open society," and conserva–
tives might then realize that their preoccupation with the interests of
business, the glories of Algerian success, and the security of a rigid
Americanism has little to do with the conservative values of hierarchy
and tradition. Both groups might finally shed their populistic prejudices.
Whatever the case may have been in the past, the populistic shoe is
now on the conservative foot. F . D. R . bridled at the "horse-and-buggy"
opinions of the Supreme Court, but all he did was to propose a change
in the number of Justices, which had been constitutionally expanded
and contracted several times before. It has required the populistic
fervor of an ex-radical turned new conservative, James Burnham, to
urge
(in the
National Review
for July 20, 1957) that "tough, fighting
Americans"
lead
a Congressional
investigation
of the Court,
which
has
bad the nerve
to
impose
decent
limits
on the
lust for publicity and
the
obsession
with
secrecy.
