The Conservative Soul: How We Lost It, How to Get It Back

by Andrew Sullivan

what does it mean to be a conservative anymore? With the Iraq war, the rise of Christian fundamentalism, exploding government spending, soaring debt, insecure borders, and an executive branch with greater and greater power, Republicans and conservatives are debating this question with more and more urgency. The contradictions keep mounting. Today's conservatives support the idea of limited government, but they have increased government's size, power, and reach to new heights. They believe in balanced budgets, but they have boosted government spending, debt, and pork to record levels. They believe in individual liberty and the rule of law, but they have condoned torture, ignored laws passed by Congress, and been indicted for bribery. They have substituted religion for politics, and damaged both. In The Conservative Soul , Andrew Sullivan, one of the nation's leading political commentators, makes an impassioned call to rescue conservatism from the excesses of the Republican far right, which risks making the GOP the first fundamentally religious party in American history. Through an incisive look at the rise of Western fundamentalism, Sullivan argues that conservatives cannot in good conscience keep supporting a party that believes in its own God-given mission to change people's souls, instead of protecting their liberties. He carefully charts the arguments of the new conservatism, showing why they cannot work in today's America, why they fail the test of logic and pragmatism, and why they betray the conservative tradition from Edmund Burke to Ronald Reagan. In this bold and powerful book, Andrew Sullivan criticizes our government for acting too often, too quickly, and too expensively. He champions a political philosophy based on skepticism and reason, rather than certainty and fundamentalism. He defends a Christianity that is sincere but not intolerant, and a politics that respects religion by keeping its distance. And he makes a provocative, heartfelt case for a revived conservatism at peace with the modern world, dedicated to restraining government and empowering individuals to live rich and fulfilling lives.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Political Science, Religion, Journalism, Current Affairs

304 pages, Hardcover

First published October 10, 2006

About the author

Andrew Michael Sullivan is a British blogger, author, and political commentator. He is a speaker at universities, colleges, and civic organizations in the United States, and a guest on national news and political commentary television shows in the United States and Europe. Born and raised in England, he has lived in the United States since 1984 and currently resides in Washington, D.C. and Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Sullivan is sometimes considered a pioneer in political weblog journalism, since he was one of the first prominent political journalists in the United States to start his own personal blog. Sullivan wrote his blog for a year at Time Magazine, shifting on 1 February 2007 to The Atlantic, where it received approximately 40 million page views in the first year. He is the former editor of The New Republic.

Reviews

[Bill Kerwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This thoughtful book-length essay contrasts Sullivan's conservative vision with the attitudes of the theo-conservative and neo-conservative--neither of which Sullivan considers to be real conservatives at all.

Inspired by the essays of Montaigne and the philosophical disquisitions of Michael Oakeshott, Sullivan argues that the basis of true conservatism is doubt itself, and the healthy suspicion of ideological certainty and ambitious social projects which naturally flows from it. By contrast, theo-conservatism (born of Christian fundamentalism) and neo-conservatism (founded by disillusioned hard leftists) require a posture of moral certainty and ambitious social plans. Real conservatism, however, requires caution and skepticism, and Sullivan argues that--in order for true conservatism to survive--the centrality of doubt must be reclaimed.

Sullivan's prose is--as usual--clear and elegant, and much of the book is both witty and devastating.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sullivan takes stock of modern conservatism and looks at how it has strayed from it philosophical roots as a champion of small government and individual rights, to a practitioner of big government, fiscal irresponsibility, religious fundamentalism, and nanny statism. Many younger readers, such as myself, who have come to associate conservatism with the warped modern iteration ushered in by Bush 43, might be surprised after reading this that they consider themselves conservatives. I prefer classically liberal. Mostly because it's really confusing to other people.

[Chris Ziesler · Rating 4 out of 5]

I very much enjoyed this work of political philosophy despite not agreeing with all of Sullivan's analysis. He sets out to explain the core philosophy of a conservative's intellectual toolkit. He starts the book by explaining how the sense of loss and the pain it causes are at the heart of a conservative's world view. He goes on to examine and explain how the great conservative philosophers of the past - Hobbes, Montaigne, Burke, Oakeshott, Leo Strauss - have dealt with this ineluctable fact of existence and developed a coherent and powerful set of ideas that can be used as a starting point for facing the ceaselessly dynamic and contingent world in which we live.

Sullivan is at his best when explaining why these ideas have such power and vitality and specifically why they have found such a direct expression in the creation and historical development of the United States of America.

As readers of The Dish will know Sullivan is an expert rhetorician and a highly-skilled advocate of this view of conservatism. What they may not appreciate is the depth of the philosophical well from which he has drawn and the extent to which he has learned from conservative thinkers of the past before developing and applying their ideas to our current political situation. The strength of the position he outlines is that it is flexible and humble in the face of new policy questions and challenges, it does not pretend to have instant answers from either divine revelation or an ideological recipe book. Precisely because it is flexible it can free human creativity to find new solutions.

The passage with which I most heartily agreed was:
"The real leaders of a free society are not its politicians. They are its artists and laborers, scientists and teachers, bloggers and social workers, sportsmen and movie directors, day traders and research students, architects and farmers, waiters and comedians."

My only complaint about that statement was that he did not include writers, of which Mr Sullivan is himself a most worthy and shining example.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

I look forward to reading Andrew Sullivan each Saturday in New York Magazine. He has a unique point of view--gay, Catholic, conservative, English--and is a good and insightful writer. I don't always agree with him, but he is always worth considering.

The Conservative Soul was published in 2006, a time, politically, at least, that seems like a lifetime ago. Remember George Bush II and the war in Iraq? Remember Tom Delay, Rick Santorum, Bill Frist, and Pat Robertson? These men seem absolutely charming compared to our current President and his clown car full of cable news morons. So this book is dated. The examples Sullivan uses are not only 14 or 15 years old, but are the worries of another era.

I admit that I skimmed through some of this. Sullivan, whose sexual orientation is constantly attacked by religious traditionalists, spends a lot of pages talking about conservative religious ideas related to human sexuality: homosexuality, abortion, etc. I admit that that I find these topics less than interesting. Sullivan also takes religious fundamentalists to task, be they Muslim or Christian, and worries that the fusion of wacko religions and politics is a toxic brew (I agree).

But since the writing of this book, we have experienced what the author George Packer called "the vertigo of the unwinding" (The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America)--the Great Recession, the election of a black president, the Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, Wikileaks, gay marriage, Donald Trump, Brexit, and the rise of social media. All in thirteen years. Makes you miss Eric Cantor, doesn't it?

The final part of this book is Sullivan spelling out his definition of what conservatism is as a philosophy (instead of as a political movement). Recognizing imperfectability. The essentiality of security. The necessity of freedom for human flourishing. And, the centrality of America's unique ethos, the pursuit of happiness. It's good stuff, and its based in a long tradition that I have tremendous affection for, even now that conservatism--in its popular expression--is a fucking cartoon staring Sean Hannity and Tomi Lahren.

It's depressing.

Good book. Dated, which isn't the fault of the author, but rather a reflection of the rapidity of change in these here United States, and in the world.

[Catherine McNiel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up this book expecting it to be mostly uninteresting, expecting to skim it in an hour and be done. Instead, I found it fascinating, nothing like the title or cover or description suggested - and I soaked it in over the course of a month.

Surprisingly, this book is as much about faith as it is politics. I gained tremendous respect for the author in how he treated both the good and bad potential for faith, always showing respect, never throwing the "baby out with the bathwater." And I have a new appreciation for America, for the conservative soul, and a better understanding of where we came from, where we are now, and what we need in the future.

This book couldn't be more timely, given the current events of our country. I enjoyed and appreciated it very much, and hope many more people will read it as well.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

An outstanding read, hard to put down, Conservatism is presented in the the clearest writing yet. Gay and Roman Catholic, Sullivan writes his from his heart and mind and presents the dangers of fundamnentalism in all its forms and makes one proud of the wisdom and brilliance and fairness of our Founding Fathers, whose thought is presented in an election today would be political suicide. A great book, hard to put down

[Rob Price · Rating 4 out of 5]

Started off a little slowly with the description of fundamentalism but this laid a groundwork for what conservatism is not. It was useful to understand how fundamentalist Christianity became a force within the Republican party through the 1990's and 2000's and why abortion and gay-rights are major features of the current political discourse. Sullivan refutes natural law theorists and their inane conclusions but also respects value that they can bring to the debate. He skillfully expanded from religion, showing the risk of the fundamentalist mindset by explaining the singe-minded approach of GW Bush and the troublesome decisions made during war of terror. He wraps up by detailing what conservatism should stand for, which is a little trickier as its not a prescriptive theory. I enjoyed these more philosophical sections and would like to read more of Michael Oakeshot and Montaigne, writers which Sullivan leans on. Montaigne coat of arms sums up conservatism pretty well, “Que Sais-Je?” What do I know?

A few personal reflections on Plato's Allegory of the Cave, which Sullivan comments on beautifully: https://pricelesseconomics.wordpress....

[Gaetano Venezia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Conservatism at the Turn of the Century: Skeptics versus Fundamentalists
Sullivan’s target is not so much the "conservative soul" per se, but rather the stark political divisions that have recently developed under the “conservative” umbrella. In Sullivan’s telling, the skeptical, philosophical conservatism that he espouses has been overshadowed by a growing fundamentalist pseudo-conservatism (a.k.a theoconservatives and neoconservatives). Sullivan takes a historical and philosophical approach, showing how political events marshaled fundamentalist aspects of conservatism and how intellectuals have codified and rarified this new "conservative" fundamentalism.

Much to Sullivan’s credit he has taken on the most distinguished and respected proponents of this fundamentalist movement, namely John Finnis and Robert P. George, and evaluated them within the longstanding tradition of natural law theory. I read both of these authors in an undergrad philosophy course under a conservative, classical liberal professor, and Sullivan’s arguments are among the strongest I have heard. Sullivan takes the ideas of Finnis and George seriously, showing how they end up being internally contradictory and/or ahistorical.

While this new fundamentalism has many tenets and goals, Sullivan’s skeptical conservatism has almost no political platform. I had wanted a more thorough examination of conservatism’s history and philosophical extension, but Sullivan partly disabused me of that desire with his focus on the skepticism and hesitance of philosophical conservatism to prescribe a systematic program:

"The defining characteristic of the conservative is that he knows what he doesn’t know." (173)

"While not denying that the truth exists, the conservative is content to say merely that his grasp on it is always provisional. He may be wrong. He begins with the assumption that the human mind is fallible, that it can delude itself, make mistakes, or see only so far ahead. And this, the conservative avers, is what it means to be human." (173-174)

"As a politics, [conservatism's] essence is an acceptance of the unknowability of ultimate truth, an acknowledgment of the distinction between what is true forever and what is true for the here and now, and an embrace of the discrepancy between theoretical and practical knowledge. It is an anti-ideology, a nonprogram, a way of looking at the world whose most perfect expression might be called inactivism." (230)

So in Sullivan’s view, the history of conservatism is not the history of ideas and programs so much as the history of contextualized and careful decision-making. If any goals should direct policy they would likely be (1) basic security from violence and (2) institutions that limit the extent to which fundamentalists can force others to abide by their controversial, immutable, and blinkered view of the world. But even here, the proper conservative would reevaluate the goals given the right circumstances.

To support his claims, Sullivan’s conservatism draws heavily on Montaigne, Michael Oakeshott, and the founding fathers; he also references many other famous conservatives—Edmund Burke, Thomas Hobbes, Leo Strauss, T.S. Eliot, Reagan, Thatcher, etc. (A happy surprise is Sullivan’s extensive use of Darwin and evolution to highlight conservative insights.)

Even as I have drifted far left from my quasi-fundamentalist conservative roots (and recently drifted back more towards the center), I have retained Sullivan's sense of conservative skepticism. Sullivan’s book is the first I’ve come across that both (1) satisfactorily summarizes the conservative zeitgeist which shaped the contingency of my own upbringing and (2) gives a “systematic” treatment and voice to my own philosophically conservative tendencies. (He also piqued my interest in reading more about the founding fathers and the Constitution which hasn’t happened in years.)

Highly recommended for all audiences interested in contemporary American politics—although, strong fundamentalists on the left and right might have trouble focusing on the arguments instead of the occasional unfortunate potshots Sullivan can’t help himself to. The only reason I haven’t given it 5 stars is in part because of these potshots but also because some of the formulations of skeptical conservatism become repetitive and because the book will likely become dated and cede analytical high-ground to future studies of conservatism in the 20th and 21st century.

___
Favorite Quotes
"The regret you feel in your life at the kindness not done, the person unthanked, the opportunity missed, the custom unobserved, is a form of conservatism. The same goes for the lost love or the missed opportunity: these experiences teach us the fragility of the moment, and that fragility is what, in part, defines us. (9)

"Intrinsic to human experience—what separates us from animals—is the memory of things past, and the fashioning of that memory into a self-conscious identity. So loss imprints itself on our minds and souls and forms us. It is part of what we are. (10)

"…breaking something is far easier than building something...our common bonds are more easily wounded than healed. (13)

"These are bewildering times for the empowered, let alone the powerless. I am fortunate enough to have won the demographic lottery in my own time. Born into a free, prosperous West, I have had every advantage available to a global citizen in an age of dizzying metamorphosis. And yet it is still unsettling. In a mere twenty years of adulthood, I have gone from writing on an electric typewriter with carbon paper to blogging in real time on the World Wide Web. My own economic niche—writing—has gone from relatively few centers of expensive, exclusive print power to an army of blogging self-publishers. Paper has ceded to pixels. Editing has been outsourced to writers. On the Internet, there are no institutions; there are merely pages. And each page is as accessible as any other.

It should be no surprise, then, that a world full of such loss is also a world full of resurgent conservatism. A period of such intense loss and cultural disorientation is a time when the urge to conserve what we have left is most profound. (15)

"...nonbelievers miss something central to the fundamentalist experience. That central fact is that, from the point of view of the fundamentalist, this experience, far from being suffocating or encumbering, is a form of complete liberation. The extreme manifestations of observance emanate from a deeper, calmer place where faith frees the troubled mind from the burden of existential fear and everyday trembling. (26)

"...in pre revolutionary America, only 17 percent of Americans were formally “churched,” with the highest degree of religious observance in Massachusetts, where the proportion was still a mere 22 percent. By the mid-nineteenth century, that proportion had risen to over 30 percent. By 1980, it was 62 percent. It is even higher today. The American constitution was well aware of the dangers of religious fundamentalism allied to government power, hence the First Amendment. But the founders, aware of many religious movements in their own time, nonetheless never had to grapple with the sheer power and institutional coordination of fundamentalist Christianity that we see in America today.

To put it another way: the kind of fundamentalism we are now witnessing has plenty of historical forefathers, but it is also quintessentially modern. (42)

"it. If conservatism is about preserving one’s own past, fundamentalism is about erasing it and starting afresh. If conservatism is about the acceptance of imperfection, fundamentalism is about the necessity of perfection now and forever. If conservatism begins with the premise of human error, fundamentalism rests on the fact of divine truth. If conservatism is about the permanence of human nature, fundamentalism looks forward to an apocalypse in which all human nature will be remade by the will of a terrifying and omnipotent God. If conservatism believes in pragmatism and context to determine political choices, fundamentalism relies always on a book. (72)

"If the first mistake with respect to fundamentalism is to underestimate its appeal, the second is to undervalue its intellectual coherence. The power of fundamentalism is precisely this coherence. It makes sense of everything—and marinates that sense in the power of God’s love. Nonbelievers who think that fundamentalism is merely an existential leap or an emotional crutch often forget that fundamentalisms of various stripes, from Islam to Christianity, have developed over the centuries rich, careful, nuanced accounts of human nature, conduct, and morality. As their doctrines have come up against logical gaps, they have been filled in and finessed. (74-75)

“...on the bones of an evangelical revival, and an alignment of one form of religion with one political party, the theoconservatives provided the meat of philosophical argument. They brought a brain to the fundamentalist psyche; and made arguments about social policy that, in the 1990s and new century, helped tear the United States apart at the seams. If you want to know why abortion has come to dominate American political debate, why homosexuality has been thrust into the center of the culture wars, why the Terri Schiavo case became such a pivotal moment in American history, and why sex itself is now inextricable from political warfare, then it is important to understand the arguments these men have made. (78)

"The founders of natural law—Aristotle and Aquinas—were as unaware of these dynamics as they were ignorant about female anatomy. But any fair reader of those great philosophers would be in no doubt that they would have been fascinated by the uncovering of new worlds and new theories. These philosophers were trying to make rational sense of the natural world around them, and, in Aquinas’s case, to help it cohere within the context of Christianity. The idea that these philosophers would not want to know what we have subsequently found out about human nature misreads their seriousness and open-mindedness. It is to turn their arguments and observations into others’ doctrines and assertions, to freeze human thought at a particular moment in its development, and to blind oneself to new and revealing facts. Indeed, you can read any number of essays by natural law theorists and find not a single reference to the scientific literature of the past five hundred years, let alone the past fifty. And yet they rest their case on what is found in nature. This is ideology, not reason. (93-94)

"Classical liberals and secular conservatives differ [from fundamentalists on the left and right]. They cling to the notion that government can try to be above the fray, that it can aspire to be the mediator for very different people who have to live alongside one another with radically divergent ideas of what is good or true. These limited-government liberals and conservatives believe, as a critical part of this notion of politics, that there is a clear distinction between what is public and what is private. The law can allow for different moral choices, they argue, without privileging one over the other. So a law that permits abortion merely allows some women to choose it and others to refuse it, according to their own views of what is right and wrong. And a law that allows for legal pornography simply lets individuals make their own decisions, and takes no stand on the underlying issue itself. A law that allows gay couples to marry does not forbid straight couples from marrying. The law, in this sense, is indifferent to what any couple or person might choose. It just grants them the right to choose it, and provides the mechanisms to defend the choice. (123)

"When so many proffer so many contradictory truths, how can we know for certain which one is real? (175)

"The key, therefore, to politics and to life in general is a recognition of imperfection. The core truth of this imperfection is that what we can know to be true in our minds or souls, in the realm of ideas or faith, can never be easily replicated in the real, material, physical world, either individually or in association with others. There is, in short, a deep disjunction between perfect theory and imperfect practice. (180)

"A Marxist will counter that the real meaning of history is the unfolding of class conflict, of materialist economic forces leading to an inevitable revolution. A Whig—or the twenty-first-century version of a Whig, a neoconservative—will describe it as the gradual and unstoppable advance of human freedom. A Hegelian may argue that it is the result of a philosophical dialectic in human self-understanding. A Christian fundamentalist will explain that it is a series of dispensations leading inexorably to the Final Judgment. A secular secular liberal will see it as the slow victory of good ideas over bad ones.

The conservative, in contrast, will argue that we cannot actually know if there is some meta-narrative to our human past. We can only know from our own lives, by an awareness of our own paths, and by a careful study of our collective pasts, that history is necessarily a dynamic succession of uniquely and distinctly chosen actions, each of which has incalculable and often unintended consequences. (211)

"The key to being human is knowing that chance and choice determine our lives, and, rather than resisting that, rather than insisting that he can know and attest to a deeper meaning or direction, a conservative will simply accept the limits of his own practical knowledge. (214)

"The fundamentalist sees in Darwin a threat because he proffers an alternative version of history, natural and human, than is written in their sacred texts; the conservative sees in him an interesting ally. What Darwin discovered was that our very bodies are the accidental products of countless millennia of random selection—yes: random. The shuffling of the genetic pool has no direction in itself. (215)

"Most of the time, we are utterly unaware that the threat of massive violence by a unitary sovereign entity underpins everything we do in a free society. But that’s a sign of a successful polity. It is one where we have become so used to security that we have forgotten its origins.
…
So the first goal of conservative politics is not virtue, or education, or liberty, or the integration of a divine or eternal truth into every rule and regulation. It is much more basic than that. It is security...Without security, we cannot even afford the luxury of questioning whether we need security. (231-233)

"A constitution does something quite miraculous in human affairs, and few constitutions have been as miraculous as America’s. What it does in the brutal world of competing human interests and opinions is to change the subject. Instead of focusing on what a polity is for, what meaning it is supposed to represent, which virtues it is supposed to inculcate, a constitution restricts itself to pure procedure. (244)

"When people bemoan the inefficiency of American government, they show how little they understand the genius of the founders. The genius is precisely the inefficiency. By putting a constitution in place that eschews any single human good, by enshrining it in institutions that, given human nature, would spend the bulk of their energies wrestling each other into paralysis, the founders maximized the real goal of their experiment: individual freedom. (249)

"In the modern world, in other words, conservatism often means repealing laws, abolishing unnecessary institutions, getting rid of needless government departments in order to let people make their own choices as much as possible. A free market is critical to this, but not because it somehow succeeds in creating wealth...For a conservative, it is not a criterion for a successful country that it increase its GDP by a certain amount each year. Freedom is what matters—and that includes the freedom to be inefficient and indolent if that’s what someone chooses and can afford. (266)

"Tradition is not a static entity. Although conservatism leans toward regretting change and loss, it is not wedded to the past. It never seeks to return to a golden age or a distant past: when you hear that voice, it is a reactionary and not a conservative speaking. (268)

"A conservative will also understand that one of the great bulwarks against abuse of government power is simplicity. The larger and more complex a government gets, the harder it is for most people, busy about their own lives, to keep an eye on it. (272)

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can't hate Andrew Sullivan as best as my little liberal heart tries. He's an elegant writer and a very smart person. I just kind of feel bad for him as he tries to find some reason to stick with a movement that has taken its very nasty implicit racism, sexism, and homophobia and made it explicit. He thinks that there was something else in the conservative movement, and I do sympathize with anticommunism, a resistance to most forms of identity politics, and a predilection for seeking incrementalist solutions to social problems rather than massive ones. But while he moves those ideas to the center of what American conservatism was and what he wants it to be, I see those as just a front for the nasty stuff, both in the genesis of the movement in the 60s and in its nadir in the 70s and 80s. Sullivan attempts to call a conservative identity built around racism, sexism and homophobia "fundamentalism," but this label simply doesn't fit the facts of a movement more founded on Nixon's Southern strategy and the Moral Majority than Goldwater's anticommunism or Buckley's genteel protests against atheists at Yale.

[Daniel Cunningham · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The Conservative Soul" is a call for all, but especially those who self-apply the term "conservative", to return to a combination of economic liberalism, fiscal restraint, and socio-philosophical skepticism. I'm not sure I would identify that as any kind of "conservative" I've ever known, but it certainly overlaps a lot with the values I identify with.

Sullivan is basically calling for an embrace, or re-embrace as he would have it, of a kind of moderate liberalism (lowercase "l") with an extra dose of skepticism and guardedness against utopian thinking of any stripe. In this he reminds me a lot of the writings of John N Gray. He seems to have drawn his influences from other sources however; and Sullivan is explicitly Catholic (though of a very liberal and personal flavor.) I myself had to struggle a bit with his discussion of religion, which reminds me that my probably-anti-theistic attitudes are in many ways a prejudice. He does not go on at the same length, or with the same ill-thought out arguments that other liberal pro-religious writers and thinkers do (I'm thinking specifically of Chris Hedges, if only because I just finished a book by him within the last couple of weeks.)

He is one of a very small handful of conservatives who started pro-Iraq-war and have not only changed their attitude but said, with a few quibbles here or there, "I was wrong." Which, as most people know, are the hardest words to pronounce in just about any language. Separately from that, he also calls out the *refusal* (or inability?) in the modern political environment of people to change their minds, not only because of ideology, but because of the dreaded title "flip-flopper." This also wins him bonus points in my book.

[Joni · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have long been a fan of The Daily Dish, Sullivan's blog which is hosted at the Atlantic website. To me Sullivan is the antithesis to much of the polemical and ideological rant which passes for political discourse in the media, both in the main stream press and the blogosphere.

Having been raised in a fairly political family and for many years holding what I believed were conservative beliefs, the rise of fundamentalism as a core principle of the Republican party has been difficult for me to understand. The attempt to reconcile what I believed to be conservative values of individual liberty with the parties continued assault on personal choice coupled with the expansion of regulation of our lives, proved troublesome.

So when I read Sullivan's book, it was like having the blinders removed. His emphasis on skepticism and reason over the fundamentalist reliance on blind faith resonated with my early Catholic and conservative values. In a day when the eloquent and well-reasoned position is denigrated as elitism, I for one, am proud to be a snob, if that is how one is to be described for preferring an intellectual approach to issues instead of the polemical and simplistic.

His frank discussion of Catholicism and conservatism resonated with me, as he addressed many of the irreconcilable questions that occur in our daily lives and what the proper role of government should be in addressing these issues.

[Ruth]

I've been watching Andrew Sullivan's appearances on Meet the Press for years and I often agree with what he has to say but could never figure him out - an outspoken gay Republican? I just came across this book, written by Sullivan, and thought it sounded interesting.

I love the opening paragraph:
"All conservatism begins with loss.
If we never knew loss, we would never feel the need to conserve, which is the essence of any conservatism. Our lives, a series of unconnected moments of experience, would simply move effortlesly on, leaving the past behind with barely a look back. But being human, being self-conscious, having memory, forces us to confront what has gone and what might have been. And in those moments of confrontation with time, we are all conservatives. Sure, we all move on. In America, the future is always more imperative than the past. But the past lingers; and America, for all its restlessness, or perhaps because of its restlessness, is a deeply conservative place."

[Kristen Northrup · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting, thought-provoking book. The first half was basically how fundamentalism -- Islamic, Christian, or even secular -- is antithetical to liberty and should not be allowed influence in govt, and I certainly agree with that. The second half meandered more. He discusses a few philosophers I've never read, so I have no idea whether his interpretations of their work are sound. He mostly seems to end up arguing for pragmatism over ideology, which I also support and would love to see more of. I didn't agree with all of his positions, but appreciated the mellow way of presenting them. I found myself going back and rereading paragraphs to make sure they completely sunk in, which I don't usually bother with.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book on how the republican party was hijacked by fundamentalist theocrats and neocons. It finishes with a description of a conservative philosophy based on skepticism, individual freedoms, and limited governement. A little bit wordy and philosophical at times but definitely gives a solid logical foundation for everything it says and does a good job of quoting from primary sources. What I really liked is that i have had a hard time understanding the religious right mindset and the author does a great job of laying out the fundamentalist case without vilifying it and showing how it is understandable, but logically inconsistent and counter to the ideals America was founded on.

[Ned · Rating 3 out of 5]

My copy had a different tagline ("how we lost it, how to get it back") so I wasn't prepared for what is in large part a discussion of fundamentalism and its detrimental effect on the GOP. Either way, it rang true with me, and even if I don't agree with everything Sullivan believes, his open approach to working through his conception of lower-c conservatism (it's a philosophy, not a movement) was enlightening and worth reading.

[Reid Champagne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes, Virginia, conservatives do have souls

I wasn't surprised to learn that at its foundation, conservatism makes a lot of sense. What did surprise me was the level of convergence between conservatism and liberalism when it comes to matters that require a healthy skepticism in order to act and behave prudently.
Sullivan's take down of all forms of fundamentalism as fatally flawed, well, fundamentally is especially enlightening.
It's reassuring to realize that the reason conservatives and liberals can't seem to agree on anything, it's because it's not conservatives and liberals who are arguing, but rather opposite factions of fundamentalists, as one can fairly conclude from this masterful book.

[Corey Astill · Rating 1 out of 5]

Self-indulgent therapy session about what Sullivan hates about religious beliefs and the Bush Administration. I recommend hard pass.

[Teresa Farquhar · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a Christmas gift. Rated as 4 star.

[Gerald Regep · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this compelling and heartfelt political commentary on conservatism in America, Andrew Sullivan describes how religious fundamentalism has come to dominate the rhetoric of conservative politics and the speeches of Republican politicians.

The book was published in 2007 at the end of President Bush's second term, but Sullivan's insights are still relevant today, and many of his observations fall in line with how the last three presidential elections and the political climate of our nation have panned out.

Sullivan claims there there is a disconnect and a conflict between "the intersection of philosophical and religious truths with practical life." I couldn't agree more. How many people do you know who have deeply fundamental beliefs about life that contradict objective reality or contradict with how that person actually goes about their day? I know several.

Sullivan wants to separate the particular brand of conservatism that has been associated with religious fundamentalist and instead offer a version of conservatism that emphasizes restraint, freedom, and doubt. According to Sullivan, "The conservative is one who insists on a clear distinction between what is true from the viewpoint of eternity, and what is true from the viewpoint of acting and choosing in the here and now."

Sullivan's particular brand of conservatism, a brand that I can readily endorse or support, separates the kind of believing we practice in our personal faith from the kind of believing we associate with our politics and public policy preferences.

He advises that a true conservative's moral life is not merely informed by a set of doctrines or rigidly held beliefs> He says: "The conservative's moral life in contrast (to the religious fundamentalist), is far less self-conscious and spasmodic. It develops over time with its own rhythm and cadence, it is informed by moral education and primarily understood by observing the examples of others. Sure, we read the texts, we listen to the sermons, we try to apply them to our lives. But our real morality comes when we have put these guides behind, and have developed a way of living that simply integrates these lessons into an unself-conscious whole."

In other words, we become upstanding and morally conscious people through experience, not the through words of a book. Ideas, values, and written word can help guide us to greater understanding of how to be a better person, but the actual progress is made when we go out in the world and see for ourselves what is truly right and truly wrong.

Morality is not a checklist or a side to be taken. For Sullivan, a true conservative is someone who recognizes the limits of his/her own opinion and perspective. Someone who understands that life is not about practicing the "right" prayers; going to the right church; being "woke"; having read the right books; or waving the politically correct placard at a rally. Conservatives value history as an ongoing process of people making existential choices based on the context of the situation in which they make them.

At a time where many people seem polarized based upon their philosophical, ideological, or religious beliefs, Sullivan's brand of conservatism reminds us that the purpose of all of these things at their best is to provide a more fuller and meaningful life in the here and now.

The best piece of advice Sullivan mentions in the book is a quote from Laurence Oliver on the conservative temperament. He says, "I take a simple view on life: keep your eyes open and get on with it."

I don't agree with Sullivan on every issue, I enjoyed the book, and I think it's necessary reading for any student or passionate enthusiast of American politics.

[Phyllis Fredericksen · Rating 5 out of 5]

My oldest grandson's friend recommended this book to him, so I thought I'd read it too. I am a "tried and true" liberal, but I wanted to know more about conservatives and why the twain doesn't meet.

I read that conservatives are individuals who believe in pursuing happiness by themselves in whatever direction life leads them. They want to do this with as little intervention from the government as possible. Some exceptions would be the provision of schools so that everyone is able to receive a good education to allow them to pursue happiness as per above. Other services would also be included with a limited amount of federal assistance. To some degree, this makes sense.

The problem is that, according to the author, the fundamentalists have taken over the Republican party and have interwoven religion with politics...something that our founders painstakingly avoided , and for good reason. Fundamentalists believe in God in a certain way and they also believe that we all should believe that way. Questions arise as to whose God to believe in or not. What and whose values to espouse. The list goes on and on. I have to say that this book made me think about liberals and conservatives and what is happening in politics today. I have a very strong faith, but I do not see that faith as a governing tool or an intervention for laws some may not like based on their values. This is a slippery slope and one that we are sliding down quite rapidly it seems.

[David True · Rating 4 out of 5]

Grew up rather a liberal, myself, but as I moved into the work world found myself thinking of things differently than my parents even while feeling embarrassed during Reagan years.

Never thought of myself as a conservative, emphatically not during 90's and onward as that term grew to mean more and more things I scorn, but once I started reading Sullivan's blog I wanted to know more: a gay Catholic conservative who loves South Park?

With his English education and the confidence to change his mind, he's written a book that I may not agree with, but that gets my mind working. And I will keep is a something of a reference.

About how many books can I say that? Few!

[Elaine Dimopoulos]

Reading with yellow sticky notes in hand to respond to (read: take apart) Sullivan's argument. (Then John will read the book with my opinions already in it. A perfect system!) Sullivan's points about the dangers of religious fundamentalism are sound, but his definition of conservatism as nostalgia for a lost past troubles when the past is a white, imperialist patriarchy. He also uses Soviet Communism to attack British/American liberalism. This is an erroneous pairing; to be a liberal in capitalist America means you are tugging left a corpulent political system whose "center" is already right-leaning.

Next up is _The Conscience of a Liberal_ by Paul Krugman!

[Ann Porter · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was my recommendation for my book club. Sullivan is a deep thinker and a wonderful writer. I love good writing, and Sullivan almost wooed me over to the dark side :) We are of similar opinions about the religious right and their negative influence on society and discourse; he has the chops to back up his opinions. Many so-called conservatives might be surprised at how thoroughly Sullivan dismisses them as not-conservative.

This is not a quick read. The subject matter is dense. I'm going to read it again, just for fun, because even though I didn't love the book, I did love the writing.

[Ray Savarda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rather frustrating to read. The first half of the book (you find out eventually) is him positing the viewpoint of the "new conservatives", which are really the new fundamentalists, all of which got me all worked up. Then he segues into a discussion that is much more reasonable, which it turns out is "his" version of conservatism, which is much more reasonable and approachable. He's obviously well read and cites lots of intellectual collateral, and there were a lot of passages I noted for later review that are both upsetting and due some reflection. I can't say I agree with more that anout 1/3/ of even his views in general, but at least it's a useful intellectual excursion.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Sullivan's blog, but even there he tends to build up a head of steam and get lost in it, as in this book. I suppose I don't mind getting carried away with him, but I have a harder time when he starts saying the same thing over and over, albeit in different ways. But his basic insights are thoughtful and unique and definitely worth checking out, especially if, like me, you've ever spent (tooooo much) time trying to convince a Republican that Bush and the neo-cons have lost the plot entirely.

[Ian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Andrew Sullivan's blog is one of my must-reads every day, and I picked up this book hoping that he might be able to help me understand conservatives and Republicans better. Yet in this book, he's fed up with many of the same things I find I find unappealing about the right. And I probably should've known that would be the case, based on what he writes on his blog. Ultimately, this was more of an echo chamber than I expected, and probably find Sullivan's blog more intellectually challenging.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Andrew Sullivan makes a case for doubt-based conservatism of the Eisenhower variety in light of the challenge of fundamentalism - of the Christian, Islamic, and even Marxist variety. While his analysis of Bush's presidency primarily rehashes what many others have written, his analysis of what he terms the "fundamentalist psyche" and the "theoconservative project" breaks new ground. I found parts 1 and 2 of his chapter on the "conservatism of doubt" particularly wonderful.

[Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellently well written book from a traditionally conservative perspective. Although its pitched as a book about politics, its primary about religion and those of a truly 'conservative' faith who find seeking the truth is more important thank those of the fundamentalist faith who feel that they 'know' the truth.

[Emilie Frechie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally, someone validates that I'm not crazy. There are so many quote unquote liberals in this country that are simultaneously conservative but see no traces of themselves in the philosophy of the current Republican party. This is an intellectual masterpiece that dissects every corner of this issue, from religion to sexuality to family structure and everything in between.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have enjoyed reading Andrew Sullivan's blog and find The Conservative Soul a fascinating book that explains the differences between conservatism from fundamentalism. Though he is a conservative, he is critical of modern day 'conservatives' that support big spending, loss of personal liberty, and even bigger gov't. The core of his conservative believe is the individual!