Confessions of a Conservative

by Garry Wills

Confessions of a Conservative [Sep 25, 1980] Wills, Garry

Genres: Biography

231 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Garry Wills is an American author, journalist, political philosopher, and historian, specializing in American history, politics, and religion, especially the history of the Catholic Church. He won a Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1993.
Wills has written over fifty books and, since 1973, has been a frequent reviewer for The New York Review of Books. He became a faculty member of the history department at Northwestern University in 1980, where he is an Emeritus Professor of History.

Reviews

[alex angelosanto · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Let the wheat and the weeds grow together. Don’t uproot the whole society to get at the weeds”

Garry Wills' books fall into two categories: 1. Alright. Nothing earth-shattering, but like reading a transcription of a good lecture. And 2. Amazing. A little earth-shattering. "Confessions of a Conservative" is the latter.

In his unofficial trilogy on 20th-century presidents (JFK, Nixon, and Reagan), Wills refers to himself as a conservative and more specifically a “Distributist,” which is one of those clarifications that ends up complicating the whole thing. But I never really needed to know what his priors were; whatever they were, they gave him a very clear look at the philosophy and psychology of America’s leaders. What Confessions of a Conservative does is work through this paradoxical but enlightening worldview. While very idiosyncratic, and there are points I find naive, I think it gives him a high perch to survey the 20th-century conservative movement

Wills slides from personal stories of complicated and sometimes not-so-complicated men that taught him to think, to the ideas of Chesterton and St Augustine that shape his thoughts. The later gives room to the former to work through paradox. Wills takes Augustine's definition of evil and subtly applies to his works and the writers of the National Review:

"Evil is not positive or self-existent. It is flawed good. All things, simply by being, are to that extent good. If the flaw ever outweighed the good, the thing would simply go out of being; disappear. Evil, in that sense, is its own cure. Augustine was constantly seeking out ugly or ignoble things to show the inescapable evidences of rhythm, unity, and coherence that hold them in being at all."

Wills doesn't see the invisible hand of providence in our lives, but he takes on faith that is there. Like Hawthorne, Wills is quick to point out hte irony of history, that progress more often than not is not made intentionally, but despite our best intentions. In a world where we are all looking through a glass darkly, the politician is just as necessary as the prophet. At cross purposes we work together, at odds we somehow cohear. In many ways, this book is a commentary on Lincoln's second inaugural:

"Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes"

The Civil War that brought both parties low and liberated both parties, or the suicidal pursuit of the pyramidal whale, we can not see how the thread of providence weaves our world, only feel how it guides us along, and with faith, believe in its ends

[Szplug · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wills is a highly intelligent, thoughtful, and humble man, and this sorta-memoir—replete with political-historical ruminations and authorial evolution sidebars—is superb. His conception of what constitutes a conservative reminds me, for a goodly part, of that breed known as a Red Tory up here in Canada—one close to extinction in the twenty-first century. If a larger proportion of the Republican Party was comprised of men professing Wills' ilk of the Big-C political philosophy, I'd be much less consternated about the idea of their reclaiming the font of American executive power.

In one of the most interesting sections of this book, Wills, expanding upon material originally presented in Nixon Agonistes, examines the American electoral process, disputing the calculation by the Hofstadterian Consensus of a range of four to seven elections that were pivotal in the formation of party politics and the latter's alignment shifts, as well as outlining how, by the very structure of democratic politics, the voting public will inevitably tend towards electing the candidate who makes the least tangible promises and stakes out the fewest firm positions on any array of questions—in effect, laying out how an otherwise generally unknown and unpopular candidate, such as a Mitt Romney, by a deft refusal to be pinned to any hard position and tacking towards whatever point on the political compass proved most expeditious in the moment, would enhance their likelihood of capturing the presidency. His argument cannot be done justice by aught than directing the reader to the book itself, but Wills points out that this is an endemic flaw within the framework of democratic polities—and exacerbated in nations such as the United States, with its vast population, physical area, and determinacy of the executive through an institution—in this case, the electoral college—which is intermediary to the executive and the popular vote.

[Hormel Delata · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a journalist, I have found this book truly inspirational. Very rarely do I come across books like this that are written with so much honesty and humility but at the same time reveal the intellectual power of the author. It has become a bible of sorts for me, an oasis to which I run every time I find my mind parched. The language is concise but elegant; the analysis very sharp indeed. A younger journalist to whom I lent my copy could not find it in his heart to part with it so did not return it to me. To this day, I know it serves him well.

[Luke LeBar · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first Wills book, and boy what a read! I love his NCR connection. Finally, I have read somebody who describes my own political inclinations towards conservatism properly understood.

[JerryDeanHalleck · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wills retelling of his stint at National Revew in the 50s and mid-60s and then as an independent Journalist at Esquire till the early 70s.

Sadly, its a bore. While Wills is a successful writer, an interesting fellow he's not. There's a lack of humor/wit, people are blandly described and the air of smug superiority doesn't help. Wills often talks about how he would write in various styles - its too bad he couldn't written this one in an "Interesting" style.

Maybe its due to his Philosopher roots. Anyway, he accomplishes the impossible: He makes WFB dull.

[Charlie Key · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very fun first section about meeting Bill Buckley and Willmoore Kendall, and inherent tensions within National Review. Not sure I bought his take on Tom Wolfe. Loved the last section on Newman, Augustine etc. Killer line - 'How are we to bind such disparate judgements on the nature of reality into the kind of agreement that gives society its unity and effectiveness?...the more precisely we define the nature of justice and truth and reality, the more we must exclude from our fellowship those who disagree'.

[m · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this a lot.

[Steve Kierstead · Rating 5 out of 5]

Turned me on to Garry Wills and showed me that there's an intelligent way to think about politics.

[The American Conservative · Rating 5 out of 5]

"A personal memoir that puts flesh on names—Kendall, Burham, Meyer—that are so much a part of the lore we cherish at TAC."
- Scott Galupo

[Jeff Keehr · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was hoping to read more books like Nixon Agonistis but this wasn't even close.