consequences, is entirely welcome and somewiiat overdue,rnsince it now offers an opportunity for him and palcoconservativesrngenerally to purge themselves of a good deal of ideologicalrnbaggage carried over from the traditionalism of the 1950’s, fromrnwhat Murray Rothbard called the “official” conservative movementrnas it exists toda), and from the Republican Piirh’. It isrnlargely that baggage that has retarded a more complete emergencernof an intellectually mature and politically serious movementrnof the right.rnPaleoconservatism remains conservative in the sense that itrnincorporates the philosophical content of the “classicalrnconservatism” of the 19th century and draws important lessonsrnfrom the 1950’s traditionalists, but the lessons it draws and thernuses to which it applies them are rather different. Unlike thern1950’s traditionalists, who saw themselves as the defenders of arnlegitimate postwar political system in resistance to totalitarianism,rnpaleos increasingly reject the legitimacy of the current systemrnof rule in the United States, increasingly perceive the falsenessrnof its claims to be a representative political order, andrnincreasingly anatomize and unmask its political and culturalrnpretensions—the “two-party system” (which is really one part}’),rnthe “free-enterprise” economy (which is really a highly regulatedrnand oligopolistic economy fused with the bureaucraticrnstate), the “open societ)” (which is open to no one but its ownrndefenders and apologists), the “Judeo-Christian tradition”rn(which is neither Judaic nor Christian), “tolerance” and “diversity”rn(which are in fact merely licenses for the demonizationrnand even the physical brutalization of white. Christian, heterosexualrnmales and their traditional institutions and values),rn”global democracy” (which slaughters en masse or starves torndeath entire civilian populations that have never een thoughtrnabout harming the United States or its citizens), and a dozenrnother impious frauds built into the regime and its public formulas.rnIncreasinglv, paleoconservatives approach these formulasrnand the structures of power they mask and serve in much thernsame way that postmodernist critics approach literar’ texts—asrndefensive armor that needs to be deconstructed before it can bernpenetrated and discarded. So far from taking Burke and Metterniehrnas their icons, the paleoconservatives of the 1990’s arernmore likely to adopt Antonio Gramsci as a more reliable guidernto understanding and undermining the hegemonic cant of thernregime.rnMoreover, what the 1950’s traditionalists, regarding themselvesrnas a soi-disant aristocratic right, sniffed at as “the masses,”rnmore populist-oriented paleoconservatives today see as a stillstructuredrnmiddle class that is the only available social base forrnpolitical resistance from the right. The distrust of the “masses”rnthat 1950’s conservatism affected, as Willmoore Kendall andrnJames Burnham came to see, presented an obstacle to any alliancernof the right with working-class social conseratives; andrnlong after the hatred for cultural tradition among incumbentrnelites became obvious, the archaic conservatism of the 1950’srncontinued to posture and moon about tiie beauties of “aristocracy”rnand the repellent dirtiness of “populism.” Eventually itrnbecame simply irrelevant, as issues and threats to the nation, itsrnpeople, and its civilization arose that conservative traditionalismrneither failed to recognize or refused to confront.rnWhat paleoconservatives incorporate from classical conservatismrnis less the latter’s preoccupation with legitimating the incumbentrnsystem and its aristocratic ideologv’ and rejection ofrnpopu]i.sin than its critique of social-contract doctrine and therncultural and political universalism of the E’.nlightenment. Paleoconservativesrntoday are perhaps less attracted to Ortega’s ominousrnrumblings about the “revolt of the masses” than to Josephrnde Maistre’s sardonic dismissal of universalism in his Considerationsrnon France: “During my life, I have seen Frenchmen, Italians,rnRussians, and so on . . . but I must sav, as for man, I havernnever come across him anywhere; if he exists, he is completelyrnunknown to me.” This dismissal, of course, is the coiuiterpartrnto the particnlarit)–in nation, region, family, race, ethnicity,rnand religion—that most paleoconservatives affirm in one way orrnanother.rnIt is true that many paleos still have not entirely rid themselvesrnof the archaic models, rhetoric, and preconceptions ofrn1950’s traditionalism, but as American society becomes increasinglyrnpolarized and destabilized by the existing powerrnstructures, the archaism that some versions of paleoconservatismrnaffect will continue to wither and to be replaced by arnmore radical and more popularly based movement.rnAs for the separation of paleoconservatism from the contemporaryrnconservative movement, the differences are far morernclear than those with its traditionalist mentors of the 1950’s.rnThe obvious differences lie in radical disagreements on practicalrnpolicies —immigration policy, trade policy, and foreign policyrnmost significantly, but also civil-rights issues and the largerrnissue of federalism and states’ rights as opposed to the “Big GovernmentrnConservatism” of Jack Kemp, Newt Gingrich, andrnGeorge W. Bush. Almost all of these differences can be resolvedrninto the conflict between particularism and universalism,rnwith the paleos on the side of the former and the neos andrnmainstreamers (insofar as there is a difference anymore) alliedrnwith universalism. Yet that differentiation implies other, perhapsrnless obvious, differences as well.rnOne such difference revolves around the paleoconservativernview that liberty’ and rights are rooted in the cultural, historical,rnand institutional fabric of a society’. Libertv is not a “naturalrnright” in the sense that it exists independentlv of or prior to, thernsocial fabric; if the fabric vvitiiers and vanishes, liberty will vanishrnwith it. The alternative view common today among “conservatives”rn(neo or not) is that liberty is a natural right, with universalrnclaims in time and space; those claims (“human rights”)rnare absolute throughout the world and so distinct from particularrncultural and historical expression that even Third World im-rnChristmasrnby Brian KirkpatrickrnThis storyteller knows us well;rnthe cold and hunger, dust of the road,rnthe tired, frightened pregnant girl,rneternal warmth and lightrnobscured by misery.rnThis is what we need:rnto make the sacred bearablernby hiding it in the profane.rnJANUARY 2000/21rnrnrn