Looking Backward


James Q. Wilson reminds us today in the Wall Street Journal that although American conservatives are classical liberals, conservatism also means looking backward and resisting social change. This can be to the good, but it is difficult to do in America where the founders themselves were innovators (though they didn't "guess" about their innovations as Wilson puts it, but reasoned about them and provided arguments as best they could).

Looking backward is especially helpful in sustaining the family which was "created to make up for what evolution did not provide, namely a way by which men could be induced to support the children they beget and care for the women they impregnate." Wilson is right to put it so starkly, so unromantically; this is how liberals and libertarians need to hear it. Liberals because they think that the traditional family is replaceable by new paradigms and because they think that they can substitute the state for fathers; libertarians because they can't account for children's dependence and the duties that imposes on adults.

Actually, we are already substituting the state for fathers in the form of the prison system. Another unhealthy substitute for fatherless boys is the gang system we see in larger cities. "Two parent families [by contrast]. . . .provide more people to watch over and care for children, and they supply male role models for young boys. And these aren't mere conservative shibboleths." Looking backward, an activity in which conservatives seem to engage more than others, is vital for maintaining an understanding of the importance of the family.