Modern Free Society and it Nemesis: Liberty versus Conservatism in the New Millennium

Journal of Political and Military Sociology, Winter 2008 by Gerencser, Steven

Modern Free Society and it Nemesis: Liberty versus Conservatism in the New Millennium by Milan Zafirovski. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2007. (322 pages; cloth)

Liberalism and conservatism, not only as habits of mind but as political philosophies and party ideologies, have been wrestling each other for a couple of centuries of European and American history. In Europe, of course, there have been other competitors, but in the English speaking world liberalism and conservatism have been special rivals. Yet, the contours of their engagement have become ever more difficult to discern as liberalism has become internally more complex, as some who are now called conservatives would have been considered liberals a century ago and as many conservatives have adopted at least the language of liberty and individualism. Milan Zafirovski attempts to provide some insight into the recent history of this debate in Modern Free Society and it Nemesis. His title reveals that for him these are not just competitors, but bitter antagonists. Moreover, his writing is not a mere analysis but an impassioned, if flawed, critique of conservatism in all its many guises.

Zafirovski begins by defending briefly "a modern free society [as] defined by the principle of liberty as holistic and indivisible category" (p. 25); both elements are important as they allow him to characterize traditional conservatives (who would limit some liberty for security) as well as conservative libertarians (who focus upon economic liberty at the expense of all others) as dual nemeses of a modern free society. Zafirovski pungently writes of these nemeses: "conservatism is in modern Western civilization a 'prime suspect' for perpetrating ... the supreme 'crime' and ultimate act of ideologically negating, practically destroying, or preventing me creation of modern free society, liberal modernity" (p. 225).

Conservatism may - or may not - have much to answer for, but Zafirovski makes a poor case against his "prime suspect." Most problematic is that he writes about conservatism in a way that inartfully confuses what its critics and opponents say about it and what conservatives say about and for themselves. Thus, while we hear much about conservatism through the voice of Jürgen Habermas or Theodor Adorno, his discussion lacks any mention - much less examination - of Russell Kirk, Leo Strauss or Michael Oakeshott. Further, his use of the term neoconservatism relies mostly upon facile characterizations of the positions of politicians such as Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, or Newt Gingrich and yet he offers not a mention of Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz or Gertrude Himmelfarb. Because Zafirovski' s charges against conservatism are so strong, associating them unflinchingly with "moral fascism" (p. 177), "sadistic intolerance" (p. 166), even "sadomasochism" (p. 284), it is incumbent upon him to do more than grab these characterizations from other writers. Rather, he should have carefully analyzed the proponents and texts of conservatism in making his case. Of course, one need not address all of these thinkers, but any discussion of conservatism and neoconservatism in the English speaking world must at least address why it does not discuss their most well known advocates.

An exception is Zafirovski's analysis of libertarianism, in which he focuses upon the writings of libertarian economists like Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises. There he notes the fundamental dilemmas that libertarians face in sacrificing political and social liberties in favor of economic liberty and the compromises they make in associating with moral conservatives and authoritarians. He further shows the self-contradiction that traditional conservatives find in admiring an unregulated free market at the same time as advocating moral constraints. Yet, even here, Zafirovski ignores what neoconservatives such as Irving Kristol have written regarding their ambivalence about the market (see Kristol's Two Cheers for Capitalism).

Liberalism indeed has a confounding association with conservatism and capitalism, yet Milan Zafirovski's Modern Free Society and it Nemesis offers little new in understanding their relationship.

Reviewed by Steven Gerencser

Indiana University South Bend