I just finished re-reading, after almost 40 years, Frank Meyer?s In Defense of Freedom and Related Essays recently republished by the Liberty Fund. I was struck by the following:
1. Meyer is popularly known for the development of the ?fusionist?
position that attempts to find a common ground between conservative and
libertarian philosophy. He vigorously denies that he is attempting to
create a fusion of the libertarian and traditionalist points of
view. Instead, he is articulating the ?instinctive consensus of
the contemporary American conservative movement.? ? ?That consensus
simultaneously accepts the existence of an objective moral and
spiritual order, which places as man?s end the pursuit of virtue, and the freedom of the individual person as a decisive necessity for a good political order.? (emphasis in the original, p. 155)
2. For the most part, Meyer vents his wrath on what he calls the ?New
Conservatives? represented by Russell Kirk and Robert Nisbet. He
believes that they put forth a brand of conservatism that leads to
authoritarianism. He takes on Kirk and Nisbet over and over in
the book. His only tirade against the more extreme version of
libertarianism is a short 1969 essay where he takes on Murray Rothbard
and Karl Hess. Meyer argues that ?untrammeled libertarianism,
which tends as directly to anarchy and nihilism as unchecked
traditionalism tends to authoritarianism.? (p. 183) William
Dennis, the editor of the book, notes that Rothbard wrote an
affectionate unsigned eulogy for Meyer in Libertarian Forum in 1972.
3. Borrowing heavily from Eric Voegelin, Meyer, in the last essay in
the book, explains why Western civilization is superior to all other
civilizations in history. This was not an easy task in 1968 when
cultural relativism was the order of day, just as it is today.
According to Meyer, the Classical Greeks and the prophets of Judah and
Israel were the first to recognize a distinction between ?the
individual person and the social order, between the cosmos and human
order, between heaven and earth, between what is and what ought to be.?
(p. 210) This distinction set in motion the train of events that led to
the development of individual liberty. Unfortunately, it also set
in motion the ?Utopian temptation? that represents the dark side of
Western civilization.
?Men conscious of the vision of perfection, but forgetting that their
vision is distorted by their own imperfection, can seek refuge from
tension by trying to impose their own limited vision of perfection upon
the world.? Thus, producing Robespierre, Stalin, and Hitler.
Every college student, especially those at universities that have
forsaken Western civilization?meaning almost all of them, should read
this essay.
