Always Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide

Hey, worked for Ted Bundy.

Jonah Goldberg critiques Andrew Sullivan's latest book, providing a pretty good look at the soul of conservatives.

Sullivan takes us through feats of rhetorical prestidigitation — with his magician’s assistants Oakeshott and Montaigne. At the end of the magic show we are left with the assertion that conscience, rooted in every manner of skepticism, is our only guide. Fundamentalist “diktats” from the pope or The 700 Club are ultimately forms of spiritual oppression. The individual can either be guided by conscience or slavishly submit to fundamentalist overlords. If the former, you are like Sullivan himself, a decent person bravely struggling to reconcile the world with your beliefs. If the latter, you’ve outsourced your humanity to a bunch of priests and preachers.

There are many rooms in this mansion of nonsense. Sullivan, for example, dismisses the possibility that “fundamentalists” actually do grapple with their consciences — because such a concession would explode the entire book. So, the question “What Would Jesus Do?” is one that is never seriously asked by anyone Sullivan calls a fundamentalist. Judging from the “fundamentalists” I know, this smacks of pure bigotry. Also, Sullivan would have us believe in an either/or choice: conscience or fundamentalist servitude. This is a false choice, one not found in American conservatism. Conscience is important, but conscience must be informed — not dictated to — by institutions, religion, tradition, and, of course, reason.