Today's political world seems more polarized than ever, and it is tempting for those of us on the left to conflate the American Right with its most odious representatives, such as the crude buffoon Rush Limbaugh.  People like Martin Luther King, Jr. recognized a higher truth, however, when he said one had to love one's opponents.  One thing that was remarkable about King is that he actually seemed to mean it.  He made the distinction that love does not require liking, but it does require a fundamental recognition of the humanity of other people even if they disagree with you, sometimes in rather crude or brutal fashion.

I was reading today a discussion in which a lonely conservative was complaining about the certitude and self-righteousness of "liberals,"  which seems to be a common occupation of conservatives today.  I would contend that history would vindicate the fact that many liberal criticisms of America's conservative politics are apt and justified.  But this person's comments also got me thinking in another direction.  What virtues, if any, could I think of that I would attribute particularly to conservatism? While my perspective may be somewhat circumscribed, my intent it is to be empathetic rather than patronizing.

Personal Generosity

It is well known that conservatives and religious people generally make more generous personal contributions of their time and money to charity, even if they may be opposed to governmental programs designed to help those in need.  And I have a number of friends and relatives who are both conservative and very charming, despite the fact that on certain points I find their views objectionable or offensive.

Honor

I think it is perhaps fair to say that many conservatives have a stronger sense of honor,  which is not to be confused with honesty, than liberals do.  In general, my sense is that conservatives think about honor as a value, and that this is reflected in an interest in certain kinds of service such as the military.

Self-Reliance

The flip side of a certain skepticism about the efficacy of the government is confidence in the ability of individuals to affect their own destiny.   This is an obvious incentive to individual effort and achievement, even liberals may believe that conservatives sometimes overstate the actual extent of personal self-reliance.

Faith

There is a positive side to faith in the sense that it inspires good conduct and generous actions.

Skepticism

This may seem odd coming right after faith, but fundamental to true conservatism is not only a sense of the limitations of government but a generally healthy suspicion of large systems, programs, and ideologies.  Edmund Burke had a healthy sense of how practical application was often more important than theoretical consistency. 

i am sure that my attempt at a list will be found wanting by both Left and Right, but more important than the list itself is that it is a healthy thing to think not only about the points on which we differ but also about the qualities we admire in our opponents.  Even if one rejects my attempt at a list, I would encourage others to engage in the same exercise, perhaps with better results.

One form is the argument that gay suffering is not comparable to African American suffering. While it may be true that, with the possible exception of Native Americans, no community has suffered in America to the degree that African Americans have, this does mean that we should overlook either the suffering of others or their right to equal treatment. And in a country where consensual sex between members of the same sex was long a criminal offense, one can hardly argue that gays have had an easy time of it.

It is worth noting also that the language of opposition to gay rights and gay marriage is not typically the language of tolerance, inclusion, equality, and love. Not all opposition is couched in the language of bigotry, but enough is to render suspect the motives of the opposition.

Some will argue that gays should be content with a lesser legal status in the form of "civil unions.". The problem with this argument, as we have seen ever since Plessy v. Ferguson, is that the majority will only protect the prerogatives of the minority when the minority's rights are coextensive with the majority's. Sauce for the goose. If gays want to be sure that their marital rights are identical in law and fact to those of other citizens, then their status needs to be the same: marriage.

I find the argument that extending the institution of marriage to the gay community will somehow ruin marriage for the rest of us to be absurd and disingenuous. If anything the desire of the gay community to participate in the institution only serves to validate marriage and affirm its importance as a foundation of modern society. The only reason for disagreement is an immature queasiness about gay sexuality that underpins a view that gays are not in every respect equal and deserving of equal rights.

Such intolerance sometimes takes the form of the argument that homosexuality is a matter of voluntary misconduct rather than immutable biology. Apart from the contrafactual nature of this argument, it is consistent with the hostility toward gay sexuality so often expressed by opponents of gay marriage. And one might easily conclude that proponents of this view who are loudest in their profession of their Christianity are the least Christ-like in their views.

Finally, if civil rights pioneer and former SNCC Chairman John Lewis, the hero of the Pettus Bridge, considers gay marriage to be a Civil Rights issue, who am I to disagree?

By the time one reaches my age, one is pretty well reconciled to falling short of Eliot and Hemingway. There is, however, still the nagging question of whether, even if one cannot play the lead, one could not still be a bit player, a Pound or a Stein. What a privilege to find oneself immersed in such a milieu, to observe and perhaps even to assist the great literary endeavors of one's time. Perhaps the ultimate lesson, however, is to make the most of the minds around us while we have the time. After all, Paris is a moveable feast . . . .

I aspire to differ from Breitbart, however, in a couple of key ways. First, I try to be guided more by compassion than by rage. Second, however zealous I may be to uncover wrongdoing, I hope to maintain a respect for truth and fairness that I did not discern in Mr. Breitbart, particularly with respect to his treatment of Shirley Sherrod. Whatever his personal disposition may have been, his public actions seemed to be motivated more by malice than by probity. His means smacked of deliberate dishonesty. However one might feel about him personally, his contributions to American journalism will not be missed.

One day his little companion who always sat beside him leaned too far over as he picked the slate. He lost his balance and fell into the trough where the lumps of coal ran down. He plunged madly along with the rushing flood into the iron teeth of the remorseless breaker.... It took a long while to stop the mighty machine, and then it was almost an hour before the boy could be put together in one pile. Several days thereafter a man in a little town in Massachusetts thought that he saw blood on some lumps of coal that he was pouring into the top of his fine nickel-plated stove — but still there is blood on all our coal — and for that matter on almost everything we use, but a man is a fool if he looks for other people's blood.

Darrow was labor's lawyer early in his career, until his defense of the McNamara brothers for blowing up the Los Angeles Times building collapsed in a guilty plea, albeit one that saved the brothers from the gallows.

At the other end of his career, one of Darrow's more notable cases, tried in the wake of the famous Scopes monkey trial, was the defense of Dr. Ossian Sweet, an African American physician who moved with his family into a white neighborhood in Detroit, where they soon found themselves surrounded by a lynch mob numbering hundreds of angry white people. Sweet had taken the precaution of seeing that his family was well armed, however, and they fired repeatedly into the crowd, killing and wounding several people. In the subsequent murder trial, Darrow took on the defense and won a remarkable acquittal.

It was said of Darrow that he was cynical in everything, except that he lacked real cynicism. An atheist, a champion and practitioner of "free love," a lawyer who would defend the most depraved criminals and take on the most hopeless causes, Darrow earned his sobriquet "attorney for the damned" honestly. Convinced that human beings were the products of their circumstances and that free will was a myth, the only thing Darrow truly believed in was mercy. And he was perhaps the century's greatest exponent of mercy, a quality that was all the more remarkable in the astonishingly brutal and corrupt Chicago of his day. Though he was willing to defend the most depraved of criminals if the price was right, he was also highly unusual in his willingness to take up such hopeless causes as those of the breaker boys and Ossian Sweet.

This fine biography by John A. Farrell not only evokes Darrow in all his brilliant, Byronic splendor and fallibility, but also provides a keen insight into America's crippled psyche.

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