Frank Meyer: Ahead Of His Time

Of all the founders of American conservatism, it is Frank Meyer upon whom the word “conservative” sits most happily. In the beginning the movement was full of people who thought it had gotten the wrong name. Classical liberals, libertarians, traditionalists, theocrats, and others argued that however politically useful the conservative coalition might be, at bottom conservatism was a contradictory eclecticism based not on shared principle but on shared enmities. Any attempt, in particular Frank Meyer’s attempt, to “fuse” the factions into philosophical unity would be based not on clear analysis but on intellectual compromise.

But Frank Meyer’s analysis, as presented in the early NR columns and In Defense of Freedom, was very clear. He wasn’t fusing anything. A conservative was precisely what he was, and he knew precisely what he was conserving: “the Christian understanding of the nature and destiny of man,” which, in the political realm, had been best realized in the founding of the American Republic.

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Richard Vigilante

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Of all the founders of American conservatism, it is Frank Meyer upon whom the word “conservative” sits most happily. In the beginning the movement was full of people who thought it had gotten the wrong name. Classical liberals, libertarians, traditionalists, theocrats, and others argued that however politically useful the conservative coalition might be, at bottom conservatism was a contradictory eclecticism based not on shared principle but on shared enmities. Any attempt, in particular Frank Meyer’s attempt, to “fuse” the factions into philosophical unity would be based not on clear analysis but on intellectual compromise.

But Frank Meyer’s analysis, as presented in the early NR columns and In Defense of Freedom, was very clear. He wasn’t fusing anything. A conservative was precisely what he was, and he knew precisely what he was conserving: “the Christian understanding of the nature and destiny of man,” which, in the political realm, had been best realized in the founding of the American Republic.