Too Early and Too Much

In “Notes for a Controversy” [September 22] Ralph de Toledano addresses himself to the question: In what do the conservatives really believe? His article invites controversy and it should indeed not be allowed to go unanswered. For my part, I should like to submit that he has raised the question prematurely, and furthermore that he has put the wrong question.

We can readily agree with him on the facts: it is true that those who oppose liberalism as being deeply in error about the matter of human freedom do not now speak with a common voice. No contemporary thinker can be said to have articulated their common convictions; no political leader has united in his person their loyalties and aspirations. But can this state of affairs be helped by impatient charges and complaints about the “rootlessness,” “opportunism,” and “negativism” of “the conservatives” ?

GN

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Gerhart Niemeyer

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In “Notes for a Controversy” [September 22] Ralph de Toledano addresses himself to the question: In what do the conservatives really believe? His article invites controversy and it should indeed not be allowed to go unanswered. For my part, I should like to submit that he has raised the question prematurely, and furthermore that he has put the wrong question.

We can readily agree with him on the facts: it is true that those who oppose liberalism as being deeply in error about the matter of human freedom do not now speak with a common voice. No contemporary thinker can be said to have articulated their common convictions; no political leader has united in his person their loyalties and aspirations. But can this state of affairs be helped by impatient charges and complaints about the “rootlessness,” “opportunism,” and “negativism” of “the conservatives” ?