Just Don’t Call it Fusionism - Ben Lewis, Austro-Libertarian Magazine:
August 15, 2019 - "Frank Meyer ... a prominent figure in postwar American conservatism, is best known for his attempted 'fusion' of traditionalist conservatism and libertarianism. Even today, Meyer’s name is nearly synonymous with 'fusionism.' But ... the term most commonly associated with Meyer was not his creation, but rather came as something of a pejorative from his colleague and critic, L. Brent Bozell.... Meyer ... disavowed the fusionist label, saying that he was not attempting to fuse two disparate elements together, but was simply attempting to show that 'although they are sometimes presented as mutually incompatible, [they] can in reality be united within a single broad conservative political theory, since they have their roots in a common tradition and are arrayed against a common enemy'....
"[F]ollowing World War II, conservatism was as much a gathering place of opposition to contemporary political and social trends as it was a coherent movement. Two strains of this opposition, however, quickly took form: libertarianism and traditionalism. The libertarians deplored the growth of the state and the collectivization of individuals that was so common in Progressive, socialist and totalitarian societies. The traditionalists, no less concerned about the growth of the state, lamented more the obliteration of traditional society and its methods of communicating enduring values. As these two lines of thought developed, their differences of emphasis led to a tension over which was the true conservatism and the true enemy of liberalism....
"It was this tension to which Meyer devoted much of his writing.... Can the traditionalist emphasis on the attributes of a healthy society – virtue, duty and a rootedness in tradition – be combined with political philosophy that emphasizes the freedom of the individual? For Meyer, the question was not can these emphases be combined, but how they can. His answer began with understanding the proper relationship of the individual to society.
"Meyer believed that 'society is not a real entity'.... What this statement means is not that society as a framework of interrelating individuals, associations, and institutions does not exist, but that it does not exist as an actual entity that can be considered in the same manner as an individual.... 'Society and the state were made for individual men,' he wrote, 'not men for them'.... To Meyer, society is comprised of and made for individuals. It owes its existence to them, and they are its end. All social activity is oriented, fundamentally, towards the individual. Echoing Ludwig von Mises, he concluded, 'Truth has meaning only for persons; beauty illumines the consciousness only of persons; virtue can be pursued only by persons'....
"Meyer was no less concerned about the development of personal and social virtue than were the traditionalists, but he believed that ... virtuous actions could not be truly virtuous if they were not freely chosen.... 'Men cannot be forced to be … virtuous. To a certain extent, it is true, they can be forced to act as though they were virtuous. But virtue is the fruit of well-used freedom. And no act to the degree that it is coerced can partake of virtue – or vice'....
"Meyer’s position on coercion and virtue appears mostly correct, although with some clarification. As Meyer said, it seems that all coercion can do is cause people to act virtuously, not to actually be virtuous.... But the mere appearance of virtue is not the aim of the good society, rather it is actual virtue instilled in the thoughts and voluntary behavior of men.... Whatever the case, even those who have historically accepted a role for the state in the enforcement of virtue must by now admit the truth of Meyer’s statement that, 'If the state is endowed with the power to enforce virtue, the men who hold that power will enforce their own concepts as virtuous'....
"[Murray] Rothbard placed Meyer squarely in the libertarian camp, pointing out that Meyer’s case for the necessity of voluntary choice in the pursuit of virtue not only didn’t clash with the libertarian prohibition of the initiation of force, but was perfectly compatible with it. To Rothbard, Meyer’s appreciation for community and tradition, for the necessary traits of a virtuous society, were not deviations from libertarianism, but were healthy components of the holistic worldview of a thinker who took both political theory and culture seriously.
"Meyer could, perhaps, have made his arguments more appealing to traditionalists by expounding how the moral order could enforce standards of virtue.... Even so, his case against the state performing this task [was] well-argued. In a modern political society, rife with centralization, there is nothing more dangerous to virtue than for its proper defenders to relinquish their duties to the state."
Read more: https://www.austrolibertarian.com/articles/just-dont-call-it-fusionism
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August 15, 2019 - "Frank Meyer ... a prominent figure in postwar American conservatism, is best known for his attempted 'fusion' of traditionalist conservatism and libertarianism. Even today, Meyer’s name is nearly synonymous with 'fusionism.' But ... the term most commonly associated with Meyer was not his creation, but rather came as something of a pejorative from his colleague and critic, L. Brent Bozell.... Meyer ... disavowed the fusionist label, saying that he was not attempting to fuse two disparate elements together, but was simply attempting to show that 'although they are sometimes presented as mutually incompatible, [they] can in reality be united within a single broad conservative political theory, since they have their roots in a common tradition and are arrayed against a common enemy'....
"[F]ollowing World War II, conservatism was as much a gathering place of opposition to contemporary political and social trends as it was a coherent movement. Two strains of this opposition, however, quickly took form: libertarianism and traditionalism. The libertarians deplored the growth of the state and the collectivization of individuals that was so common in Progressive, socialist and totalitarian societies. The traditionalists, no less concerned about the growth of the state, lamented more the obliteration of traditional society and its methods of communicating enduring values. As these two lines of thought developed, their differences of emphasis led to a tension over which was the true conservatism and the true enemy of liberalism....
"It was this tension to which Meyer devoted much of his writing.... Can the traditionalist emphasis on the attributes of a healthy society – virtue, duty and a rootedness in tradition – be combined with political philosophy that emphasizes the freedom of the individual? For Meyer, the question was not can these emphases be combined, but how they can. His answer began with understanding the proper relationship of the individual to society.
"Meyer believed that 'society is not a real entity'.... What this statement means is not that society as a framework of interrelating individuals, associations, and institutions does not exist, but that it does not exist as an actual entity that can be considered in the same manner as an individual.... 'Society and the state were made for individual men,' he wrote, 'not men for them'.... To Meyer, society is comprised of and made for individuals. It owes its existence to them, and they are its end. All social activity is oriented, fundamentally, towards the individual. Echoing Ludwig von Mises, he concluded, 'Truth has meaning only for persons; beauty illumines the consciousness only of persons; virtue can be pursued only by persons'....
"Meyer was no less concerned about the development of personal and social virtue than were the traditionalists, but he believed that ... virtuous actions could not be truly virtuous if they were not freely chosen.... 'Men cannot be forced to be … virtuous. To a certain extent, it is true, they can be forced to act as though they were virtuous. But virtue is the fruit of well-used freedom. And no act to the degree that it is coerced can partake of virtue – or vice'....
"Meyer’s position on coercion and virtue appears mostly correct, although with some clarification. As Meyer said, it seems that all coercion can do is cause people to act virtuously, not to actually be virtuous.... But the mere appearance of virtue is not the aim of the good society, rather it is actual virtue instilled in the thoughts and voluntary behavior of men.... Whatever the case, even those who have historically accepted a role for the state in the enforcement of virtue must by now admit the truth of Meyer’s statement that, 'If the state is endowed with the power to enforce virtue, the men who hold that power will enforce their own concepts as virtuous'....
"[Murray] Rothbard placed Meyer squarely in the libertarian camp, pointing out that Meyer’s case for the necessity of voluntary choice in the pursuit of virtue not only didn’t clash with the libertarian prohibition of the initiation of force, but was perfectly compatible with it. To Rothbard, Meyer’s appreciation for community and tradition, for the necessary traits of a virtuous society, were not deviations from libertarianism, but were healthy components of the holistic worldview of a thinker who took both political theory and culture seriously.
"Meyer could, perhaps, have made his arguments more appealing to traditionalists by expounding how the moral order could enforce standards of virtue.... Even so, his case against the state performing this task [was] well-argued. In a modern political society, rife with centralization, there is nothing more dangerous to virtue than for its proper defenders to relinquish their duties to the state."
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