A word...more importantly, a concept...I'm increasingly hearing in "Christian conservatives' " discourse is "statism"...the essence of all evil in their formulation, which (of course, and self-flatteringly) they bitterly oppose.
The word triggered a faint memory. I'm sure he didn't invent the idea (or word), but in the 1870s the Russian thinker Bakunin wrote "Statism and Anarchy," generally considered a foundational text of modern anarchism. In his formulation, any kind of government was "statism," and the source of all human societies' woes. Bakunin's sovereign corrective, of course, was to have no government: anarchism.
I'd run across Bakunin when I was an anarchist, though I didn't start with him. Even 40 years ago, it was clear American government had failed, and I read Jefferson intensely: it seemed the one whose thought was the foundation of American government would be the place to start figuring out what had gone wrong. There's no missing the distrust and fear of government that pervades Jefferson's thought, but reading Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience" was the actual spark for me.
Neither of my heroes counted themselves among (in Thoreau's dismissive phrase) "those who call themselves no-government men," but "Civil Disobedience" seemed to have no other logical point. Thoreau started his essay by "heartily" endorsing the motto "That government is best which governs least" (usually ascribed to Jefferson): which, he said, "...finally amounts to this, which also I believe,--'That government is best which governs not at all.' " I became a convinced anarchist soon after.
(Of course, I gave up anarchism when I became a Christian. I now understand human government as God's authorized (albeit limited) agent for mitigating some of the mundane consequences of man's rebellion. In the Christian view, anarchism seems as quaintly wrong-headed a corrective for sin as "naturism.")
It seemed necessary to read Bakunin, the "father" of modern anarchist thought. I'll confess, I found Bakunin heavy going, and gave him up quickly. But hearing "statism" condemned by today's "Christian conservatives" brought him to mind again. They, like Thoreau and Jefferson, lack the rigorous honesty to follow "anti-statism" to Bakunin's logical conclusion: but it's always instructive to know where any "new" idea comes from.
In truth, I doubt more than a handful of "conservatives," tea-partiers or "Christian," have even heard of Bakunin. Their faction probably owes its "anti-statism" less to him than to Ayn Rand. "Statism" was always her great bugaboo, the chief hindrance to her philosophy of "ethical egoism" (i.e., selfishness). I'll confess again, I tried to read her stuff and gave it up. Her writing is wooden and shrill, with the literary merit of supermarket tabloids.
Nonetheless, leading "conservatives" have found her "philosophy" compatible with their views. Ronald Reagan called himself her "admirer." Justice Clarence Thomas cites her as a major influence on his life. Alan Greenspan was a long-time member of Ayn Rand's inner circle: she stood beside him when he was sworn into government service as Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers in 1974. (She died before Greenspan was appointed Reagan's Chairman of the Federal Reserve.) Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck recommend Ayn Rand's books to their followers. (Libertarian "conservative" Ron Paul was likewise an Ayn Rand admirer: but his son Randal, current Republican senator from Kentucky, chose the nickname "Rand" himself.)
I find it troubling that "Christian conservatives" adopt Ayn Rand's ideas and attitudes toward "statism." Her teachings (Bakunin's as well, for that matter) are militantly atheist: her core belief is the supremacy of human reason. The Judeo-Christian teaching of altruism is her particular bete noire, and comes in for repeated attack: man's highest good, she teaches, is "egoism."
Even those who embrace Ayn Rand's "philosophy" doubtless see its problem. Even corrupt human reason can work out that bad trees produce bad fruit (as Jesus teaches in Matthew 7, Matthew 12, and Luke 6); and I doubt any rational person honestly believes the world needs more selfishness.
My "Christian conservative" friends who profess to hear Jesus' voice in their faction's "anti-statism" may or may not know anything about Ayn Rand or Bakunin. I'd hope, however, they would consider, on Jesus' authority, what kind of tree that idea grows from. If God is gracious to them, perhaps they'll yet be able to hear His call to repentance above the din of the "doctrines of demons" their faction embraces.
