I’ve always been somewhat bemused but inspired by the strong commitment to localism that flourishes on the Whitman campus. I am bemused because Whitties lead lives that are generally culturally and economically cosmopolitan. We are primarily West Coast liberals, after all. But localism was conservatism’s first.
Whitties think nothing of flying across the world for an environmental conference or hauling water purifiers to India, but somehow still demand that Bon Appétit stop selling carbon-positive bananas shipped from Ecuador. Whitties are often found advocating for agricultural, environmental and economic localism, but take full advantage of the global economy in their career prospects, global travel in their leisure and studies and even globalism as a basic moral orientation (not the nation, church, city or family).
Yet, as soon as it comes to enforcing the will of the community upon the individual in the moral realm, Whitties become fierce individualists. They perceive that local food affects the community, but cannot understand that community itself is premised upon a shared moral vision of the good life, not mere economic interactions. Society is a spiritual, not merely economic, order.
At dinner before his lecture on climate change just last week, libertarian speaker Ronald Bailey challenged the table to answer why liberals thought it was OK to limit economic liberty to protect local farms, for example, but not to limit personal liberty in support of local moral norms like banning gay marriage. The libertarian argues that both economic and moral regulation is improper and I argue that both are wholly justified. At least we are both consistent.
Of course, localism has always been a conservative bastion before this liberal schizophrenia. The institutions of family, church, community and region form the basic conservative vision of social order. Robert Nisbet argues that these social institutions are necessary foundations of liberty for they mediate between the individual and the government, between isolating atomism and coercive collectivism. Radical individualism is not the antithesis of totalitarianism, but its prerequisite. Stripped of all intermediate institutions, the lonely power of individual conscience is pitted against the total power of the state, and the winner is all but certain in that contest.
The Catholic Church’s teaching of “subsidiarity” has held for over a century that “a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help coordinate its activities with the activities of the rest of society” (Catechism of the Catholic Church). America has been all too willing to offer up decisions about our families, our morality, our local communities and economies to powers far detached from us.
Just look at the banking system. The Huffingon Post reports that, “The largest 20 banks, which now command 57 percent of all bank assets, devote only 18 percent of their commercial loan portfolios to small business.” Yet it is these banks Obama spent trillions to bailout while small businesses can’t even get loans. What liberals don’t realize is that big government and big business are best friends. Only by localizing both the government and the economy can we maintain control of both. Conservatives also need to realize it isn’t the corporate dominated “free market” that is the answer, but the localized market.
Burke said that only by loving the “little platoon” we belong to in our society can we begin to feel affection for broader society. Conservatism in the United States must recommit itself to protecting these little platoons against all enemies, private or governmental. But liberals (and Whitties) must also realize that communities are foundationally moral and cultural enterprises and must be regulated accordingly, or all the local food movements in the world won’t amount to anything.
