Hate war and empire? Passionate about social justice? Sceptical about free market ideology? But also respectful of tradition? And striving for virtue?
You may be a Red Tory.
To read a fascinating piece by the Englishman who coined the term, read this article from The American Conservative.
—Daniel Nichols
Dan,
I was at a breakfast/seminar with Philip Blond at Georgetown University back in March. He seemed to me to be saying only what many of us have been saying for years. And sometimes I didn’t think his way of saying it was that useful. E.g., he would say, `I’m in favor of the free market, but what I mean by it is such and such,’ and then procede to state something which is not what we usually mean by `free market.’
I don’t think that way of talking is very helpful to intellectual discourse. As if I should say I’m in favor of free love, but what I mean by that is that we should love as free children of God. Since the phrases “free love” and “free market” already have settled meanings, I think it makes much more sense to use them in those settled meanings instead of trying to redefine them because we want to claim that we too are “free.”
If I’m not mistaken, the notion of “red toryism” has been around since the 19th century, e.g., associated with Benjamin Disraeli, the British Tory prime minsiter.
Yes, familiar territory, only from a British perspective. I agree that he is a bit ambiguous in his use of terms like “free market”; he will rail against unregulated finance and industry and then insist that he favors free markets…
[...] Hat-tip to Red Tories? | Caelum Et Terra. [...]