Ahmari’s new book lays out his vision for preserving tradition in a liberal age. How are conservatives reacting?
Quest for Revolutionary Community
July 7, 2020
In recent weeks, we have been accosted by scenes of mayhem in our great cities. Statues toppled, businesses looted and destroyed, public property seized and occupied. What do the looters and rioters want? The answer, in short, is community. Bear with me while I sort this out.
Bill Smith’s excellent essay “Understanding Antifa” offers an account of the origin of thought and action of our present revolutionaries in the work of Jean Jacques Rousseau, reflecting the spirit of Irving Babbitt’s critique of Rousseau and Rousseauian politics. Smith’s analysis is impeccable, focusing on how these present-day revolutionaries have imbibed the revolutionary ethos of the French Jacobins and does much to explain the violence that we are seeing today. I want to offer a similar analysis but drawing instead from the twentieth century sociologist and prophet of community Robert Nisbet to understand that what we are seeing in a wholesale rejection of the laws, history, and culture of our particular political society is not a rejection of community per se, but a destructive form of man’s eternal search for community.
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