The Old Right meets the New Left

I just wanted to direct folks to this article (When the Left was Right http://www.amconmag.com/2008/2008_05_19/article.html) from the American Conservative (Pat Buchanan's magazine). Bill Kauffman goes into an interesting exploration of the philosophical kinship and brief entente between the New Left and the Old Right (shorthand for a conservative who looks to Kirk, Hegel and Burke rather than Kristol and Reagan-Bush). Nothing ever came of this momentary warming of relations (the New Left turned violently anti-state and the Old Right completely lost the party), but I think it's timely since we're approaching at an election that completely inverts most of the conventional Left-Right dichotomies. And on an academic level, we're at a moment where the mainstream of political philosophy - egalitarian liberalism - is being increasingly challenged by a strange but holy alliance of Thomist Catholics and Anglicans, left-wing Hegelians, neo-Marxists, and Orthodox theologians.

The big question is still whether the ideological affinities between these two groups can be turned into a political alliance. Personally I think that Obama can be the candidate to make that happen, but we'll see. At the very least he has the American Conservative on his side...

(And if you're wonder why Bacevich of The American Conservative is endorsing Obama over McCain click here.)