This week, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) released a recorded roundtable discussion with Chris Rufo, Curtis Yarvin, Patrick Deneen, Christopher Caldwell, and moderated by Johnny Burtka. In what ISI has dubbed Project Cosmos, these titans of the conservative intellectual world spent three hours in a spirited discussion on the future of the conservative movement. As Professor Deneen aptly put it, we need to know our movement’s purpose, or its telos.
One major source of agreement among the four is that conservatives need not be afraid of wielding power. Mr. Rufo argues that “the project of the Right should simultaneously be how to capture, destroy, subvert, or rule these national institutions” while also enabling local institutions to regain their function. In doing so, the path to victory may become clearer. In his words, “action itself creates knowledge,” and “the system is not the problem, we are the problem.”
Rufo laments that “Conservatives do not understand the power of hyper-competent administration,” and as an example, he points to the way Governor DeSantis took on the Disney corporation. Rufo prioritizes giving money to good, culture-building endeavors (such as the Hamilton Center at the University of Florida), while also defunding projects that are degrading to public life. This requires the government to exercise prudence, and actually choose between competing visions of the good. Neutrality is not an option, and the first step towards victory is the will to actually govern and use power towards good ends.
Professor Deneen emphasized that this approach to statecraft is antithetical to what the right has stood for in the Post-war era. In Deneen’s words, “The theory of Conservatism since the end of WWII was anti-government. Our single job was to dismantle.” He points out that one major difference between the so-called “Old Right” and the “New Right” is the former assumed that simply ending the oppression inflicted by the administrative state and the intellectual class would lead to a spontaneous resurrection of destroyed institutions.
Deneen, however, asserts that crippled institutions “now need the assistance of the political order itself.” A governor going after Disney was unthinkable in the old conservative establishment, which held that “the free market and corporations were sacrosanct.” This kind of leadership will lead to a natural sorting of people by political vision. Professor Deneen points out that Indiana’s much publicized redistricting “is designed to make it into more of a red state. Let’s sort ourselves.” Those who object to what is happening in Indiana are more than free to move, but conservatives taking and wielding power in order to protect a traditional way of life is a good thing.
However, Mr. Caldwell warns that “We don’t have the personality type to build these new institutions.” Caldwell laments that without a robust freedom of association, we aren’t able to truly rebuild institutions.
There was a concerted effort to do away with the kind of civil society permitting conservatives to build thriving institutions. As Mr. Caldwell puts it, “American civic virtue didn’t die – it was killed.”
Since the 1960s, American society devolved into various competing identity groups, which is why “the country is much more fragmented and the prospect of creating one culture is very difficult.” He also asserts that “insulation from checks and balances cannot stay.” This is a point of departure between Mr. Caldwell and Professor Deneen, as he argues that eradicating the administrative state is a fantasy.
Echoing both Mr. Rufo and Professor Deneen, Mr. Caldwell agrees that the core of our problem is that the Left is good at spending money on elite institutions and creating opportunities for their own. The right has failed to do this, and has been the subject of the aggression of a regime that seeks to eradicate the basic freedoms necessary to build a thriving society – especially the freedom of association. A general consensus among the four is that victory will require spending money on worthy endeavors, not assuming that the free market will solve these deep political issues.
The fourth member of the panel approaches cultural renewal from a different angle. Curtis Yarvin, known also by the penname Mencius Moldbug, urged that this kind of cultural project “requires us to break out of the American way of thinking.” He points out that “liberalism has sought out monarchy and destroyed it for everyone, whether in Europe or at home.”
Mr. Yarvin agrees with Professor Deneen that the solution will not arise in spontaneous fashion. Yarvin, like Mr. Rufo, praises Governor Desantis’ leadership in Florida, saying that “the best thing DeSantis did is he turned Florida into a deep red state.” He says that “when you’re in the pursuit of power, every step you take needs to generate more power.” Mr. Yarvin believes victory requires concentration of power, and a political approach that is broader in scope than the traditional American way of thinking calls for. He points to empires. Mr. Yarvin ponders, “what would a Silicon Valley CEO do with power over Washington,” and encourages us to look at Napoleon – a point refuted by Mr. Rufo.
Though they put forward differing approaches, the four men seem to agree on one thing: Conservatives need to employ the power of the state for good ends. The fear of making value judgments while wielding power must be left behind. Efficiency and less government is not a sufficient political vision for the future.
We are coming out of a political moment where two diametrically opposed political visions clashed in the 2024 election. The Right handedly won that duel, but as Mr. Rufo put it, “the real interesting debate is within the right.” Episode One of Project Cosmos highlighted this important internal debate over the future of the conservative movement.
