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Where Conservatives Have it Wrong

Individualism can't solve everything for a social species

By Matt Cantor, Newser Staff

Posted Sep 12, 2008 6:51 AM CDT

(Newser) – Barry Goldwater wrote that the key to conservatism is “maximizing freedom,” and since his time, individual liberty has been the party’s central tenet. But people are a “deeply interconnected,” social species, as study after study has found —and today’s conservatives need to recognize that, writes David Brooks in the New York Times. The failure to do so “is the main impediment to Republican modernization.”

Today’s chief issues highlight our interpersonal ties: international economic troubles affect personal finances, health care feels unreliable, “inequality strains national cohesion.” The GOP’s individualist thinking can’t explain the wide-ranging, simultaneous poor decisions that caused the housing crisis. “If Republicans are going to fully modernize,” Brooks notes, they must “project a conservatism that emphasizes society as well as individuals.”

[Images (2)]

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Historical conservatives like Adam Smith knew the importance of 'networks' and 'institutions,' Brooks writes. (Getty Images)

Barry Goldwater's vision of conservatism is flawed, Brooks writes. (Archive Photos)

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Recent Republican Party doctrine has emphasized the power of the individual, but underestimates the importance of connections, relationships, institutions, and social filaments. - David Brooks

We’re living in an age of fast-changing economic, information and social networks, but Republicans are still impeded by Goldwater’s mental guard-rails. - David Brooks

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Where Conservatives Have it Wrong