Conservatism: Neither Lemming Nor Luddite
By Lewis Toland
The wearisome string of temperatures above the century mark again yields to contentious
political heat between Labor Day and the midterm elections in November. Political turmoil has
been with us since Thomas Jefferson’s vindictive triumph over John Adams in 1800, Andrew
Jackson’s revenge over John Quincy Adams in 1828, the Confederate exodus in 1860, and
George Bush’s “hanging chads” victory over Al Gore. Print media technology drove most of
these contests. Since Obama’s first election, we casually adopted digital technology without
weighing its blessings and curses. Conservatism, though, favors judicious foresight over casual
conformity, a Lemming characteristic.
Edmund Burke-credited with being the Father of Conservatism
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During the quieter times between World War II and the Vietnam War, newspapers, magazines, radio, and three major TV networks slowly, regularly offered news and opinion. Schools taught history, civics, and English, producing responsible citizens inclined to respect the common good, thus setting politics, economics, and diplomacy in historical context. We expected to marry, raise families, and respect religious faith, thus acknowledging some higher purpose beyond our impulses, which digital technology exploits.
That confident tranquility receded and finally vanished – not merely from racial strife, radical feminism, and war protests – but also as secular materialism seemed more convenient than virtue. We privileged new technology, accepting it without weighing its less obvious costs. For example, the usually discerning commentator Mark Levin exemplifies this oversight by praising data centers that gobble up the land providing our food. Oddly, he does not probe the motives for hoarding such massive data troves, how long it needs to be stored, and who controls it. He reviles opponents as Luddites. What he overlooks about the originally rural Luddites, who indeed sabotaged the early factories that canceled their livelihoods, was the separation of fathers from homes, working up to sixteen hours daily except Sundays.
This social cost of less parental attention worsened during the Industrial Revolution as English and American cities could absorb new inhabitants only in slums. Many ignorant children similarly worked in factories. For a window into that misery, read Charles Dickens’s novels, especially Great Expectations and Hard Times, literature alien to our grandchildren. Obviously, such centers aid national defense and medical research, but heedlessly promoting their voracious expansion befits lemmings.
Vintage engraving showing the factory floor of the spinning room in Shadwell Rope Works, 1878. (https://www.britannica.com/event/Luddite).
Mercifully, Christians countered the turmoil. Englishman Robert Raikes began offering Sunday schools around 1800. They emphasized the “three R’s” to prepare literate citizens and later added biblical instruction. Early nineteenth-century Americans Noah Webster and Horace Mann advocated public schools, which our Founders foresaw by setting aside a section in each township for them in the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. McGuffey’s Eclectic Readers, filled with morality, civics, history, and literature, exemplified American public education. Furthermore, most 18th and 19th centuries colleges, sponsored by churches, cultivated a better person, not a career. The purposes of education then and now contrast starkly, preferring a disciplined imagination nurtured by traditional culture and self-denial to benefit others – not our inclination toward income and self-gratification.
What is the purpose of this brief historical survey as the elections approach? Conservatives face a relentless stream of controversies determined by 24-hour news cycles, trapping us in the moment and preventing mature, informed understanding provided through historical context. Digital chatter – talk radio, Fox News, websites, and social media – distracts us from First Things, the principles vital to our Founders and the conservative resurrection of the 1950s. More deeply in our roots, Jesus intriguingly keeps a resolute pace, guided purposefully, thus rejecting the tyranny of the present moment, contra the radio’s command, “Don’t touch that dial.”
Binding and blinding ourselves within anxious moments denies us the long perspective of our predecessors, especially scriptural wisdom. King Solomon found human nature to be remarkably constant: “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9 ESV). This constancy reflects the normal rhythms of life (which reject continual online distraction by keeping first things first):
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;a time to kill, and a time to heal;a time to break down, and a time to build up; (3:1-3)
(Do some of us hear the Byrds singing “Turn, Turn, Turn”?) To answer Francis Schaefer’s How Then Shall We Live? knowing history clarifies not only when we are but who we are and why we are. Conservatives live by principles, not by reactions enflamed by the latest post. We walk by informed faith, not by agitated sight.
Wilfred McClay, the Victor Davis Hanson Chair in Classical History and Classical Civilization at Hillsdale College, justifies why we should nurture our roots:
But at the same time, we should remember that looking forward also means looking backward. The two ways of seeing are connected in the human soul. As Edmund Burke said, “People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.”
The media seduces our attention through perpetual distraction, whether hopping from one blue link to the next or heeding a torrent of “talking heads.” Conservativism, though, is a way of life, perceiving when to rush (rather seldom) and when to move deliberately while viewing our moment through the lens of history and considering our choices’ consequences. We weigh information against its accuracy and fairness. We are principled citizens, not Pavlov’s dogs. Self-control nurtures the Golden Rule rather than the Law of the Jungle.
References:
Wilfred M. McClay. “A Nation’s Birthday.” The Plough. July 4, 2026, https://www.plough.com/articles/a-nations-birthday© 2026 Plough Publishing House.
Recommended Reading
Cole, Donald B. Vindicating Andrew Jackson: The 1828 Election and the Rise of the Two-Party System. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2009.
Kingsnorth, Paul. Against the Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity. New York: Thesis (Penguin/Random House), 2025.
Levin, Yuval. The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left. New York: Basic Books, 2014.
Postman, Neil. Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture of Technology. New York: Vintage, 1992.
Sharp, James Roger. The Deadlocked Election of 1800: Jefferson, Burr, and the Union in the Balance. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2010.
Weiner, Greg. Old Whigs: Burke, Lincoln & the Politics of Prudence. New York: Encounter, 2019.
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