Conservative hacks are having a hard time of it at the moment. Take, for example, the case of Roger Scruton the English conservative moral philosopher and columnist. Earlier this year it came to light that Scruton was being paid by a tobacco company to write columns defending people's right to smoke. The information was detailed in a leaked email in which Scruton requested a £1000 increase in his monthly retainer, taking it to £5,500.
In a priceless reply, Scruton did what any self-respecting conservative hack would do when caught with their pants down: play the victim. London's Guardian newspaper quotes him as saying that 'The whole thing is quite immoral -- the stealing of private correspondence and making it public'. It is of course true that stealing and leaking private email is immoral, but if Scruton had only applied these same standards to his professional activities he might still be writing for the likes of the Wall Street Journal, which quickly dropped him when the scandal broke.
Scruton is not the only conservative columnist to come unstuck of late. Recently the ABC's Media Watch program alleged that Janet Albrechtson, a regular columnist with the Australian, fabricated evidence supposedly showing, amongst other things, a link between young Muslim men and a culture of rape. According to Albrechtson: 'Pack rape of white girls is an initiation rite of passage for a small section of young male Muslim youths, said Jean-Jacques Rassial, a psychotherapist at Villetaneuse University.'
As Media Watch showed, Rassial never mentioned 'Muslims' or used the word 'white'. Informed of Albrechtson's distortion of his ideas, Rassial said: 'There would be grounds, in France, to insist on a correction, even sue for defamation; may I ask you to make it known that I strongly dissociate myself from the remarks attributed to me, which are the opposite of my views'.
In a feeble attempt to distract attention from the issue, Albrechtson responded with an attack on David Marr, Media Watch, the ABC and the Left in general. Like Scruton, Albrechtson pulled out the victim card, stating that she had been interviewed for the job of presenter of Media Watch, and implied that she had been overlooked because she had proclaimed herself to be an 'Across-the-board conservative' during the interview.
Like many conservatives in Australian public life, Albrechtson subscribes to a rather intriguing version of conservatism. Whatever else it might entail, conservatism means that one adheres to (supposedly) unchanging norms, values and principles, which surely includes the values of truth and honesty and the principle of avoiding deliberately misleading others. On this view, Albrechtson and Scruton are dismal failures as conservatives.
Both Albrechtson and Scruton highlight the contradictions within contemporary conservatism. In a culture characterised by seemingly endless change, the sociomaterial conditions within which conservatism was rooted have given way. Lacking the conceptual and intellectual resources that might offer some insight into the culture that produces such changes, 'conservatives' such as Albrechtson have abandoned any pretence of upholding the basic principles and values that are supposed to underlie their position, resorting instead to reactionary populism.
What is needed urgently is for 'conservatives' to reconnect with the basic ethical principles that lie at the heart of conservativism properly understood, and think about how these might be reworked within contemporary settings.
Until such time as they do so, we can only hope that the editors of the Australian follow the example of their peers at the Wall Street Journal.
