On The Conservative Character: Post-Deconstructionist Republicanism

Deconstructionism, otherwise known as post-moderninism, was basically the End of Philosophy-as-such.  It was massively in vogue for many years, and has remained a cultural icon for many, including the counter-culture.  Basically one can look at Po-Mo ideology as a hip european import, taken as true by the majority of academia for most of last century more or less by virtue of it's elite, hip, and altogether "cool" status as an anti-philosophy.  One could, as a teacher, dismiss most of the philosophies of the continent throughout history by simply making a cursory reference to the current psychological sciences and physics-as-such.

However, we must all surely admit that Post-Modernism - given a nomenclature that seems decidedly futuristic - has run it's course and is now, like many philosophical movements of the past, merely another development in how Academics rationalize away the Christian truth of the Bible.  It may have been all the rage for both exceedingly intelligent learned people and counter-cultural drop-outs looking for something to dote on whilst sipping latte's at their coffee den of choice; but we must all admit the truth:  That Post-Modernism is dead.

We now live in an age of what could be called Post-Deconstructionism; that is, the era following the Post-Modernist time.  It's a blithe term that I've coined, no doubt - and surely won't catch fire in academic circles or find anything approaching respectability; however, Post-Deconstructionist philosophy/theology is a force to be dealt with.

Think of Post-Deconstructionism as a return to the originators of Po-Mo ideology.

Hegel and Heidegger, for example.

Both of these decidedly Germanic philosophes are generally acknowledged to have spurned Po-Mo's initial conceptualization.   Indeed, without Hegel and Heidegger there would be no Post-Modernism as is understood academically and, more to the point, in the works of Derrida - the author most closely tied to Post-Modernism's genesis.

If you are still wondering what I'm going on about this for, you could contrast the Po-Mo thinkers and authors with a philosopher I'm sure everyone is familiar with: Sartre.  Obviously he was anti-thetical to Post-Modernism, and many Po-Mo authors spent a great deal of time making polemic assaults on Sartre the man as well as Sartre's works.

So all of this pointless analytical word salad is merely to bring to a head the main thrust of my argument, which I've made before in previous entries... that is, Po-Mo ideology-as-such is almost entirely atheistic while the authors who created works that inspired the very existence of Post-Modernism were very, very Christian.  Hegel and Heidegger too centered their dialectic and ontology respectively around God-as-such.  This is, despite the whining of many left wing black t-shirt clad Po-Mo cultists, an honest to goodness fact.

On a side note, to all of the readers of DDU's Politalk who may still be scratching their heads at the use of Heidegger, here is a short video of the man himself:

How does all of this apply to Conservatism/Republicanism in America?

Simply as such;

The key tenet that defines Republicanism is the idea of a Bible centered culture, rather than a secular one.  There may well be atheist republicans, such as author Tom Wolfe, but the key tenet of Republicanism is the christian ethic-as-such.  The left looks at things in a far more holistic manner, in which Bible and Government are to remain explicitly and implicitly heterogeneous.  They often loudly cite Ben Franklin's account of the separation of Church and State...  However, the philosophical integrity that layeth behind the Republican Party's family friendly platform and image always has a pointed and oft' historically minded retort to almost all of the whiner progressive's qualms; in this instance, Ben Franklin is known, factually, to merely have been addressing the notion of having an official government religion.  It is a far cry to say that this indicates that we must, say, remove the Pledge from the classroom as Dukakis did in the eighties.  

For every ideological position of the Left, there is a bold and thorough philosophical retort.

But the left wing is so brazen that not only will they refuse to hear it; not only will they refuse to let us speak it to others; but they in fact silence any opposition whatsoever, most often through the media and academia.

Intelligence warrants that theology and philosophy be taken seriously.

But those on the left, as per Po-Mo cultism, disallow us to preach the truth by saying

a) Philosophy is dead.

b) The Bible is Myth.

The fact is, Democracy-as-such would never have taken off if Po-Mo ideology had been the existent philosophy of the Founding Fathers, etc.

Democracy requires purpose,

and purpose

requires

god.