Guess Who's Coming to Dinner Now?: Multicultural Conservatism in America

Preface: The Problem of Definition

Conservative, n.A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others. —Ambrose Bierce, Devil’s Dictionary p r e f a c e The Problem of Definition A conservative Latino man, a black conservative woman, and a gay Christian conservative . . . this may sound like a set-up for an off-color joke, but members of such a diverse contingent could easily pass one another on Capitol Hill, gather for a roundtable discussion at a public policy think tank, or be seated together at a dinner gala sponsored by the Republican National Committee. Such occurrences happen frequently among the individuals I have labeled “multicultural conservatives.” I admit that even this tag began as something of a joke during a dinner party given by a close friend. I was regaling the company with stories and anecdotes uncovered while doing preliminary research for this book and was delighted by their confused and often horrified expressions. Seeking to get off another zinger at the expense of my erstwhile companions, I hit upon the idea of describing the existence of African American, Latino, homosexual, and women conservatives as “multicultural”—a term generally reserved by common affirmation for leftists and liberals. This does not mean that women and minority conservatives embrace multiculturalism as an ethic and a philosophy. They do not. The phrase seemed, however, a perfect (if controversial) way to ix designate what they have brought to the post–World War II conservative movement. The other segment of this book’s title is derived, of course, from the 1967 film Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, starring Sidney Poitier. Poitier’s character, John Prentice, is a distinguished and accomplished doctor specializing in the treatment of tropical diseases who falls in love with the young, white daughter of a crusading liberal newspaper publisher. Released in the same year as the Supreme Court’s Loving decision, which barred states from prohibiting interracial marriages, the film chronicles the attempts by both families to accept the impending union.While notable for its depiction of interracial love and intimacy, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner nonetheless fails to address the dynamics of entrenched racial prejudice and foregrounds class (his prominence, her wealth) to make the possibility of marriage palatable.As the producer Stanley Kramer asserted, Dr. Prentice’s status was essential, since neither the woman nor her parents would have been interested in a garage attendant.1 Hence, the standards it erects for peaceful integration and interracial marriage are deep and wide. Such standards also reflect, at least in part, the positions currently adopted by those women and minority conservatives who believe in the redemptive possibilities of assimilation, individualism, and character—a topic to which I devote a good deal of attention in the following pages. Having settled on a playful but hopefully thought-provoking title, as I began to write this book I was immediately confronted with the problem of definition. Exactly what, after all, is a conservative in the context of a nation that lacks the basic ingredients of an organic conservative tradition ? As Louis Hartz insisted, there is only one definitive political tradition in the United States, and it is decidedly liberal. In his seminal analysis of the connections between social structure and ideology, Hartz maintained that the absence of a feudal heritage and an anti-industrial Right led naturally to the triumph of bourgeois Lockean liberalism that equated the acquisition of private property with the pursuit of happiness .Without a landed aristocracy to overthrow or a landless mob to silence , liberalism reigned supreme and formed the foundation of American political culture.2 Many self-proclaimed conservatives, however, remain undaunted by such critiques.According to Russell Kirk, to cite just one prominent example, this lack of historical foundation is unimportant , since conservatism is neither a political system nor an ideology. Instead , it is a worldview and a style of thought about society and human nature. In an attempt to circumvent Hartz, Kirk claims that American Preface x conservatism is rooted not so much in distinct social and economic structures of the nation as in the realm of ideas. In his introduction to The Portable Conservative Reader, Kirk ventures a basic outline of six foundational principles.The first principle is a belief in a transcendent moral order, be it God or natural law, through which “we ought to try and conform the ways of society...