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Coming Home: Reclaiming America's Conservative
Soul
Co-Authored By Bruce P. Frohnen
In COMING
HOME: Reclaiming America's Conservative Soul, Prof.
Bruce Frohnen asks where
conservatism went wrong. How did we go from the optimism of Ronald Reagan
to today's identity politics and hatred of America?
Americans have been
forced from their homes. Their jobs have been outsourced, their neighborhoods
torn down to make room for freeways, their churches shuttered or taken over by
social justice warriors, and their very families eviscerated by government programs
that assume their functions and a hostile elite that deems them oppressive.
Conservatives have always defended these elements of a rooted life as crucial
to maintaining cultural continuity in the face of changing circumstances.
Unfortunately, official “conservatism” has become fixated on abstract claims
about freedom and the profits of “creative destruction.”
In COMING HOME,
you'll learn...
· How we can rebuild conservatism and our country.
· When things began to go wrong in America. Was it
the New Deal? Progressivism? The '60s? What changed?
· What exactly conservatism is. Is it even fair to
say that conservatism belongs in an individualistic country like America?
· What it means to say that Americans are
homeless. If we really have lost our history, our traditions, and our sense of
place - of hearth and home - how can we possibly rebuild all of that?
Conservatism has never
been the only voice in America, but it is the most distinctively American
voice, emerging from the customs, norms, and dispositions of its people and
grounded in the conviction that the capacity for self-governance provides a
distinctly human dignity. Emphasizing the ongoing strength and importance of
the conservative tradition, the authors describe our Constitution’s emphasis on
maintaining order and balance and protecting the primary institutions of local
life. Also important here is an understanding of changes in American
demographics, economics, and politics. These changes complicated attempts to
address the fundamentally anti-traditional nature of slavery and Jim Crow, the
destructive effects of globalism, and the increasing desire to look on the
federal government as the guarantor of security and happiness.
To reclaim our home as
a people, we must rebuild the natural associations and primary institutions
within which we live. This means protecting the fundamental relationships that
make up our way of life. From philosophy to home construction, from theology to
commerce, from charity to the essentials of household management, our ongoing
practices are the source of our knowledge of truth, of one another, and of how
we may live well together.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Prof. Bruce P. Frohnen is Professor of Law at Ohio Northern Law. Prior to joining ONU Law in 2008, he served as a legislative aide for a United States senator, as a visiting scholar at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and as secretary and director of program at the Earhart Foundation. He has held visiting posts as Charles Evans Hughes professor of jurisprudence at Colgate University and as Thomas Bahnson and Anne Bassett Stanley professor of ethics and integrity at the Virginia Military Institute.
