The Conservative Heart Read online

  In my travels across the country, I have encountered thousands of conservative activists. And what has impressed me over and over is how deeply their principles and actions are rooted in a passion for America and a desire to make this country what it should be—a land of opportunity, an exceptional nation where anyone can get ahead through hard work and determination, a place where our origins matter less than our destinations, a beacon of hope and opportunity for all the world. This is what America has been, and can be again.

  Restoring that America—that is what animates the conservative heart.

  I know what some readers are probably asking. Is this description of the conservative heart just “compassionate conservatism,” the old concept from a few presidential campaigns ago?

  No. Setting aside a host of policy problems, even the phrase “compassionate conservatism” is problematic. It validates those who falsely claim that conservatives are uncompassionate in the first place. It grafts “compassion” onto conservatism like an unnatural appendage. This is a major error. Notwithstanding our communication failures, a creed that flows from the optimistic belief that every person is valuable and capable of earned success is inherently compassionate to the core.

  Here’s what a truly uncompassionate worldview would look like: It would throw in the towel on people and whole communities. It would lazily presume that a certain segment of the population simply can’t make it, that they require an unending stream of unsatisfying government support to grind along at subsistence levels. A movement built on free enterprise, real hope, and earned success sees right through this lazy nihilism—and rejects it.

  No, we should never endorse the myth that “compassion” is a new idea for conservatives. That is why I have titled this book The Conservative Heart. There is no adjunct to the conservative heart. No qualifiers. No hyphenation. Our objective is not to soften conservatism’s rough edges or erode away its principles. It is not to agitate for “big government conservatism” or to shill for the same old statist machinery with a slightly different set of management consultants at the controls.

  Our goal is to explain to the world what is really written on the conservative heart. It is to reclaim the mantles of compassion and fairness for the movement that truly lives up to them, to make the pursuit of happiness a reality for every single American, and to dramatically rethink public policy so the blessings of work and opportunity can reach people who are being left behind.

  THE ROAD AHEAD

  In 1953, when Russell Kirk published The Conservative Mind, conservatives were widely dismissed as anti-intellectual reactionaries. As one prominent progressive thinker put it at the time, conservatives were only capable of “irritable mental gestures which seek to resemble ideas.”6 Kirk unmasked this lie. He showed that modern conservatism was built on a rich philosophical tradition stretching back at least two centuries to the writings of the English philosopher and statesman Edmund Burke.

  Today, thanks to Kirk and other conservative intellectuals, Americans no longer doubt the rigor of the conservative mind. What they do doubt is the compassion of the conservative heart. The time has come to correct this false perception, and to unite conservative mind and heart behind a new social movement to restore the promise of America for every one of our citizens.

  In the chapters ahead, I will explain how we can build this new conservative social movement. We will reveal the secrets to real human happiness. We will examine how these secrets have been denied to millions of Americans through misbegotten government policies and misdirected culture. And we will learn to share humanistic conservatism in a way that opens minds and rallies people to our cause. (If you are in a hurry, you can turn to the last chapter, which provides the seven secrets to communicating all the ideas in this book.)

  There will be plenty of data along the way, along with a lot of colorful characters. We will meet neuroscientists, homeless men, senators, billionaires, and a penniless Hindu swami. All of them will help us understand what we believe and how to share it with others.

  As we embark on our journey, we will discover that what America needs most of all is not a magical set of new laws. Nor is it, for that matter, mere repeal of bad policies or the replacement of many elected leaders—though both might do a world of good. What the United States needs is for a unifying, positive, aspirational force to sweep through our national community. American conservatives have a generational opportunity to become precisely this kind of force. We have a shot, if we take it, to help every single American build a better life, and unite our nation in the process.

  This is a book, to be sure, for committed conservatives who are hungry to improve our movement. But it is more than a mere political road map for one side of the aisle. I write not just for “true believers,” but also for ideologically unaligned and disaffected Americans who see little from either side that inspires them. And just as sincerely, this is a book for open-minded liberals who understand that our country would benefit from new passion and new ideas in the fight against poverty.

  In short, The Conservative Heart is a book about human flourishing for freethinkers of all stripes. It is a book for everyone who feels a moral obligation to give every American a better shot at living a happy and meaningful life.

  Chapter 1

  AMERICA’S PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS:

  Why It Is the Central Expression of the Conservative Heart

  Where does our exploration of the conservative heart start?1

  When asked how to lift people up, many—especially in Washington D.C.—turn directly to policy products: taxes, spending, or the safety net. But this is not the right starting point, not because these things don’t matter but rather because they are mere tools. Even jobs and economic growth, which we often mistake for our fundamental goals, are actually just instrumental things. We need to go much deeper to find something that speaks to us with true, intrinsic importance. Something that all of us want, and that links everyone together as people.

  Fortunately, we know where to look. America’s Founders clearly explained our nation’s moral purpose in the country’s mission statement. The Declaration of Independence defines the very center of the American experiment—the coin of the realm—as none other than the pursuit of happiness.

  In the Declaration, Thomas Jefferson insisted that this journey toward a meaningful life is as important as life and liberty. He proclaimed that it is an unalienable right for everyone. And he avowed that this right comes directly from God. Decades after he drafted the Declaration, Jefferson explained its contents as “an expression of the American mind.”2 More accurately, I believe, the pursuit of happiness was an expression of the American heart. And it must be the central expression of the conservative heart today. Why?

  First, the pursuit of happiness is being foreclosed to too many Americans due to misguided policy and a hostile culture. When conservatives complain about “big government,” for example, they are really angry about the intrusion of the state into people’s lives and the soul-crushing dependency it often creates—both of which are incompatible with the pursuit of happiness. When conservatives complain about a culture that is increasingly hostile to values like hard work and family formation, they are actually angry that the happiness that comes from those institutions is being denied to the people—the poor and young—who need them most.

  Second, to take on these challenges, we must not only be warriors for those who need us—we must be happy warriors. There is a lot to be mad about in America today, but we must never forget that our cause is a joyous one. Conservatives should be optimists who believe in people. We champion hope and opportunity. Fighting for people, helping those who need us, and saving the country—this is, and should be, happy work.

  In sum, our Founders believed that happiness was at the center of the American experiment; the pursuit of happiness eludes too many Americans today; and the conservative heart should be a happy heart.

  So happiness is where we start our journey to build better li
ves for everyone.

  THE HAPPINESS PORTFOLIO

  How happy are you, on a scale of 1 to 10? Perhaps it sounds crazy to measure it in this way, but psychologists and economists who study happiness have been doing it for years. The richest data available come from the University of Chicago’s General Social Survey, a survey of Americans conducted since 1972.

  Researchers believe these results are accurate and believable, and the numbers on happiness are surprisingly consistent over time. In surveys taken every other year for four decades, roughly one-third of Americans have said they’re “very happy.” About half report being “pretty happy.” And only about 10 to 15 percent typically say they’re “not too happy.”3

  Now, these averages conceal some interesting differences. For many years, researchers found that women were happier than men, though the gap may now be closing.4 Typically, single women are happier than single men; married women are happier than married men; and widowed women are happier than widowed men. (My wife was distressingly unsurprised by that last point.)

  It turns out that conservative women are particularly blissful: about 40 percent say they are very happy.5 That makes them slightly happier than conservative men and significantly happier than liberal women. The unhappiest are liberal men, only about one-fifth of whom consider themselves very happy.

  But as any of us can attest, two people who are almost identical on paper will not likely have identical happiness. We cannot predict our life satisfaction from how we would fill out the census. That’s where an understanding of our three crucial sources of happiness comes in.

  The first key source of happiness is our genes. In one particularly fascinating genre of research, scholars track and study the lives of identical twins who were separated as infants and raised by separate families.6 By examining these genetic carbon copies who were brought up in different environments, these “twin studies” help us disentangle nature from nurture.

  And when these studies look at the twins’ happiness, they arrive at a surprising result. Frankly, if you’re as obsessed as I am with the idea of building your own life, you might find it a little unsettling. That’s because a whopping proportion—about 48 percent—of our general sense of well-being at any given moment seems to be driven by our genetic makeup.7 When you blame unhappiness on your parents, you’re actually half right!

  The second major driver of happiness is the events that inflect our lives—the big, one-off things, good and bad. Landing your dream job, opening an acceptance letter to a great college, being left at the altar, or having a bad accident. Studies suggest that these kinds of events do control a big fraction of our happiness—up to roughly 40 percent at any given time.8

  If that 40 percent of happiness were permanent, then the secret to happiness would be clear. It would be all about—as so many self-improvement gurus teach—setting and reaching huge goals. “Think of the things that would thrill you, and strive for them!” That’s all we’d need to know.

  But that isn’t enough, because the impact of each particular event proves remarkably short-lived. Imagine this 40 percent as a moving window that extends about six months into your future. If you move to a sunny place, land a big promotion, or watch your beloved team win the World Series, you will indeed get a happiness bump. But expect it to fade—and fast. If you move to California, you’ll be happier because of the weather—for a few months. After that, you’ll mostly just get to enjoy high taxes, a crushing mortgage, and a lot of time sitting in traffic wondering why you left Cleveland.

  Now, this fact isn’t really so bad. This moving window also fuels our resilience, helping us bounce back from past trauma. In one remarkable and famous study, researchers looked at two seemingly opposite groups: lottery winners and paraplegics.9 They found that six months after winning, the lottery winners’ present happiness was, for all practical purposes, indistinguishable from a control group. What’s more, the winners reported deriving less pleasure from the mundane events of everyday life than either the control group or the accident victims. And finally, when all three groups were asked to project their future happiness, it was the paraplegics whose replies were the highest!

  You may find this incredible. You may even think, I would rather die than lose all my mobility. No, you wouldn’t. If this happened to you, eventually you would be you again. You are not the sum of your outward circumstances. That’s a beautiful and encouraging thing.

  So the news isn’t all bad. But this does impose an important limitation. It means that betting on events to make us happy is a really bad strategy. The act of striving toward huge goals is worthwhile on its own, as we’ll see. But the achievements themselves? Very few one-off accomplishments permanently boost happiness. The secret to flourishing is emphatically not grabbing the biggest brass ring you can find. Indeed, in a moment I will show that this strategy can even raise your unhappiness.

  Forty-eight percent of happiness is genetic. About 40 percent is current events. That leaves just 12 percent of our happiness left. That might not sound like much. But we can—and must—bring that 12 percent under our control.

  Nothing has illustrated this more clearly for me than how a friend of mine handled some terrible news. We were in our mid-thirties, both newly minted PhDs, when he returned from the doctor with a devastating diagnosis. He had a congenital heart defect that had no known cure at the time. He was given about fifteen years to live.

  My friend did indeed die two years ago, at age fifty. How did he spend his last decade and a half? He didn’t sit at home moping around or become depressed, though that certainly would have been understandable. Instead, he decided to fit the forty-five years he thought he had into the fifteen years he actually did have. It was the most amazing thing I had ever seen. He said, “I’m going to be a better husband, a better father, a better professor, and a better citizen.” He felt a duty to become better at everything he cared about—and fast. One day he apparently came home from work with an epiphany to share with his wife: “We’ve never been to Istanbul! It’s time to go.” And they went.

  How many of us have a place we’ve always wanted to visit with a loved one? How many of us will get around to going? Well, he did. He and his wife decided they wanted more kids—and they had them. He wrung more life out of those fifteen years than most of us find in four times that long. He seized control of his happiness.

  My friend’s situation is actually the same as all of ours. We control about 12 percent of our happiness. We’d better not waste any of it. And here’s some good news: We are in fact in control of that 12 percent. Not the government, not rich people—we are.

  And even better news is that we know how to do it. It’s about maximizing the four values that are most correlated with happiness. Call them the “happiness portfolio.” They are faith, family, community, and meaningful work. To pursue these things is to pursue happiness.

  The first three are fairly uncontroversial. Scholarly evidence that faith, family, and friendships increase happiness and meaning is as abundant as it is unsurprising. No one sighs regretfully on his deathbed and says, “I can’t believe I wasted all that time with my wife and kids,” “volunteering at the soup kitchen,” or “growing in my spirituality.” No one ever says, “I should have spent more time watching TV and playing Angry Birds on my phone.” In my own life, nothing has given my life more meaning and satisfaction than my Catholic faith and the love of my family.

  Work, though, seems less intuitive. Many people assume that even if they like their own job—whether it’s market work, volunteer work, or staying at home with kids—others probably don’t like theirs. According to popular culture, our jobs are pure drudgery. We all love to laugh at Dilbert and The Office. There are probably days when all of us can sympathize with the characters in the great 1999 comedy Office Space who ritualistically destroy their archenemy, a workplace printer, with a baseball bat.

  Yet surprisingly, when researchers actually ask Americans how they like their jobs, more than 50 perc
ent say that, all things considered, they are “completely satisfied” or “very satisfied” with their work. And when we include “fairly satisfied” the number rises to over 80 percent.10 This is not an artifact of education level or job prestige. It doesn’t matter if they went to college or not. It doesn’t matter if they make above- or below-average income. The hedge fund manager and the hedge trimmer are equally likely to say they like their work.

  And a love for work helps lead to a love for life. My own statistical analysis finds that Americans who feel they are successful at work are twice as likely to say they are very happy overall as people who don’t feel that way.11

  This isn’t about the money. True, when people are starving or struggling, having more money relieves pressure from everyday life in tangible ways. It erases painful choices, such as having to choose between paying the rent and getting enough to eat. But here’s the catch: It turns out that after those pressures are relieved, the happiness gains that more money buys level off. Once people reach a little beyond the average middle-class income level, research shows that even big financial gains don’t yield much—if any—increases in happiness.12 Indeed, focusing on money per se brings misery. (More on that in a moment.)