Fusionism
was an idea championed most forcefully by Frank Meyer, the longtime literary
editor of National Review. He argued that libertarianism — then often called
“individualism” — and traditionalism are the twin pillars of conservatism and,
more broadly, of a just and free society. The chief obligation of the state is
to protect individual liberty, but the chief obligation of the individual is to
live virtuously. Coerced virtue is tyrannical: Virtue not freely chosen is not
virtuous. Or as Meyer himself put it: “Truth withers when freedom dies, however
righteous the authority that kills it; and free individualism uninformed by
moral value rots at its core and soon brings about conditions that pave the way
for surrender to tyranny.”
--Jonah
Goldberg
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