Bite the Hand That Feeds You: Essays and Provocations

Henry Fairlie

Fairlie was a celebrated political columnist in England who became a celebrated political columnist in America. The hallmark of his writing is the vicious, effective attack piece. These were primarily directed at anything he perceived to be politically dishonest or destructive, or that which could impede the independence of the press. For this reason, he did not ingratiate himself to editors, hence the name of this book. The book is really a collection of republished essays and columns, which appeared in many journals and papers of note including the Observer, The Times, and The Spectator in London and The Washington Post, The New Yorker, and The New Republic in America. After being a head writer at The Times, Fairlie worked as a freelance writer, retaining his independence.

Andrew Sullivan, editor of The Atlantic, said that Fairlie "cared more about America than most Americans." This book shows that to be almost irrefutably true. As Fairlie applies his Tory politics to American issues - despite the lack of a King - he ends up with more fury for Republicans than for Democrats. While this might normally be attributed to a visceral disagreement with what he perceives as a misunderstanding of his own philosophy, Fairlie clearly states his grievances (again and again). He held that "the fundamental and persistent weakness of American conservatism is that it is not nourished by any distinct Tory spirit," meaning that he felt American conservatives were betraying their duty to tradition and order by so wholeheartedly supporting commercial interests (Harpers, 1984). Fairlie believed that the true conservative must stand against the capitalists, since the accumulation of great wealth in private hands - which is the natural conclusion of well-practiced capitalism - would necessarily undermine the authority of the government - an outcome which the true conservative should staunchly oppose. Fairlie's essays show great disconnects between his own views and those of the GOP. For instance, the essay "In Defense of Big Government" appears immediately after "A Cheer for American Imperialism." Fairlie's conservatism, then, is much different from what American Republicans practice, and so one can see how he would be so maligned by their use of his chosen self-description.

This book is particularly timely. The current talk of the "death" of the Republican party in America following the 2008 election - often issuing from relatively conservative sources - is much better understood within the context of these essays. Fairlie's arguments forecast the ways in which the Republican party might improve itself, and highlight the ways in which it has disconnected from what (he says) should be its values. In Bite the Hand That Feeds You, grievances are clear, and a picture emerges of what a Tory would envision as an appealing conservative politics in America.