Post by aric on Feb 14, 2007 18:27:20 GMT -5
"Not Compassionate, Not Conservative"
Here's an interesting article written by someone who is a self-described conservative writing about modern ideological conservatism. It's heavily influenced by an article Consensus historian Richard Hofstadter wrote back in the 1950s when McCarthyism was running amok. I've read some of Hofstadter's material and I have to say it's as relevant now as it ever was.
The idea underlying Hofstadter's thesis as a Consensus historian was that modern ideological conservatives as represented by people like Joe McCarthy in the 1950s, Barry Goldwater in the 1960s, and much of modern conservative punditry and ideology today is that today's conservatism isn't actually conservatism in the traditional philosophical and political sense. They don't, by and large, want to preserve the way things are. Rather, they want to uproot a lot of what is established, namely economic and social progress since the late 1930s and replace it with the imagined past that they think existed but has been, in their opinions, undermined over the decades by liberalism, cosmopolitanism, or other "isms" that they fear are going to destroy their way of life. In this sense, the act of uprooting the established order isn't conservative but quite radical and, in many cases, extremist.
Fishman doesn't hit every point that Richard Hofstadter made, but he does go over most of them as it relates to the Bush administration and modern conservatism in action over the past few years. The article is a good read and a very good jumping-off point for debate.
- Aric
Here's an interesting article written by someone who is a self-described conservative writing about modern ideological conservatism. It's heavily influenced by an article Consensus historian Richard Hofstadter wrote back in the 1950s when McCarthyism was running amok. I've read some of Hofstadter's material and I have to say it's as relevant now as it ever was.
The idea underlying Hofstadter's thesis as a Consensus historian was that modern ideological conservatives as represented by people like Joe McCarthy in the 1950s, Barry Goldwater in the 1960s, and much of modern conservative punditry and ideology today is that today's conservatism isn't actually conservatism in the traditional philosophical and political sense. They don't, by and large, want to preserve the way things are. Rather, they want to uproot a lot of what is established, namely economic and social progress since the late 1930s and replace it with the imagined past that they think existed but has been, in their opinions, undermined over the decades by liberalism, cosmopolitanism, or other "isms" that they fear are going to destroy their way of life. In this sense, the act of uprooting the established order isn't conservative but quite radical and, in many cases, extremist.
Fishman doesn't hit every point that Richard Hofstadter made, but he does go over most of them as it relates to the Bush administration and modern conservatism in action over the past few years. The article is a good read and a very good jumping-off point for debate.
- Aric