Macrobius
Megaphoron
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No discussion of Southern conservatism, its history and its relationship to what is termed broadly the “American conservative movement” would be complete without an examination of events that have transpired over the past fifty or so years and the pivotal role of the powerful intellectual current known as neoconservatism.
From the 1950s into the 1980s Southerners who defended the traditions of the South, and even more so, of the Confederacy, were welcomed as allies and confreres by their Northern and Western counterparts. William F. Buckley Jr.’s National Review and Dr. Russell Kirk’s Modern Age, perhaps the two leading conservative journals of the period, welcomed Southerners into the “movement” and onto the pages of those organs of conservative thought. Kirk dedicated an entire issue of Modern Age to the South and its traditions (Fall issue, 1958), and explicitly supported its historic defense of the originalist constitutionalism of the Framers. And throughout the critical period that saw the enactment of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, Buckley’s magazine defended the “Southern position,” arguing forcefully on constitutional grounds that the proposed legislation would undercut not just the guaranteed rights of the states but also the protected rights of citizens. Southern authors like Mel Bradford, Richard Weaver, Clyde Wilson, Tom Landess, and James J. Kilpatrick lent their intelligence, skill as writers, and arguments to a defense of the South.
Yet by the 1990s, that “Southern voice” had pretty much been exiled—expelled—from major establishment conservative journals. Indeed, friendly writers from outside the South, but who were identified with what became known as the Old (or Paleo) Right, that is, the non-neoconservative “Right,” were also soon purged from the mastheads of the conservative “mainstream” organs of opinion: noted authors such as Joe Sobran (from National Review), Sam Francis (from The Washington Times), Paul Gottfried (from Modern Age) and others were soon shown the door.
Perhaps the first major example of this critical process came in early 1981, after the election of Ronald Reagan as president. Conservative Republican stalwarts Senators Jesse Helms and John East, both from North Carolina, joined by Democrat Howell Heflin of Alabama, lobbied hard for the nomination of the distinguished Southern scholar, Mel Bradford, to head the National Endowment for the Humanities. Bradford was originally tapped for the position by Reagan.
According to intellectual historian David Gordon, Reagan’s wish “to elevate [Bradford] to the prestigious post did not stem solely from Bradford’s academic credentials. The president and he were acquaintances, and he had worked hard in Reagan’s campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. Influential conservatives such as Russell Kirk and Senator Jesse Helms also knew and admired Bradford.”[1] But the selection met with strong opposition from various neoconservative writers and pundits, including syndicated columnist George Will and prominent figures like Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz, who objected strongly to Bradford’s criticisms of Abraham Lincoln. They circulated to the press and to Republican political leaders quotes from Bradford characterizing Lincoln as “a dangerous man” and “indeed almost sinister.” He was even accused of comparing Lincoln to Hitler. More, Bradford’s support for the 1972 presidential campaign of Governor George C. Wallace was brought up negatively. In the end, it was neoconservative choice, William Bennett, who was selected for the post later in 1981.[2]
What had happened? How had the movement that began with such promise in the 1950s, essentially with the publication of Kirk’s seminal volume, The Conservative Mind [1953], descended into internecine purges, excommunications, and the sometimes brutal triumph of those who only a few years earlier had shown links to the Marxist Left?
To address this question we must first examine the history of the non-Stalinist Left in the United States before and after World War II. And we need to pinpoint significant differences between neoconservatives who made the pilgrimage from the Left into the conservative movement, and those more traditional conservatives, whose basic beliefs and philosophy were at odds with those of the newcomers. As a mostly neglected but useful source of information, we might look at a long list of critical interpreters of American conservatism, starting with Richard Weaver, Russell Kirk, and Mel Bradford, and continuing through Paul Gottfried, Gary Dorrien (The Neoconservative Mind, 1993), and Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke (America Alone: The Neo-Conservatives and the Global Order, 2004). I also bring in my own experience as a witness to the transformation under discussion. That transformation saw the triumph of a pattern of thinking that went back to only partially recovered onetime adherents of certain deviationist forms of Marxist Leninism.
Rest at the Link
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No discussion of Southern conservatism, its history and its relationship to what is termed broadly the “American conservative movement” would be complete without an examination of events that have transpired over the past fifty or so years and the pivotal role of the powerful intellectual current known as neoconservatism.
From the 1950s into the 1980s Southerners who defended the traditions of the South, and even more so, of the Confederacy, were welcomed as allies and confreres by their Northern and Western counterparts. William F. Buckley Jr.’s National Review and Dr. Russell Kirk’s Modern Age, perhaps the two leading conservative journals of the period, welcomed Southerners into the “movement” and onto the pages of those organs of conservative thought. Kirk dedicated an entire issue of Modern Age to the South and its traditions (Fall issue, 1958), and explicitly supported its historic defense of the originalist constitutionalism of the Framers. And throughout the critical period that saw the enactment of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, Buckley’s magazine defended the “Southern position,” arguing forcefully on constitutional grounds that the proposed legislation would undercut not just the guaranteed rights of the states but also the protected rights of citizens. Southern authors like Mel Bradford, Richard Weaver, Clyde Wilson, Tom Landess, and James J. Kilpatrick lent their intelligence, skill as writers, and arguments to a defense of the South.
Yet by the 1990s, that “Southern voice” had pretty much been exiled—expelled—from major establishment conservative journals. Indeed, friendly writers from outside the South, but who were identified with what became known as the Old (or Paleo) Right, that is, the non-neoconservative “Right,” were also soon purged from the mastheads of the conservative “mainstream” organs of opinion: noted authors such as Joe Sobran (from National Review), Sam Francis (from The Washington Times), Paul Gottfried (from Modern Age) and others were soon shown the door.
Perhaps the first major example of this critical process came in early 1981, after the election of Ronald Reagan as president. Conservative Republican stalwarts Senators Jesse Helms and John East, both from North Carolina, joined by Democrat Howell Heflin of Alabama, lobbied hard for the nomination of the distinguished Southern scholar, Mel Bradford, to head the National Endowment for the Humanities. Bradford was originally tapped for the position by Reagan.
According to intellectual historian David Gordon, Reagan’s wish “to elevate [Bradford] to the prestigious post did not stem solely from Bradford’s academic credentials. The president and he were acquaintances, and he had worked hard in Reagan’s campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. Influential conservatives such as Russell Kirk and Senator Jesse Helms also knew and admired Bradford.”[1] But the selection met with strong opposition from various neoconservative writers and pundits, including syndicated columnist George Will and prominent figures like Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz, who objected strongly to Bradford’s criticisms of Abraham Lincoln. They circulated to the press and to Republican political leaders quotes from Bradford characterizing Lincoln as “a dangerous man” and “indeed almost sinister.” He was even accused of comparing Lincoln to Hitler. More, Bradford’s support for the 1972 presidential campaign of Governor George C. Wallace was brought up negatively. In the end, it was neoconservative choice, William Bennett, who was selected for the post later in 1981.[2]
What had happened? How had the movement that began with such promise in the 1950s, essentially with the publication of Kirk’s seminal volume, The Conservative Mind [1953], descended into internecine purges, excommunications, and the sometimes brutal triumph of those who only a few years earlier had shown links to the Marxist Left?
To address this question we must first examine the history of the non-Stalinist Left in the United States before and after World War II. And we need to pinpoint significant differences between neoconservatives who made the pilgrimage from the Left into the conservative movement, and those more traditional conservatives, whose basic beliefs and philosophy were at odds with those of the newcomers. As a mostly neglected but useful source of information, we might look at a long list of critical interpreters of American conservatism, starting with Richard Weaver, Russell Kirk, and Mel Bradford, and continuing through Paul Gottfried, Gary Dorrien (The Neoconservative Mind, 1993), and Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke (America Alone: The Neo-Conservatives and the Global Order, 2004). I also bring in my own experience as a witness to the transformation under discussion. That transformation saw the triumph of a pattern of thinking that went back to only partially recovered onetime adherents of certain deviationist forms of Marxist Leninism.
Rest at the Link
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