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Battle for the Conservative Flag
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14588 |
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BOOK WORLD
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| Issue
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5 / 1988 |
3,029 Words |
| Author
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Larry D. Nachman
Larry D. Nachman is professor of political science at the
College of Staten Island, CUNY, and is a frequent contributor
to Commentary and Salmagundi. He is completing a book on
psychoanalysis and social theory. |
THE CONSERVATIVE MOVEMENT
Paul Gottfried and Thomas Fleming
Boston: Twayne, 1988
152 pp., $ 18.95
The Conservative Movement is an attempt to survey, in a short book, the thought and political goals of American conservatives since the end of the Second World War. The authors, conservatives themselves, are particularly interested in examining the effects on conservatism, its coherence as a political theory, and its prospects as a political movement, of the swelling of its ranks in the last two decades by two groups who differ greatly from each other and from those who previously constituted conservatism: the neoconservatives and the largely Evangelical Protestants of the New Right.
The Conservative Movement reflects in both tone and substance something of the character of its subject matter. Conservatives have frequently claimed that their position reflects the real position of a majority of Americans. In the decade before the Goldwater debacle, conservatives argued that the reason a large number of Americans did not vote in elections was that the two major parties did not present them with viable alternatives. They were being asked to choose between two versions of the reigning liberalism. The slogan for the Goldwater campaign was "A choice, not an echo." It was a way for conservatives to deal with the uncomfortable fact that, in the great democratic republic, a majority of Americans persistently voted for liberal policies and liberal candidates. This theme was repeated in the later phrases, "silent majority" and "moral majority." These appeals to a hidden, rejected majority demonstrate an important fact about American conservatism which distinguishes it from its European counterparts: American conservatives, though critical of attempts to construct a social democracy, embrace whole-heartedly the principles of political democracy.
The disquiet of conservatives
And yet the evidence of their senses tells them that they are in a minority. Many of the same voters who created the large majorities that twice captured the presidency for Ronald Reagan went on to vote for liberal Democrats in congressional, state, and local elections. Moreover, in the areas in which conservative writers and thinkers lead their lives--the media and the universities--they find themselves to be not merely a minority, but an embattled minority. Intellectuals themselves, they respect the way in which thought and
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