'Irritable Mental Gestures': Russell Kirk's Challenge to Liberalism
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How White Supremacy Returned to Mainstream Politics
GETTY CORUM IMAGES/SAMUEL How White Supremacy Returned to Mainstream Politics By Simon Clark July 2020 WWW.AMERICANPROGRESS.ORG How White Supremacy Returned to Mainstream Politics By Simon Clark July 2020 Contents 1 Introduction and summary 4 Tracing the origins of white supremacist ideas 13 How did this start, and how can it end? 16 Conclusion 17 About the author and acknowledgments 18 Endnotes Introduction and summary The United States is living through a moment of profound and positive change in attitudes toward race, with a large majority of citizens1 coming to grips with the deeply embedded historical legacy of racist structures and ideas. The recent protests and public reaction to George Floyd’s murder are a testament to many individu- als’ deep commitment to renewing the founding ideals of the republic. But there is another, more dangerous, side to this debate—one that seeks to rehabilitate toxic political notions of racial superiority, stokes fear of immigrants and minorities to inflame grievances for political ends, and attempts to build a notion of an embat- tled white majority which has to defend its power by any means necessary. These notions, once the preserve of fringe white nationalist groups, have increasingly infiltrated the mainstream of American political and cultural discussion, with poi- sonous results. For a starting point, one must look no further than President Donald Trump’s senior adviser for policy and chief speechwriter, Stephen Miller. In December 2019, the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Hatewatch published a cache of more than 900 emails2 Miller wrote to his contacts at Breitbart News before the 2016 presidential election. -
Reflections on Russell Kirk Lee Trepanier Saginaw Valley State University
Russell Kirk: A Centennial Symposium Reflections on Russell Kirk Lee Trepanier Saginaw Valley State University A century has passed since the birth of Russell Kirk (1918-94), one of the principal founders of the post-World War II conservative revival in the United States.1 This symposium examines Kirk’s legacy with a view to his understanding of constitutional law and the American Founding. But before we examine these essays, it is worth a moment to review Kirk’s life, thought, and place in American conservatism. Russell Kirk was born and raised in Michigan and obtained his B.A. in history at Michigan State University and his M.A. at Duke Univer- sity, where he studied John Randolph of Roanoke and discovered the writings of Edmund Burke.2 His book Randolph of Roanoke: A Study in Conservative Thought (1951) would endure as one of his most important LEE TREPANIER is Professor of Political Science at Saginaw Valley State University. He is also the editor of Lexington Books’ series “Politics, Literature, and Film” and of the aca- demic website VoegelinView. 1 I would like to thank the McConnell Center at the University of Louisville for sponsoring a panel related to this symposium at the 2018 American Political Science Conference and Zachary German for his constructive comments on these papers. I also would like to thank Richard Avramenko of the Center for the Study of Liberal Democracy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Saginaw Valley State University for supporting my sabbatical, which enabled me to write this article and organize this symposium for Humanitas. -
Neoconservatives Among Us? Astudy of Former Dissidents' Discourse
43 L 62 Neoconservatives Among Us? A Study of Former Dissidents’ Discourse* JENI SCHALLER Abstract: Neoconservative political thought has been characterized as “distinctly American”, but could there be fertile ground for its basic tenets in post-communist Europe? This paper takes an initial look at the acceptance of the ideas of American neo- conservative foreign policy among Czech elites who were dissidents under the communist regime. Open-ended, semi-structured interviews with eight former dissidents were con- ducted and then analyzed against a background of some fundamental features of neocon- servative foreign policy. Discourse analysis is the primary method of examination of the texts. Although a coherent discourse among Czech former dissidents cannot be said to ex- ist, certain aspects reminiscent of American neoconservative thought were found. Key words: neoconservatism, Czech dissidents, foreign policy, discourse analysis I. INTRODUCTION Neoconservatism, as a strain of political thought in the United States, has been represented as “distinctly American” and Irving Kristol, often considered the “godfather” of neoconservatism, emphatically states “[t]here is nothing like neoconservatism in Europe” (Kristol 2003: 33). Analyst Jeffrey Gedmin writes that the “environment for neoconservatism as such is an inhospitable one” in Europe, especially Germany (Gedmin 2004: 291). The states of Cen- tral Europe, in contrast to many of the established continental EU members, represent a rather more pro-American stance. With groups of former dissi- dents whose political leanings are in part informed by the American anti- communist, pro-democracy policies of the 1970s and 1980s, could there be a more hospitable environment for neoconservative ideas in a Central Euro- pean state such as the Czech Republic? The Czech dissident community was not as extensive or well-organised as that in Poland or even Hungary, largely due to the post-1968 “normalisation” in Czechoslovakia. -
Chapter One: Postwar Resentment and the Invention of Middle America 10
MIAMI UNIVERSITY The Graduate School Certificate for Approving the Dissertation We hereby approve the Dissertation of Jeffrey Christopher Bickerstaff Doctor of Philosophy ________________________________________ Timothy Melley, Director ________________________________________ C. Barry Chabot, Reader ________________________________________ Whitney Womack Smith, Reader ________________________________________ Marguerite S. Shaffer, Graduate School Representative ABSTRACT TALES FROM THE SILENT MAJORITY: CONSERVATIVE POPULISM AND THE INVENTION OF MIDDLE AMERICA by Jeffrey Christopher Bickerstaff In this dissertation I show how the conservative movement lured the white working class out of the Democratic New Deal Coalition and into the Republican Majority. I argue that this political transformation was accomplished in part by what I call the "invention" of Middle America. Using such cultural representations as mainstream print media, literature, and film, conservatives successfully exploited what came to be known as the Social Issue and constructed "Liberalism" as effeminate, impractical, and elitist. Chapter One charts the rise of conservative populism and Middle America against the backdrop of 1960s social upheaval. I stress the importance of backlash and resentment to Richard Nixon's ascendancy to the Presidency, describe strategies employed by the conservative movement to win majority status for the GOP, and explore the conflict between this goal and the will to ideological purity. In Chapter Two I read Rabbit Redux as John Updike's attempt to model the racial education of a conservative Middle American, Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, in "teach-in" scenes that reflect the conflict between the social conservative and Eastern Liberal within the author's psyche. I conclude that this conflict undermines the project and, despite laudable intentions, Updike perpetuates caricatures of the Left and hastens Middle America's rejection of Liberalism. -
Centennial Bibliography on the History of American Sociology
University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Sociology Department, Faculty Publications Sociology, Department of 2005 Centennial Bibliography On The iH story Of American Sociology Michael R. Hill [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/sociologyfacpub Part of the Family, Life Course, and Society Commons, and the Social Psychology and Interaction Commons Hill, Michael R., "Centennial Bibliography On The iH story Of American Sociology" (2005). Sociology Department, Faculty Publications. 348. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/sociologyfacpub/348 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Sociology, Department of at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Sociology Department, Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. Hill, Michael R., (Compiler). 2005. Centennial Bibliography of the History of American Sociology. Washington, DC: American Sociological Association. CENTENNIAL BIBLIOGRAPHY ON THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN SOCIOLOGY Compiled by MICHAEL R. HILL Editor, Sociological Origins In consultation with the Centennial Bibliography Committee of the American Sociological Association Section on the History of Sociology: Brian P. Conway, Michael R. Hill (co-chair), Susan Hoecker-Drysdale (ex-officio), Jack Nusan Porter (co-chair), Pamela A. Roby, Kathleen Slobin, and Roberta Spalter-Roth. © 2005 American Sociological Association Washington, DC TABLE OF CONTENTS Note: Each part is separately paginated, with the number of pages in each part as indicated below in square brackets. The total page count for the entire file is 224 pages. To navigate within the document, please use navigation arrows and the Bookmark feature provided by Adobe Acrobat Reader.® Users may search this document by utilizing the “Find” command (typically located under the “Edit” tab on the Adobe Acrobat toolbar). -
Conservatism and the Quest for Community
Conservatism and the Quest for Community William Schambra he age of obama has been an age of revival for the Progressive Tideal of a “national community.” It is a vision rooted in two core beliefs: that direct, local associations and channels of action are too often overwhelmed by the differences among communities and the fractious character of American public life; and that rather than strengthening the sources of these differences, modern government should seek to overcome them in the service of a coherent national ambition. By dis- tributing the same benefits, protections, and services to all Americans, fellow feeling and neighborliness can be fostered among the public; combined with the power of the national government and professional expertise, this communal sentiment can then become a valuable weapon for attacking America’s most pressing social problems. A century ago, this ideal was a central tenet of the Progressive agenda — which sought, as Progressive icon Herbert Croly put it in 1909, the “subordination of the individual to the demand of a dominant and constructive national purpose.” It was an important goal of the New Deal, which President Franklin Roosevelt described in 1933 as “extending to our national life the old principle of the local community.” It was the essence of the liberal agenda of the 1960s, which President Lyndon Johnson called an effort to “turn unity of interest into unity of purpose, and unity of goals into unity in the Great Society.” And it was at the core of Barack Obama’s campaign for the presidency in 2008, which promised to over- come petty differences and, as Obama put it in one campaign speech, to Wil l i a m Sch a m br a is the director of the Hudson Institute’s Bradley Center for Philanthropy and Civic Renewal. -
The Roots of Modern Conservative Thought from Burke to Kirk Edwin J
No. 19 The Roots of Modern Conservative Thought from Burke to Kirk Edwin J. Feulner, Ph.D. merica is the most successful and enduring exper- who nurtured the roots with their law and social Aiment in democracy in human history. It has sur- awareness. vived foreign invasion and terrorist attacks, world The roots intertwined with “the Christian under- wars and a civil war, a great depression and not so standing of human duties and human hopes, of man small recessions, presidential assassinations and scan- redeemed,” and were then joined by medieval custom, dals, an adversary culture and even the mass media. It learning, and valor.2 is the most powerful, prosperous, and envied nation The roots were enriched, finally, by two great exper- in the world. iments in law and liberty that occurred in London, What is the source of America’s remarkable suc- home of the British Parliament, and in Philadelphia, cess? Its abundant natural resources? Its hardworking, birthplace of the Declaration of Independence and the entrepreneurial, can-do people? Its fortuitous loca- U.S. Constitution. Kirk’s analysis thus might be called tion midway between Europe and Asia? Its resilient a tale of five cities—Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, London, national will? and Philadelphia. Why do we Americans enjoy freedom, opportunity, Much more could be said about the philosophi- and prosperity as no other people in history have? cal contributions of the Jews, the Greeks, and the In The Roots of American Order, the historian Rus- Romans to the American experience, but I will limit sell Kirk provides a persuasive answer: America is not myself to discuss the roots of modern conservative only the land of the free and the home of the brave, but thought that undergird our nation and which for a place of ordered liberty. -
Robert A. Nisbet
A public intellectual ROBERT A. NISBET Note: This presentation is based on the theories of Robert Nisbet as presented in his works. A more complete summary of his theories (as well as the theories of other macro-theorists) can be found in Macrosociology: The Study of Sociocultural Systems, by Frank W. Elwell. If you would like to receive a .pdf file of the chapter on Nisbet please write me at [email protected] and put Nisbet.pdf in the subject line. A Short Biography Robert Alexander Nisbet was born on September 30, 1913 in Los Angeles, the oldest of three boys born to Henry and Cynthia Nisbet. He began at the University of California at Berkeley in 1932. A Short Biography His association with Berkeley proved both long and fruitful. He completed his Bachelor’s degree in 1936, his M.A, in 1937, and his Ph.D. in 1939. A Short Biography Upon obtaining his Ph.D. he accepted an instructor’s position at Berkeley, subsequently rising through the ranks to full professor there in 1953. A Short Biography Nisbet served in World War II, enlisting in the Army in 1943 and serving in the Pacific eventually achieving the rank of staff sergeant. A Short Biography In 1953 he left Berkeley to become the founding dean of the College of Letters and Science at the new Riverside campus of the University of California, later becoming vice chancellor there in 1960. A Short Biography In 1963 he left academic administration, believing that “administrative work, sufficiently prolonged, has a sterilizing effect upon the creative or the scholarly mind.” A Short Biography After 30 years, Nisbet retired from the University of California in 1972, first accepting a position at the University of Arizona, and then moving on to the Albert Schweitzer Chair at Columbia University in 1974 working with Robert K. -
Download Download
http://www.ucalgary.ca/hic • ISSN 1492-7810 2010/11 • Vol. 9, No. 1 Whittaker Chambers: The Lonely Voice of Tragedy on the Postwar Right Hyrum Lewis Abstract In historical discourse, Whittaker Chambers has too easily been lumped in with other midcentury conservative anti- communists. While those on the right have held him up as a hero in the American struggle for victory against “godless communism” and those on the left see him as exemplary of the excesses and damaging overzealousness of the early Cold War, Chambers defies such simplistic categorization. His subtle, nuanced thought differed considerably from that of other conservative intellectuals of the time and drew from sources outside the standard conservative canon. Thus, this despairing existentialist became an inspiration and a model for the America Right even as he differed with those he inspired on philosophical essentials. Historians commonly remember Whittaker Chambers as the central witness in one of the most important spy cases of the twentieth century and as one of the founders and icons of conservative anti-communism. Born in 1901 and raised in a middle-class Long Island home, Chambers went off to Columbia University as a young man, but then dropped out to join the communist underground. In the late 1930s, disillusioned by Stalin’s purges and the Nazi-Soviet pact, Chambers defected from communism, underwent a religious conversion, moved to a Maryland farm, and took a job as a book reviewer, foreign affairs columnist, and senior editor at Time magazine where he became one of the leading anti-communist journalists in America. -
Andrew J. Bacevich
ANDREW J. BACEVICH Department of International Relations Boston University 154 Bay State Road Boston, Massachusetts 02215 Telephone (617) 358-0194 email: [email protected] CURRENT POSITION Boston University Professor of History and International Relations EDUCATION Princeton University, Ph.D. American Diplomatic History, 1982 Princeton University, M.A. American History, 1977 United States Military Academy, West Point, B.S., 1969 FELLOWSHIPS The American Academy in Berlin Berlin Prize Fellow, 2004 The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University Visiting Fellow of Strategic Studies, 1992-1993 The John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University National Security Fellow, 1987-1988 Council on Foreign Relations, New York International Affairs Fellow, 1984-1985 PREVIOUS APPOINTMENTS Boston University Director, Center for International Relations, 1998-2005 The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University Professorial Lecturer; Executive Director, Foreign Policy Institute, 1993-1998 School of Arts and Sciences, Johns Hopkins University Professorial Lecturer, Department of Political Science, 1995-1997 United States Military Academy, West Point Assistant Professor, Department of History, 1977-1980 1 PUBLICATIONS Books and Monographs Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War. New York: Metropolitan Books (2010); audio edition (2010). The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism. New York: Metropolitan Books (2008); audio edition (2008); Chinese and German editions (2009); Polish edition (2010); Japanese, Korean, and Turkish editions (forthcoming). The Long War: A New History of U. S. National Security Policy since World War II. New York: Columbia University Press (2007). (editor). The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War. New York: Oxford University Press (2005); History Book Club selection; 2005 Lannan Literary Award for an Especially Notable Book; Chinese edition (2008). -
Russell Kirk and the Critics by Gerald J
Russell Kirk and the Critics by Gerald J. Russello Gerald J. Russello Russell Kirk and the Critics Russell Kirk’s The Conservative Mind: From critics, the conviction grows that Kirk’s book Burke to Santayana (1953) was an unequivo- certainly warrants its status as a classic of cal challenge to Lionel Trilling’s confident conservative thought. 1950 assertion that liberalism was so domi- Some critics focused on Kirk’s alleged nant as to be the sole intellectual tradition in ignorance of the class struggle. In United America. The book unearthed a series of Nations World, Norman Thomas found thinkers who embodied a tradition opposed Kirk’s idea of a “democracy of elevation” to radicalism in all its forms—not least, wanting, because Kirk did not appreciate Kirk implied, the soft radicalism of Ameri- “socialism, the welfare state, and the in- can liberalism. The book received unex- come tax.”2 In the Western Political Quar- pectedly favorable reviews in Time and The terly, Gordon Lewis, reading Kirk “like a New York Times Book Review, transforming socialist,” complained that Kirk failed to the publication of a thick book by an ob- accept the evidence of “a growing rigidity in scure author into an intellectual event. class membership” and the emergence of Confronted with such an unexampled an American proletariat.3 (Lewis also challenge, prominent representatives of the thought Kirk did not sufficiently credit re- American liberal order responded with criti- cent sociological work demonstrating that cal counter-attacks. The New Republic pub- rationality is shaped “to a significant degree lished a review titled “The Blur of Medioc- by the sexual foundations of experience.”) rity” by Francis Biddle, who had been At- Conversely, other reviewers criticized Kirk torney General under Roosevelt and a judge precisely for his interest in class struggle: at Nuremberg. -
Group Research, Inc. Records, 1955-1996 MS# 0525 ©2007 Columbia University Library
Group Research, Inc. Records, 1955-1996 MS# 0525 ©2007 Columbia University Library This document is converted from a legacy finding aid. We provide this Internet-accessible document in the hope that users interested in this collection will find this information useful. At some point in the future, should time and funds permit, this finding aid may be updated. SUMMARY INFORMATION Creator Group Research, Inc. Title and dates Group Research, Inc. Records, 1955-1996 Abstract Founded by Wesley McCune and based in Washington DC until ceasing operations in the mid-1990s, Group Research Inc. collected materials that focus on the right-wing and span four decades. The collection contains correspondence, memos, reports, card files, audio-visual material, printed matter, clippings, etc. Size 215 linear ft. (512 document boxes; Map Case 14/16/05 and flat box #727) Call number MS# 0525 Location Columbia University Butler Library, 6th Floor Rare Book and Manuscript Library 535 West 114th Street Page 1 of 142 Group Research Records Box New York, NY 10027 Language(s) of material English History of Group Research, Inc. A successful journalist for such magazines as Newsweek, Time, Life and Changing Times as well as a staff member of several government agencies and government-related organizations, Wesley McCune founded Group Research Inc. in 1962. Based in Washington DC until ceasing operations in the mid-1990s Group Research Inc. collected materials that focus on the right--wing and span four decades. The resulting Group Research archive includes information about and by right-wing organizations and activists in the form of publications correspondence pamphlets reports newspaper Congressional Record and magazine clippings and other ephemera.