WHENCE THE NEW CONSERVATIVES?
Steinfels, Peter
WHERE WILL the new conserva- deed, it provided a "neutral" explana- tives go? That is one of...
...The tives thus embarked on a sort of tration of Richard Nixon, to whom new conservatives, it should be noted, scorched earth campaign to lay low certain new conservatives like Kris- never clearly disavowed the Great all the errors which they imagined tol and Moynihan had hitched their Society programs as a whole...
...One novel develop- benevolent contemplation of the past...
...First, larized Ryder's findings as a general analysis money can buy...
...Norman Podhoretz, who to which could be attributed many of which has just been shot from bedescribed himself as a socialist but the social tensions surrounding crime, neath them...
...One possibility lies in (quietly) supported Nixon...
...Ho-hum...
...12 April 1974: 126...
...The main organs for this cam- assessment of their priorities...
...They included baby boom...
...Daniel Moynihan posing of impressive sums to obtain Three things have affected the po- and James Q. Wilson quickly popu- the best (mildly conservative) social sition of the new conservatives...
...The had produced what James Q. Wilson stars, seems to have jogged at least bulk of their commentary, however, more recently called the "Sick Six- some of these individuals into a re- was directed to a critique of major ties...
...yet cial policy in the next several years...
...way foreign policy, but the liberal and it must ultimately have become a bit Another sign of the times is the radical theories and movements which boring...
...That is one of the WHENCE tion for the 1960s...
...pointed out that the 1960s witnessed have expected...
...CONSERVATIVES...
...WHERE WILL the new conserva- deed, it provided a "neutral" explanatives go...
...In a monograph for the Na- one of successes mixed with failures...
...To outsiders the fixa- moment in their political career: in- fading quarrel with the '60s...
...We can face the future with a was not racism, poverty, or a runa- to the new conservatives themselves clean slate...
...They had (and they seem to be as yet unes- one can be sure they are shrewdly probably been in decline even before tablished), its swift retailing suggests preparing for 1976...
...It backed away more interesting, and more signifi- from blaming the intellectual "crisiscant, questions for the making of so- THE NEW mongers" for that era's troubles...
...The recent issue predictable journals...
...Now, however, the "inva- Commission on Critical Choices, disdent...
...it did not point to major failings of By the new conservatives I mean the society either...
...and, although Watergate completed: any spiritual of The Public Interest is significant, Michael Novak might not have the connection with such an Administra- then, not only for the valuable analynew conservatives in mind when he tion was now an extreme embarrass- ses it provides of particular Great writes, with his normal precision, ment to the new conservatives...
...The new conserva- social policy of the second Adminis- dation) on "The Great Society...
...Society undertakings, but as a mildly of "our Lords Spiritual of Opinion," So what now...
...and Irv- drug use, riots, student rebellion, the Presidential ambitions of Nelson ing Kristol, who described himself youth unemployment, anti-war agita- Rockefeller...
...And elements in those programs, and of paign were Commentary and The third, what the second Nixon Ad- the groups and policies which were Public Interest, excellent if somewhat ministration's budget cuts began, identified with them...
...never before in the cen- reoccupying middle ground, in what Nathan Glazer, who described him- tury had American society been direction will they move next...
...and the new conservatives will stick with movement, and other objects of their theory echoed through the media...
...Kristol, Moynihan and as neither conservative nor liberal but tion, and the explosion of "youth Glazer are all toiling for Rockefeller's (outspokenly) supported the Presi- culture...
...foundation money, and government tional Commission on Youth, Prince- . . . In other words, it turned out officialdom-and was correspondingly ton demographer Norman B. Ryder about as any sensible person should influential...
...In parself as a "mild conservative" but forced to accommodate such a cphort ticular, what political vehicle will they (somewhat halfheartedly) supported of young people-an "invading army," find to replace the Administration McGovern...
...What went wrong those intellectual leaders and their PETER STEINFELS was almost in the category of an followers who decided, in the face of tion on such phantom enemies must "act of God"-a flood, hailstorm, a the turmoil of the late '60s, that the necessarily have grown less and less landslide, once devastating but now number one problem for the nation credible, and one might suppose that past...
...Whether the the student Left, the black power explanation of recent events...
...Rocky or merely use his fortune to animosity were symbolically buried Whatever the merits of this theory write a platform for Senator Jackson, by the McGovern defeat...
...The new conservatives have always the "coming of age" of the postwar If the new conservatives are thus been a curious group...
...sion" has passed...
...recent special issue of The Public had emerged to explain and alter Second, the frankly reactionary Interest (supported by the Ford Founthese conditions...
...The important the new conservatives, charging that it had some particular attraction question remains: what positive prothrough an opened door, launched for the new conservatives at this gram will they offer, beyond their their attack...
...this group was nonetheless quite well- ment has taken place in the realm of "The record of the Great Society is connected to various publications, theory...
Vol. 100 • April 1974 • No. 6
