Atelier Amérique du Nord

Romain HURET (Lyon 2)

From the Scopes Trial to Fox News.
Is there such thing as an American Conservative Culture?

Have you read Phyllis Schlafly’s A Choice not an Echo (1964)? Do you watch the television show, The O’Reilly Factor, on FOX News? Do you listen to Rush Limbaugh’s radio show? If you don’t, this workshop is for you.

More seriously, it is well known that historians’ liberal inclinations have to some extent blinded them from studying right-wing movements^¹. Conservatism was seen as part of a traditional, backward America, a country full of religious people, fanatic John Birchers and credulous ordinary people. In the collective book, The New American Right, edited in 1955 by Daniel Bell, the political culture of conservatism was analysed in the same way than Bob Dylan described John Birchers in his song Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues: a kind of clinical disturbance and paranoiac behavior^²! Historians and political scientists used a psychological paradigm to explain the right-wing ideology. Yet, since the 1990s, many books, written by a generation of young historians who didn’t live through the 1960s, have prompted a revaluation of this dismissive movement^³.

Today, the workshop on conservatives’ culture is part of this new historiographical trend. Together with Jean Kempf and Vincent Michelot, we thought of it as a way to take seriously the culture of conservatives. Over the last ten years, social scientists have clearly outlined the fact that the ideas of conservatives constitute a core constituency. As the sociologist Jennifer Klatch argues in her study of a generation of conservatives, who were members of Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) in the 1960s, conservatives have a political culture of their own^⁴. To prove that point, Katch quotes Kathy Rothschild, a conservative woman, who was a member of YAF in the 1960s:

“ I never dated Democrats. I never even dated liberals. Why waste time? Who wants to fights about politics at home? I could never understand how anybody could marry anybody [that different], because marriage is such a commitment of mind and heart. I love politics so much and I’m so vocal. When I watch the news, I stand there and I say, “You idiot! How could you say anything like that”….Because I’m just into it all the time…So no man who is a liberal could stand me. It’s not me standing him; it’s him standing me”^⁵.

Our two guests will present two aspects of this culture: David O’Brien is going to focus on the legal culture of conservatives; Aurélie Godet in more interested with the intellectual world-view of the most famous conservative intellectual in the post-1945 period Irving Kristol. Their presentation demonstrates the vitality of studies on conservatism, both in the United States and in France. If I may express a regret, anyway, it also shows that social scientists prefer to study the highbrow culture of conservatives. One should not forget the vivid popular culture of conservatives: movies, radios, talk shows, magazines also describe a specific view of the world and strongly propel forward the grassroots mobilization of conservatives. But let me warmly thank our two guests for being with us today. Soon we can expect a larger shelf of books on the conservatives’ culture, focusing on both highbrow and lowbrow culture.

NOTES :

1 See Jennifer Burns, "In Retrospect: George Nash's The Conservative Intellectual Movement", Reviews in American History, vol. 32, n° 3, 2004, p. 447-462.

2 Daniel Bell, ed., The New American Right, New York, Criterion Books, 1955.

3 See Kevin Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2005, Kenneth D. Durr, Behind the Backlash: White Working-Class Politics in Baltimore 1940-1980, Chapell Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 2003 et Robert Self, American Babylon: Race and the Struggle For Post-War Oakland, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2005.

4 Rebecca E. Klatch, A Generation Divided: The New Left, the New Right and the 1960s, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1999

5 ibid., p. 297.

	Pages de Jean Kempf — Université Lumière - Lyon 2 — Département d'études du monde anglophone
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	Romain HURET (Lyon 2) From the Scopes Trial to Fox News. Is there such thing as an American Conservative Culture? Elements of bibliography Have you read Phyllis Schlafly’s A Choice not an Echo (1964)? Do you watch the television show, The O’Reilly Factor, on FOX News? Do you listen to Rush Limbaugh’s radio show? If you don’t, this workshop is for you. More seriously, it is well known that historians’ liberal inclinations have to some extent blinded them from studying right-wing movements^¹. Conservatism was seen as part of a traditional, backward America, a country full of religious people, fanatic John Birchers and credulous ordinary people. In the collective book, The New American Right, edited in 1955 by Daniel Bell, the political culture of conservatism was analysed in the same way than Bob Dylan described John Birchers in his song Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues: a kind of clinical disturbance and paranoiac behavior^²! Historians and political scientists used a psychological paradigm to explain the right-wing ideology. Yet, since the 1990s, many books, written by a generation of young historians who didn’t live through the 1960s, have prompted a revaluation of this dismissive movement^³. Today, the workshop on conservatives’ culture is part of this new historiographical trend. Together with Jean Kempf and Vincent Michelot, we thought of it as a way to take seriously the culture of conservatives. Over the last ten years, social scientists have clearly outlined the fact that the ideas of conservatives constitute a core constituency. As the sociologist Jennifer Klatch argues in her study of a generation of conservatives, who were members of Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) in the 1960s, conservatives have a political culture of their own^⁴. To prove that point, Katch quotes Kathy Rothschild, a conservative woman, who was a member of YAF in the 1960s: “ I never dated Democrats. I never even dated liberals. Why waste time? Who wants to fights about politics at home? I could never understand how anybody could marry anybody [that different], because marriage is such a commitment of mind and heart. I love politics so much and I’m so vocal. When I watch the news, I stand there and I say, “You idiot! How could you say anything like that”….Because I’m just into it all the time…So no man who is a liberal could stand me. It’s not me standing him; it’s him standing me”^⁵. Our two guests will present two aspects of this culture: David O’Brien is going to focus on the legal culture of conservatives; Aurélie Godet in more interested with the intellectual world-view of the most famous conservative intellectual in the post-1945 period Irving Kristol. Their presentation demonstrates the vitality of studies on conservatism, both in the United States and in France. If I may express a regret, anyway, it also shows that social scientists prefer to study the highbrow culture of conservatives. One should not forget the vivid popular culture of conservatives: movies, radios, talk shows, magazines also describe a specific view of the world and strongly propel forward the grassroots mobilization of conservatives. But let me warmly thank our two guests for being with us today. Soon we can expect a larger shelf of books on the conservatives’ culture, focusing on both highbrow and lowbrow culture. NOTES : 1 See Jennifer Burns, "In Retrospect: George Nash's The Conservative Intellectual Movement", Reviews in American History, vol. 32, n° 3, 2004, p. 447-462. 2 Daniel Bell, ed., The New American Right, New York, Criterion Books, 1955. 3 See Kevin Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2005, Kenneth D. Durr, Behind the Backlash: White Working-Class Politics in Baltimore 1940-1980, Chapell Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 2003 et Robert Self, American Babylon: Race and the Struggle For Post-War Oakland, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2005. 4 Rebecca E. Klatch, A Generation Divided: The New Left, the New Right and the 1960s, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1999 5 ibid., p. 297.
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