Kevin Moloney for The New York Times
Austin Bramwell, 26, of Denver,
one of five new trustees of
National Review, is a leader in a
group no longer characterized by
uniform views.
Posted on 07/17/2004 7:40:06 AM PDT by Pharmboy
Kevin Moloney for The New York Times
Austin Bramwell, 26, of Denver,
one of five new trustees of
National Review, is a leader in a
group no longer characterized by
uniform views.
In 1954, when he was 28, William F. Buckley Jr. founded National Review to bear the standard of a fledgling conservative movement defined by three commitments: to fight Communism, to diminish the federal government and to uphold traditionalism in social affairs.
That formulation held the movement together for five decades, as Ronald Reagan brought conservatives to power, George H. W. Bush declared victory in the cold war and Bill Clinton pronounced the end of big government.
Now, many conservatives say, the current Bush administration is testing that definition of conservatism as it has never been tested before, from the expansion of federal health and education programs to the campaign to remake Iraq. And as Mr. Buckley prepares for retirement by handing over control of National Review, a new generation of young would-be Buckleys is debating just what conservatism means when their side has taken over Washington, and yet they still do not feel that they have won.
"Conservative is a word that is almost meaningless these days," said Caleb Stegall, 32, a lawyer in Topeka, Kan., and a founder of The New Pantagruel, newpantagruel.com, an irreverent Web site about religion and politics named for the jovial drunkard created by Rabelais. "It tells you almost nothing about where a person stands on a lot of questions," he said, like gay marriage, stem cell research, the environment and Iraq.
The debate among members of the young right is unfolding on Web sites like Mr. Stegall's and Oxblog, oxblog .blogspot.com, set up by three Rhodes Scholars. It is discussed at roundtables and cocktail parties organized by groups like America's Future Foundation in Washington. In journals for young conservatives, they tackle subjects as heterodox as the perils of Wal-Mart and urban sprawl, the dangers of unfettered capitalism to family life, and the feared takeover of their movement by hawkish neoconservatives.
In May the Philadelphia Society, a prestigious club for conservative intellectuals, tapped Sarah Bramwell, a 24-year-old Yale graduate and writer, to address the views of the young right at its 40th-anniversary conference. "Modern American conservatism began in an effort to do two things: defeat Communism and roll back creeping socialism," she began. "The first was obviated by our success, the latter by our failure. So what is left of conservatism?"
Rearing new conservatives has long been a subject of keen interest to their elders. To counter what they considered the liberal dominance of the major universities and news organizations, a handful of conservative foundations has helped build a network of organizations to train young members of the movement, most prominently the 51-year-old Intercollegiate Studies Institute. It publishes journals and books, sponsors fellowships and administers a network of 80 conservative college newspapers.
"I think one of the principal, even signal, features of the conservative movement is its overriding concern for nurturing young people," said Jeff Nelson, 39, the institute's vice president for publications.
Mr. Buckley recently chose Sarah Bramwell's husband, Austin Bramwell, 26, as one of five trustees of National Review. Mr. Bramwell, a clerk for the federal appeals court in Denver and an alumnus of the institute's programs, declined to comment because of his job at the court.
Mr. Nelson said young conservatives' greatest challenge might come from their predecessors' success. "Buckley started the conservative movement athwart history, yelling `stop,' " he said, "but there has been a subtle shift in the conservative movement's view of itself, from history's opponents to destiny's child."
"We have a lot of conservatives who reflect the values of the mainstream culture," he continued. "There are polls that show younger-generation conservatives trust the government much more deeply than their parents did."
The increase in federal domestic spending under President Bush would have been "unimaginable" to conservatives a few years ago, he said, and so would foreign policies like the invasion of Iraq.
Doubts about the justification for the war are a common theme among young conservatives. "Many conservatives, especially since Sept. 11, believe that a major, if not the major, calling of conservatives today is to articulate and defend a certain brand of international grand strategy," Ms. Bramwell argued in her address to the Philadelphia Society. "I believe this view to be not only mistaken, but quite possibly harmful to the conservative movement."
Still, Ms. Bramwell, who now works as deputy press secretary for Gov. Bill Owens of Colorado, said in an interview that she nonetheless supported the war in Iraq as a chance to advance United States interests in the Middle East.
Daniel McCarthy, 26, an assistant editor at The American Conservative, the magazine founded by Pat Buchanan, said that although many of his contemporaries questioned the war, few were willing to turn against the president, as he had.
"I say we have to go back to before the conservative movement became a movement," he said, "back to when it was just a few tormented intellectuals who didn't necessarily see themselves as a coherent group, and even to the so-called isolationist and noninterventionist right. America is a nation state. It is not meant to be a sort of world government in embryo, not meant to be a last provider of justice or security for the entire world."
But some young conservatives argue that the United States may need to become more active, not less. Eric Cohen, 26, is the director of the biotechnology and American democracy program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington; the editor of its journal, New Atlantis; a consultant to the President's Council on Bioethics; and a contributor to The Weekly Standard.
In an interview, he argued that conservatives needed to accept an active role for government in dealing with advancing technology, whether in the form of terrorists' weapons abroad or attempts to change the nature of life at home. "The conservative project is making the case for progress abroad while confronting the dilemmas of progress at home," he said.
Mr. Cohen defended the Bush administration's preventive intervention in the Middle East as well as its limitations on federal financing for stem cell research.
"Medical progress is going to keep people alive longer than they would have been," he said. "I think prudent conservatives are going to have to find some responsible way to have sensible government to deal with the needs of aging generations. We have seen a version of this in the prescription drug bill, and there are going to be other obligations."
Mr. Stegall, an evangelical Presbyterian and the son of a minister, said he shared Mr. Cohen's support for government social programs, but for religious reasons. He said he and other theological conservatives had founded The New Pantagruel as an alternative to the politics of the older generation of Christian conservatives.
"If I could sum up what we stand for in one word, it would be sustainability," he said. By that, he explained, he meant theologically conservative views on sustaining family life, as well as typically liberal views on sustaining the environment and local communities and helping the poor. "For us, those two halves are inextricably linked," he said.
But several conservatives, young and old, said the greatest division in the movement pitted young traditionalists against their more libertarian peers. David Weigel, 22, the former editor of a conservative magazine at Northwestern University, a contributor to the libertarian magazine Reason and an intern at the editorial page of USA Today, said that last spring his college paper had trouble finding any conservatives on campus who supported amending the constitution to ban same-sex marriage.
He contended that even young conservatives who maintained a strict moral code for themselves were increasingly reluctant to regulate the behavior of others. "I am personally abstinent," he said, "and I plan to stay that way, but I have no problem with international aid programs that use or distribute condoms."
Ramesh Ponnuru, 29, a prolific writer for National Review, complained that the Republican party had been focusing on social issues because limited government did not have as big "a political payoff."
"There is a serious possibility that the libertarian wing of the conservative movement goes off in its own direction, either breaking off or allying with the Democrats," he said.
Mr. Buckley, however, said he was unperturbed. "The sweep of the Soviet challenge was what I call a harnessing bias, and now that harness has come apart," he said. "But I don't think the threads are by any means abandoned." He added: "There has never been a movement that doesn't go through this perplexion and development."
Thought you Freepers would like to see this.
He contended that even young conservatives who maintained a strict moral code for themselves were increasingly reluctant to regulate the behavior of others. "I am personally abstinent," he said, "and I plan to stay that way, but I have no problem with international aid programs that use or distribute condoms."
So the latest thing in conservatives is the "personally opposed but" crowd? Maybe today's young people are so indoctrinated in individualism and relativism that they no longer even think about the quality of the larger society in which they will have to raise their children. But maybe this is just wishful thinking on the part of the NYTimes crowd. I certainly hope so.
Oh yes it does. Conservatives are against gay marriage. Conservatives are against fetal stem cell reseach. Conservatives are for sensible protections of the enviroment. And Conservatives strongly support the war on terror.
As a young conservative myself, inspired by William F. Buckley Jr., I really don't think the movement is as disjointed and 'confused' as this article would try to describe it.
Conservativism has a definition, and true young conservatives know and support that definition.
If conservatism is dying it is simply because there is nothing left to save.
I always find it amazing that any story good-to-neutral story about our side that they publish is almost always printed on Saturday, the day of lowest circulation.
So Buckley retires and the NYT immediately looks under rocks to find no-name twenty-something Libertarians to crown as heir-apparents? No mention of the mass of time-tested conservative banner-carriers out there.
But, to give them the benefit of the doubt, they did define it in the headline as "young right." I think it's amazing that they even acknowledge that there IS a young right.
Thanks for posting. I'm bookmarking this one.
I work in the stockmarket and almost all the young people joining our firm are conservative ... and most vote Republican.
It's hard to find a liberal among them ... and this is here in Los Angeles. Another field would yield different results no doubt ... but there are lots of young conservatives.
I agree...your observation is also borne out by the fact that both Jews and African Americans under 30 are much more Republican than their parents.
Could somebody tell the member of the "young right" that he'd look more professional if he didn't dress like a 70s game show host? Yikes!
For your information, plaid blazers are making a comeback!
Mark my words!
You first.
I can live with the jacket. But I can't forgive the John Edwards haircut! ;-)
I had the same thought. Does being a conservative have to be associated with looking like a complete dork (bow ties, plaid blazers)?
I don't wear any article of clothing that can't be purchased at either The Salvation Army or Urban Outfitters.
(Sheds a solitary tear.)
Why do you have to be so cruel?(!)
"Indoctrinated in individualism"?
I hear Limbaugh and Boortz tell us it's the liberals' HATRED of individualism, that's part of the problem, and if Ted Kennedy says individualism is evil, then it must be the opposite, and when the Hildabeast growls out the words "it takes a village", that just further bolsters the idea that the individuality is crucial to our survival.
What's the context of your statement? I'm curious.
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