grimm
07-18-2004, 07:25 PM
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/17/arts/17CONS.final.html
Young Right Tries to Define Post-Buckley Future
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
Published: July 17, 2004
n 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.
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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.
Young Right Tries to Define Post-Buckley Future
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
Published: July 17, 2004
n 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.
Advertisement
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.