Allitt Expounds on the Why of Conservatism's Rise

More animated a presentation than the title might lead one to expect, “The Transformation of American Conservatism” was presented by Emory University History Professor Patrick Allitt as an afternoon seminar in the President’s lecture series.

Fifty people watched the powerpoint progression of philosophers and tomes that mark the evolution of American conservative thought.

Conservatism, Allitt expounded, has a “profoundly anti-utopian view of the world.”
Its base is “belief in original sin,” he said, requiring people to struggle to be virtuous, “but they will always have a will to power.” Allitt explained Conservatism holds that “conflict can never be abolished. Therefore, there will always be war.”

Allitt’s talk presented a broad overview of America’s return to conservatism on many fronts: political, economic and social among them.

From the 1930ís thru the 1960ís, Allitt said, political conservatives “complained about the degree to which the government was taking over the civilian economy” as social programs were instituted to combat the Great Depression.

Ayn Rand, for example, was a conservative philosopher and writer who believed that bureaucrats were cowards, but entrepreneurial spirit would lead to personal freedom, he said. Other schools of conservative thought held different points of view, but all were united in that era against a common enemy: communism.

“Conservatism is very contextual, it looks very different depending on what it finds threatening at the time,” Allitt explained.

As a response to the cultural changes of the sixties, and a settling of society after the upheaval and insecurities of the Great Depression, conservatism began to regain popularity and took over ground previously held by the lofty ideals of social welfare programs.

With the implementation of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society reforms, which ushered in desegregation and affirmative action, conservatives found a new common “enemy” White Southerners, who previously had voted democrat, began voting republican in retaliation to the preferences given to blacks. Conservatism, Allitt said, “believes in the reality of human inequality.”

The “social revolution” of the sixties cemented the shift, Allitt said. “The development of the hippie movement … really embodied everything that the conservatives hated.”

However, the cold war was still a factor in political thinking, and fear of communism played out in the voting booth. Nixon coined term “the silent majority” to reflect the growing conservative base of American voters.

Ronald Reagan, Allitt said, may have won the 1980 presidential election because of that fear. “Regan’s view of the cold war was that someone had to win it, and it can’t be them, so it’s got to be us.”

The Cold War’s successful end, wherein the USSR dissolved into independent republics, validated conservative thinking, Allitt said. “Karl Marx had been superannuated. What more marvelous way of proving the point than by ending the cold war?”