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1/ The left-conservative intellectual tradition: a thread. Feat. Daniel Bell, Nathan Glazer, Christopher Lasch, Mike Lind @GoodwinMJ @David_Goodhart @JohnBJudis @WilliamClouston @shadihamid @sullydish @Edsall @Phillip_Blond @blue_labour @Fox_Claire @PatrickDeneen @aaronsibarium
2/ In 1979, Daniel Bell, a key figure with roots in the mainly Jewish, anti-communist left & #39;New York Intellectuals& #39; of the 1930s-60s wrote of the way cultural liberalism was reshaping the political map - precisely what is happening now
3/ His critique of the & #39;New Class& #39;, ancestor of Goodhart& #39;s & #39;Anywheres& #39; and Piketty& #39;s & #39;Brahmin Left& #39; drew on that of fellow New York Intellectual Lionel Trilling, who remarked, in 1965, on the expansion of an intellectual & #39;adversary culture& #39; into universities & major institutions
4/ Bell tracked a major shift in western intellectual life, between a prewar period, when there was a strong conservative (and fascist) element among the intellectuals, to their discrediting post-1945. Conservatives were now largely gone from respectable high culture.
5/ Critics of the & #39;New Class& #39; sometimes backed the Republicans (Irving Kristol, Kevin Phillips), while most were centre-left Democrats (Daniel P Moynihan, Bell, Nathan Glazer)
6/ The left-conservative critics focused on New Class elitism, its detachment from the working-class, and its hostility to tradition. Bell, along with Peter Berger, were most concerned with religion. Nathan Glazer, along with Phillips, worried about the loss of national tradition
7/ The social conservatives were joined by Christopher Lasch in the 1970s and 80s.
Bell& #39;s letter to me in 1995 (then a PhD student at LSE lamenting his absence from LSE& #39;s Sociology syllabii) refers to a 1993 article by Russell Nieli on Lasch & Bell:
https://www.scribd.com/document/48471132/Social-Conservatives-of-the-Left-Collier-Lasch-and-Bell-Russell-Nieli">https://www.scribd.com/document/...
Bell& #39;s letter to me in 1995 (then a PhD student at LSE lamenting his absence from LSE& #39;s Sociology syllabii) refers to a 1993 article by Russell Nieli on Lasch & Bell:
https://www.scribd.com/document/48471132/Social-Conservatives-of-the-Left-Collier-Lasch-and-Bell-Russell-Nieli">https://www.scribd.com/document/...
8/ The Republican Party& #39;s embrace of religious fundamentalism, militarism and tax cuts benefiting the wealthy alienated populist intellectuals from this tradition like Kevin Phillips, as John Judis explains in this retrospective: https://carnegieendowment.org/2006/05/22/kevin-phillips-ex-populist-elite-model-pub-18360">https://carnegieendowment.org/2006/05/2...
9/ In 1995, Judis, along with Michael Lind, who founded the centrist New America think tank, wrote & #39;For a New Nationalism& #39;, arguing Clinton was aping the Republicans by endorsing free trade, and criticized his multiculturalism & affirmative action agenda https://newrepublic.com/article/104783/new-nationalism">https://newrepublic.com/article/1...
10/ Meanwhile my doctoral dissertation examiner, & #39;New York Intellectual& #39; Nathan Glazer, had emerged as a trenchant critic of both affirmative action (1975): https://www.amazon.co.uk/Affirmative-Discrimination-Ethnic-Inequality-Public/dp/0674007301
and">https://www.amazon.co.uk/Affirmati... multicultural education (1997): https://www.amazon.co.uk/We-are-All-Multiculturalists-Now/dp/0674948513/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=we+are+all+multiculturalists+now&qid=1589821523&s=books&sr=1-1">https://www.amazon.co.uk/We-are-Al...
and">https://www.amazon.co.uk/Affirmati... multicultural education (1997): https://www.amazon.co.uk/We-are-All-Multiculturalists-Now/dp/0674948513/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=we+are+all+multiculturalists+now&qid=1589821523&s=books&sr=1-1">https://www.amazon.co.uk/We-are-Al...
11/ In 1995, Glazer worried about immigration: & #39;I think one of the great yearnings of Americans today is for more stability. One thing that immigration inevitably brings is a lack of stability.& #39; Lind criticized & #39;massive immigration overburdening the institutions of assimilation& #39;
12/ In 2004, @David_Goodhart, influenced by Lind as well as Robert Putnam, wrote his pathbreaking & controversial & #39;Is Britain too Diverse& #39; essay in Prospect, the UK& #39;s leading centre-left intellectual magazine, which Goodhart founded in 1995: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/too-diverse-david-goodhart-multiculturalism-britain-immigration-globalisation">https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/...
13/ I later met Goodhart & was fortunate to have him, Glazer, Lind, Geoff Mulgan, John Patrick Diggins & Joseph Dormon to a conference I organized in London on the Legacy of the New York Intellectuals. A major theme was the left-conservative tradition: http://www.sneps.net/uploadsepk/NYI.htm">https://www.sneps.net/uploadsep...
14/ Meanwhile my LSE doctoral supervisor, the late Anthony Smith, defended the cultural value of nations. Though a liberal, he was a practicing Jew & thus never on the same wavelength as Hobsbawm or Gellner. One who knew him well is Steven Grosby, who also influenced @yhazony
15/ As globalization took hold in the 1990s, distaste for New Class detachment from the masses morphed into the Lind-Judis-Lasch critique of elites& #39; post-nationalism. As Bell noted, the adversary culture was progressing, generation-by-generation, through universities & beyond
16/ Many authors in the left-conservative tradition hark back to the Populist-Progressive era (esp. late 1880s-1920s), when social reformers sought to address problems linked to growth & inequality thru reforms, inc. slow immigration to enable assimilation & forge national unity
17/ Recent books by @David_Goodhart, Lind, @JohnBJudis, @NJ_Timothy, @GoodwinMJ @BillGalston Mark Lilla, @amychua @yhazony Yael Tamir @PatrickDeneen & others suggests that the left-conservative nationalist intellectual tradition is enjoying a major revival and efflorescence /End
