Money Saving and Frugal Living Blog: May 2011

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Liberalism, Conservatism and the American Politics since the World War II

Allen J. Matusow, The Unraveling of America: A History of Liberalism in the 1960s (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1984)

Jonathan M. Schoenwald, A Time for Choosing: The Rise of Modern American Conservatism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001)

In the second half of the 20^th century, liberalism and conservatism became two dominant political ideologies in American politics. In the early 1960s, liberalism dominated American political ideologies. However, it was in retreat in the late 1960s. But why was liberalism retreated? Focusing on historical topics like anticommunism, civil rights, Great Society programs and the counterculture, in The Unraveling of America: A History of Liberalism in the 1960s, Allen J. Matusow discusses the rise and fall of American liberalism and its impact on Americans in the turbulent 1960s. Unlike Matusow, in A Time for Choosing: The Rise of Modern American Conservatism, Jonathan M. Schoenwald attempts to answer these questions: why conservatism became a dominant ideology in American politics in the 1980s? And how did it evolve since the World War II? In his book, he mainly explores the John Birch Society, the case of General Edwin A. Walker, as well as politicians Barry Goldwater, William F. Buckley and Ronald Reagan and their political activities, and examines how the modern American conservatism rose in American history since the World War II. In this paper, taking these two books together, I am going to compare their approaches, arguments and their contribution in helping us to understand American politics.

To understand the history of American liberalism in the 1960s, Matusow examines the birth of liberalism at that time. In The End of Reform: New Deal Liberalism in Recession and War, Alan Brinkley believes that there are four types of liberalism in American history, the laissez-faire liberalism, reform liberalism, New Deal liberalism and rights-based liberalism.[1] Disagreeing with Brinkley’s classification of American liberalism, Matusow thinks that the American liberalism in the 1960s was a little different. Matusow points out that “with the 1960 presidential campaign a new age of liberal reform was dawning.”[2] Moreover, he assumes that “the liberal moon of 1960 was largely defined by elite intellectuals residing on the East Coast, principally in New York City and Cambridge, Massachusetts. Constituting an intense subculture at the center of the nation’s communication network, these intellectuals — nearly all of them liberals — shared a world view that profoundly influenced the political climate in this election year.”[3] But what were claims of the American liberals in the 1960s? According to Matusow, they “strongly advocated increased economic aid to strengthen progressive non-Communist regimes in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. Better weapons and more aid would, of course, cost more money — money currently squandered on hair dryers, deodorants, and motorboats.”[4] It was easy for liberals to propose their claims. However, without the help of American government, it was impossible for them to achieve their goals. Based on their claims, “Kennedy appealed for votes using the issues developed by the intellectuals in the late 1950s. They saw complacency, lethargy, imminent decline and decay. So did he. They called for national sacrifice, for energetic executive leadership, for the will to repel Communism abroad and repair the public sector at home.”[5] When Kennedy successfully became the President of the United States, he “acquired a political identity, gave contour and content to his candidacy, and invested his campaign with a sense of historical purpose.”[6] Therefore, Matusow argues that American liberalism should be understood in terms of the liberal intellectuals and the liberal governments in the 1960s.

Comparing with Matusow, Schoenwald explores the birth of modern American conservatism in terms of anticommunism. In the first chapter, he discusses how American intellectuals defined conservatism in the 1950s. He firstly mentions the “pseudo-conservatism” proposed by historian Richard Hosftadter. Hofstadter examined the growing discontent with liberalism and the legacies of the New Deal and the appearance of pseudo-conservatism in the 1950s. Moreover, he analyzes the reasons why pseudoconservatism was not appeared until the 1950s. Then he considers Raymond Moley, Russell Kirk, Robert Nisbet, Whittaker Chambers, James Burnham, Albert Wedemeyer and other intellectuals in defining conservatism. He points out that “although conservatives did not create a new activist agenda and formed few significant organizations designed to influence the Republican Party, they did start building a system based on public gatherings built around a combination of intellectual exercises and shared knowledge of the ambient popular culture, creating, in effect, a nascent conservative political culture.”[7] Moreover, according to Schoenwald, “Burham became a contender against Kennan, Kirk against Louis Hartz, Buckley against Lionel Trilling (eventually), Chambers against Alger Hiss, and Moley against Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., meant that these alternatives to the status quo were beginning to be seen as legitimate alternatives.”[8] Although these intellectuals disagreed with each other on defining the meaning of conservatism, “anticommunism sparked the birth of the postwar conservative movement” and they all contributed a lot in finding conservatism as an alternative political ideology to liberalism after the World War II.

To understand liberalism, Matusow discusses three phases for the evolvement of liberalism in the 1960s. In the first part, Matusow considered Kennedy who adopted liberal positions for pragmatic reasons. Although Kennedy support for liberal reforms, he was reluctant to support the Civil Rights movement. Shortly before his death, Kennedy supported the Civil Rights Act and an anti-poverty legislation designated to wipe out unemployment based on Keynesian economics. In the second part, Matusow discussed the economic inflation caused by Keynesian economics and the Vietnam War trammeled support for liberal policy towards poverty and how Kennedy government dealt with these issues during Johnson’s presidency. Finally, Matusow argued that the radicalism ultimately played a significant part in unraveling liberalism. Confronting stark realities of American poverty and racism, and condemning American imperialism, the New Left charged that liberals were fighting a phony war on poverty, and were uncommitted to real racial reform. This effectively pushed mainstream liberalism to the left, weakening the capacity of corporate liberals and moderate liberals such as LBJ to shape liberal policy. When Richard Nixon was elected as the President, it symbolized the failure of liberalism.

In contrast to Matusow, Schoenwald analyzes the two branches of conservatism after World War II, although they challenged each other for control of what would eventually be a political and social movement. He claims that conservatives initially created two distinct but overlapping movement cultures in the 1950s. One was the mainstream or electoral conservatism, which “advocated the development of party and electoral solutions to the problem of liberalism, while the other looked to private organizations to initiate the changes its members thought necessary to reform America. The latter, furthermore, relied heavily on the work of extremists, who believed it imperative to use not only electoral politics but also methods that invited confrontation with the ‘enemy.’”[9] Through discussing case studies, like the John Birch Society, General Edwin A. Walker, Barry Goldwater, Buckley and Ronald Reagon, Schoenwald examines their significance in the history of American conservatism and discusses how the American conservatism evolved along these two lines.

Both Matusow and Schoenwald approach their topics in a synthetic way, although the first pays attention to liberalism, while the second mainly discusses the conservatism. Matusow provides a lucid and engaging account of the social and political developments of the 1960s, which is very helpful for us to understand the American politics, as well as the rise and fall of liberalism at that time. His book is so thick and he discusses many political issues in detail. But if he could write it concisely, I think, that will be much better. Moreover, Matusow has found some primary sources, but he relies on secondary sources too much. Unlike Matusow, Schoenwald went to J. F. Kennedy Presidential Library, Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library, Library of Congress and other libraries for original archives, with which he exposed more inside political information to us. Approaching conservatism with so many original archives, he makes his book rather convincing and original. Meanwhile, focusing on some representatives of American conservatives and their contributions to the rise of the conservatism after the World War II, he makes his book rather concise and clear. Although their topics are totally different, they are complementary in helping us to understand the American politics after the World War II.

[1] Alan Brinkley, The End of Reform: New Deal Liberalism in Recession and War (New York: Vintage Books, 1996)

[2] Allen J. Matusow, The Unraveling of America: A History of Liberalism in the 1960s (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1984), 3.

[3] Matusow, ibid., 3-4.

[4] Matusow, ibid., 11.

[5] Matusow, ibid., 17.

[6] Matusow, ibid., 29.

[7] Jonathan M. Schoenwald, A Time for Choosing: The Rise of Modern American Conservatism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 27.

[8] Schoenwald, ibid., 33

[9] Jonathan M. Schoenwald, A Time for Choosing: The Rise of Modern American Conservatism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 6.

A New Reinterpretation of Early American History

A New Reinterpretation of Early American History

In the field of American environmental history, historians prefer to do local history rather than synthetic history. When Cronon was doing his research on environmental history, taking Island County, Washington as a case study, his Lands on the Use did a good job in exploring local history. Following him, local history becomes popular in the field of American environmental history. However, illuminated by Crosby, Diamond and McNeil, colonial American historians attempt to reinterpret early American history in a synthetic way. For Virginia Anderson, she examines how significant of the domestic animals were in shaping the relationships between Native Americans and colonists, which greatly revised the historical writing of early American history.

Adopting the perspective of Columbian Exchange in early American history, Anderson examines the cultural conflicts between Native Americans and the colonial Americans. Anderson presumes how colonial Americans were different from Native Americans in understanding animals, property and husbandry. In doing so, Anderson finds a granite monument in the town of Duxbury, Massachusetts, on which “site of nook gate. Here a palisade was erected across the nook in 1634. This palisade was a high fence to prevent cattle from straying and probably to keep the Indians out” were engraved on it.[1] According to this palisade, Anderson assumes the differences of domesticating animals between Native Americans and colonial Americans, as well as their understanding of property were the core for understanding early American history. Then Anderson explains the cultural differences between Native Americans and colonial Americans. Colonial Americans in the 17^th century wanted to construct their own fence to keep the Indians out and prevent cattle from straying, while Native Americans were accustomed to stray their cattle and did not like to set fence to protect their own ownerships. The British colonists in North America were interested in domesticating animals, while Native Americans preferred to hunt. For colonial Americans, taming a wild animal could help them to have their ownership of the animals. While for Native Americans, they actually did not have consciousness to ownership and property. Due to these cultural differences on treating livestock and animals, as well as their understanding of ownership, Native Americans and colonial Americans were in conflict with each other on settling with animals, which finally caused the King Philip’s War and the Pequot War. Finally, Native Americans were forced to the west. For Anderson, the history of colonization of Europeans in North America was the history of Native Americans who were forced to the west due to these cultural differences.[2]

Through examining these topics in early American history, Anderson attempts to make a grand synthesis in reinterpreting early American history. She was ambitious and her interpretations were rather challenging. Revisiting the cultural misunderstanding between Native Americans and colonists, she helps us to understand early American history in a new way. However, it seems that she goes so far away that her new explanations are not very convincing. It is undeniable a fact that there were cultural misunderstandings between Native Americans and British colonists in North America. However, she should not assume all the political affairs, as well as the wars between Native Americans and colonists were all caused due to their different understanding of livestock and property. After all, human beings also played important roles in it. Ignoring the significance of human agency, her great synthesis in reinterpreting early American history is rather unconvincing.

As we can see, the Columbian Exchange has been gradually accepted by early American historians in the past forty years. Unlike traditional narratives which mainly focus on nation-state, political elites, colonization, capitalism, the environmental turn in early American history asks historians to pay more attention to the exchanges of plants, diseases, livestock, etc., and their impacts on colonists, as well as Native Americans. Following this tendency, more and more historians start to apply an ecological perspective to approach their themes. However, it does not mean that historians should underestimate the significance of traditional interpretations. Rather than compete for the dominant paradigm in early American history, the environmental turn in early American history is complimentary with them. Since the perspective of Columbian Exchange was brought into early American history, it provided historians a new lens to explain early American history, asked historians to explore new territories and reflect the traditional historical writing of early American history. Although historians have made great progress in interpreting early American history, it is a field which is still in need of further explorations.

[1] Virginia Dejohn Anderson, Creatures of Empire: How Domestic Animals Transformed Early America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 2.

[2] Also see Virginia DeJohn Anderson, “Animals into the Wilderness: The Development of Livestock Husbandry in the Seventeenth-Century Chesapeake,” The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 59, No. 2 (Apr., 2002), 377-408, “King Philip's Herds: Indians, Colonists, and the Problem of Livestock in Early New England,” The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 51, No. 4 (Oct., 1994), 601-624.

“Virgil Soil Epidemics” and the Depopulation of Native Americans in North America

“Virgil Soil Epidemics” and the Depopulation of Native Americans in North America

When European colonists arrived at North America, they also brought European diseases to the New World, which caused the reduction of the population of Native Americans. But why Europeans conquered America so easily? And why the depopulation of American Indians occurred during the first hundred years of contact with the Europeans and Africans? Crosby believed that the epidemic diseases exchanged between Europeans and Native Americans played very important role in it. According to him, “migration of man and his maladies is the chief cause of epidemics. And when migration takes place, those creatures who have been longest in isolation suffer most, for their genetic material has been least tempered by the variety of world diseases.”[1] Moreover, he pointed out the greatest killer for the depopulation of the Native Americans since the Columbian Exchange could be explained in terms of “Virgin Soil epidemics.”[2] To support his arguments, he defined the “Virgin Soil epidemics are those in which the populations at risk have had no previous contact with the diseases that strike them and are therefore immunologically almost defenseless.”[3] In his opinion, the concept of a "Virgin Soil" epidemic can help historians to understand the devastating impact of disease on indigenous Americans, as well as colonization of the Americas by Europeans.

When Crosby proposed his assumption on the “Virgin soil epidemics,” it was very challenging. However, David Jones thinks that Crosby’s assumption on the “Virgin Soils epidemics” has greatly been misunderstood by his followers. He points out that later historians have reduced the complexity of Crosby's model and believe that American Indians had “no immunity” to the new epidemics. While in fact, the decimation of the Native Americans was rather a complex question. Moreover, Jones criticizes the insufficiency of Crosby’s “Virgin Soils epidemics.”According to him, Crosby downplayed the "genetic weakness hypothesis" and instead emphasized the many environmental factors that might have contributed to American Indian susceptibility to Old World diseases, including lack of childhood exposure, malnutrition, and the social chaos generated by European colonization.[4] Moreover, Karen Kupperman also notices the insufficiency of Crosby’s model. Through examining the Jamestown project, she finds the synergy of malnutrition, deficiency diseases, and despair at Jamestown, where 80 percent of the colonists died between 1607 and I625.[5]

Although later historians question Crosby’s “Virgin Soils Epidemics,” it is still an undeniable a fact that early American historians attempt to pay more attention to diseases and their impacts on colonists, as well as Native Americans. Colin Gordon Calloway considers epidemic diseases brought by Frenchmen like Jacques Cartier into the St. Lawrence River in the winter 1535-36, which caused the disappearance of Indian villages with extensive cornfields and rich orchards.[6] Elizabeth A. Fenn discusses how Variola major, the virus that causes smallpox, ravaged the great part of North America from Mexico to Massachusetts, from Pensacola to Puget Sound.[7] Through considering the movement of the great smallpox epidemic from one human being to another between 1775 and 1782, Fenn shows us how people actually lived in the late eighteenth century, as well as the untold history behind the American Revolution. In order to unravel the significance of American Indian mortality from the seventeenth century onward, David S. Jones examines the various ways how Americans understood the disparities between the health of citizen settlers and their native neighbors. Focusing on four themes: the arrival of Europeans and the virgin soil outbreaks of colonial New England; the transmission of smallpox on the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century western frontier; the impact of tuberculosis on the Sioux of the Great Plains later in the nineteenth century; and finally, the catalogue of ill health that affected the Navajo of the American Southwest in the twentieth century, Jones argues persuasively that differences in health were not rooted in native genetic susceptibility, but “were produced by social forces, interpreted through social biases, and used to perpetuate social advantage.”[8] As these and other scholarships tell us, through examining the diseases epidemic, early American historians could offer new explanations to the depopulation of Native Americans.

[1] Crosby, The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492 (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1972), 37.

[2] Alfred W. Crosby, “Virgin Soil Epidemics as a Factor in the Aboriginal Depopulation in America,” The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 33, No. 2 (Apr., 1976), 289-299. Since Crosby's article appeared, controversy has flourished on the exact size of pre-European-contact North American populations. See John D. Daniels, “The Indian Population of North America in 1492,” The William and Mary Quarterly, XLIX (1992), 298-320.

[3] Alfred W. Crosby, “Virgin Soil Epidemics as a Factor in the Aboriginal Depopulation in America,” The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 33, No. 2 (Apr., 1976), 289.

[4] David S. Jones, “Virgin Soils Revisited,” The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 60, No. 4 (Oct., 2003), 704; Alfred W. Crosby, "Virgin Soil Epidemics as a Factor in the Aboriginal Depopulation in America," The William and Mary Quarterly. 3 ser. 33 (April 1976), 292.

[5] Karen Kupperman, “Apathy and Death in Early Jamestown,” Journal of American History, 66 (1979), 24-40.

[6] Colin Gordon Calloway, New Worlds for All: Indians, Europeans, and the Remaking of Early America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), 25.

[7] Elizabeth A. Fenn, Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-82 (New York: Hill and Wang, 2001), 23 and 27.

[8] David S. Jones, Rationalizing Epidemics: Meanings and Uses of American Indian Mortality since 1600 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004), 7.