Reply #13: it took me a long time and it took growing older, but I think I came to understand something about [View All]

[Douglas Carpenter]

social conservatism.

There are two points to the social conservative way of thinking that attracts a lot of followers.

1. First of all there is a selective memory of the past. Many people long for that mystic past based on that selective memory and also a misguided notion that by opposing all the social changes that have reshaped society since the 60's they can reestablish the kinder and gentler world they less than accurately remember. But there is some truth to some aspects of that social memory that have some validity. Many people recall a past in which the world was a far simpler and certainly a less complicated place. Many people are old enough to recall a world where it seemed that a hard working person could make a decent living, a world where neighbors and relatives actually knew each other and to a significant level seemed to care much more about each other than they do these days. They recall a world where every small town had a number of factories and jobs that provided enough to make a decent living were available. They recall a world where every neighborhood, even in small towns had neighborhood grocery stores where the owner of that store held his head high and felt not the least bit inferior to anyone. Many recall a world when a person of modest means could join the world of successful small shopkeepers or perhaps even small time manufacturers.

2. Also social conservatism appeals to a misguided sense of class anger. When they look at the world of today which many see as abrasive and harsh, they quite naturally ask themselves, "what has changed since the 'good old days?'." Rather than recognizing that capitalism has run amok and created a far more materialistic society where competition has become so hostile, they see all the social changes that have gripped society, both good and bad. Rather than directing their anger toward all the economic forces that have created a meaner and nastier world, they direct their anger toward the kind of people who were not so transparently visible in earlier times.

Needless to say, "the good old days" were not all good. It was also a time when racism, bigotry and sexism were part of ordinary life and a world where being different would invite far more hostility.

Until the 1960's the Democrats pretty much held a monopoly on working class populism. The Republican Party rarely even attempted to restrain its image as the party of the banker, the country club and the wealthy and powerful. But quite cleverly and quite cynically they realized that they had to re-brand their image. Some would suggest that the George Wallace campaigns, first in the primaries of 1964 and then with his independent presidential run in 1968 demonstrated that there was a market for right-wing working class populism - first appealing to race antagonism and then appealing to resentment against all the rapid social changes that had so dramatically reshaped society.

For the left to effectively crush social conservatism it has to show that it can crush economic conservatism, the real spoiler of that which was good about the past and the real enemy of the old fashioned American dream.