Fighting Over the Conservative Banner
Fighting Over the Conservative Banner
This chapter begins by discussing modern American conservatism. Modern American conservatism is a coalition of three main schools of thought: libertarianism, neoconservatism, and religious or social conservatism. These three schools have important commonalities, but they have significant differences as well. In the late 1950s and the 1960s, they were brought together as allies by William F. Buckley Jr., and his colleagues at the National Review. One of Buckley’s strengths as a leader of a movement was that he lacked the disposition of a political philosopher and was relatively untroubled by ideological contradictions. He permitted debate and disagreement among the three schools of thought, but only within certain parameters. He then became so personally popular and admired, and National Review had grown so successful, that during the nascent period of the movement, Buckley and the magazine became nearly synonymous with conservatism.
Keywords: modern conservatism, libertarianism, neoconservatism, religious conservatism, social conservatism, William F. Buckley Jr., National Review, conservatism
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