17,394
edits
Changes
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Line 10:
Line 10: + + + + + + −
→Neoconservatism
Initially known as a scholar of Victorian and modern British fiction, his influence grew after 1945, reaching its peak in the early 1950s after the publication of his most brilliant work, ''The Liberal Imagination'' (1950), and declining somewhat between 1965 and 1975 when he was seen either as an elder literary statesman or as a kind of dusty intellectual monument. Since his death his legacy has been claimed by both Left and Right, but the intricacy and dualities of his work ensure that he will remain a quietly controversial' figure within American intellectual life.<ref> Rodden (1996)</ref>
Initially known as a scholar of Victorian and modern British fiction, his influence grew after 1945, reaching its peak in the early 1950s after the publication of his most brilliant work, ''The Liberal Imagination'' (1950), and declining somewhat between 1965 and 1975 when he was seen either as an elder literary statesman or as a kind of dusty intellectual monument. Since his death his legacy has been claimed by both Left and Right, but the intricacy and dualities of his work ensure that he will remain a quietly controversial' figure within American intellectual life.<ref> Rodden (1996)</ref>
==No conservatism in America?==
Reilling is notorious for a short passage in the preface to the ''Liberal Tradition'' to the effect that intellectually America is totally liberal and there is no place for conservative ideas. He does allow that idea-free reactionary and conservative impulses do exist and affect politics. he wrote:
:"In the United States at this time liberalism is not only the dominant but even the sole intellectual tradition. For it is the plain fact that nowadays there are no conservative or reactionary ideas in general circulation. This does not mean, of course, that there is no impulse to conservatism or to reaction. Such impulses are certainly very strong, perhaps even stronger than most of us know. But the conservative impulse and the reactionary impulse do not, with some isolated and some ecclesiastical exceptions, express themselves in ideas but only in action or in irritable mental gestures which seek to resemble ideas."
The statement is abrupt and is not backed by the analysis of wroters in the book. Indeed, Trilling deliberately left out major conservative writers such as [[William Faulkner]] and the Southern Agrarians because he could not handle them. (He said Faulkner was too regional to pay attention to.)
==Neoconservatism==
==Neoconservatism==
While he died too soon to join the [[neoconservative]] movement, Trilling inspired many writers who later became neocons, including [[Irving Kristol]], [[Gertrude Himmelfarb]], and [[Norman Podhoretz]]. Trilling's novel ''The Middle of the Journey'' (1947) contains the ideological dilemmas out of which the [[neoconservative]] movement would grow in the 1970s. One main character is based on his college friend [[Whittaker Chambers]]. The origins of this movement lie in the novel's subject, the break with Communism. Trilling was Jewish, as were many neoconservative intellectuals, but his novel is conspicuous for its lack of Jewish characters.<REF>His generation downplayed their Jewish identity, as shown by Terry A. Cooney, "New York Intellectuals and the Question of Jewish Identity," '' American Jewish History; 1991 80(3):344-360.</ref>The novel's ideological content helps to explain this. Trilling made a stark separation between religious conservatism and the secular liberalism to which he personally adhered. He foresaw the ways in which anticommunism would legitimate both liberalism and conservatism, yet his novel offered no room for its characters to synthesize ethnicity or religion with involvement in the modern world. The absence of Jewish characters allowed Trilling to explore a liberalism uncomplicated by religion or ethnicity. Jewish neoconservatives perpetuated the anti-Communist world of Trilling in 1947, but they discovered within it the possibility of being Jewish, conservative, and modern; hence the complexity of Trilling's relationship to them.<ref> see Kimmage, ''The Conservative Turn: Lionel Trilling, Whittaker Chambers and the Lessons of Anti-Communism'' (2009)</ref>
While he died too soon to join the [[neoconservative]] movement, Trilling inspired many writers who later became neocons, including [[Irving Kristol]], [[Gertrude Himmelfarb]], and [[Norman Podhoretz]]. Trilling's novel ''The Middle of the Journey'' (1947) contains the ideological dilemmas out of which the [[neoconservative]] movement would grow in the 1970s. One main character is based on his college friend [[Whittaker Chambers]]. The origins of this movement lie in the novel's subject, the break with Communism. Trilling was Jewish, as were many neoconservative intellectuals, but his novel is conspicuous for its lack of Jewish characters.<REF>His generation downplayed their Jewish identity, as shown by Terry A. Cooney, "New York Intellectuals and the Question of Jewish Identity," '' American Jewish History; 1991 80(3):344-360.</ref>The novel's ideological content helps to explain this. Trilling made a stark separation between religious conservatism and the secular liberalism to which he personally adhered. He foresaw the ways in which anticommunism would legitimate both liberalism and conservatism, yet his novel offered no room for its characters to synthesize ethnicity or religion with involvement in the modern world. The absence of Jewish characters allowed Trilling to explore a liberalism uncomplicated by religion or ethnicity. Jewish neoconservatives perpetuated the anti-Communist world of Trilling in 1947, but they discovered within it the possibility of being Jewish, conservative, and modern; hence the complexity of Trilling's relationship to them.<ref> see Kimmage, ''The Conservative Turn: Lionel Trilling, Whittaker Chambers and the Lessons of Anti-Communism'' (2009)</ref>
==Further reading==
==Further reading==