Changes

==No conservatism ideas in America?==

==No conservatism ideas in America?==

Reilling is notorious for a short passage in the preface to the ''Liberal Imagination'' 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:

Reilling is notorious for a short passage in the preface to the ''Liberal Imagination'' 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."<ref> online version [http://books.google.com/books?id=XKP0I6LL8KMC&pg=PR15&dq=%22reactionary+ideas+in+general+circulation%22&lr=&as_drrb_is=q&as_minm_is=0&as_miny_is=&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=&num=30&as_brr=0#v=onepage&q=%22reactionary%20ideas%20in%20general%20circulation%22&f=false p xv]</ref>

:"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."<ref> online version [http://books.google.com/books?id=XKP0I6LL8KMC&pg=PR15&dq=%22reactionary+ideas+in+general+circulation%22&lr=&as_drrb_is=q&as_minm_is=0&as_miny_is=&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=&num=30&as_brr=0#v=onepage&q=%22reactionary%20ideas%20in%20general%20circulation%22&f=false p xv]. Possibly " some ecclesiastical exceptions" refers to the great poet [[T.S. Eliot]], but he had permanently removed to England.</ref>

The statement is abrupt and is not backed by the analysis of writers in the book.  He thought about liberals a great deal--especially when he criticized their acceptance of Communist themes--but he failed to study any conservative writers of his era. 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.<ref>"Of our novelists today perhaps only william Faulkner deal with society as the field of tragis reality and he has the disadvantage of being limited to a provincial scene." ''Liberal Imagination'' p. 213.</ref>

The statement is abrupt and is not backed by the analysis of writers in the book.  He thought about liberals a great deal--especially when he criticized their acceptance of Communist themes--but he failed to study any conservative writers of his era. 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.<ref>"Of our novelists today perhaps only william Faulkner deal with society as the field of tragis reality and he has the disadvantage of being limited to a provincial scene." ''Liberal Imagination'' p. 213.</ref>