We started the course reading The Masterless: Self and Society in Modern America by Wilfred M.McClay. That book begins by relating the change the Civil War had brought about with the government uniting the nation for a noble cause. Before the Civil War the Federal Government had very little impact on any individual. By the time of the rise of conservatism in Orange County, the Federal Government is involved with everything, from providing the money to stimulate the development of Sun Belt Suburbs to passing Civil Rights Laws which told people how they had to treat other people.
Throughout our readings we have looked at peoples responses to the increase of government in their life. Throughout this time period people have been trying to come to grips with what freedom means to an individual and what they want the government to do for them. The article “The Culture of Liberal Protestant Progressivism, 1873-1925” by Richard Fox, describes the ”character” ideal of the nineteenth century producer culture and the “personality” ideal of the twentieth century consumer culture, as proposed by Warren Susman. The character ideal stressed self policing by individuals: “individuals were subordinated to a higher law.” The personality ideal said that individuals were always growing and changing: “the dynamic self became its own higher law.”[Fox 647]
The conservative movement’s close relationship with religion and the types of religion which preached self reliance seems to me to be another chapter in people trying to define the limits of individual responsibility. Looking at the Conservative Worldview from chapter 4, doesn’t McGirr imply that the conservative movement, at the grassroots level is a manifestation of the character ideal of the 19th century?
If conservatives wanted republican government to function as a counterweight to new concentrations of power from special interests groups were they not taking over the definition of Progressive Liberalism from the beginning of the century? [Ross 758]
Brinkley also makes this case in his article for the class on page 415-416 Brinkley also draws on Wiebe’s work Search for Order[Brinkley 427], but I think misses an extremely important point in Wiebe, mainly the question that the progressive did not answer, “Who was to lead and who was to follow?”[Wiebe 223]
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