The Exasperating Survival of Conservatism

The Exasperating Survival of Conservatism
A couple and their daughter at their home in Youngstown, Ohio, in October 1950. Since the 1960s, a variety of anti-traditional movements, including modern feminism, sexual liberation, and gay rights have risen to prominence in the West. The institution of the family has been hit the hardest. Doreen Spooner/Keystone Features/Getty Images
Mark Bauerlein
Updated:
Commentary

One of the remarkable facts of our time is the endurance of a conservative outlook in the United States. Not the conservatism of libertarians and free-market types or the conservatism of classical liberals who champion free speech and the right to privacy, but social and religious conservatism that upholds the traditional family, staunch patriotism, and religious principles in the public square. The latter is the belief of people with misgivings about same-sex marriage who regard the United States as a beacon of hope and freedom and regard a society without God as a fallen and failing condition.

Mark Bauerlein
Mark Bauerlein
Author
Mark Bauerlein is an emeritus professor of English at Emory University. His work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, The Washington Post, the TLS, and the Chronicle of Higher Education.
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