>> i lerally did not know any conservatives in person growing up. not one rson i knew voted for ronald reagan, as a matter of fact but i did hear about conservatives. i heard that it did not believe in progress. i heard that the were generally grumpy, and that they we essentially stuck in permanent nflict with the changing society. now, as i grew up i noticed that certain themes around me did not appear bit these banks. the liberals seem to be generally the ones who were anding i history talking about entitlements and 50 year old grievances. meanwhile the conservatives and new attended to be wild eyed radicals. they were school reformers, entrepreneurs and crusaders agains the public seor that they believed made life harder for most americans on tax day, on payday, for that matter on almost every day. when it came to a eii found that it was the most buoyant spirit of reform and utopia that i could possibly have imagined. a place with an abiding belief that the world can be a better ace with the tools of the individual opportunity and free enterprise if we chgose to make it so. so here is what i wonder. i wonder whether i had it wrong abt conservatives and conservatism all these years or if, perhaps, liberals did. well, here joifing as. his new book, "the death of conservati" is making a considerable impact as a real topic of conversation and as a work that many of us here at meyer. we are honored to have him here to tk about his work. and after his remarks we will have comments to be the will start with henry olson, the vice-president. after that we will have a discussion with the audience. at 7:00 p.m. we will break to honor our speakers. before we go to our program unwonted note that so that you have it in your books that one a month from now approximately october 13th, tuesday our next speaker will be marty parts. and now please join me in welcoming sam tanenhaus. >> thank you, everyone who is here. in particular my good friend who first suggested i speak here. actually what we now remember collectively was in the winter of 2007 when i first discussed some of the ideas, if that is what they are. i set forth in this book. invited me back ain. sometimes i wonder why she did it. en i remembered that she is a psychiatrist. it is interesting when author describes conservatives as wild eyed radicals. it is interesting to me about the movement cannot that conservatives are wild eyed, but that there has been a kind of radilism in what we think of as the modern conservate movement. what this book is about for those who have not had the chance to look at it, is about the bias and the tendency and triump and then i think the decline of conservatism. i may be wrong aut all of these things. it is a narrative work. it deals seially with the great thinkers of the movement were created the movement. some of the political figures. the ambiguous worlds they occupied. and i say ambiguous because conservatism in my view is really divided between two and pulses. one which i describe as a realist or of reformists. and then trying find ways to improve or altered. and in some instanc accoodate an old set of values to the changed conditions. and then there is a conservatism. term that is already met with some contrersy while pleased to see that some, at least, see to understand there isn't a descriptive term. it i a metaphor. it is not an attempt to say that the conservatives of our time on an 19th century europeans to want to rlaim. it s really an idea, and reclamation and restoration. and so as i wrote the book what i tried to do was look for key instances when these t notions of conservatism seems to be in conflict. sometimes within the mind of a sile figure, a fire like william f. buckley whose ography i have been working on for some time, or whitaker chambers to biography a completed about aozen years ago. and political leaders politicians.f modn i belong to that very small group of makes. actuallyhe most remarkable. and als ronald reaganwho personified these two competing strains of conservatism. and then i tried to do one of the thing, which is to show how it seems to me conservatism and its very best, its most vibrant. and in my estimation, my analysis those were maybe not the years many would think of. 1965 to 1975. not to drag everyoneo far back in time. a think some conservatism and the great political philosophy in america. and this is probably the place to say that this book is in many ways a celebration of coervatism. i was interviewed just a few moments ago by nick gillespie. ande asked me, couldn't you have written a book called the death of liberalismas well? and my immediate response was, yes, i could do it. i would answer that of a differently. yes, i could probably do it, but it wouldot be intesting. i don't think liberalism in the past has been particularly intestin conservatism has been the great modern american philosophy. that is not to say agree with all of its precepts or even with many of them, but it has been the most stimulating. it has been the most original. it has done more to make withdrawals tnk and rethink and liberalism for very long time has done to make conservatives think and rethink. i am not a policy person. i can'tive you that in and out of domestic or foreign policy. it's not what i do. so i am interested in ideas and their expression. and o of the themes i pursued was this remarkable efflorescence of intellectual nservatism that began, i think, in the 1940's. the essential text is james burman's great book. there is some dispute and debe abou this particular text. it was written when he had detached himself from t left. he had been a leadinc theorist in the united states. actually collaborating. he had begun his movemen to the right. and he applied a kind of marxian analysis to the american and democratic society seems to be working. they became essentially bureaucratic designs. and the realtors of power in the great countries. an he went with this and geopolitical compass he had it through all of western europe and the united states, also germany and soviet russia and saw similarities andll of thes advced technological societies. they had admired an iron law of the oligarchy. an elite could aend and actuly dominate what we think of as pretoria and democracy. and theirst essential conservatism. william f. buckley jr. and then later by the neo conservative includingrving kristol who had also been a follower. and you will see him. neoconservatism is an idea. this is a a single foundational premise, andt is a ver important one. i think what happens is at a certn point that alysis bens t dogma and it created a contradiction from conservatism. if one ss a culture and society and government dominated then one is almo logically predetermined, predestined to be at war with much of the institutions in the society itself. and i think once that notion to call i think the president personified most dramatically. then what had begun as a conservative critique became a kind of what we now call cultural war. and at that point conservatism ceased t see themselves engaged in a debate or conversation with liberals who might share about common in is with them. they cse instead of the politics of what i call cultural entity. so one of the beams in thbook, one of the most useful traces is when this entity was transcended by conservatives and liberals alike. that is why i foced onhe 1960's. that was the great moment when american conservatism came of age in a political sense, and the key figure was buckley. in his youth many of you will kn had been a fervent ally of senator joseph mccarthy who led a kind of vigilante attack on the govnment itself, state department, cia, army, white house. buckley had without ever repudiing those vie developed a very different approach to society and its conflicts. it emerged in the960's. in the book i qte a number of remarkable columns during the 1968 campaign. and those of you here that remeer those years orre old enou to remember them remember them as a period of a viual anarchy. two political assassinations and in one year. riots in both cits, chicago and miami. and some of the political format in that election began a few weeks before en lyndon johnsol who as recently as 1966 has been described as the julius caesar of american politics. the most powerful chief executive ever had. quite remarkable essay. it was much 31st, 1956. theodore roovelt dream of just having one day or o week where he would control the entire government and could do anything he wanted, anything he wanted. quite liberal. well, it has come under lyndon johnson, and its permanent. no one dares challenge him. all are at his command. and approximately six o eight months later the public had a major breakthrough. brandt in 1968, of course, johnson was through. decided to drop from the presidential election. and that was a key momen he had been challenged in the newhampshire primary. and there was a misperception that he actually won. she did not. it was enough to persuade or to dissuade johnson. and this might have been, i think in our climate, left hand or right, this would be a moment of triumph. a very powerful president was now being takenown within his own party. this almost guaranteed a victory for the republicans. but that is not what buckley said. he said, you know, to the followerhere is something very unsettling about the thought of an elected president of the united states being essentially removed from office by carloads of college students driving across the border from massachusetts to new hampshire, many of whom don't even know. they just went there to vote and to punish the preside. and buckley said it give one pause about how our democracy works. to me that is a high point in modern american political urnalism. as the colonists as a result of the books he has written and the television programs he hopes that those products -- in york city. and but we saw on the organic communities of the society and the stability as being more important. and the hard-pressed today to see an equivalent statement made a liberal or a conservative so described in our lture. there is one other example of what to give. it occurred read about the same time. daniel patrick moynihan who was one of the figures i about who had been the intellectual architect poverty, which we sometimes forget. began to rethink those. partularly after he and richard goodwin, another figure described in the bomk, had written a remarkable speech delivered here in washington in 1965. this speech call the to the full the declaration. it is hard to imagine. -- while the country had cured or salt to a great extent the legal injustices domestic of jim crow segregation it had not solved the social question, economic question that was involved. andhnum the government would now try to do that through a rash of pgrams. there was not much interest. it was the most celebrated probably since eisenhower. >> everyone wanted to see the report. >> the white house live did. it spoke in very direct language about the condition of inner-city handling inmerica. used the phrase that biology which might have actually barred from the social scientist. when a man who saw himself as the great friend of the oppressed now signs of labeled a racist. what he called the liberal left. he wrote about this. and as an aside, i should say having spent more time than at a healthy person should in the yearshand 1965-1970he most interestg, penetrating non partisan journalism. public interest, commentary magazine, and often i am a contributor now again. better written. it took the idea is being advanced far more seriously than the contributors. so moinihan began to rethink just what course liberalism had set for the united states. he gave a very famous speech here in washington to the americans riots in some of our great states. we have zero or that we may be losing. maybe facing a me but of terrorism in the united states. and he saithe liberals and liberal democts can't blame anyone but ourselves. this too has been in power in recent years it is too has had their way with the system of government? and he said the time has come for us to find republicans and coervatives who share with us the ideal of theolitics of stability. because at this int what the nation needs is to band together. the idea, the birkie an idea moynihan had been reading burke and actual michael r. shot. the politics of stability is based on the notion of a civil society. that repudiates ideology of any kind. we forget about burke who is the urce for all of this. birds. of conservatism was written at a time of great political relution. and he in no way had a serious defense of the regime. is is a perfect system. wants to create a perfect society and will sacrifice our institutions on its altar. and the obligation of a society and any government. burt used the words society and government almost interchangeably. it is to purposes. preserve and to collect. you crect t things that need correcting. so drying on all of this. it is reported on the front page of the new york times. such a shock to democrats. he summarized. liberlism faces the price. anything we can do to help, just holler. that is to say there was a share that @left him. any moncoutie who beats bill buckle on liberalism knows that he did not vote his conscience. he also pulled the that in the foundation of society. so he found himself in a position. defending big universities that he has attacked. ending the free speech pureed he described academic freedom as a superstition so these are some of the issues in my book seeking to explore. a kd of narrative essay. it looks a the different tabs conservatism has ten a terrible prognosticator. i don't attempt to predict. here is the one question help put to my colleagues and to the audience. might it not be time for concerts inspect to the stop thinking of themselves, yourselves, as belonging to a movement. movements are an odd phenomenon in american politics. they don't quite consort with what is called the motive of our democratic process. movements seek more than politics. because movents' demand victory or redress. and the reason i think conservatives ought to abandon the movement, philosophy, or persuade is because conservatism has one. we did in a very conservative culture, very conservative society. when i was coming of age in the 1970's if somebody had told me they people would seek to mry and have children it would have sounded like aoke. it was incoeivablend thinkable, yet this what we see. to make conservative who values the institution, what one would see is a a group excluded from the institution that now wants to belong to it just as when burt assessed the american revolution he felt the columns. by the way, he opposed a being seated in parliament. so i ask everyone to consider. if conservatism is to revive its of and become as vital of force as it has been for many tickets now. ght abandon and jettison the movement attributes. the elevate the discussion. i am not expecting the liberals to do it. but conservatives have a history of doing it. i did this is the ideal time to reexamine, reapi, looked back at thi glorious history and see how we build on at. [applauding] >> tnk you. i guess maybe i should begin by declarg a small conflict of interest. my new book very nely. thank you. so all weekend. now i have to be nice. although i enjoyed the history. the one small cavet. i think the outreached hand really was limited mostly to those twoguys. .. you might say let's paraphrase mark twainhen say the death of conservatism is greatly exaggerated which sam a test it diggins in his book but think that is a mistake. i have myself been conmplating long essays on the dumbing down of conservatism and the flatline prayed waives i see it certain precincts of the conservative mind and i'v been telling people listenhat we should not let the seeming reversal of conditions of the patient at the moment brought o by botched health care reform initiative delude usnto thinking the conservative patient has return to fness. we wil made that mistake in the '70s and '80s and it cost him dearly. second pass you might try to fit sas grammar is a majoritof restatement of the famous dilemma of the epic of responsibility versus the epic of alta met. i think that is aistake too. i actually think the best summary judgment in critique of sam's book can be found 100 years ago in the famous anachronism of it is the job a progressive to the one making the mistakes and it is the job of conservatives to me keep make mistakes from being fixed. the premise of the path of the prologue t the future and white liberals and progressives as they started calling themselves and much more accurately often consume without having to establish any foundation for the idea tt history is moving purposely in the directionn conformity with their ever expansive social vision. it is understandable within that bubble of presumptions you would think that only a high boundary reactionary could believe otherwise. in otherords you are thinkg conservatives are only looking seriously at the flow of history like justice souter the realignment on the wrong side and guess which progr. i think it is necessary to go back even further in sam's history on the right to see the full pedigree and crest this point. when you use progress in this way we don't really mean history as a sequeial recording of the bens or just progress in a material sense with things getting better as we get smarter and smarter but rather as a unintelligible process. henry steel's book the american minds describing intellectual thought 100 years ago said the following quote. historians rethinking roughly 120 years ago. almost every historian of that generation felt that he was on the verge of some discovery that should do for history what darwin had done for nature. it is really quite biz arnell to go back and read through the block of history at the time but they thought we were on the verge of discovering the laws of motion for history like the la of motion for physical objects would soon the unlock the secrets of change and allow for the delivered controlled change for the first time in the human story and it was suggested literally history would be removed from the humanities and placed in the physical sciences and our universities. in political terms this involved ultimately the deification of the state and i do mean that literally. hagel roach quote this date, capital s is the divine idea as it exists on earth can one person who took him literally was woodrow wilson. more aboutim in a moment. one of the leading political scientist 100 years ago was john burgess who wrote quote, the proposition of the state is the product of history means it is the gradual and continuous development of human society grossly imperfect beginning through iroving forms of manifestation towards a perfect in universal organization of mankind. in other words this progressive movement which, these were not a revolutionary non-socialist utopian but are different from the eurean flavor but nonetheless partaking of the id and i mention woodrow wilson more powerfully affected by this. wilson said the two intellectual guys were hagel and edmund burke, so when sam recommends american conservate should be more burkean i always say we should look the way woodrow wilson found bur no source said all four sweeping awayhe exting foundations of american political fraud. burke woulde noble. i think the second difficulty on this point might be the idea that david burke in which sam refe to in his book which is that the whole bark obama has some affinity for burke corso david brooks reported and just ask woodrow wilson have found easy woodrow wilson found it easy to use hagelnd burke in the memoir from obama where he gets the burr key and the near to sol alinsky's new litigants. the sort of staff formal te