The Dartmouth Observer |
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Commentary on politics, history, culture, and literature by two Dartmouth graduates and their buddies
WHO WE ARE Chien Wen Kung graduated from Dartmouth College in 2004 and majored in History and English. He is currently a civil servant in Singapore. Someday, he hopes to pursue a PhD in History. John Stevenson graduated from Dartmouth College in 2005 with a BA in Government and War and Peace Studies. He is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago. He hopes to pursue a career in teaching and research. Kwame A. Holmes did not graduate from Dartmouth. However, after graduating from Florida A+M University in 2003, he began a doctorate in history at the University of Illinois--Urbana Champaign. Having moved to Chicago to write a dissertation on Black-Gay-Urban life in Washington D.C., he attached himself to the leg of John Stevenson and is thrilled to sporadically blog on the Dartmouth Observer. Feel free to email him comments, criticisms, spelling/grammar suggestions. BLOGS/WEBSITES WE READ The American Scene Arts & Letters Daily Agenda Gap Stephen Bainbridge Jack Balkin Becker and Posner Belgravia Dispatch Black Prof The Corner Demosthenes Daniel Drezner Five Rupees Free Dartmouth Galley Slaves Instapundit Mickey Kaus The Little Green Blog Left2Right Joe Malchow Josh Marshall OxBlog Bradford Plumer Political Theory Daily Info Andrew Samwick Right Reason Andrew Seal Andrew Sullivan Supreme Court Blog Tapped Tech Central Station UChicago Law Faculty Blog Volokh Conspiracy Washington Monthly Winds of Change Matthew Yglesias ARCHIVES BOOKS WE'RE READING CW's Books John's Books STUFF Site Feed    |
Saturday, November 08, 2003
Are conservatives winning the culture wars? Yes, according to the City Journal's Brian Anderson in this piece, in which he argues that "[t]he Left's near monopoly over the institutions of opinion and information — which long allowed liberal opinion makers to sweep aside ideas and beliefs they disagreed with, as if they were beneath argument — is skidding to a startlingly swift halt." The factors he lists include Fox News, South Park, the Internet (Sullivan, Drudge, Erin O'Connor, Arts & Letters Daily, Frontpage Magazine, and NRO all get mentioned in the same breath), and conservative book publishers. As a result of these developments, young people no longer consider conservatives "uptight squares." South Park Republicans is what Andrew Sullivan calls them. Anderson's argument is premised on the first eleven words of his piece, which I quoted above. Is he constructing a straw man here? Has there been, up until only recently, a "near monopoly" of opinion and information by the Left? Conservatives make this assumption all the time, but the Left would say just the opposite: they'd argue that Reagan, the end of the Cold War, and 9/11 have all contributed to a conservative recrudescence in American culture. Thoughts? |