Backward and Upward: The New Conservative Writing

0 Comments | Insight on the News, April 15, 1996 | by Michael Rust

Conservatives Get Spring Fever

Life, conservatives used to believe, tends to be nasty, brutish and short. But as far as reigning Republicans in Washington and New York are concerned, all that has changed since November 1994. In Backward and Upward: The New Conservative Writing (Vintage, 350 pp), editor David Brooks assures us that there is "a new conservative personality that is urbane, self-assured (rather than defensive), cosmopolitan, and diverse in race and gender."

Well, judging from this new anthology, that's partly true. Many of the contributors, especially the younger ones, seem quite pleased with themselves, although that does not necessarily mean their jocularity carries over into their pensees. In fact, one of the startling things this collection shows is just how big a chip the new establishment carries on its shoulder.

Out of necessity, conservatives were for many years reactive in their commentary -- an often desperate response to the excesses of government, academia and the arts community. Now that they are in power, many of them seem trapped in a cycle of victimhood. Their travail takes many forms. Joe Queenan is bothered by people who don't want him to smoke in public; the normally sensible Fred Barnes encounters misguided souls who think people shouldn't drive everywhere; in an entertaining essay, Danielle Crittenden decries those who would force her to give birth sans drugs.

There are many worthy pieces in Backward and Upward, notably novelist Mark Helprin's essay on not fighting in Vietnam, the Wall Street Journal's Paul Gigot's dirge for his old parochial school and Charles Krauthanimer's concise, angry and quite splendid dissection of second thoughts on the Cold War.

A mixed bag, but then the intellectual competition -- so integral to the market system cherished by Brooks, an editor at the Weekly Standard -- does not seem to be fierce these days. For proof, look no further than We're Right, They're Wrong (Random House / Simon & Schuster, 203 pp) a "handbook for spirited progressives," allegedly written by political-consultant-turned-media-celebrity James Carville, which serves as proof that the best strategy for both sides of the political debate today is to shut up and let the other side talk.