Goldwater joined Ohioans For Goldwater and became a speechwriter for the Arizonan Senator after leaving OSU in frustration. 9/
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Conservative academics claimed a “liberal ‘power elite’” silenced them and promoted ideologically-motivated scholarship. The “sycophantism is so deeply (and ideologically) rooted,” Jaffa wrote, that the academy “cannot reform itself.” 10/
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Supporting Goldwater gave men like Jaffa, Parry, and Niemeyer, an opportunity to enact their frustrations in the political sphere and work, they believed, for the good of the nation. 11/pic.twitter.com/24YPzMqiM7
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Hugh Kenner argued college education created a new class of citizens. The liberal controlled college system was the nation’s nervous system determining elite opinion. He blamed Franklin Roosevelt’s “revolution” for plugging “Washington into the Academy.” 12/pic.twitter.com/2NmLgHAZLa
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Kenner thought if Goldwater won the “tonality of the entire network” would change. A network of right-wing scholars would be elevated and there would be conservative changes “among the hundreds of minor values with which the network irradiates the land.” 13/
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Imagine, Jaffa marveled, “a President whose hot line is to Leo Strauss instead of Khrushchev.” 14/
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Goldwater’s defeat ended this possibility. But, the emergence of New Left, angered old-fashioned liberal academics. 15/
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Their anger, and their defense of traditional academic mores, proved a point of commonality with movement conservatives helping pave the way for neoconservatism and the very counter-institutions Kenner imagined. 16/16
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Replying to @Joshua_A_Tait
That Kenner essay was written at last minute because a Russell Kirk piece fell through. It's interesting because of Kenner's sketching out a proto-network-theory (which he got, I think, from McLuhan).
@evankindley recent piece in Critical Theory relevant.1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes -
Replying to @HeerJeet @evankindley
Is that the one where he says something like, I'm rubbing shoulders with Jim Burnham, etc
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Replying to @HeerJeet @evankindley
Nice. Yeah, this came out of something I cut from my diss, but I didn't have access to the Kenner letters when I wrote it. I've found a few things I want to add to a book mss
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Replying to @Joshua_A_Tait @evankindley
The Kenner/Davenport letters clarify the attempt to create a right-wing academic counter-network in early 1960s, with stuff about Philadelphia Society, Frank Meyer's newsletter etc.
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