1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910255321403321

Autore

Lacey Robert J

Titolo

Pragmatic Conservatism [[electronic resource] ] : Edmund Burke and His American Heirs / / by Robert J. Lacey

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New York : , : Palgrave Macmillan US : , : Imprint : Palgrave Macmillan, , 2016

ISBN

1-137-59295-8

Edizione

[1st ed. 2016.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (261 p.)

Disciplina

320.520973

Soggetti

United States—Politics and government

Political theory

World politics

Political philosophy

Pragmatism

US Politics

Political Theory

Political History

Political Philosophy

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

1. Introduction  -- 2. Edmund Burke: Pragmatic Conservative  -- 3. Walter Lippmann: Unlikely Conservative  -- 4. Reinhold Niebuhr: Prophetic Conservative  -- 5. Peter Viereck: Reverent Conservative  -- 6. Conservatism Agonistes: Leaving the Stag Hunt  -- 7. Conclusion.  .

Sommario/riassunto

This book is a study of pragmatic conservatism, an underappreciated tradition in modern American political thought, whose origins can be located in the ideas of Edmund Burke. Beginning with an exegesis of Burke's thought, it goes on to show how three twentieth-century thinkers who are not generally recognized as conservatives—Walter Lippmann, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Peter Viereck—carried on the Burkean tradition and adapted it to American democracy. Pragmatic conservatives posit that people, sinful by nature, require guidance from traditions that embody enduring truths wrought by past experience. Yet they also welcome incremental reform driven by established elites,



judiciously departing from precedent when necessary. Mindful that truth is never absolute, they eschew ideology and caution against both bold political enterprises and stubborn apologies for the status quo. The book concludes by contrasting this more nuanced brand of conservatism with the radical version that emerged in the wake of the post-war Buckley revolution.