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344 Annals Am. Acad. Pol. & Soc. Sci. ix (1962)

handle is hein.cow/anamacp0344 and id is 1 raw text is: FOREWORD Galsworthy, in the short story. A Reversion to Type, describes the end of two literary fanatics-the Classicist and the Emotionalist-who concluded their bitter arguments by carving up each other with some handy boar spears. The Classicist was a man of culture, a believer in sports, and knew about ancestors. The Emo- tionalist was a long, weedy fellow with a lot of hair and a mouth like a girl's. In the moonlight, the Classicist was discovered dead and the Emotionalist dying-his last words: The snob! Transferred to politics, this vivid short study might serve to illustrate the unremitting animosity which colors the contest between the Liberal and the Conservative. Few literary men carve up each other with boar spears; mostly, they confine themselves to fountain pens. Fortunately, liberal-conserva- tive differences do not as yet reach a boar-spear extreme in the United States. Yet we have lived through a century when the boar spear has been plentifully used in the world, and we are not entirely free of its advocates in this country. Generally speaking, though, issues and parties in the United States cannot be neatly fitted into liberal or conservative packages. The words form no more than con- venient tags to help us analyze movements and views. In this volume, our authors describe various facets of issues in American life against the background of some general distinctions between liberals and conservatives. America is seen as essen- tially pragmatic in its politics, comparatively little attracted by unalterable pro- grams or recalcitrant parties. Such programs and groups have existed; currently, as these essays show, spokesmen for the extreme right are most vocal, and their movements are tolerated by a people essentially moderate, even if inclined to the conservative. Liberalism has been under fire and somewhat cowed; something of a reassertion of liberal views is overdue. But, if liberalism has been uncertain and in retreat, conservatism is by no means united. Aside from the extremists, who speak for a small minority, conservatism itself has been watered down by redefi- nition. Even though the United States can be considered genuinely, and rather conserva- tively, united on fundamentals, the union is one which permits divergence. Two essays dealing with religious groups illustrate the diversity which can exist inside religious denominations both in theological and political matters. Here, as well as in the major parties, differences must be sought inside, rather than between, major organizations; often those differences are most inadequately described by a liberal- conservative division. Matters do not readily divide themselves into a contest be- tween the Classicist and the Emotionalist. In spite of mass communication, shopping centers, interstate highways, and com- mercial jets, sectional differences exist in the United States. The East, always close to governing circles, has been less susceptible to the extremism which has re- flected the resentment of the rural Midwest and South. The South still struggles with its peculiar problem which colors its attitude toward governmental relations and jurisprudence. But only to the relatively uninformed northerner does the ix

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