Editor's Choice
Which political and cultural movements opposed modern trends?
Quick answer:
Political and cultural movements opposing modern trends in the U.S. have spanned both conservative and progressive spectrums. Conservatives, represented by figures like Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, reacted against social changes, advocating for traditional values and economic policies favoring capitalism. Meanwhile, cultural movements like the Beats critiqued materialism, and African Americans sought inclusion in prosperity, challenging societal norms. These reactions highlight diverse opposition to modernity in post-WWII America.
In U.S. history since the mid-twentieth century, there have been several waves of reaction against the changes occurring in American society and the political realm. The 1960's were, as is well known, a period in which a social upheaval occurred in the U.S., and to some extent in Europe also, though some would say that Americans were merely catching up to the changes that had already taken place elsewhere in the world. The old racially segregated society of America began to come apart. Sexual morality began to change, and a wave of discontent arose among young people against the war the U.S. was waging in Southeast Asia.
The first reaction against this came with the election of Richard Nixon as president in 1968. Throughout his political career Nixon had been an arch-conservative, and he and his running mate Spiro Agnew made it clear they believed there was a "great silent...
Unlock This Answer Now
Start your 48-hour free trial and get ahead in class. Boost your grades with access to expert answers and top-tier study guides. Thousands of students are already mastering their assignments—don't miss out. Cancel anytime.
Already a member? Log in here.
majority" of Americans whom they represented, a majority who opposed the transformations occurring over the past decade in society and in politics. Theirony was that Nixon's campaign had been at least partly premised on the notion that he would end the war in Vietnam—something which liberals in the U.S. wished for more than conservatives did. Nixon resigned in disgrace six years later due to the Watergate scandal. But the idea he represented—the notion that most Americans were opposed to liberalism and wished to return America to some previous state of perfection that had been lost—continued to be the focal point of conservative thought.
The election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 represented another conservative reaction against liberalism. Reagan was ideologically committed to capitalism, promoting a theory of economics that held wealth would "trickle down" to the middle and working classes if government policies explicitly favored the rich. He stated openly that he wished to destroy Communism, and he also presented himself as one who would restore religious values that had allegedly been lost in American society. Neither the election of the conservative George W. Bush in 2000 nor that of Donald Trump in 2016, in my opinion, represented as significant a reaction against modern cultural and political trends as did that of Reagan in 1980, or even Nixon in 1968.
But to get back to the specific wording of your question: was the conservative platform of Reagan, and of Nixon before him, a specific political or cultural "movement" against modern trends? Beyond labeling it "conservatism," I would say no. And simply to say that "conservatism" was opposed to modernity and change is to state the obvious. Had there been an adoption by a political party or some other large group of, for instance, the philosophy of the writer and ideologue Ayn Rand, which she called "Objectivism," that would have been another matter. No such systematic philosophical movement exists in America, in my opinion, just as liberalism in the U.S. is basically unsystematic—unlike, for example, Marxism or anarchism. Both change and the reaction against it in America have not been accomplished according to any set formula or ideology.
I assume that you are talking about the post-WWII era here. If so, there were challenges to the dominant culture from both right and left.
There were, for example, the "Beats" who felt that modern culture was excessively materialistic and lacked any spiritual aspect. There were African Americans who felt left out of the new prosperity and fought to get a part of it. There were conservatives who were concerned with the push by black people, but also by things like rising juvenile delinquency and with the effects of things like rock-n-roll music. In this way, there were various movements that opposed the dominant trends.