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hom the Conservative perspective, whether it is drawn from free
market economics, religious traditionalism, or a Burkean view of his–
tory, American values were threatened during the 1960s. The disruption
of cultural norms, even more than the actual physical losses caused by
the wave of riots in major American cities, marked a time of deep crisis
for American institutions. For many of these Conservatives, the politi–
cal and economic regression of the apocalyptic I960s may have been
reversed in the ensuing political victories of such diverse leaders as
Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Newt Gingrich, and George W. Bush.
Yet for other Conservatives, the cultural decline which was initiated
during that period-particularly in the university, museum, concert hall,
theater, and media-has deepened to the point of irreversibility.
Conventional historical wisdom tends to accept the posthumously
cultivated image of the Kennedy Administration as vigorous and
dynamic, bypassing the need for any significant accounting of its actual
successes and failures. Similarly, there is a consensus that the civil rights
movement contributed dramatically to the improvement of the condi–
tion of the black minority in American society, avoiding any analysis of
the emergent positive trends in race relations during the
J
950s. This
avoidance is accompanied by a denial of the possible negative impact of
new leadership in the black community for the cause of racial integra–
tion, as well as of the unanticipated and counterproductive conse–
quences of so much of the Great Society legislation.
However, despite the widespread acceptance of the Liberal view of the
Kennedy Administration and the civil rights movement, most Americans
do not share the nostalgia for Camelot, just as they have no regrets
about the failure of the revolution that was the hope of the New Left. At
the same time, the majority view does not identify with the pessimistic
prognoses advanced by Conservatives about the future of established
American institutions. For the American majority, the 1960s represent a
shudder of excess in a controversial period of political turmoil. Since the
violent events of that decade-such as the Vietnam War, urban riots, and
campus sit-ins-no longer occupy the headlines, the majority has moved
on. The sixties have been absorbed into "history," which may safely be
forgotten.
In
this placid or optimistic American amnesia, "Sixtyism" and
all of its passions can be considered a phase of America's adolescence.
Even within the Liberal historical memory, there have been signs of
revisionism. No less a figure than Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., who served as
the court intellectual of the Kennedy Administration, has placed the
1960S within the context of periodic cycles.
In
a
Partisan Review
forum
of the early [990S, Schlesinger hypothesized that American history could
