Boston College political science professor Alan Wolfe discussed contemporary trends in American conservative thought during a Wednesday night lecture in McCosh Hall.
Entitled "How Conservatives Came to Think Small," the lecture focused on the significance of contemporary conservative thinkers who sympathize with the Civil War-era South and favor a strict interpretation of the Constitution.
He said these thinkers reject the trends toward equality and "national citizenship" initiated by the 13th through 15th amendments, and favor state rather than federal control of economic institutions.
Wolfe began by talking about controversial former Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork, who favored a strict constructionist reading of the Constitution, and moved on to a discussion of conservative writers who follow in the tradition of 19th century South Carolina Senator John Calhoun.
He said both men represent ideologies that are "important strain[s] in contemporary conservatism."
He added that, with the recent reelection of a Republican White House and Congress, the U.S. may see an attempted "unraveling of the 14th amendment and the New Deal."
Wolfe also referred to current trends in the Supreme Court's judicial philosophy, and discussed the influence of libertarian, small-government thinkers on President George W. Bush and his administration.
"There's this sense that the real [problem] is not how we divide power, but power itself," he said.
The lecture was the second in a three-party University public lecture series called "America's Retreat from Greatness."
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