Agrarianism and the Popular Education Culture
Feb. 14th, 2008 by Alby Allan Carlson, Ph.D.
My purpose this morning is to tell you about a remarkable band of thinkers and writers who cut against the grain of the 20th Century: the New Agrarians. I will underscore their broad themes, and then focus specifically on their views regarding education.
Who were the New Agrarians? They were more diverse than usually supposed. Best known are The Southern Agrarians, a group of twelve authors centered at Vanderbilt University during the late 1920’s and 1930’s and architects of the book, I’ll Take My Stand. Yet others came from the Northeast and the Middle East. While the majority were Protestant, a large minority were Roman Catholic; still others were Jewish and there were committed atheists in the group as well. Their work has been called, at different times, the “country life campaign,” “agrarianism,” “traditionalism,” “distributism,” “de-centralism,” “anti-urban,” and “anti-industrial.” In my analysis, I label them “The New Agrarians,” borrowing that phrase from one of their number, Herbart Agar. I do this to set them apart from the simpler Jeffersonianism found in the 19th Century and to emphasize their deliberate confrontation with modernism or modernity.
Their platform was, at once, socially conservative and economically radical. Broadly put, they were advocates for a unique brand of “radical conservatism.” What might this curious phrase mean?
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