Posted on 05/20/2003 7:51:58 AM PDT by quidnunc
I remember the discussion at the American Enterprise Institute that Jonah Goldberg recalls, but just a little differently. Neocons were not in the beginning, nor are they now, distinguished primarily by religion or morals. The cutting issue was political economy and, in particular, dissatisfaction with the growing list of failures of the left-wing imagination. But I did want to make the point then, and now, that one noticeable dimension of the neocon critique of the left consisted in a turn from utopian thinking toward Biblical realism — a sense of the fallibility and epistemic limitations of human knowing and human will. Often it happened that the early neocons became at least a little more respectful of their own religious tradition, took "the sacred" more seriously (as Daniel Bell did), and began to assert that there is actually more wisdom in a religious than in an austerely secular outlook.
It is worth remembering that the first so-called neocons were a tiny band, indeed, usually quickly named as Irving Kristol and Gertrude Himmelfarb, the two Daniels, Bell and Moynihan, Norman Podhoretz and Midge Decter, and a very few of their intellectual friends. Virtually all in this company had a history as men and women of the left, indeed to the left of the Democratic party, maybe in the most leftward two or three percent of Americans, in some cases socialist in economics, in others social democratic in politics.
Then at some point their more and more frequently expressed critique of left-wing excesses, especially in domestic policy, involved a direct rejection of socialist categories of thought. Since the left had few counterarguments to wheel into the battle, the Left turned to name-calling. It was the Socialist Michael Harrington, indeed, who coined the term "neoconservative" for this small band and their friends, intending it as an insult.
In those days (the mid-1970s), it was thought that there was really no genuinely conservative movement in the United States as there always had been in Europe. In America, it was said, there is only one variant or another of liberalism — the old fuddy-duddy liberalism of the 18th and 19th centuries, or some blend of European socialism/social democracy.
Thus, to call a foe who had long been identified with the Left a "conservative" was thought to be a lonely literary ostracism. To prefix that with "neo" was to suggest something like "pseudo" or "not even genuine." No historical tradition or cultural movement called by that name could be decried anywhere in sight. Just a tiny band, cast out into the darkness of intellectual isolation.
Some isolation! In fairly short order, the newsmagazines began carrying cover stories blaring "AMERICA TURNS RIGHT," and citing in evidence how even some former leftists were both rejecting the traditional left-wing agenda and daring to propose alternatives. And these "neoconservatives" (the name had caught on, and was now useful grist for this sort of trend-spotting) were catching the ear of such conservatives as Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp, to boot.
Not only the Left has an ideology, the mantra began to go. Now the New Right does, too. Russell Kirk, beloved guru of the Old Right, who had fought many long battles virtually alone in celebrating an American tradition of conservativism, hated the very concept of ideology, of course, as the very antimony of genuine conservativism. So his attacks on the new neoconservative "ideologues" helped define this new movement on the flank opposite to Michael Harrington's.
Others on the Old Right resented the neocons as the faithful workers who had labored long hours in the hot vineyards all day resented those who came to work just as the evening coolness was descending.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
Call that "ideology" if you must, or "the vision thing," but it's really just a forward-looking confidence and realism. If our principles are correct, they must already be nourishing the way the world is going. From maturing schemes of probabilities, emerging shoots of new growth are always pushing through the surface of events, and it is only an exercise of responsibility to discern and nurture the best of them along. To waste real opportunities is blameworthy.
To my mind it is better to be forward-looking and dynamic than ossified, mired in the past and shackled by narrow-mindness.
What on earth are you talking about?
Is it your position that it's better to be ossified, mired in the past and shackled by narow-mindness?
Honorable institutions … right … like the antebellum South with its chattel slavery, the Ku Klux Klan, Jim Crow and America First with its isolationist blind-eye-towards-fascism philosophy.
Some perception of honor, that.
Here's what the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette had to say about neo-Confederates; it applies equally to paleo-conservatives:
“Both Arabdom and the Old South are remnants of once great civilizations with flaws that doomed them to defeat. The blinder partisans of each look back with a nostalgia that clouds their vision. Their love for an imagined past that is now beyond re-creating prevents them from seizing the present, and fashioning the future. They prefer their imaginary world of slogans and fixations, though it is only imaginary, to the possibilities of a new start in reality — because reality requires compromise.” – “The Arab Tragedy: A mistake becomes a tradition” (The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette editorial, July 18, 2000)
The fact is, the good old days weren't all that they are cracked up to be.
You're blathering.
American conservatism by and large is classic liberalism, as embedded in the founding documents. Most people who consider themselves conservatives have not read the old philosophical treatises, but they believe in constitutional government, and that means they have absorbed the old classic liberal creed without necessarily naming it. But the basic tenets of classic liberalism are immediately recognizable to any American conservative; individual liberty, limited government, and property rights as a barrier to overweaning government control.
The traditionalist school of conservatism is something else, a reverence for traditions and the old order, and so forth. The two schools of conservatism come together since most traditionalists in the US are usually also Whigs, or classic liberals, although not always.
The problem with a conservatism separated from ideology, in my view, is that it has a tendency to be dragged around by other ideological movements, but always 2 steps behind. This is the conservatism of so many Republicans, for example, the Dems want to hand out $10 dollar bills, the conservatives suggest $5 dollar bills, and they compromise by just handing out $7.50.
It isn't enough to just revere the past, you also need to have an idea where you want to go, or you will just be a drag on history without exercising any direction.
Burkean conservatism, the respect for institutions and traditions wedded to classic liberal values, is not "fuddy duddy liberalism" as Novak says, it is who we are and it is as revolutionary now as it has ever been. But separate the two and you are left with a movement that clings to the past without knowing which parts to revere and which to reject, and a tendency toward either obstructionism or me-too compromise. Ideology is not a bad thing. Bad ideology is a bad thing.
The Arabs seek to freeze their culture in situ too, that's why they're mired in the 11th century attitude-wise.
"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate for the stormy present" – Abraham Lincoln.
The dog barks but the caravan moves on.
It is possible to do that and still maintain principles — those of the Constitution, for instance.
After all, the Founding Fathers didn't envision a static, never-changing situation, after all they provided a mechanism for amending the Constitution.
As to the adaptability of the Constitution, those set of rules were for a particular structure of balanced powers. That structure has long since been subverted. There is not much left of the Bill of Rights that can't be trampled at will, and the courts allow it. The states no longer are an effective check against federal power. They no longer appoint their US Senators. Of course the electoral college is still working, but I suspect after the last election, that will come under attack.
I love this article. It speaks the simple truth.
Obviously, I reject the Trotskyite label, but revolutionary, yes. If you are a constitutionalist, if you are a Burkean Whig conservative, you probably aren't an anarchist or a collectivist in the usual sense of the term. hence, no Trotsky. But revolutionary, yes, and still.
Keep in mind that Burke was a conservative in terms of English liberal tradition. But that tradition did not then and still does not exist everywhere. So outside of our constitutional, classic liberal world, we are still revolutionaries. And, even inside it.
I promise you that a critical mass of "conservative" Whig Americans will turn the world upside down. First is the idea of "parallel processing" I call it. To the degree that we are hierarchical, we have a processor backed up by 280 million sets of muscles; but to the degree that we retain vestiges of our classic liberal, individualist heritage, we are 280 million co-processors, each able to respond to change quickly; you have 280 million experiments going on simultaneously. This makes for a society that is relatively lithe. Difficult to change from the top, but quick to change in response to changes in the environment.
Permanent revolution, if you wish, within a legal framework.
The temperament bred by this philosophy permeates the society still, despite socialist attempts to breed it out of us. The American army is led by sargents. American companies are led by foremen. It really is unique in the world. When you deal with foreign companies, decisions have to be made at the top, and guys at the bottom are afraid to take the initiative, or the risk, of a decision. Much less so an American company where executive decisions are made right out on the front line by relatively low level guys. Quickly.
In the overall scheme of things, this is revolutionary, the idea that a low level guy is respected and exercises authority. And this springs from classic liberal philosophy that permeates this society still.
Parachute a bunch of straightlaced "conservative" Americans into any hierarchical society, and they will turn it upside down. Not because they are social conservatives, although they may well be, but because they believe in individual liberty, individual initiative, and they insist on it. Can't help themselves. And the people who deal with them begin to absorb those values, and it sets up a ripple effect that changes the social environment.
Americans, especially "conservatives" are revolutionary, I have seen it, not because they are Trotskyites, but because they are individualist and they adhere to both law and a "higher" law. And in most contexts in this world, that is revolutionary.
Lots of political science refrences thrown in for affect.
The neo-cons and the neo-liberals (Clinton and Blair's so called "third way" leftists) are in my opinion 2 sides of the same political coin.
Neo-liberals embraced the notion that the UN will become sort of a world govt. or governing force whose collective will be enforced by the USA via NATO or some such multilateral organization.
The neo-liberals want one world govt. type of an institution run for the UN by the USA in collaboration with NATO or other such alliances. Remember Clinton's man Strobe Talbot telling us that governments and borders will no longer matter in the future (as long as the UN govt. was run by Americans via NATO of course)? So in brief - For neo-liberals the USA is the hegemon of the world but it is so via the UN.
Now neo-cons differ in that they too see America as the hegemon of the world but not via the UN. That is why Blair so eagerly wanted Bush to go via the UN for authorization of the Iraqi war. In brief - neo-cons also see the USA as the hegemon of the world but do not want to go via the UN. To the neo-cons the USA does not serve the UN, but rather for the neo-cons the UN serves the USA - of it is allowed to exist at all. Remember Bush went to the UN seeking a rubber stamp for American policy (which was not what Blair had in mind when he got Bush to go to the UN-but Blair was desperate).
The neo-cons just like the neo-liberals are willing to attack nations who have not done anything against them in order to bring about a pax. For the neo-liberals it is a Pax-Multilatera and for the neo-cons it is a Pax-Americana.
That is how I see it.
Others define it this way: "NEOCONSERVATIVES" - WHAT AND WHO THEY ARE
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