Neoconservatism Reconsidered
By HHR | March 11th, 2010 | Category: Featured, General, International Affairs | 2 comments
But Eric Cohen’s essay on Irving Kristol reminds us that neoconservatism had a noble beginning and might have a useful future in the GOP:
The Public Interest:
Perhaps the most famous of Kristol’s aphorisms is that a “neoconservative is a liberal who has been mugged by reality.” And in large part, Kristol’s intellectual project was to diagnose various flights from reality: utopian socialism, which promised an economic heaven on earth; the counterculture, which promised life without sin and libertinism without consequences; secular humanism, which promised moral freedom and a peaceful social order without the need for or guidance of religious tradition; American isolationism, which promised freedom from all the nasty entanglements of the world; and techno-utopianism, which promised the perfection of man through our growing control over nature and human nature. The “ism” he offered instead — neoconservatism — was not really an “ism” at all; it provided no recipe, no blueprint, no manifesto describing how to build a new paradise on earth or achieve an Epicurean escape from the hellish side of life.
Neoconservatism was, as Kristol always described it, merely a “persuasion” that tried to “imagine the world as it might be,” but also to “live and work in the world as it was, trying to edge the latter ever so slightly toward the former, but experiencing no sour disillusionment at [our] ultimate lack of success.” Yet such a realistic view of politics and of the human condition, especially in America, did not mean living always with a sense of grim futility. Neoconservatism, Kristol said, was “the first variant of American conservatism in the past century that is in the ‘American grain.’ It is hopeful, not lugubrious; forward-looking, not nostalgic; and its general tone is cheerful, not grim or dyspeptic.” And while neoconservatism is surely a phenomenon of a particular time and place, the disposition toward reality that animates it is how wise and moderate men will always see the world — even in the most immoderate of ages.
Read Entire Article: http://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-moral-realism-of-irving-kristol
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“And in large part, Kristol’s intellectual project was to diagnose various flights from reality: utopian socialism, which promised an economic heaven on earth; the counterculture, which promised life without sin and libertinism without consequences; secular humanism, which promised moral freedom and a peaceful social order without the need for or guidance of religious tradition; American isolationism, which promised freedom from all the nasty entanglements of the world; and techno-utopianism, which promised the perfection of man through our growing control over nature and human nature.”
“And while neoconservatism is surely a phenomenon of a particular time and place, the disposition toward reality that animates it is how wise and moderate men will always see the world — even in the most immoderate of ages.”
While this is how the ideology started out, it certainly hasn’t remained this way, especially on Foreign Policy.
“I will send you a proposal to double the budget of the National Endowment for Democracy, and to focus its new work on the development of free elections, free markets, free press, and free labor unions in the Middle East. And above all, we will finish the historic work of democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq, so those nations can light the way for others, and help transform a troubled part of the world.” – George W. Bush, State of the Union Address
It moved from being merely hawkish ideology to some form of Neo-Wilsonianism not based in reality, but base on the same utopian ideas that liberals believe in. This idea that Government can change what’s in a man’s heart, that the Federal Government has the right to dictate to people how they should live. It’s the same Big Government ideology just wrapped up in hawkish conservative rhetoric, but at the end of the day its not real conservatism. To believe that America invading Iran some how benefits us when we are overextended in Afghanistan, and Iraq with massive amounts of debt, and deficits crippling us at home, is not conservative. There is a reason why realists like Brent Scowcroft opposed our engagement in Iraq (http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110002133), and why conservatives like William F. Buckley, and Chuck Hagel turned against the war, because America cannot afford nation-building. Robert Taft was right, and it’s not isolationism to admit that America does not have the resources, or an infinite amount funds to police the world.
Can tanks in Saudi Arabia prevent 17 men with razor blades from sneaking on to Air Planes? No, it’s unfortunate, but massive militaristic approaches rarely ever stop terrorism. Realism needs to take the lead again in American Foreign Policy and the Party of Eisenhower, Reagan, and Bush 41 should not be afraid to re-embrace such a view point.
Their ” America Uber Alles ” approach to foreign policy has left us in two costly essentially uni-lateral wars that can’t be won. I was against Iraq II from the onset and remain so today. There simply aren’t enough drones and bombs to prevail and anyone who bought Obama’s campaign promise to leave must feel lied to presently. But, takking down a fixed nation-state has always been ( relatively ) easier than beating an assymetric ideology that spreads organically without rergard to disperate societies and ethnic groups. The neo-con brief needs to be slammed shut on US foreign policy.