Very disappointing; although I have seen little revealing slips from Hanson before. The man probably just writes too much. His new book Mexifornia should be something worthwhile, if notably inadequate.

That’s nothing. Adulations to Trotsky from frequent _Weekly Standard_, _National Review_ and _FrontPage Magazine_, (among others) commentator:

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-schwartz061103.asp

(Pay particular attention to the last paragraph)

So now Trotsky is to join MLK Jr among the pantheon of “conservative” giants?

There has always been something weird and unsavory about the way Schwartz comes across that has kept me from reading his articles, though they appear everywhere. In addition to which, it was revealed that he’s a Shi’ite Muslim (yes, a Jewish Shi’ite) who is on a passionate crusade against the Wahabbis. And now it turns out that he’s a passionate admirer of Trotsky. Whew.

I recall a post from a few weeks ago when a NRO blogger said the problem with the Arab world was not enough “expressive individualism.” The blogger linked a piece from Reason.com in which the writer praised the trend of risque’ music videos in the Arab world (noting that many of the more scantily clad singers are Christians).

For the record, V.D. Hanson IS a liberal Democrat. So it should tell you how much the political spectrum of the country has moved that he is considered to be on the right,merely because he supports our country in war and believes in American civilization.

“So it should tell you how much the political spectrum of the country has moved that he is considered to be on the right, merely because he supports our country in war and believes in American civilization.”—Gracian

Yes. By today’s standards, if you merely believe in defending your country against enemies, that makes you a conservative. But let’s be clear that this shift of political definitions toward the left has not been only the work of neocons and mainstream Republicans: it’s been primarily the work of the left itself. It is they who have made liberalism synonymous with anti-Americanism, and thus made any normal defense of our country in war seem like conservatism. My gosh, by the standards of today’s Democratic Party, John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey would be far-right fascists.

One cheer for the neocons. We’re all in the midst of a large political realignment, and really none of us, we or they, are totally sure where we stand. The NR people and conservatives in general have gone from being a prophetic voice calling in the wilderness to the newly emerging establishment. Accordingly, they moved from purely philosophic matters to the practicalities of governing and policy concerns.

Abandoning pure idealism, they have become pragmatic politicians. As such, they are attempting to build a center-right coalition which is hospitable to former Democrats like the Kristol family and to increasingly sympathetic fellow travelers such as V D.H. and Christopher Hitchens. Of course, the latter drive along with with them a few liberal ideas, but it’s something you just have to accept to make the whole idea gel.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we conservative prophets grumble about the compromises and abandonment of several necessary ideas, such as God (note: “Godless Conservatism”, Scruton, 1996). There is utterly no reason for us to abandon what we know to be true. Still, if the neocons do succeed in shifting the center toward the right and toppling the Democratic machine from its privileged position, they deserve our thanks. They have created an America which is a lot more receptive to true conservatism.

“One cheer for the neocons.”

I’m not sure if Gary is aware of the allusion he’s making here. In the ’70s Irving Kristol wrote one of the founding works of neoconservatism which had the clever and apt title, “Two Cheers for America,” a reply to the anti-American left. So, giving one cheer to the neocons for the positive things they have accomplished, while remaining opposed to them on a variety of key issues, is an appropriate response today. Just think for a moment of where America would be without the neoconservatives and their critique of the left. We would be like Europe, with NO effective, rational, mainstream, conservative (or at least “right-liberal”) opposition to the prevailing left. I shudder to think of it.

So, while I remain a strong critic and opponent of their overall ideology, I also say, with Gary, “One cheer for the neoconservatives.”

LA wrote: “Just think for a moment of where America would be without the neoconservatives and their critique of the left. We would be like Europe, with NO effective, rational, mainstream, conservative (or at least ‘right-liberal’) opposition to the prevailing left.”

That’s a mere supposition, although not an unreasonable one. But it’s also quite possible that, had Kristol and the Gang not come over , a more muscular, robust, authentic conservatism might have gained wide currency and we wouldn’t be in the pickle we’re in now. (I’m not saying it would have. I’m saying it’s possible it would have.)

I would also quibble with Gary on his point that we should thank the center-left for toppling the far left. In my opinion, the far left is much less of a threat, practically speaking, than the center-left. The center-left is capable of far more damage precisely because it wears the centrist mask. This is borne out, I believe, by the situation we see today, where the center-left is making gains by leaps and bounds, whereas it took the far left decades to capture an equivalent amount of territory.

Lastly, I’d just say, in response to Gary’s “We’re all in the midst of a large political realignment, and really none of us, we or they, are totally sure where we stand,” that, on the contrary, I am very sure of where I stand. What Gary means to say, I think, is that the respective “movements” of what many have for decades thought of as the Left and Right have lost their focus. That may be so. Or it may also be that those political categories we are in the habit of using aren’t reflective of reality after all. They worked, that is, in a purely practical sense, for awhile, but now with changing circumstances we are seeing that what we thought we understood we didn’t in fact understand at all. In any case, whether this is true or not, the fact remains that I as an individual am in no doubt whatsoever as to where I stand and about what I believe. It’s those who think in terms of the collective who are in disarray at the moment, because order has broken down in the hive.

I agree with Gary. While there are specific issues that I strongly disagree with neocoservatives on, if they can shift the poltical center further to the right then that suits me just fine. As for Democrats, there are even more issues I disagree with them on, but I sometimes feel that I have more in common on defense and foriegn policy with someone like VDH than with the Chronicles crowd.

Secularism and gender equity? I thought the degree of separation of church and state and of gender equity is highest in West. Didn’t Tacitus remark about the greater degree of gender equity in Germania?

We should always remember to *compare* the West with the rest, even if on an absolute scale some “conservatives” may think there is too much separation of church and state and too much gender equity.

The liberal term “gender equity” means abolishing distinctions between men and women in the organisation of society. It is a very different thing from the traditional respect for womanhood in northern European societies.

Tacitus in fact wrote scornfully of one Germanic tribe in which women were said to dominate public life. He praised the Germanic tribes in general for their strict adherence to monogamy.

I still want to know whether any non-White society has more gender equity than Occidental societies have? If so, which ones do? And if not, why are White societies highest on gender equity?

Premise Checker is, I think, missing the point. I was not criticizing Hanson for saying that there is more sexual equality in the West than in other civilizations; obviously there is. And this is also true historically. From Tacitus’ famous description of the Germanic tribes, we know that the high status of women is traditional in northern Europe. And women are obviously treated with great respect in Homer, in the Greek tragedies (though not in the life of classical Athens), in the Jewish and Christian scriptures, and in Jewish and Christian societies. What was objectionable, was, first, the phrase “gender equity” itself, which is a leftist-sounding phrase relating not to respect for women but to a formulaic equality between the sexes, which is most certainly NOT historically what defines the West, though it does define the beliefs of the modern leftist West; and second the fact that Hanson listed this gender equity second in his list of Western values, which National Review would certainly not have done in the past, whether the phrase being used was gender equity or sexual equality or even some less objectionable formulation.

To Bubba,

It’s true that the neoconservatives tend to focus their attacks on the left, not on centrist liberals. One effect of this is to make people feel that only the left is the problem, and so they fail to oppose “mainstream” liberalism even as it continues its progress. Also, the neocons tend to attack any genuine conservative resistance to “mainstream” liberalism.

An example is FrontPage magazine, where it seems 3/4 of the articles attack the hard left, the anti-American left, the anti-Semitic left, and so on. At the same time, David Horowitz tends to be very accepting of Bush’s soft conservatism (for example, he felt Bush’s recent position on the affirmative action case was adequate), and, of course, if conservatives attack the more “respectable” liberals, such as the Human Rights Campaign (!), Horowitz takes umbrage. Similarly, as soon as First Things questioned seriously the “mainstream” liberal regime of government by judiciary under which we live, Norman Podhoretz came down on Fr. Neuhaus like a ton of bricks.

So, certainly the neoconservatives work to suppress any conservatism to the right of themselves. At the same time, I don’t think we should ignore the role they’ve played in opposing the left, even if often inadequately or too late, which has helped keep America a less leftist country than it otherwise would have been.

In this connection, I am posting separately a critical letter about the neoconservative that I wrote to Irving Kristol in 1994.

LA wrote: “At the same time, I don’t think we should ignore the role they’ve played in opposing the left, even if often inadequately or too late, which has helped keep America a less leftist country than it otherwise would have been.”

This is the part I’m taking exception to. There’s simply no way to know whether the neocons “helped keep America a less leftist country than it otherwise would have been.” Doubtless, if they hadn’t come along, more gains would have been made by the left earlier. In that sense and to that degree, there’s little doubt that they did help. However, there always existed a massive, underground dissatisfaction with the reigning leftism in America that (probably) would have found its voice even without the aid of Buckley, Kristol, et al. I’m simply saying that, in the long run, that other hypothetical brand of rebellious, madder-than-hell conservatism might have been better for us all than the soft, anti-communist liberalism of Kristol and company. There’s no way to know for sure, of course, since there’s no way to go back and see how things would have been “if only.” I’m just saying. America might have ended up, after all was said and done, a LESS leftist country without the neocons than it has with them.

My gut is with Bubba on this one. I think the moderating influence of the neocons has respectablized (to coin a Bushism) liberalism. Without the moderates liberalism in any age would immediately self destruct. The moderates are merely the institutionalization of liberalism’s unprincipled exception. As such, liberalism’s survival depends upon the moderates. That makes it difficult to congratulate them without irony.

“That makes it difficult to congratulate them without irony.”

I don’t know. It’s hard to get an overall view of this. On one hand, they have played a leading role in attenuating American conservatism, turning it into belief in abstract nation and so on. On the other hand, they have articulated arguments against the left, and helped build up an anti-left intellectual establishment which I don’t think exists in any European country and I which think we should be grateful for. Yet always, there is that irritating ambiguity about them, that even when they’re saying something worthwhile, there is something “thinned-out” and unreal about it, which is that it’s a set of principles they are defending, rather than the concrete substance of a civilization, a culture, a way of life. That abstract ideological way of conceiving of our civilization has spread to mainstream conservatism generally. And I see it as the number one reason why there is not a serious conservatism in this county

However, I still say give them a cheer. But isn’t giving people just one cheer already a somewhat ironic and rueful gesture?