Thanks to Mr. Auster for posting this terrific piece which outlines reasonable concerns over neocon grandiosity in foreign affairs, without sinking into the whining negativity seen among some of the paleos. It is clear that after 9/11 we had to shock the muslim world after more than a decade of passivity which had tempted them to think we could be attacked with impunity. Naturally, the neocons were Bush’s natural allies in what he had to do. Having invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, it is necessary to put something in place to try to assure stability for the future. And to sell it to the public, large doses of idealism must be brought forth. Unfortunately, this would seem to put Bush in synch with the neocon project, but I doubt that he really shares all their enthusiasm for the new Jacobinism, or Wilsonian foreign policy. Too bad traditional conservatives couldn’t be more supportive of an aggressive intervention, yet one that eschews the excesses and grandiosity of the neocons project.

“Too bad traditional conservatives couldn’t be more supportive of an aggressive intervention, yet one that eschews the excesses and grandiosity of the neocons project.”

My position exactly. :-)

I believe that Professor Ryn overstates his case. Neoconservatives certainly are Neo-Wilsonian. However, the term “Jacobin” infers a reign of terror, or at least a Thermador, neither of which are present.
In fact, one could argue (as Robert Kagan allueded to) it is the EU which is a Jacobin experiment. The French-German axis is the main opponent to American power in the west. (To say nothing of the ad hominem and sometime anti-Semitic attacks in the European press against Neocons).

Even the most adventurous neocons (Ledeen, Kristol, Kagan) are unwilling to have the US lead a campaign for empire all over the world. Rather, they focus on those on those countries with ties to Islamist terrorism. This may well be a tactical ploy, but I do wonder why none even consider over National Security concerns, such as the rise of communism in Latin America.
None of the neocons is calling for us to invade countries willy-nilly in an attempt to impose our values.

Neocons wish to impose a Wilsonian world order, but only as a results of our victory against the dual threats of Chinese led Communism and Islamism. There is simply no intent to pick off the easy targets in South America, Africa, and Asia.

Like Mr Auster, I certinaly agree with thucydides comment:
“Too bad traditional conservatives couldn’t be more supportive of an aggressive intervention, yet one that eschews the excesses and grandiosity of the neocons project.”

This is one of the reasons why I support a new Fusion Conservatism for the 21st century. I believe that we need to update the NR model of the 1950’s to the current realities.

It’s true the term Jacobin produces some cognitive dissonance, as the neoconservatives are obviously not violent revolutionaries and tyrants. But I think Ryn is referring to the philosophical essence of Jacobinism, the intent to construct a single world order based on a single idea, with all subsidiary and intermediary institutions and cultural essences relegated to oblivion. That tendency is clear in neoconservative thought.

Let’s also remember that Ryn doesn’t call the neoconservative “Jacobins,” but “neo-Jacobins,” his own term to which he is giving his own definition.

Ron is right: the EU is a neo-Jacobin experiment. Nothing precludes having more than one neo-Jacobin delusion active at any given time. The Eurocrats’ disdain for national sovereignty and cultural and religious integrity (to the insane extremes of wishing to welcome the obviously non-European Turks into the European Union while pointedly refusing to acknowledge the Christian component of Europe’s heritage) reminds me in ways of American neoconservatism. The most obvious difference is that American neocons are strong supporters of Israel, while most Europhiles are at best indifferent about Israel’s fate. Both neocons and Europhiles are … liberals.

Ron is also right that neo-Jacobinism has not yet resulted in an American Reign of Terror. (Some die-hard Southerners might dispute that and assert that President Lincoln’s neo-Jacobinism led to the bloodlettings of the Civil War, but I’m not going there…) In more virulent forms neo-Jacobinism (i.e., armed and crusading liberalism) certainly resulted in Reigns of Terror in XXc. Russia, China and elsewhere. If one takes seriously the “Socialist” in National Socialist, one has to implicate neo-Jacobinism in the German Reign of Terror of WWII. Certainly the Nazis shared the anti-Christian bias of the original Jacobins.

Ryn is more concerned about neoconservative neo-Jacobinism’s exposing America to foreign threats. Another concern about American neo-Jacobinism (whether neocon or just plain liberal) is the danger of flooding the “Proposition Nation” with millions of unassimilable immigrants while imposing mandatory diversity and multiculturalism, preferring the non-white new arrivals over white natives and inevitably fomenting a host of grievances on all sides. That could lead ultimately to bloodshed, whatever our neo-Jacobins might wish. HRS

HRS wrote:
“Ron is right: the EU is a neo-Jacobin experiment. Nothing precludes having more than one neo-Jacobin delusion active at any given time. The Eurocrats? disdain for national sovereignty and cultural and religious integrity (to the insane extremes of wishing to welcome the obviously non-European Turks into the European Union while pointedly refusing to acknowledge the Christian component of Europe?s heritage) reminds me in ways of American neoconservatism. The most obvious difference is that American neocons are strong supporters of Israel, while most Europhiles are at best indifferent about Israel?s fate. Both neocons and Europhiles are ? liberals.”
1. Certainly Neo-conservatism is derived from Liberalism. However, it would be a mistake to consider it Menshevism as opposed to Bolshevism.
Support for an ideological nation and even for Jacobins goes back to Thomas Jefferson and the Democrat-Republicans. (I’ve read that they had little Guillotins at their parties for fruit.)

2. Neoconservatives do not support the European Union. One need ongly read Robert Kagan’s piece in Policy Review (or the book it spawned) or the current edition of the Weekly Standard. Nor do they support the UN. Frankly, Neocons oppose these institutions for the wrong reasons. However, instead of writing them off, I suggest that we use this moment of dissonance to reach out to them.

” In more virulent forms neo-Jacobinism (i.e., armed and crusading liberalism) certainly resulted in Reigns of Terror in XXc. Russia, China and elsewhere. If one takes seriously the ?Socialist? in National Socialist, one has to implicate neo-Jacobinism in the German Reign of Terror of WWII. Certainly the Nazis shared the anti-Christian bias of the original Jacobins.”

Come one. You are conflating Communism with Neoconservatism. That has no more validity than attempts by leftists to conflate conservatives with Nazis.

“Ryn is more concerned about neoconservative neo-Jacobinism?s exposing America to foreign threats. “
A reasonable concern, perhaps. However, it does not take into account the true nature of our revolutuionary opponents. They will not leave us alone.

“Another concern about American neo-Jacobinism (whether neocon or just plain liberal) is the danger of flooding the ?Proposition Nation? with millions of unassimilable immigrants while imposing mandatory diversity and multiculturalism, preferring the non-white new arrivals over white natives and inevitably fomenting a host of grievances on all sides. That could lead ultimately to bloodshed, whatever our neo-Jacobins might wish. “
Neocons oppose diversity and multiculturalism.
Just because they agree wit the left on many topics, do not assume that the groups have the same beliefs.

American neoconservatism, European enthusiasm for the EU and the UN, Marxism, Socialism (even of the National variety) - all are liberal movements seeking to uproot or supplant existing societies and traditions. All are heirs to the madness of the Jacobins. That said, these various types of liberals are perfectly capable of disagreeing with each other - often violently. The war between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union is one example.

Neocons generally support mass immigration and oppose the preservation of America’s particular ethnic and Christian character. Whatever neocons may say from time to time condemning affirmative action in college admissions, their actions abet the diversity-mongering multiculturalism that is destroying the old America. In that fight they are on the wrong side, alongside their fellow liberals. HRS

It’s one thing to say that there are ideological similarities between neoconservatism and Jacobinism. It’s another to say that neoconservatives are “heirs to the madness of the Jacobins.” I think that’s going too far.

“American neoconservatism, European enthusiasm for the EU and the UN, Marxism, Socialism (even of the National variety) - all are liberal movements seeking to uproot or supplant existing societies and traditions. All are heirs to the madness of the Jacobins. That said, these various types of liberals are perfectly capable of disagreeing with each other - often violently. The war between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union is one example.”

All 3 are derived from Jacobinism. It does not follow that they are the same thing.

Think about it this way.
Bears, Wolves, and Hyenas are all evolved from the same carniverous animal. It does not follow that any of these are the same or that they are the same as their ancestor.

Mr. Auster and Ron make good comments seeking to qualify what I wrote. Nevertheless, I stand by it: Neocons are heirs in some measure to Jacobinism - which I believe was a form of political madness - and they are part of the larger movement of secular liberalism, the successor to the French Revolution, that came to dominate the political and social life of the West in the XX century.

All of the groups I mentioned sought to impose a new order (in every case but that of the Nazis a universal one that transcends and obliterates mere nations) and to destroy old orders that stood in their way, a trait all share with the original Jacobins from whom, in varying degrees, they derive. American neocons are a milder variant, but they are part of this general movement - which is distinguished from pre-Enlightment movements that sought to sweep away old orders by its unrelenting secularism.

For those who wish to preserve the good in our societies that comes from our traditions, which I presume is what animates this site, neo-Jacobins in any form are an enemy. Not all enemies are equally bad. If I gave the impression that to my mind neocons are on the spectrum of evil next to Bolsheviks and Nazis, let me correct that impression. They are not evil as those were, and they are not as bad as liberal Democrats or the Eurodestroyers of the EU. That said, I believe - largely for the reasons Ryn gives - that the neocon ascendency in America today is bad news for us. As long as people motivated by essentially Jacobin obsessions - liberals - continue to co-opt mainstream conservatism, there will be no successful tradition-based opposition to today’s dominant liberalism, without which America is lost. HRS

Mr. Sutherland wrote:
“…(in every case but that of the Nazis a universal one that transcends and obliterates mere nations)”

But the Nazis were universalist too. They kept the words “race” and “nation”, but they didn’t refer to the traditional German race or nation. They coopted the words and redefined them in terms of the Aryan ubermensch and the pan-German herrenvolk. I think the Nazi vision was every bit as universal as that of the other liberalisms; it just used language differently and saw the oppressed-ubermensch oppressor-untermensch relation differently from other liberalisms (that latter relation being exactly the place where liberals justify authoritative discrimination).

Oooboy. I really have to go pay some bills now. :-)

I agree with Matt that Nazism meant to transcend Germany (Austria, too) as traditionally understood, but do not agree that Nazism was universalist in the same sense as the other movements mentioned. While those others make universalist claims about all mankind, and reject particular claims on behalf of any particular nation, the Nazis acted, as Matt says, on behalf of their presumed herrenvolk and nobody else. They were helped in this by the fact that the Germany they took over in 1933 had only existed as such since 1870, and in its then-current form only since the “humiliation” of Versailles, making it harder for the Nazis’ German opponents to say that Nazism was hostile to traditional Germany, as there was confusion about what, if anything, that was. The Nazis, rather cleverly and utterly falsely, posited themselves as the spiritual heirs of the ancient Empire (the first Reich) as well as of Wilhelmine Germany (the second). HRS

Mr. Sutherland wrote:
“While those others make universalist claims about all mankind, and reject particular claims on behalf of any particular nation, the Nazis acted, as Matt says, on behalf of their presumed herrenvolk and nobody else.”

No liberal ever literally means “all mankind” when they say it, though. They all only mean the currently oppressed, who would already be the free and equal new man if only it were not for the oppressor-untermensch. The oppressor-untermensch is, in each case, to be exterminated utterly so that the universally free and equal ubermensch is all that will remain at the end of history.

So I see the universalist character of Naziism and the other liberalisms to be of the same order, rather than of different orders. All liberal universalisms paradoxically (because liberalism is self-contradictory) act only on behalf of the ubermensch.

I wrote:
“All liberal universalisms paradoxically (because liberalism is self-contradictory) act only on behalf of the ubermensch.”

It is in this sense that Naziism may be the most _honest about its intentions_ of all the liberalisms.

But the universal order of all liberalisms includes only the free and equal new man, at the end of history, after all of the traditional oppressors are gone. So they are all universalist in the same manner and to the same extent. They just disagree about what specifically constitutes the ubermensch, who specifically is the highest priority oppressor up for active extermination, and the tactics to be used to eliminate the oppressor.