|
“The Neoconservative Persuasion,” Revisited
In August 2003, I critiqued Irving Kristol’s important and revelatory article, “The Neoconservative Persuasion.” His most remarkable revelation was this:
Viewed in this way, one can say that the historical task and political purpose of neoconservatism would seem to be this: to convert the Republican party, and American conservatism in general, against their respective wills, into a new kind of conservative politics suitable to governing a modern democracy.Kristol thus admitted what critics of neoconservative had been saying all along, that neoconservatism is at variance with conservatism as traditionally understood, and that the neoconservatives have been changing conservatism from within, changing it into something more “modern,” i.e., into something more liberal, secular, statist, egalitarian, multiculturalist, and internationalist. Which raises an interesting question: Has Kristol’s astounding admission ever been acknowledged by his fellow neocons? The answer, as far as I can tell from a search of the Web, is no. Virtually all the commentary on Kristol’s article came from paleo and traditionalist conservatives who were delighted at Kristol’s confession. I have not found a single discussion of Kristol’s article at any neoconservative website, even to disagree with it. In other words, even when the truth about themselves is dramatically announced by the founder of their movement, the neocons are not willing to admit it or to dispute it, perhaps because they know that credibly disputing it would be impossible. The neoconservatives are thus revealed as leftists who, if their campaign to move conservatism to the left is to succeed, must, in the familiar manner of leftists, conceal what they’re really about. It’s a key distinction between liberals and leftists. Liberals attempt to move their society to the left through a process of fair and open debate; they believe in the goodness and acceptability of what they are proposing and have nothing to hide. By contrast, leftists attempt to move their society to the left through subterfuge, coercion, or force, because they know that their objectives are radically at odds with the existing society and would be rejected if stated openly. In Irving Kristol’s unintentionally brutal phrase, they can only change society in the way they want to change it by doing so against its will. Ten years ago or even five years ago I would have called, and did call, the neocons “liberals” or “conservative liberals” rather than “leftists.” But their continued move to the left since then (catalogued at great length at this website), their continued concealment of their true purposes, and their cold, silent refusal to give an accounting of themselves even to their more reasonable and moderate critics, makes the description “leftist” seem appropriate.
This doesn’t mean, of course, that the neocons are leftist tout court, or leftist on all issues. Many of them oppose homosexual “marriage,” for instance, and, it goes without saying, all of them hate and are hated by the anti-American left. But these apparently non-leftist positions are to be understood more as variations within leftism or as exceptions from a general leftism, than as consistent and principled differences with leftism. Old-time Communists, for instance, would have been horrified by the notion of homosexual marriage. Meanwhile, more than a few neocons—David Brooks, Max Boot, and Jonah Goldberg come to mind—actually do support homosexual marriage or civil unions, and they remain members in good standing of the neoconservative movement. Email entry |