A quintessential neocon statement

Supporting the conservative revolt against the president over the Miers nomination, William Kristol opines:

But this is a moment where [sic] it is more important that conservatives stand for core principles than that they stand with the president.

This is a moment to stand for core principles? But what about the previous moment, and the moment before that, and numerous other moments when President Bush trashed conservative principles? If conservatives had stood for their core principles earlier, maybe Bush would not have succeeded in moving America (and conservatism) to the left as he has done. So why does principle matter now for Kristol, and not earlier? Because principle, right now, this week, is what’s in. It’s what’s happening. As I said recently, for many figures in today’s conservative intelligentsia, politics is not a matter of truth and principle, but of going with the flow.

As a further illustration of this mentality, when a prominent neoconservative journalist wrote a month ago that security was more important in Iraq than democracy, I pointed out to him that for the last couple of years, he had been applauding Iraqi democratization and ignoring the need for security. So why, I asked, was he making this crucial point now, and not earlier? He answered:

It’s not as abstract a matter as you suggest. There have been many moments in this conflict where [sic] democracy has been the right priority for the moment…. The circumstances now are different, and so the answer should be different too.

By which he really meant, not that what is true and needful in Iraq has changed, but that the climate of opinion regarding what is important in Iraq and what can be safely said about Iraq has changed, and so he has changed with it. It didn’t occur to him that he owed his readers an acknowledgement and explanation of his shift from his previous view, because, for him, there is no truth independent of what’s happening at this moment—no truth independent of what seems suitable politically or advantageous for one’s career at this moment.

I shared the above with Jim Kalb, who comments:

I think the idea is to maintain oneself as a necessary participant in the discussion, which means that you look at where the discussion is on some issue and then you find a position that you think a lot of people will agree needs to be considered as part of the picture. Over time you try to keep your successive positions as stable and coherent as possible but that’s often secondary, sort of like a consumer products company trying to maintain brand identity as it continuously revises and repositions its offerings to adjust to a changing marketplace.

Someone doing this might claim that he’s just being realistic—trying to do as much good as practically possible by putting his effort into promoting things that somebody might actually be interested in and leaving other things he favors for another day. It looks very much like careerism though.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 08, 2005 02:43 PM | Send