Powerline, yet another child of Norman Podhoretz

I’ve always sensed that the three intelligent gentlemen who write Powerline, John Hinderaker, Scott Johnson, and Paul Mirengoff, were basically neoconservatives, not just in the generic sense that so many conservatives today have a more or less neoconservative view of the world, but rather that there was an element of fealty in the way they would speak of the leading neoconservatives. In a remark today, they make their neocon roots and loyalties explicit:

John, Paul and I owe a debt to Commentary magazine and its great long-time editor (now editor at large) Norman Podhoretz. As we reflected this past March in “Learning from Mr. Podhoretz,” Commentary and Podhoretz were instrumental in moving all three of us solidly into the conservative camp.

Now think what it means to say that “Commentary and Podhoretz were instrumental in moving all three of us solidly into the conservative camp.” It suggests that they were not converted to conservatism by, say, the old National Review, or by the works of Russell Kirk or Irving Babbitt or James Burnham, or by any number of other serious conservative writers and publications of recent and older decades, or by an adherence to the Old Republic or to the original Constitution plus its amendments (a subject of zero interest to Commentary), or by an allegiance to the historic American culture or the historic Western culture or Christendom. It means that neoconservatism, with its sociological rather than constitutional or religious or cultural view of society, and with its increasingly manic universalist-democratist ideology that leads inexorably to the disappearance of the historic American nation and culture, defines conservatism for them. Moreover, their filial tone toward Podhoretz suggests that they have never had any second thoughts.

I say the above as a person who once had enormous, though not unqualified, admiration for Podhoretz. I acknowledge his historical importance as a writer and editor, particularly in the way he made Commentary the leading intellectual force in fighting the Cold War. But since the end of the Cold War, the neoconservative movement, in which Podhoretz was and perhaps still is the principal figure, has become increasingly ideological, increasingly unmoored from any historic and cultural roots in America and the West, and increasingly indifferent or hostile to any genuine conservatism.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 01, 2005 11:38 AM | Send