Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Neo-cons, cons and liberals


Irving Kristol died Friday night, aged 89. He was godfather, so to speak, of neoconservatism.

The label of "neoconservative" was disparagingly given to him in 1973 by a political adversary, but he liked it and made it his own.

Here there is a subtle terminological question. The prefix "neo" was supposed to distinguish him from those who defined themselves "conservative" by a staunch ideological defense of the free market as capable of self regulation, in opposition to "liberals" who thought necessary a more or less strong State intervention to regulate it.

I'd like to advert the American reader of a peculiar difference between the Italian and the English use of the word liberal: "liberali" were in fact called in Italy those who in the States are called "conservative" in the ideological sense I just signaled. Keeping this in mind, that between conservatives and liberals there is a dispute internal to liberalism, that ideologically doesn't go beyond the temporal range of the Nineteenth and the Twentieth century.

Both appear to grant, as a matter of fact, the primacy of the economy.

Not so Kristol: more than the economy, he stressed the importance of culture and tradition. He was in this a true conservative, in the meaning of the word that I like, i.e. of one who wants to keep what is worth keeping. But he was also a true liberal, if we give to the word the meaning that it has when we speak of a "liberal (i.e. non servile) education".

In any case, neoconservatism culturally permeated American politics, so that even its adversaries took from it. Such is the case of President Obama. We can well say that if he hadn't adopted some neocon themes, he would have never been elected.

HP



3 comments:

Lazy Disciple said...

Alright, I'll play.

Which neocon ideas?

I have always thought of neoconservatism as a sort of weltanschauung, rather than a set (even a loose one, a more or less malleable one) of theoretical notions and policy commitments.

Best,
LD

Humbly Presumptuous said...

I mean Obama's general appeal to the history of the United States, and to the importance of religion. This of course doesn't make him a neo-con, but it shows that some themes coming from the neo-cons have entered the general political culture that a cynic like him knew how to esploit them.
HP

Lazy Disciple said...

That's pretty harsh, HP.

A sense of history and the importance of religion to the US strike me as neither uniquely, nor definitively "neo-con" themes or notions or ideas.

If they were, then thinkers as diverse and divergent as Daniel Boorstin, Russel Kirke and Paul Johnson could all reasonably be characterized as "neo-cons".

Best,
LD