Irving Kristol’s Neoconservative Ideas

After having read Irving Kristol’s The Neoconservative Persuasion and read/listened to some comments on him here and here, some reoccurring themes in his work came up which might of interest to Pomo Con readers:

1) Culture: Our own James Poulos describes Kristol as “A secular liberal who cared about culture.” The proliferation of “dirty books, dirty movies, and dirty art” during the Sexual Revolution was one of the issues that encouraged Kristol to shift his views in a conservative direction.

He understood religion was central to culture and deals with religious questions throughout the book. Here we can see the influence of Leo Strauss on him in two ways. First, America’s religious inheritance is seen in terms of a civil religion with a salutary effect on the character of the citizenry. Religion is a means to a political end. Is this compatible with a religious believer’s view of Church-State relations? Here is a possible reason why it is not: For a religious believer it is the other way around, politics is a means to a religious end. The purpose of government is to secure the necessary space to exercise one’s religious liberty.

Second, he accepts the thesis that reason and revelation are ultimately irreconcilable. While this seems to be his conclusion, it should be said that this thesis encouraged him to take the possibility of revelation seriously, and the book shows his genuine curiosity in theological questions.

2) Gov’t : The excesses of the Great Society was another reason why he shifted toward the right. But this does not mean he accepted the mainstream conservative position of ‘limited government.’ For conservatives, safety nets are illegitimate as a matter of principle. For Kristol, what mattered was the effect on the citizens’ character, not whether it was unconstitutional. LBJ’s programs created dependency among its recipients and so were bad, but FDR’s New Deal provided a helping hand to citizens and so was good. Fred Barnes has described this view as ‘Big Gov’t Conservativism,’ and it is unpopular at the moment, given Bush’s presidency and the Tea Partiers.

3) The third theme of foreign policy is another reason why neoconservatism is unpopular today. Second wave Neocons justified the War on Terror on the idealistic ground of democratizing the Middle East: there is a universal desire for liberty which America is in a unique position to help realize. Surprisingly, this idealist outlook is generally missing from Kristol’s book. For the most part, he talks about ‘the national interest’ and defending America against the liberal internationalist charge of selfishness. He says the essential reading for foreign policy should be Thucydides’ On the Peloponnesian War, a work squarely in the realist camp.

When did the change from realist to idealist thinking occur in neoconservative circles? Maybe it was David Brooks’ idea of ‘National Greatness’ and the need for America to undertake grand projects. This theme should run counter to Kristol’s avowed skepticism about grand projects which is based upon his belief in our weak and limited human natures, yet one can find him affirming ‘National Greatness’ at the end of the book. Why the change?

That aside, the number one reason why readers of this blog might enjoy reading Kristol’s work is because it stands at the crossroads of political philosophy and public policy. Writing about philosophy and policy for a mainstream audience is a rarity indeed.

JPII on US

The film Nine Days That Changed The World is about JPII’s pilgrimage to Poland in 1979 while it was still under the Soviet Union’s control. It documents the uproar his visit caused and how fragile the Communist hold over that country really was. His stay sparked the Solidarity Movement which became a thorn in the Soviets’ side.

The film is also clear that JPII did not see the Cold War in terms of Evil Empire A v. Evil Empire B; instead, he sided with the Americans over the Soviets. Far from reactionary, he was an advocate of modern notions such as human rights, democracy, and capitalism.

At the same time, his support for Western democracies was not absolute. The end of the film (very) briefly mentions his worry that Western democracies like America will endorse moral relativism as its public philosophy. A polity which recognizes no objective standard above the human will would allow might to make right. In his encyclical, Evangelium Vitae, JPII discusses this problem in terms of the ‘culture of death.’ The growing acceptance of abortion and euthanasia in Western societies depicts the weak and vulnerable as being outside the human community.

While the film does not discuss this question, it is worth pondering whether the culture of death is the inevitable byproduct of democratic capitalism. If the political system of democracy and economic system of capitalism both emphasize freedom, isn’t a ‘Culture of Choice’ the necessary result? In that case, aren’t social conservatives’ hopes for a Pro-Life policy doomed in this country?

Porcher Patrick Deneen would answer in the affirmative to the previous two questions. He argues that democratic capitalism is solely the product of the Modern Enlightenment and thus necessarily leads to the culture of death. JPII would agree with a part of his assessment. In his book Memory and Identity, JPII says “In all its different forms, the Enlightenment was opposed to what Europehad become as a result of evangelization.” He would agree Enlightenment ideals are hostile to the culture of life.

But he would not agree that Western democracies like America are inevitably headed towards the culture of death. In Evangelium Vitae, he thinks the two cultures are future possibilities before Western democracies and so there is nothing determined about what is ahead. Like Tocqueville, he accepts the democratic revolution, but thinks what path it will take is still up in the air.