The neoconservatives' abandonment of the culture war

The neoconservatives’ abandonment of the culture war

In my commentary on Irving Kristol’s article, “The Neoconservative Persuasion,” entitled “Irving Kristol reveals the true nature of neoconservatism,” I pointed out how the neoconservatives had abandoned their former supposed concerns about morality and culture and now stood for nothing except the global expansion of American power and ideology. But when I wrote that article, I did not realize the full extent of the neoconservatives’ betrayal of principle, because I had forgotten Kristol’s own extraordinary past statements about the culture war. In a 1993 article in The National Interest that was reprinted in The Wall Street Journal, Kristol spoke of a culture war in this country in terms every bit as radical and passionate as Patrick Buchanan had used in his much demonized speech at the 1992 Republican National Convention. Yet, despite Kristol’s stirring call to cultural and moral combat, a combat he said would go on for generations, the neoconservative movement over the next ten years progressively accommodated itself to the left on the culture war. That surrender began with the attack by leading neoconservatives (including Kristol’s wife Gertrude Himmelfarb) on the First Things “End of Democracy?” symposium in 1995, an attack that killed any possibility of mainstream conservatives taking a serious stand against leftist judicial usurpation. The surrender was elaborated further in a series of “cutting edge” books by the younger neoconservatives in which they made their peace with the left. And it was more or less made “official” by Kristol himself in “The Neoconservative Persuasion.”

I have been unable to find an online version of Kristol’s remarkable 1993 article, but here is a long quote from it by Richard John Neuhaus in the July/August 1993 issue of First Things:

In an issue of The National Interest that is nothing short of brilliant, the “Strange Death of Soviet Communism” is analyzed from myriad angles. In that issue Irving Kristol has a little essay on what he did during the Cold War. Under the influence of Lionel Trilling and Reinhold Niebuhr he tried very hard and for many years to be a liberal, despite everything. But then he came to the conclusion, painfully and reluctantly, that the rot and decadence of our culture “was no longer the consequence of liberalism but was the actual agenda of contemporary liberalism.” The culture wars, writes Kristol, are the new and much more difficult cold war. He writes: “It is a cold war that, for the last twenty-five years, has engaged my attention and energy, and continues to do so. There is no ‘after the Cold War’ for me. So far from having ended, my cold war has increased in intensity, as sector after sector of American life has been ruthlessly corrupted by the liberal ethos. It is an ethos that aims simultaneously at political and social collectivism on the one hand, and moral anarchy on the other. It cannot win, but it can make us all losers. We have, I do believe, reached a critical turning point in the history of the American democracy. Now that the other ‘Cold War’ is over, the real cold war has begun. We are far less prepared for this cold war, far more vulnerable to our enemy, than was the case with our victorious war against a global Communist threat. We are, I sometimes feel, starting from ground zero, and it is a conflict I shall be passing on to my children and grandchildren. But it is a far more interesting cold war-intellectually interesting, spiritually interesting-than the war we have so recently won, and I rather envy those young enough for the opportunities they will have to participate in it.”

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 22, 2004 07:30 PM | Send

Comments

Lawrence,
Two possibilities.
Either Kristol was disengenous all along. Merely making noises & gestures about the culture war while really not giving a hoot about it. Of course such a line of attack would be counter attacked with a charge of anti semitism (i.e. how dare you insinuate that Kristol is really only interested in foreign policy & is not a real conservative). Others may pursue this line of attack (eg. Justin Raimondo) and argue that Kristol has been an opportunist all along simply using the conservative movement and the GOP to further his foreign policy ambitions.
The more generous possibility is that since 9/11 Kristol regards the culture war as a low priority side show. The only issues worthy of focus are the war on terror, al Qaeda & Wahhabism. I suppose what most weakens Kristol’s position in this case is that he & his journal have very little credibility when it comes to border control policy which is surely integral to fighting al Qaeda.

Posted by: Chris M. on February 24, 2004 12:25 PM

A clarification on Kristol. He has always been less concerned about foreign policy and the international reach of U.S. power than other neoconservatives. For example, in the ’80s he argued that America should withdraw from Europe, while Podhoretz disagreed with him. Also, Kristol is the founder and (former?) publisher of The National Interest, which has always taken the “realist” rather than the “expansionist” approach to foreign policy. This background makes Kristol’s redefining of his godchild neoconservatism almost solely in terms of foreign policy even more striking.

At bottom, what it means to me is that Kristol is just not serious about anything. To me, that’s the real meaning of neoconservatism. They take positions in order to situate themselves in relation to the dominant liberal culture, as its “moderate” critics. As that culture shifts, so do they.

Posted by: Lawrence Auster on February 24, 2004 12:57 PM

Kristol is also an edlerly man, whose whole life has been dedicated to politics. My own view is that his writings constitute a valuable contribution, in particular as perhaps the most cogent description and explanation of the Neoconservative phenomenon: that is, of the trend during the middle decades of the twentieth century of Liberals abandoning “movement” Liberalism as it turned against sanity, patriotism and normacy.

Mr. Auster says that Kristol is just not serious anymore. That’s right, I think. Just like Buckley (who gave up the fight after Reagan was elected), Kristol just ran out of gas.

Posted by: Paul Cella on February 24, 2004 2:26 PM

I don’t think Kristol’s lack of seriousness is very recent or due to advanced age. I wrote him a long letter in 1994 pointing out the ways in which he and the neoconsevative movement were not serious:

http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/001544.html

Posted by: Lawrence Auster on February 24, 2004 2:33 PM

Mr. Auster—Your ‘94 letter to Irving Kristol was remarkable and right to the point. Did he ever reply to you? Your ‘94 letter to Kristol and recent statements here about “The Neocons” have given me much knowledge about them that I never could have culled from their tv appearances (I’m referring to Bill Kristol, who I saw so often interviewed on MSNBC and C-Span during the Clinton Era). I always felt they (the Neo-cons) looked a bit strange, wearing those bow ties. Or am I thinking of Tucker Carlson et al? It’s funny that you mention “They cannot be serious about anything.” I stopped watching C-Span and MSNBC because I found that Bill Kristol and others were NOT true (traditionalist) conservatives from their backing off of a full conviction of Clinton by the Senate. And, by the way, the failure to convict Clinton—along with Gingrich’s selling out his loyal Congressmen by signing that stupid book deal and further embarrassing himself—was a signal to me and other conservatives that the now-famous ‘94 “Conservative Revolution” in the Congress was “kaput”, and that we had actually won nothing in the Culture Wars.

Posted by: David Levin on February 26, 2004 7:11 AM

Kristol did reply, by, of all things, calling me a libertarian. I wrote back explaining I was not. Maybe I’ll reproduce the exchange here at some point.

Posted by: Lawrence Auster on February 26, 2004 7:15 AM