Against Neoconservatism (It's the new Jacobinism, says Claes G. Ryn.)

Lew Rockwell.com ^ | 5 May 04 | Claes G. Ryn

[mrsmith]

That darn neocon Thomas Jefferson!

That darn neocon James Madison!

OOOHHH they make me so mad!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Belisaurius]

Abraham Lincoln, neocon?

[Dumb_Ox]

We care more about life, liberty and justice than any nation before us in history.

Don't you see that statement is dripping in pride? Where's the humble self-restraint on which true greatness and good government rests?

America has always sought to transform the world through the belief of liberty anchored in law.

Like in World War II, when we made the world free for our democratic ally, Joseph Stalin. No human endeavour is an absolute good.

[u-89]

Jacobians, Trotskyites, Neocons - it doesn't seem confusing, it seems like a line of succession.

Playing God, the desire to remake the world in their own image, some people think big -"national greatness," "benevolent global hegemony" and "Pax Americana," " moral clarity" and "spreading democracy." Such big ideas.

Here's Irving Kristol in his own words:

" a great power, the "national interest" is not a geographical term..... A smaller nation might appropriately feel that its national interest begins and ends at its borders, so that its foreign policy is almost always in a defensive mode. A larger nation has more extensive interests. And large nations, whose identity is ideological, like the Soviet Union of yesteryear and the United States of today, inevitably have ideological interests "

- "What's the point of being the greatest, most powerful nation in the world and not having an imperial role? It's unheard of in human history. The most powerful nation always had an imperial role."

- "I think it would be natural for the United States . . . to play a far more dominant role in world affairs. Not what we're doing now but to command and to give orders as to what is to be done. People need that."

[NutCrackerBoy]

Bump for later - I would like to respond to the essay.

[Belisaurius]

Don't you see that statement is dripping in pride? Where's the humble self-restraint on which true greatness and good government rests?
It's on display every day in Iraq and Afganistan, if you are paying any attention. You ask where the self-restraint is? We've been fighting some of the worst people on the face of the earth for two years and the worst transgression on our part has been some REMFs taking naughty pictures of prisoners.
Like in World War II, when we made the world free for our democratic ally, Joseph Stalin. No human endeavour is an absolute good.
True, but some human endeavors are an absolute evil. Like totalitarianism. Or terrorism. So, the not absolutely good United States must do what it can, while most of the rest of world sucks their thumbs...and while puds from Lew Rockwell impugn the motives of people whose overriding desire and life mission is a strong United States.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

The analogical dimensions of the metaphorical use of "Jacobin" seem to have thrown some off from the wider argument. The issue really should not be whether the excesses of neocons are comparable to those of the French Revolution, as some seem to have wandered off. It's not a question of "higher" or "lower" orders of society or whether some are more or less worthy of rights of liberty or access to the benefits of a free society based on constitutional republic models of liberty. And it's certainly not a question of returning to a pre-18th-century "divine right of kings" form of statism.

The main issue should be focused on the historical dimensions of developments in British and Anglo-American culture which rendered the kind of society in the 13 British colonies possible. Now, that doesn't exist in Iraq. If nominal "conservatives" are confused by the arguments between theoretical neocons and scholarly paleocons, between the Jaffaites and Kirkians, concerning the cultural and historical dimensions of political orders, they should contemplate more ponderously what is actually happening in Iraq. A good example of the differences in culture recently was exhibited in these photos of the abuse of prisoners. It may have seemed "funny" and just "fine" for the U.S. soldiers to apply some Porky's-style locker-room hazing of the Iraqis, with masturbatory and homoerotic taunting as one might find in a U.S. public school or surely in the adolescent experience of, say, Bill Clinton. Iraqis, as historic Muslims have a DIFFERENT cultural understanding of nudity and the sadomasochistic nature of Iraqi culture is DIFFERENT from the sadomasochistic nature of American neo-Puritan culture. Cultures are DIFFERENT and have different HISTORIES. The question is whether a society with a VERY DIFFERENT "culture" and "history" might also have a DIFFERENT kind of political and social order. The historical experience is that they do.

Whether a group of intellectuals from Columbia University or Harvard could sit around in a thinktank with a bunch of social studies textbooks and maps and redesign the entire world to fit the lifestyle expectations of surbanites from Westchester, Montgomery, and Fairfax County is a legitimate issue for conservative theorists to debate. Granted, Ryn may not be the most articulate or diplomatic proponent of the debate. He's certainly not one of the kinder and gentler "puppies" of the race to take Chicago esoteric neo-Platonism lying down.

The issue of how to handle Islamo-fascist terrorism really ought to be removed from the Bell Curve mafia. And just for diplomatic purposes, it would be better for European Christians to take an interest in the subject.

[Belisaurius]

Unfortunately, the European Christians are too busy trying to prop up their duct tape and chickenwire version of state socialism to worry much about the Middle East, unless it's a matter of a lucrative contract for an aeronautical or petrochemical firm.
The 'excesses' of the neoconservatives jolted us out of 1970s post-Vietnam posture of detente and accomodation. There's something to be said for that.
That Porky's-style photo-op has nothing to do with neoconservatives or American culture. It has everything to do with the propensity for bored rear-echelon troops, especially security-types, to behave badly. That this is the worst act documented, given two years of constant conflict, says more about the basic decency of the US soldier then it does about homoeroticism in Western civilization. Or how it applies to Islam.
All those (I mean the Lew Rockwell types) who argue against neoconservatism have failed to propose their own policy for defeating Islamic fundamentalism. They know what they are against, but don't seem to know what their for, except perhaps a return to Jefferson's mythical republic of the yeoman farmer.
Neoconservatism as it exists today means the will to employ US power to defeat those who wish to destroy us, and to dissuade those who wish to rival us from attempting to do so. That's not imperialism, and it's not jacobinism either.
It is in our national interest to defeat evil where we can. To paraphrase an old saw, American hegenomy is the worst kind, except for all the others.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

It would be nice if things worked out like in a Frank Capra movie. But for the people who dedicated themselves to emasculating European aristocratic culture and Catholicism to now whine about why Europe, now secularized, socialist, and population controlled (like good Kinseyite illuminoids), will not join in an American anti-Islam crusade is so ridiculously absurd as to defy further comment.

"Woodrow Wilson, call your office..."

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

Porky's style is modern American culture last time I checked.

[Belisaurius]

I don't recall the neoconservatives emasculating Europe.
Porky's is hardly the sum total of American culture.

[Belisaurius]

You're the one wishing for Christian Europe to lead the fight against radical Islam.
Woodrow Wilson was hardly a prophet of the use of American military and economic might to advance our national interest. He was the founding father of the use of soft power. Not an apt comparison to today's neoconservatives.

[hchutch]

LEWSER Rockwell alert...

Seriously, these guys have NO concept of how things changed. The oceans and distance do not protect us any longer...

[veronica]

Lew Crockwell.

Nest of the loony PaleoCONS.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

Wilson is a key figure in the history of Leftism in foreign policy.Read some Churchill. He had a few things to say on that.

It would be NICE for European Christians to take the lead on a great many things. They are no longer in power. That didn't happen by accident. At least, back when we used to study history, that is...

The neocon/paleocon debate is valid as a theoretical exercise. But given the departure of Republican and American politics from Christian culture, it is relatively meaningless to the future of civilization.

The Porky's-ization of modern American culture is rather relevant, as John Kerry keeps reminding us.

[Belisaurius]

Since neoconservatism is the principle behind our foreign policy, I'd say it was rather meaningful to any current debate on our civilization.
Neoconservatism and Wilson have almost nothing in common except the belief that there should be a moral component to foreign policy decisions.
That ongoing moral decline of civilization (Porky's-ization) bromide has been around since Augustine of Hippo. Given our thirty year love affair with the disposal of unwanted babies, I'm hesitant to argue strenuously against the idea. Still, there are alot of people fighting tooth-and-nail, and I'd say your assertion that Republican and American politics has jettisoned Christianity (and Judaism too) is rather premature.
John Kerry? We've always had John Kerrys.

There's more Christianity in China today then in Europe.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

Neoconservatism and Wilson have almost nothing in common except the belief that there should be a moral component to foreign policy decisions.

What??? Good grief... What planet are you on? Read Churchill. Ever heard of the Versailles Treaty?

If Bush's policy wonks were inspired by reading Leo Strauss at Harvard, yes, it's relevant to their thinking and ideology. Whether Neocon American Republicans are likely to determine the future of "civilization" is an open question. Whether the lifestyle expectations of middle-class, social Darwinist people in Westchester, Fairfield, Montgomery, and Fairfax County ought to determine the future of world civilization is also an open question. [Irony Alert]

They might want to solve the violence in their own cities before dumping funds abroad. [SARCASM]

[Belisaurius]

The Versailles treaty vs. Neoconservatism's desire to use US military and economic hegenomy. Wilson tried to ensure peace by establishing the League of Nations while the Neoconservatives are trying to ensure peace by intimidation through overwhelming might...and you're asking me what planet I'm on. The two don't compare, not a wit.

The only thing they have in common is opposition from little america isolationists.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

Thanks for revealing your cards. No need to spank shadows. The original points of debate are as have been previously outlined in #27. Whether the abstruse theoretical twister of the neo-con debate has helped the conservative movement remains to be seen. Christian conservatism is fine as it always has been.

Let's hope it holds the fort off from four years of Kerryosophy.

[u-89]

> Neoconservatism and Wilson have almost nothing in common except the belief that there should be a moral component to foreign policy decisions

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Like this "moral componnent" from President Bush's press conference a couple of weeks ago:

"And as the greatest power on the face of the earth, we have an obligation to help the spread of freedom. We have an obligation to help feed the hungry. I think the American people find it interesting that we're providing food for the North Korea people who starve.

"We have an obligation to lead the fight on AIDS, on Africa. And we have an obligation to work toward a more free world. That's our obligation. That is what we have been called to do, as far as I'm concerned.

"And my job as the president is to lead this nation and to making the world a better place. And that's exactly what we're doing."

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This moralism sounds more like global socialism than conservatism. Perhaps that's what they mean by "new" conservatism.