A Question of Ideology

There’s been a lot of discussion regarding neocons and paleocons on the weblog circuit over the last couple of days, apparently instigated by Charles Krauthammer’s recent piece on the reaction of the various conservative tribes to the Lott saga. One of the better pieces on this topic is by IA’s own Collin May (below). There’s an interesting but superficial similarity between Collin’s and Krauthammer’s pieces: both associate neoconservatism with liberalism.

The connection made by Collin is primarily historical (or perhaps etymological). His piece deserves reading so I won’t rehash it here, but to put his main point regarding neocons in its simplest terms: neocons are essentially classical liberals (i.e., Lockean, Tocquevillian, Smithian, etc. – but definitely not Burkean).

Krauthammer also makes a historical connection between neocons and liberalism, but he focuses on personal history. His answer to the question as to why neocons are so fiercely dedicated to the idea of a color blind society (i.e., as anti-segregation as they are anti-affirmative action) is that "many neconservatives are former liberals" (by which he does not apparently mean classical liberals).

Knowing a lot of neocons both personally and by reputation, I can speak – anecdotally at least – to the truth of that assertion. But not only does that not tell us much about neoconservatism, the assertion plays right into the hands of our fellow right-of-center rivals, the dread paleocons.

One of the anti-neocon arguments favored by the paleos is that there’s nothing ‘former’ about the liberalism of neocons, rather that neoconservatism is nothing but the hijacking of American conservatism by the moderate (or not so moderate) left. This is true enough if, as Collin aptly points out, your political bearings are taken from 19th century Europe. But given the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the popular ideologies adopted by the "old school" right in the 19th and 20th centuries to counter Enlightenment liberalism, that’s not exactly a trenchant critique.

The real distinction between neocons and paleocons (and other alleged conservatives) is the role ideology plays in the formation of their respective positions. All conservatives worthy of the appellation harbor a prudential pessimism regarding the ability of politics to cure the ills of man, but beyond that, the difference between neocons and paleo/traditional conservatives couldn’t be starker. Simply put: neocons are ideologues, the others are nostalgic.

Nostalgia as the grounding of non-neo-conservatism may be a bit of an oversimplification, but it’s not a gross oversimplification. An Op-Ed piece published in the Wall Street Journal earlier this month by British conservative Roger Scruton, A Question of Temperment, provides an excellent example. There is much to praise in Scruton’s piece, but the telling part is his definition of a conservative:

"It is a tautology to say that a conservative is a person who wants to conserve things: the question is what things? To this I think we can give a simple one-word answer, namely: us. At the heart of every conservative endeavor is the effort to conserve a historically given community. In any conflict the conservative is the one who sides with "us" against "them" – not knowing, but trusting."

Scruton goes on to describe conservatism as a temperament- one that grows out of the experience of society and that is required for the perpetuation of societies.

Much wisdom perhaps, but no philosophy. Or otherwise put: no ideology. Given the murderous character of the more ideologically driven regimes of the past century that might seem a good thing. But what if the "us" Scruton refers to happens to be Nazi Germany? What if the society Scruton’s conservative "temperament" seeks to perpetuate happens to be the Jim Crow south? Let me be clear here: I am absolutely not equating the conservative "temperament" to enthusiastic membership in these societies, but rather pointing out that such a temperament will do nothing to equip one to resist an unjust society that one has by capricious fortune been born into.

By contrast, neocons are ideologues. The neoconservative ideology predates neoconservatism. It goes by a number of names, but the best is probably classical liberalism. Its primary source is a philosophical conversation that took place over several centuries among some of the greatest minds civilization has produced. Its most succinct expression is a passage familiar to every free and literate person alive today, a passage that according to one analyst, "by its weight and elevation, is made immune to the degrading effects of the excessive familiarity which breeds contempt and of misuse which breeds disgust":

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.