Irving Kristol
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| Western Philosophy Modern philosophy |
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| Full name | Irving Kristol |
|---|---|
| Birth | January 22, 1920 |
| School/tradition | American neoconservatism |
Irving Kristol (born January 22, 1920) has been dubbed the "godfather of neoconservatism."[1] As the founder, editor, and contributor to various magazines, he has played an influential role in the intellectual and political culture of the last half-century.[2]
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[edit] Background
Kristol was born in Brooklyn, New York of Jewish immigrants from the Ukraine. He received his B.A. from the City College of New York in 1940, where he majored in history and was part of a small but vocal Trotskyist sect. During his studies, he met Gertrude Himmelfarb at a Trotskyist meeting, and they married on January 18, 1942.[3] During World War II, he served in Europe in the 12th Armored Division as a combat infantryman.[4]
He was an editor and then the managing editor of Commentary magazine from 1947 to 1952; co-founder (with Stephen Spender) of the British-based Encounter from 1953 to 1958; editor of The Reporter from 1959 to 1960; executive vice-president of the publishing house, Basic Books, from 1961 to 1969; Henry Luce Professor of Urban Values at New York University from 1969 to 1987; co-founder and co-editor (first with Daniel Bell and then Nathan Glazer) of The Public Interest from 1965 to 2002; and founder and publisher of The National Interest from 1985 to 2002.
He is a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute since 1988, a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations since 1972, a member of the Wall Street Journal Board of Contributors since 1972, and president of National Affairs, Inc.
Kristol suggests of himself, "Ever since I can remember, I've been a neo-something: a neo-Marxist, a neo-Trotskyist, a neo-liberal, a neo-conservative; in religion a neo-orthodox even while I was a neo-Trotskyist and a neo-Marxist. I'm going to end up a neo-that's all, neo dash nothing."[5]
In July 2002, President George W. Bush awarded Kristol the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Kristol is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a fellow emeritus at the American Enterprise Institute (having been an associate fellow from 1972, a senior fellow from 1977 and the John M. Olin Distinguished Fellow from 1988 to 1999). As a member of the board of contributors of the Wall Street Journal, he contributed a monthly column from 1972 to 1997. He served on the Council of the National Endowment for the Humanities from 1972 to 1977. In July 2002, he received from President George W. Bush the Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.
Kristol was married in 1942 to the historian Gertrude Himmelfarb. They have two children, Elizabeth Nelson and William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard.
[edit] Ideas
In 1973 Michael Harrington coined the term "neoconservatism" to describe those liberal intellectuals and political philosophers who were disaffected with the political and cultural attitudes dominating the Democratic Party and were moving toward a new form of conservatism[6]. Intended by Harrington as a pejorative term, it was accepted by Kristol as an apt description of the ideas and policies exemplified by The Public Interest. Unlike liberals, for example, neoconservatives rejected most of the Great Society programs sponsored by Lyndon Johnson; and unlike traditional conservatives, they supported the more limited welfare state instituted by Roosevelt.
In February, 1979, Kristol was featured on the cover of Esquire. The caption identified him as "the godfather of the most powerful new political force in America -- Neoconservatism."[7] That year also saw the publication of a book The Neoconservatives: The Men Who Are Changing America's Politics. Like Harrington, the author, Peter Steinfels, was critical of neoconservatism, but he was impressed by its growing politicl and intellectual influence. Kristol's response appeared under the title "Confessions of a True, Self-Confessed -- Perhaps the Only -- 'Neoconservative'."[8]
Neoconservatism, Kristol maintains, is not an ideology but a "persuasion," a way of thinking about politics rather than a compendium of principles and axioms.[9]. It is classical rather than romantic in temperament, and practical and antiutopian in policy. One of Kristol's most celebrated quips defines a neoconservative as "a liberal who has been mugged by reality."[10]
That "reality," for Kristol, is a complex one. While propounding the virtues of supply-side economics as the basis for the economic growth that is "a sine qua non for the survival of a modern democracy," he also insists that any economic philosophy has to be enlarged by "political philosophy, moral philosophy, and even religious thought," which were as much the sine qua non for a modern democracy.[11]
One of his early books, Two Cheers for Capitalism, asserts that capitalism, or more precisely bourgeois capitalism, is worthy of two cheers: One cheer, because "it works, in a quite simple, material sense," by improving the conditions of people. And a second cheer, because it is "congenial to a large measure of personal liberty." These are no small achievements, he argues, and only capitalism has proved capable of providing them. But it also imposes a great "psychic burden" upon the individual and the social order as well. Because it does not meet the individual's "'existential' human needs," it creates a "spiritual malaise" that threatens the legitimacy of that social order. As much as anything else, it is the withholding of that third cheer that is the distinctive mark of neoconservatism, as Kristol understands it.[12]
[edit] Quotations
"A neoconservative is a liberal who has been mugged by reality."[13]
"The trouble with traditional American conservatism is that it lacks a naturally cheeerful, optimistic disposition. Not only does it lack one, it regards signs of one as evidence of unsoundness, irresponsibility."[14]
"There are different kinds of truths for different kinds of people. There are truths appropriate for children; truths that are appropriate for students; truths that are appropriate for educated adults; and truths that are appropriate for highly educated adults, and the notion that there should be one set of truths available to everyone is a modern democratic fallacy. It doesn't work."[15][16]
"Senator McGovern is very sincere when he says that he will try to cut the military budget by 30%. And this is to drive a knife in the heart of Israel... Jews don't like big military budgets. But it is now an interest of the Jews to have a large and powerful military establishment in the United States... American Jews who care about the survival of the state of Israel have to say, no, we don't want to cut the military budget, it is important to keep that military budget big, so that we can defend Israel."[17]
[edit] Articles
- Kristol, Irving (2005-5-25). Forty Good Years. The Public Interest. http://www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,pubID.22580/pub_detail.asp. Retrieved on 17 September 2008.
[edit] Books
- Neoconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea 1995 (ISBN 0-02-874021-1)
- Reflections of a Neoconservative: Looking Back, Looking Ahead 1983 (ISBN 0-465-06872-3)
- Two Cheers for Capitalism 1978 (ISBN 0-465-08803-1)
- On the Democratic Idea in America
- The American Revolution as a successful revolution (Distinguished lecture series on the Bicentennial) 1973 (ISBN 0-8447-1300-7)
- Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions - it only guarantees equality of opportunity.
[edit] Notes
- ^ See, for example, http://www.reason.com/news/show/34900.html
- ^ See, for example, "American Conservative Opinion Leaders," by Mark J. Rozell and James F. Pontuso, 1990.
- ^ Kristol, 12-13.
- ^ Kristol, Irving. Neoconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea. New York: The Free Press, 1995. ISBN 0-02-874021-1 p. 3-4
- ^ Review of Arguing the World (January 7, 1998) (retrieved 29 December 2007)
- ^ [1]
- ^ [2]
- ^ [3]
- ^ in Reflections of a Neoconservative, p.79
- ^ [4]
- ^ Neoconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea (New York, 1995), p. 37.
- ^ Two Cheers for Capitalism (New York, 1978), pp. x-xii.
- ^ [5]
- ^ Wall Street Journal, Nov. 18, 1985.
- ^ Origin of the Specious, Reason Magazine (July 1997)
- ^ Atheism Central for Secondary Schools - the noble lie
- ^ Kristol, Irving. 1973. Congress Bi-Weekly. American Jewish Congress. (Produced online)
[edit] External links
Definitions from Wiktionary
Textbooks from Wikibooks
Quotations from Wikiquote
Source texts from Wikisource
Images and media from Commons
News stories from Wikinews
Learning resources from Wikiversity- American Conservatism 1945-1995, by Irving Kristol
- On The Political Stupidity of the Jews, by Irving Kristol
- The Neoconservative Persuasion, by Irving Kristol
