The Neoconservatives: Missionaries of Americanism

While attending Brown University, Adoniram Judson came to reject the pious Congregational ism of his upbringing in favor of Deism. His 1807 valedictory address hailed the value of free inquiry unhindered by religious faith. A few years after graduation, however, the ambitious freethinker’s intellectual confidence was shattered by a haunting experience in a drafty New England inn. Judson’s rest was repeatedly disturbed one night by the pitiful moaning of a terminally ill man in the adjacent room. He began to ponder his own eventual death, but he dismissed these thoughts as mere night-time fancies. In the morning, Judson asked the innkeeper how the sick man was doing. Upon learning that the man had died, Judson asked who the man was. Tohis horror, the now deceased man was his best friend and fellow Deist from Brown. Convinced that there was a God who providentially arranged this incident to jolt him from deistic detachment, Judson reconverted to Christianity and sailed to Burma in 1812as America’s first foreign missionary.

I recount this story because it illustrates the birth of the neoconservatives-those Vietnam-era liberals who were “mugged by reality.”Just as Judson was mugged by the failure of his newfound rationalism in offering any hope or meaning, so also a small cadre of New York intellectuals was mugged by the rapid deterioration of the liberal tradition. Neoconservatives, like Judson, also had a convert’s zeal for propagating the truths they discovered. In a word, neoconservatives became missionaries of Americanism.

As one of the founders of the movement, Norman Podhoretz, puts it, “Neoconservatism came into the world to combat the dangerous lies that were being spread by the radicalism of the sixties and that were being accepted as truth by the established liberal institutions of the day.” The neoconservatives’ primary weapons in this combat were political periodicals, starting with William Kristol’s Public Interest and Norman Podheretz’s Commentary. These journals and those that followed them (e.g. Weekly Standard, First Things, New Criterion)created a haven for disillusioned liberals and for conservatives wanting an intellectually credible voice.

But, if neoconservatism is a reaction against the excesses of modern liberalism, then what does it stand for? The unofficial website of the movement, http://www.neoconservatism.com defines neoconservatism as a perspective” committed to cultural traditionalism, democratic capitalism, and a foreign policy promoting freedom and American interests around the world.”

This is a good working definition since it indicates that neoconservatives fight a constant two-front war: a culture war at home and a war against terror and tyranny abroad. Far from constituting a risky over-extension, neoconservatives believe that this war on two fronts has an inherent reciprocal complementarity. An effective foreign policy requires a healthy state and successful military campaigns for noble causes, which, in turn, rekindle patriotism by instilling citizens with a sense of serving a cause greater than self gratification.

On the domestic front, the goals of neoconservatives are slightly distinguishable from those of other conservatives. While they may distance themselves from the firebrands of the extreme libertarian and religious right, and appear to be more” moderate” on issues like social security and medicare, neoconservatives forcefully argue for a return to an ordered liberty that fosters individual and national well-being. Whether it be through welfare or affirmative action, neoconservatives excel at demonstrating how the Democrats’ overreaching attempts at social engineering have failed to produce their promised “Great Society” and, moreover, have hurt their intended beneficiaries.