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The Philosophical Foundations of Neoconservatism
| Article
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11662 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
9 / 1986 |
3,018 Words |
| Author
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Antonio T. de Nicolas
Antonio T. de Nicolas is professor of philosophy at State
University of New York at Stony Brook. |
This paper is a reflection upon the philosophical foundations of the dividing line that separates liberals and conservatives. It is also a reflection upon the dividing line that separates conservatives from neoconservatives. These reflections are distilled from seventeen years of forced reflection and forced covert action in that most liberal of institutions of the world's greatest democracy, the American State University (this particular one at Stony Brook, New York). It is impossible to describe all that is entailed by the human soul's laboring under such liberal conditions, and to keep its militant spirit, the soul has had to engage in an amount of exercise that exceeds one life's fair share. Nor can I set forth in detail all the reason of supporting the sad conclusion that most liberals in the universities are liberals because they are not free to be otherwise; they are constitutionally immune to temptations to embrace any form of political conservatism. What follows reflects the conclusions drawn from such an experience.
I take as my starting point the affirmation of Willmore Kendall in The Conservative Affirmation (Boston: Regnery Gateway, 1985; first published in 1963) that there is a dividing line - a line of battle, two sides of a war - that separates conservatives and liberals. It is not easy to identify in a general manner what the battle is about, even when we are able to pinpoint what is at issue in such a particular skirmishes as: (1) immigration quotas (present shares of population vs. scientific quotas that avoid discrimination by race); (2) the elimination of income tax loop-holes (which would require the rich to pay 92 percent of their income in taxes and preclude their leaving any inheritance); (3) whether or not to abolish the House Committee on Un-American Activities; (4) full employment; (5) the size of the national debt; (7) public housing; (8) federal aid to education; (9) the contractual nature of justice; (10) whether equality of rights requires government intervention, and so on.
It is difficult to establish the place of the dividing line, since the line itself is moved around at the convenience of the Right and the Left. The Church may sometimes be found on either side (depending on the particular issue), and perhaps on the wrong side in any case. Individuals change allegiances for may reasons, a major reason being that they find the foundations of the line unclear when they make decisions and sponsor causes.
Tracing the dividing line in its overall configuration (rather than focusing on local skirmishes) and discovering also how the global war got started and what will have been decided
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