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more pragmatic-and have a wider appeal, although their basic
position is quite similar.
A typical unabashed, true-blue neoconservative is Samuel P.
Huntington, who has never been bashful about baring the undemo–
cratic premises that underlie his neoconservatism. In 1957 he closed his
book,
The Soldier and the State,
by portraying West Point as the closest
contemporary embodiment of the inegalitarian ideal. In a passage that
comes about as close to poetry as any that claims to be political science,
he writes of the military academy:
There is ordered serenity. The parts do not exist on their own, but
accept their subordination to the whole. Beauty and utility are
merged in gray stone. Neat lawns surround compact, trim homes,
each identified by the name and rank of its occupant. The buildings
stand in fixed relation to each other, part of an over-all plan, their
character and station symbolizing their contributions, stone and
brick for the senior officers, wood for the lower ranks. The post is
suffused with the rhythm and harmony which comes when collective
will supplants individual whim. West Point is a community of
structured purpose, one in which the behavior of men is governed by
a code, the product of generations. There is little room for presump–
tion and individualism. The unity of the community incites no man
to
be more than he is. In order is found peace; in discipline,
fulfillment; in community, security.
His final stanzas counsel not only admiration but emulation, even
if it goes against the American grain:
West Point is a gray island in a many colored sea, a bit of Sparta in
the might of Babylon . Yet is it possible
to
deny that the military
values-loyalty, duty, re traint, dedication-are the one America
most needs today? That the disciplined order of West Point has more
to offer than the garish individualism of Main Street?
In his bicentennial contribution to
The Public Interest
entitled
"The Democratic Distemper," Huntington diagnosed America's socio–
political ailments as stemming from "an excess of democracy," adding,
"AI Smith once remarked, 'The only cure for the evils of democracy is
more democracy.' Our analysis suggests that applying that cure at the
present time could well be adding fuel to the fire. "
Huntington is quite aware that such baldfaced conservatism could
hardly lead to mass acclaim. In a letter to
The New York Times
he
explains, " ... if I wished to 'forge a new base of power,' I could find
much more productive ways to do it than to espouse a conservatism
