NEOCONSERVATISM
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announced a need to save democracy by having a little less of it,
continually offering criticism of programs of citizen participation.
Fourth, it wants
to
construct a positive correspondent to what it claims
(wrongly, I think) is the negative "new class." The positive corre–
spondent is some kind of militant clericy which will do the work of
cultural discipline in order
to
keep social thought from growing too
turbulent and boiling over into mischievous and dangerous initia–
tives. The power of "new class" in the symbolic and ideological arenas
will then be mobilized
to
reinforce rather than counter-balance the
power of corporate wealth. In my estimation- and this does have a lot
to
do with one's overall judgment of t.he leading issues-this neo–
conservative effort is likely, by and large, to narrow the range of
alternatives the society would have before it, socially, economically,
and politically.
William Phillips:
Peter Steinfels has made an interesting and balanced
criticism of the positive aspects, the programmatic aspects, of
neoconservative thought. But there's another aspect here. In my
opinion, the main contribution of neoconservatism has been to
poin t ou t the foolishness of a good deal of liberal and radical
opin ion . Our neoconservatives here should be pushing that side of it.
Perhaps Norman Birnbaum and Peter Steinfels might be responding
to that. Anyway, the next speaker is James
Q.
Wilson.
JAMES
Q.
WILSON
I was struck by our moderator's suggestion that one of the
purposes of tonight's meeting was for neoconservatives to explain how
they are going to so lve the problems of the country. I find that odd. I
would think that those who propose changes have the principal
obligation to defend them, to explain how they might work, and to
explain the errors of the past, almost all committed in the name of
liberalism . Neoconservatives, I suppose myself included, point out that
these errors are primarily with the use of facts and, as Peter Steinfels
has rightly pointed out, with the dispositions behind those facts.
We are contributing to a discussion. Now in bringing my views to
this I'm at a profound disadvantage. I was not given the benefits of
being raised in New York or in other places where one is a participant
from early childhood in the struggles and factional quarrels of the left.
