A few weeks ago on September 18th Irving Kristol, also known as the "Godfather of Neoconservativism," passed away at the age of 89. He wasn't a movie star or a famous politician, but his ideas have permanently changed the face of American politics.
Born in 1920, Kristol started his life in politics as a student of City College of New York, where he became a vocal Trotskyite. Though a Marxist at the time, he had the moral clarity to oppose the totalitarianism of Stalinist Russia.
After college, he served in the 12th Armored Division as an infantryman during World War II. After the war he came to see that Marxism could not work, and instead began to embrace Western ideals.
Later, when the Cold War was in full bloom, his ideological evolution led him to become a hawkish member of the Democratic Party. During this time his career as a political writer began in earnest. He worked for several public policy magazines, including Commentary, The Reporter, and The National Interest and Encounter, the last two of which he helped found.
Then during the 1960's, something happened that would change his political outlook significantly: Irving Kristol was "mugged by reality." The counterculture broke out, causing him to see how many liberal programs despite their best intentions caused negative results due to their naïve treatment of human nature.
At this time he, along with a number of other like-minded intellectuals, became increasingly disgusted with the cultural decadence, moral relativism, and disrespect for authority of the insurgent counterculture. Once this reaction had fully crystallized, a new mode of political thought, neoconservativism, had been born.
Eventually as the counterculture of the 60's began to increasingly dominate the Democratic Party, he and others like him decided that their party had become too extreme, and they switched parties. Eventually the neoconservative movement that Kristol helped found would rise to dominance in the Republican Party and the political landscape at large, during the presidencies of Reagan and both Bushes.
After helping to found neoconservativism, Kristol would go on to become a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. In 2002, seven years before his death he received the Medal of Freedom, from President George W. Bush, the highest honor for a civilian.
Even though many of Kristol's ideas were the product of the 1960's, they are perhaps even more relevant today then when he first introduced them. Kristol provided a rational framework for social and cultural conservativism in refreshing contrast to the moral relativism of the left and the blind adherence to tradition on the right.
As opposed to brushing them aside as some do, he argued that private morality and civic virtue are necessary for the overall health and greatness of a civilization and promoted patriotism and family values as such. Also he warned against the fetishization of democracy, how the public good should be the prime focus and not necessarily whatever the whim of the current majority happens to be. In a time when most people do not know the difference between a liberal and an illiberal democracy we would do well to take a look at some of his ideas.
Irving Kristol is survived by his wife Gertrude Himmelfarb, his children Bill Kristol and Elizabeth Nelson and a tradition of uniquely intellectual conservativism that he helped found. Rest in peace Mr. Kristol. May your legacy live beyond you.
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