I'm tired of the word "neocon." It's not just that the word has no fixed meaning, which is irritating enough. It's that it's a slur.
To understand this word, we must know its origin. Back in the early 1970s, a group of left-wing intellectuals started questioning some left-wing dogma and began saying that, in at least some areas, the right had some good points. The main departure point was communism, which too many on the left tended to deal with softly, or in morally relativistic terms. There were other areas of questioning of extreme left dogma, but national defense was the core of it. Some of these people who questioned left-wing dogma eventually formed their own political journals because, even though they still considered themselves members of the left, they were often ostracized in traditional left-wing circles.
In fact, one of the ways they were ostracized by the left was by giving them a snotty, derisive name. The left dubbed them "neocons," as a way of implying that they were once liberal but had newly become conservatives instead.
By the way, by coincidence, a large number of these renegade liberals, these "neocons," were Jewish intellectuals. I only mention that because it becomes important later.
Anyway, by 1980, most of the neocons had walked out of the Democratic Party, and away from the Left. A few latched on to the "neocon" slur and made it their own (sort of the way gay people have latched on to "queer"). After all, anyone who really looked at what they believed would have a hard time calling them truly conservative, since most of them were still broad-minded reformers and not traditionalists. A few decided to call themselves libertarians. Eventually, though, most of them just went ahead and started calling themselves "conservatives."
Arguably, there hasn't been any such thing as a neocon in 20 years. Unless, I suppose, you call anyone who walks out of the Democratic Party and starts voting Republican a "neocon," the word just doesn't mean anything.
What's bizarre is that, since 9/11, angry left-wing critics have started dubbing just about everyone who disagrees with them on defense matters a "neocon." Democrat, Republican, socialist, capitalist, it doesn't matter. If you supported the effort to liberate Iraq, you are a "neocon."
People who've considered themselves conservative Republicans their whole lives, like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, are now routinely called "neocons." Democrats who support the war effort get called "neocons." People who voted for Gore who think Iraq was the right thing to do are called "neocons." Pretty much anybody who thinks that America needed to take out Saddam Hussein and start the process of reforming the thug-regimes of the Middle East, or who thinks the liberal democratic state of Israel has a right to exist and is not the moral equivalent of Yassir Arafat's terrorist-regime, is now dubbed a "neocon."
There is also a subtle undercurrent among some (not all, but some) who use the term that a "neocon" is really someone who's either Jewish, or secretly influenced by Zionist thinkers.
It's bugged me for some time, though: why "neocon?" Why label people with a 30 year old slur that described a group of people who are now either very old, or dead? Why is it so popular now, all of a sudden? Then something occurred to me.
"Con," supposedly short for "conservative," also sounds like "con" as in "con artist" or "liar."
Furthermore, by adding the term "neo" to it, you have a word that sounds more sinister, as in "Neo-Nazi."
I don't get mad when someone calls me a "neocon." It's like someone calling me a Communist. I recognize it as a snotty, somewhat bizarre non-sequitur. I also don't much care, since people who have to descend to juvenile name-calling and cheap labeling are obviously not very bright anyway. It's like having a 9-year-old say, "you're just a big stupid-head!"
Still, I think it's worth noticing that "neocon" is so popular among the lefty hatemongers precisely because it makes you sound like a Neo-Nazi liar. Or just a tool of scheming Jews.
Heck, over the past two years I've been called a tool of the Jews, the Pope, the GOP, big business....I'm thinking of renting myself out to Black and Decker.
Still, though, there is a serious side of this - to call people "neo-cons" is to dehumanize them...and we know what happens after dehumanization occurs, right? This is something worth fighting about.
The only thing worse (in their minds) than a Neo-Con is a Neo-Con Hawk. Yikes! It's the war loving baby killers! What a bunch of shrieking lunatics.
As a person of Jewish ancestry who was brought up to be a leftist and have developed into a libertarian hawk, I like to think that "neo" means "new and improved". Of course that phrase has no more value than it usually does, but it sounds good.
Interesting points there Dean, as per normal. I find it amusing when you hear anti-Americans bleating on about the neo-cons that surround and "run" Bush. I would bet that many of them are not aware of its anti-semitic underpinings.
Wow, just like "liberal", eh? Doesn't mean anything but, "You're bad!" I try to feel bad for people who learn that incendiary language cuts both ways, but my head hurts and I just eat some tofu and tighten the straps on my Birkenstocks.
Or the famous Democrat = Socialist slur that has so much traction these days.
For starters, I do think that the neoconservatives do exist, and I believe neoconservatism is identifiable as a variety of conservatism that's moderate on domestic policy and hawkish on international policy. Irving Kristol, Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, and Sen. John McCain espouse this view. I agree, though, that many people on the far left and far right toss the word "neocon" around as an anti-Jewish epithet, since the word lets them mask anti-Semitic beliefs. "A neocon cabal controls Washington." "Neocons dictate America's policy towards Israel." "Neocons want to get their hands on other country's riches." And so on . . .
What's also rather bizarre to me is the way some liberals now treat neocon as a catch-all for anything "right of center." A liberal friend of mine sent me an e-mail forward entitled "25 Rules For Being A Good Neoconservative," which contained a number of attacks on traditional conservatism which are inapplicable to the neoconservatism of Kristol et al. When I pointed this out, my friend fumed that I can't stand criticism of conservatives. Heh. Similarly, liberals tend to unthinkingly describe all of Bush's foreign policy hands as neoconservatives, while Paul Wolfowitz is, to the best of my knowledge, the only neocon who participates in Bush's National Security Council. (Cheney, Rummy, Rice, Powell, and Armitage aren't neocons, folks.)
Lastly, maybe it's my political science background, but the "neo-" prefix doesn't remind me of "neo-Nazi." Consider neo-liberalism: there are at least three types of neo-liberalism discussed by poli sci geeks -- (1) moderate DLC liberalism (think The New Republic), (2) a revision of the liberal paradigm in international relations, and (3) free trade liberalization. I admit that to the man on the street, "neocon" might sound like neo-Nazi, but it might also remind them of The Matrix :-)
The thing that strikes me as funny is that lefties use the term "neocon ideologues," which seems to me to be a bit of an oxymoron. The term "ideologue" implies that an individual has placed an idea over and above the reality of a situation. No facts on the ground can undermine his powerful convictions. A Neocon is a person who started out on the left but then turned to the dark side (or moved to the right) for whatever reason, typically because an event or sequence of events altered his perspective on the matter at hand. 9-11 turned a lot of people into neocons. How can they also be described as ideologues? I wonder...
I understood it from a musical perspective. In the same way that "neo-classical" was a return to and a restatement of classical styles with new harmonic structures and a more modern understanding of harmonic motion, "neo-conservative" represents a movement within conservatism that starts with some conservative assumptions but dismisses or modifies others. Reagan defined one branch of conservatism, Dole/Gingrich/Helms a different type, and neo-cons another.
W seems to be more in the mold of Reagan than his own father.
But in general sloppy use, the left seems to use "Neo-con" to mean "moderate Republican" and "extreme right wing idealogue" for normal "Republicans" and "fundamental religionist nutso" for the "religious right".
John,
Liberal has rarely meant "you're bad!". In actuality, it means: "I disagree with your worldview as being too simplistic, off-base, etc". Liberals learned to take it as an insult as it became obvious that most people in the United States disagree with liberals. Thus, liberals feel vexed to actually be labeled 'liberal' because the practical meaning is: you are going to lose the election. No matter what term you use to describe your collective view, you will come to see it as negative as soon as people understand what values are associated with that label. That's why you guys have already worn out both "liberal" and "progressive" and are moving rapidly toward making "democrat" unusable.
Rick,
Unless you are saying "Democrat actually means wanting lower taxes, privatized health care, social security, reduction of welfare", then that characterization seems apt. Everything on the Democrat platform represents at least incremental steps toward socialism. Now, "Democrat = Communist" would be spurious, yes.
Unless, I suppose, you call anyone who walks out of the Democratic Party and starts voting Republican a "neocon," the word just doesn't mean anything.
Self-described neo-con(servative) Irving Kristol has a book called "Neoconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea". Maybe you could start there. Or maybe you're saying the way the the left use the word has no meaning. But the word itself refers to a fairly discernable set of beliefs.
There is also a subtle undercurrent among some (not all, but some) who use the term that a "neocon" is really someone who's either Jewish, or secretly influenced by Zionist thinkers.
Still, I think it's worth noticing that "neocon" is so popular among the lefty hatemongers precisely because it makes you sound like a Neo-Nazi liar. Or just a tool of scheming Jews.
Of course some people do. You can find somebody who thinks anything. Some people might say you throw around underhanded slurs with a bit too much ease. Some might even say that you're engaging in a little bit of your own conspiracy theorising with the 'neo' nazi theorising. Not all, but some.
Neocon is a slur in the kinds of circles where Republican is a slur.
But there's nothing wrong with being a neocon. It's not like being called reactionary, imperialist nazi or something along those lines.
And sticks and stones, anyway.
Maybe I'm a neocon. I certainly support Israel and the Jewish people, and I'm pro-America and pro-West generally, more intensely so since 9/11/2001. "Con", "Conservative", or "Right" seems to mean non-"Left", i.e., not operating under secularist, egalitarian, progressivist, or relativist premises, or, to put it positively, evaluating things and persons as good or bad in terms of a hierarchy of unchanging, absolute values. So I am "con" in that sense.
I'd like to call myself "paleo", but that has been taken over by the likes of Pat Buchanan and Lew Rockwell, who are among my worst enemies on the Right. Perhaps "paleo-paleo". "Polytheocon" is what I am (polytheist), but "theo" has connotations of theocratic along with theological. The corruption of the best is the worst and so I hate theocracies, I could never stand to live under one as most of them have operated in history. I'm closest to "homocon". Myself, I'm neither man enough to be a man's man nor woman enough to be a Lesbian, but I do identify ideologically with those who are and who also have leanings toward the starboard side of most spectrums. A "paleo-paleo-polytheo-pro-homo-pro-lesbo-con"?
John Kusch is partly right, though. "Liberal" is also tossed around with abandon as an insult word, especially in the form of "you liberals..." When I was in Usenet years ago, I encountered this 3 different times. A conservative was called "you liberals" by a neo-Nazi for his opposition to racism. An Objectivist was called "you liberals" when he expressed his dislike for Rush Limbaugh. And when I praised the power of women with guns I was told "but you liberals hate guns!"
I once got into a long discussion with a leftist over the meaning of certain words the left likes to throw around as insults, primarily the accusation of "facism." Modern leftists have not just redefined facism, but the words used in their definition, so that the term now fits many conservatives perfectly - at least in their opinion. To summarize your opponent's argument and attempt to use that against him is about the most ineffective debating tactic I can imagine. Let's try an example without the use of any "code words":
Me: We should cut taxes.
Leftist: You're full of shite, because you're a dirty tax-cutting bastard.
Me: Yes, that's right. I support cutting taxes. Your point is?
Leftist: Exactly. That makes you a tax-cutter, and therefore, you are bad.
Me: What exactly makes tax-cutters bad, in your opinion?
Leftist: They want to cut taxes.
Me: What's bad with wanting to cut taxes?
Leftist: That makes you a tax-cutter.
Me: *bangs head on desk until the onset of merciful unconsciousness.*
Leftist: See, I'm right after all.
Wait, maybe it's not such a bad tactic after all. Intellectual siege warfare, perhaps?
Anyway, that's basically what they've done with "neoconservative." I, having once been a leftist and having subsequently become conservative, fit the classical definition of the word, but try getting any credibility in an argument nowadays when you actually call yourself a neocon. Of course, that doesn't stop me from occasionally doing so anyway, just to freak out leftists.
Take a look at Ken MacLeod's blog for some interesting takes on neocon's. I like his science fiction, but his political beliefs are getting weirder and weirder.
(I would paste the link, but IIRC, this is now a no-no in many blogs due to the spam invasion...)
IS U.S. NEOCONSERVATISM DEAD?
The Neoconservative Persuasion
By 1972 Harrington was finished with the right-leaning Shachtmanites, but not with the dream of building an American democratic socialist movement. The Shachtmanites hated the Democratic nominee for president, George McGovern, and made no secret of their belief that a Nixon presidency was preferable. To Harrington and his friends at Dissent, the phenomenon of "socialists for Nixon" deserved a name. Harrington reached for the term neoconservative. The neoconservatives derided the ‘60s generation of newly educated progressives as a "New Class" of self-seeking bureaucrats and opportunists. Harrington saw the same group as the hope of a new "conscience constituency" in American politics. He sought to bring together the McGovern wing of the Democratic Party, the social movements left over from the ‘60s, the progressive unions and the progressive wing of the Socialist Party.
from:
Michael Harrington: Socialist to the End
I‘ve read different articles from different political bents that attributed Michael Harrington as the first person to put “Neoconservative” into the political lexicon (during the late 60’s or early 70’s). However, this article was written 1965.
Hans Zehrer as a Neoconservative Elite Theorist
Here's a song I wrote called "The Ballad of Neo-conservatism" or "Irving & Gertrude & Norman & Midge.
Irving had a malady
He got mugged by reality
Pressed charges and proceeded to sue
Gertrude was worryin
She was a victorian historian
The swabbies had nothin to do
Norman was fakin' it
Workin hard to be makin it
Not for the many but the few
Midge came from Minnesota
To do away with the quota
Canceled on the sixties in 1962
There once was a dream
On two sides of a stream
But somebody blew up the bridge
It was Irving & Gertrude, Norman & Midge
( If you haven't guessed, these people are Irving Kristol, Gertrude Himmelfarb, Norman Podhoretz & Midge Decter. In the next verse their sons grow up to work for Rupert Murdoch as cheerleaders for WWIII.)
How do you classify a Jewish liberal who use the term Neocon? I am certainly no-antisemite.And the term has lost that connotation, if it ever really had it. Now it means simply New-Conservative: a Bush HW & W era Hawkish conservative.