Neoconservatism: Why We Need it
Encyclopedia
Neoconservatism: Why We Need it is a 2006 book written by Douglas Murray
. The book's main aim is to describe how neoconservatism
offers a coherent platform from which to tackle genocide, dictatorships and human rights abuses in the modern world. The book also deals with how the terms 'neoconservativism' and 'neocon' are often both misunderstood and misrepresented, and how neoconservativism can play a progressive role in the context of modern British politics
.
The book has been described as "a vigorous defence of the most controversial political philosophy of our age", while Christopher Hitchens
called it "a very cool but devastating analysis".
In 2006 Melanie Phillips
summarised the book's main contentions as follows:
At the ConservativeHome
website, Jeremy Brier wrote that "His confident and scholarly homage to neoconservatism is both an exhibition of and an argument for moral clarity" and "Murray also reserves some appropriately pointed words for the anti-war brigade: 'Its immoral members openly celebrate violent attacks on western society; its more moral members are simply incapable of coming up with any but the most hollow reasons for why such attacks are wrong'. The way out of this malaise and the denouement of Murray's thesis is not to revert to an old-fashioned conservatism that revels in 'archaism, cliquey anachronism and snobbery' but for Conservatives to embrace neoconservatism ideas and become a powerful voice for freedom, liberty and justice. In his final chapter, Murray sets out what a British, neoconservative landscape would look like, including slashed taxes, elite universities and an end to dealings with the European Courts or European Conventions on Human Rights. Most compellingly, he advocates our vital understanding that the UN should not be the 'parliament of the world', a theme which runs through this book", and Brier concludes: "This outstanding short book, always written with wit, elegance and flair, enables one not just to understand better the world in which we live, but to understand with a burning clarity our own duties and responsibilities within it".
After the book's publication Christopher Hitchens wrote in the The Washington Examiner that Murray "writes with energy and wit about the need for a radical Toryism that can transcend the ossified party that now bears the name. In his native England, the debate that Americans have been having about "the war on terrorism" is in many ways conducted in reverse. A good bit of the Left, whether pro-Blair or otherwise, is strongly in favor of removing the Taliban and Saddam Hussein and relying on both military and moral force to do so. While on the Right, a significant part of the old Establishment has given vent to long-buried anti-American instincts, and even blames Blair for attracting or motivating Islamist killers. This tension offers a huge opportunity for anyone who is capable of thinking for himself. Of course, the most flagrant offenders against morality and common sense are still the nihilistic pseudo-leftists, who claim to see no real difference between Western democracy and those who desire to murder its voters at random. (Murray selects a fairly renowned academic literary theorist named Terry Eagleton, who wrote that there was no real difference between suicide bombers and those who leaped to their death in flames from the upper floors of the World Trade Center. Neither group, you see, had any real "choice".)
In a more circumspect review in The Weekly Standard
, Peter Berkowitz
wrote that Murray's "optimism and boldness, it must be said, sometimes lead him to overstate his case or gloss over difficulties, not least in his estimate of neoconservatism's contemporary appeal" and "In addition to clarifying the connection between relativism and the resentment, envy, and arrogance that characterize so much progressive criticism of the United States and its fight against Muslim extremism, at least two other critical issues must be addressed to fill out Murray's introduction to neoconservatism. First, what lessons from the neoconservative critique of social engineering at home can be applied to the program for promoting liberty and democracy abroad? And second, what steps can be taken to minimize the tensions involved in seeking to conserve liberal democracy, a doctrine and way of life whose guiding principle—individual freedom—constantly struggles against the constraints of tradition, custom, and authority?"
by John Lloyd
http://www.aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=8&id=3488 Review and synopsis of the book by Amir Taheri
in Asharq Al-Awsat
http://stanfordreview.org/article/neoconservatism-interview-douglas-murray Interview with Douglas Murray in The Stanford Review
about many of the themes contained in the book
Douglas Murray (author)
Douglas Murray is a British writer and commentator who was the director of the Centre for Social Cohesion from 2007 until 2011 and is currently an associate director of the Henry Jackson Society. Murray appears regularly in the British broadcast media, commentating on issues from a conservative...
. The book's main aim is to describe how neoconservatism
Neoconservatism
Neoconservatism in the United States is a branch of American conservatism. Since 2001, neoconservatism has been associated with democracy promotion, that is with assisting movements for democracy, in some cases by economic sanctions or military action....
offers a coherent platform from which to tackle genocide, dictatorships and human rights abuses in the modern world. The book also deals with how the terms 'neoconservativism' and 'neocon' are often both misunderstood and misrepresented, and how neoconservativism can play a progressive role in the context of modern British politics
Politics of the United Kingdom
The politics of the United Kingdom takes place within the framework of a constitutional monarchy, in which the Monarch is the head of state and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is the head of government...
.
The book has been described as "a vigorous defence of the most controversial political philosophy of our age", while Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Eric Hitchens is an Anglo-American author and journalist whose books, essays, and journalistic career span more than four decades. He has been a columnist and literary critic at The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Slate, World Affairs, The Nation, Free Inquiry, and became a media fellow at the...
called it "a very cool but devastating analysis".
Background
In a 2006 interview Murray explained that he had written the book "because I was increasingly frustrated that the debate in the West really had reached such a low ebb that most of our terms of definition even, have been lost; I mean the fact that the word necon which was and is a fairly nuanced term had become simply a term to denote somebody as a warmonger or a kind of ultra-hawk or the far, far right of the Republican party. I want to first of all explain what necons are and what they aren't...what neoconservatism is and what it isn't...to show people really that far from being a sort of awful cult or clique...that neoconservatives like myself simply believe certain things and view the world in certain ways. I think many, many people share our opinion—its not hard for people to see that its not a prejudice to regard democracies and tyrannies as being on different moral planes".Synopsis
The book is divided into four parts: Neoconservatism in theory; Neoconservatism in Practice; Relativism and the Iraq war; and Neoconservatism in America.In 2006 Melanie Phillips
Melanie Phillips
Melanie Phillips is a British journalist and author. She began her career on the left of the political spectrum, writing for such publications as The Guardian and New Statesman. In the 1990s she moved to the right, and she now writes for the Daily Mail newspaper, covering political and social...
summarised the book's main contentions as follows:
- the US political philosopher Leo StraussLeo StraussLeo Strauss was a political philosopher and classicist who specialized in classical political philosophy. He was born in Germany to Jewish parents and later emigrated to the United States...
's work was, for political motivations distorted, and his alleged influence in creating Neoconservatism exaggerated; - neoconservatism's defining characteristic is moral clarityMoral clarityMoral clarity is a catchphrase associated with American political conservatives. Popularized by William J. Bennett's Why We Fight: Moral Clarity and the War on Terrorism, the phrase was first used in its current context during the 1980s, in reference to the politics of Ronald Reagan.The phrase...
, and "its recognition of the evils of moral collapse both in the domestic agenda of moral relativism and abroad"; - US foreign policy after 9/11 was not dictated by neoconservatism but brought about a confluence of thinking between neocons and old-style conservatives;
- the vilification of neoconservatism by so-called liberals in Europe and the US derived from desperation that only neocons have coherent policies for tackling genocideGenocideGenocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...
, dictatorships and human rightsHuman rightsHuman rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
abuses while the liberals had none; - opposition to the Iraq war was fuelled by moral equivalenceMoral equivalenceMoral equivalence is a term used in political debate, usually to criticize any denial that a moral hierarchy can be assessed of two sides in a conflict, or in the actions or tactics of two sides...
, hatred of Israel and a media vendetta which was biased against the west; - neoconservatism should offer a way forward for the British Conservative partyConservative Party (UK)The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
, which in its current state is the antithesis of the neoconservative ideal.
Critical reception
The book revived a largely favourable reception in the media.At the ConservativeHome
ConservativeHome
Conservative Home is a British political website started by Tim Montgomerie prior to the 2005 United Kingdom general election campaign, that aims to represent UK grassroots Conservative opinion.-Editors:...
website, Jeremy Brier wrote that "His confident and scholarly homage to neoconservatism is both an exhibition of and an argument for moral clarity" and "Murray also reserves some appropriately pointed words for the anti-war brigade: 'Its immoral members openly celebrate violent attacks on western society; its more moral members are simply incapable of coming up with any but the most hollow reasons for why such attacks are wrong'. The way out of this malaise and the denouement of Murray's thesis is not to revert to an old-fashioned conservatism that revels in 'archaism, cliquey anachronism and snobbery' but for Conservatives to embrace neoconservatism ideas and become a powerful voice for freedom, liberty and justice. In his final chapter, Murray sets out what a British, neoconservative landscape would look like, including slashed taxes, elite universities and an end to dealings with the European Courts or European Conventions on Human Rights. Most compellingly, he advocates our vital understanding that the UN should not be the 'parliament of the world', a theme which runs through this book", and Brier concludes: "This outstanding short book, always written with wit, elegance and flair, enables one not just to understand better the world in which we live, but to understand with a burning clarity our own duties and responsibilities within it".
After the book's publication Christopher Hitchens wrote in the The Washington Examiner that Murray "writes with energy and wit about the need for a radical Toryism that can transcend the ossified party that now bears the name. In his native England, the debate that Americans have been having about "the war on terrorism" is in many ways conducted in reverse. A good bit of the Left, whether pro-Blair or otherwise, is strongly in favor of removing the Taliban and Saddam Hussein and relying on both military and moral force to do so. While on the Right, a significant part of the old Establishment has given vent to long-buried anti-American instincts, and even blames Blair for attracting or motivating Islamist killers. This tension offers a huge opportunity for anyone who is capable of thinking for himself. Of course, the most flagrant offenders against morality and common sense are still the nihilistic pseudo-leftists, who claim to see no real difference between Western democracy and those who desire to murder its voters at random. (Murray selects a fairly renowned academic literary theorist named Terry Eagleton, who wrote that there was no real difference between suicide bombers and those who leaped to their death in flames from the upper floors of the World Trade Center. Neither group, you see, had any real "choice".)
In a more circumspect review in The Weekly Standard
The Weekly Standard
The Weekly Standard is an American neoconservative opinion magazine published 48 times per year. Its founding publisher, News Corporation, debuted the title September 18, 1995. Currently edited by founder William Kristol and Fred Barnes, the Standard has been described as a "redoubt of...
, Peter Berkowitz
Peter Berkowitz
Peter Berkowitz is an American political scientist, a former law professor, the Tad and Dianne Taube Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, and a Senior Fellow at the Jegish Academy on top of the Guggenheim Museum. He holds a J.D. and a Ph.D. in political science from Yale...
wrote that Murray's "optimism and boldness, it must be said, sometimes lead him to overstate his case or gloss over difficulties, not least in his estimate of neoconservatism's contemporary appeal" and "In addition to clarifying the connection between relativism and the resentment, envy, and arrogance that characterize so much progressive criticism of the United States and its fight against Muslim extremism, at least two other critical issues must be addressed to fill out Murray's introduction to neoconservatism. First, what lessons from the neoconservative critique of social engineering at home can be applied to the program for promoting liberty and democracy abroad? And second, what steps can be taken to minimize the tensions involved in seeking to conserve liberal democracy, a doctrine and way of life whose guiding principle—individual freedom—constantly struggles against the constraints of tradition, custom, and authority?"
External links
http://www.newstatesman.com/200512120039 A discussion of the book in The New StatesmanThe New Statesman
The New Statesman is an award-winning British sitcom of the late 1980s and early 1990s satirising the Conservative government of the time...
by John Lloyd
http://www.aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=8&id=3488 Review and synopsis of the book by Amir Taheri
Amir Taheri
Amir Taheri is an Iranian-born conservative author based in Europe. His writings focus on the Middle East affairs and topics related to Islamist terrorism. He gained international fame as the man behind the 2006 Iranian sumptuary law controversy.-Career:Taheri's biography at Benador Associates...
in Asharq Al-Awsat
http://stanfordreview.org/article/neoconservatism-interview-douglas-murray Interview with Douglas Murray in The Stanford Review
The Stanford Review
The Stanford Review is a libertarian student-run newspaper that serves Stanford University in Stanford, California. It was founded in 1987 by Peter Thiel and Norman Book. It is published and distributed without charge to the Stanford community periodically during the academic year.-Notable former...
about many of the themes contained in the book