Neoconservatism Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Neoconservatism is one type of conservatism, the others being traditional or Burkean conservatism, with its emphasis on custom, habit, and tradition; modern free market or individualist conservatism, with its emphasis on individual competition within the free market; and religious right conservatism, which accords the central place to religion in social and political life.

Origins And Themes

Neoconservatism originated in the 1970s as a reaction to the radical politics of the 1960s counterculture and its hostility toward tradition and authority. Like traditional or Burkean conservatives, neoconservatives value custom, tradition, and authority. They pay particular attention to broadly cultural matters and media—art, music, literature, theater, movies, and television—because it is through these means that a society defines itself and its values. Neoconservatives contend that Western societies, including the United States, are increasingly defining themselves as amoral, adrift, and degenerate. Violent and sexually explicit plays, films, television programs, and video games are symptomatic of the degeneration of Western culture. Rock and rap music lyrics feature four-letter words that have lost their shock value. The neoconservative sociologist and U.S. senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan called this “defining deviancy down.” Behavior once viewed as immoral and unacceptable is now accepted as normal. For example, unmarried couples who have children out of wedlock are no longer shunned by society. Illegitimacy has lost its stigma.

Neoconservatives contend that such laxity reveals a broader and deeper cultural crisis afflicting Western civilization. Some neoconservatives trace this crisis to the Enlightenment, with its penchant for questioning authority, criticizing religion, and undermining traditional beliefs. Others blame the adversary culture that grew out of the student, civil rights, and antiwar movements of the 1960s. And still others blame well-intended but misguided government policies that give certain groups a sense of entitlement without a corresponding sense of responsibility. Neoconservatives agree with religious right conservatives that the current cultural crisis is due in part to the declining influence of religion in many people’s lives. People who lack a sense of something larger and more meaningful than themselves, something transcendent and eternal, are likely to turn to mindless entertainment, to drugs or drink, and to act selfishly and irresponsibly. Religion at its best is a social cement, holding families, communities, and nations together. At its worst, however, religion can be fanatical, intolerant, and divisive, tearing communities apart instead of uniting them. Most neoconservatives thus believe that separation of church and state is a good idea that has been taken too far by liberals bent on banishing religion from the public square; and this has in turn provoked a backlash from religious conservatives.

Economics

In economic matters, neoconservatives favor free market capitalism as an efficient means of allocating goods and services. They do not, however, share modern conservatism’s unbridled enthusiasm for free market capitalism. As Irving Kristol puts it, capitalism deserves “two cheers,” not three. This is because, as Daniel Bell contends, capitalism harbors “cultural contradictions” that undermine its own social and ethical foundations. This most powerful of economic engines presupposes a willingness to work hard, to save, to invest, and to defer gratification; at the same time, however, advertising and other marketing techniques encourage people to indulge themselves, to spend money they don’t have, and to pay little heed to the further future. Unregulated capitalism, moreover, creates great wealth alongside dire poverty. And since great disparities of wealth lead to class conflict, labor unrest, and political instability, such disparities should be reduced (though not eliminated) by means of a steeply graduated income tax, the modern welfare state, and other means. At the same time, however, neoconservatives warn that well-intentioned government programs can produce unintended and unfortunate consequences for those whom they are meant to help. Such programs can create dependency instead of independence and undermine individual responsibility. The aim of such programs should be to provide temporary or short-term assistance, not long-term dependency on the part of recipients. Nor should the goal of social programs and tax policy be to “level” differences between individuals and classes. Neoconservatives like to say that they favor equality of opportunity but not equality of outcome.

Foreign Policy

In the area of foreign policy, neoconservatives emphasize military might and the willingness to use it to promote American interests abroad. Power unused is power wasted. Usually acutely aware of the danger of unintended consequences in domestic policy, many neoconservatives seemed strangely unaware of or unconcerned about unintended consequences in foreign policy. The unintended but disastrous consequences that followed the invasion and occupation of Iraq led some neoconservatives to question their ideology, at least with regard to foreign and military policy. Most neoconservatives, however, continue to emphasize the need for a militant and muscular foreign policy backed by armed force and a readiness to use it. They downplay the importance of “soft power” (e.g., diplomacy) in favor of “hard power” (especially military force) in the pursuit of American interests around the world.

Bibliography:

Bell, Daniel. The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism. New York: Basic Books, 1976.
Gerson, Mark. The Neoconservative Vision. Lanham, Md.: Madison Books, 1996.
Gerson, Mark, ed. The Essential Neoconservative Reader. New York: Addison Wesley, 1996.
Kristol, Irving. Two Cheers for Capitalism. New York: Basic Books, 1978.
Steinfels, Peter. The Neoconservatives:The Men who are Changing America’s Politics. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979.
Wilson, James Q. On Character. 2nd ed.Washington, D.C.: AEI Press, 1995.

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