THE MEN WITH THE MEAT AXES :

Neo-Con Is Not a Keanu Reeves Fan Convention (Bobby Allison-Gallimore, 8/29/02, Caffeinspiration)

Although the definition of a neo-con as opposed to a conservative is no doubt blurry, especially with the swelling of the neo-con ranks, I wonder if the answer lies somewhere in the vicinity of this hypothesis: could the distinction involve a belief by neo-cons (perhaps carried over from their former days as liberals) that successful implementation of their policies would result in a net gain for society, whereas conservatives feel that successful policy implementation can only result in slowing down the rate of society's inevitable loss, rather than resulting in any gain.

Those pesky neocons are proving harder to nail down than Jell-o., but Mr. Allison-Gallimore brings up one of the most important features of neoconservatism and one that mitigates against their being considered conservative at all. They retain a rationalist belief that they can perfect society through proper implementation of government policy. The great vivisection of rationalism is to be found in Rationalism in politics (Michael Oakeshott, Cambridge Journal, Volume I, 1947) :

The general character and disposition of the Rationalist are, I think., difficult to identify. At bottom he stands (he always stands) for independence of mind on all occasions, for thought free from obligation to any authority save the authority of reason'. His circumstances in the modern world have made him contentious: he is the enemy of authority, of prejudice, of the merely traditional, customary or habitual. His mental attitude is at once sceptical and optimistic: sceptical, because there is no opinion, no habit, no belief, nothing so firmly rooted or so widely held that he hesitates to question it and to judge it by what he calls his 'reason'; optimistic, because the Rationalist never doubts the power of his 'reason (when properly applied) to determine the worth of a thing, the truth of an opinion or the propriety of an action. Moreover, he is fortified by a belief in a reason' common to all mankind, a common power of rational consideration, which is the ground and inspiration of argument: set up on his door is the precept of Parmenides--judge by rational argument. But besides this, which gives the Rationalist a touch of intellectual equalitarianism, he is something also of an individualist, finding it difficult to believe that anyone who can think honestly and clearly will think differently from himself.[...]

The conduct of affairs, for the Rationalist, is a matter of solving problems, and in this no man can hope to be successful whose reason has become inflexible by surrender to habit or is clouded by the fumes of tradition. In this activity the character which the Rationalist claims for himself is the character of the engineer, whose mind (it is supposed) is controlled throughout by the appropriate technique and whose first step is to dismiss from his attention everything not directly related to his specific intentions. This assimilation of politics to engineering is, indeed, what may be called the myth of rationalist politics. And it is, of course, a recurring theme in the literature of Rationalism. The politics it inspires may be called the politics of the felt need; for the Rationalist, politics are always charged with the feeling of the moment. He waits upon circumstance to provide him with his
problems, but rejects its aid in their solution. That anything should be allowed to stand between a society and the satisfaction of the felt needs of each
moment in its history must appear to the Rationalist a piece of mysticism and nonsense. And his politics are, in fact, the rational solution of those practical conundrums which the recognition of the sovereignty of the felt need perpetually creates in the life of a society. Thus, political life is resolved into a succession of crises, each to be surmounted by the application of reason'. Each generation, indeed, each administration, should see unrolled before it the blank sheet of infinite possibility. And if by chance this tabula rasa has been defaced by the irrational scribblings of tradition-ridden ancestors, then the first task of the Rationalist must be to scrub it clean; as Voltaire remarked, the only way to have good laws is to burn all existing laws and to start afresh.

This stands in sharp contrast to the portrait of the conservative he draws in his other great essay, On Being Conservative (1956):

A man of conservative temperament draws some appropriate conclusions. First, innovation entails certain loss and possible gain, therefore, the onus of proof, to show that the proposed change may be on the whole expected to be beneficial, rests on the would-be innovator. Secondly, he believes that the more closely the innovation resembles growth (that is, the more clearly it is intimated in and not merely imposed upon the situation) the less likely it is to result in a preponderance of loss. Thirdly, he thinks that an innovation which is in response to some specific defect, one designed to redress some specific disequilibrium, is more desirable than one that springs from a notion of generally improved condition of human circumstances, and is far more desirable than one generated by a vision of perfection. Fourthly, he favours a slow rather than a rapid pace, and pauses to observe current consequences and make appropriate adjustments. And lastly, he believes occasion to be important: and, all other things being equal, he considers the most favourable occasion for innovation to be when the projected change is most likely to be limited to what is intended and least likely to be corrupted by undesired and unmanageable consequences.

It comes as little surprise to read in Irving Kristol's own Neoconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea that he personally rejected On Being Conservative when Oakeshott presented it to him for publication in the journal Encounter.
Posted by Orrin Judd at August 30, 2002 10:35 AM