Doing good isn't [that] hard. It's just doing a lot of good that is very hard. If your aims are modest, you can accomplish an awful lot. When your aims become elevated beyond a reasonable level, you not only don't accomplish much, you can cause a great deal of damage.
Interview in the London Times Higher Education Supplement (1987)
A welfare state, properly conceived, can be an integral part of a conservative society.
Reflections of a Neoconservative: Looking Back, Looking Ahead (1983)
[A neoconservative is] a liberal who has been mugged by reality. A neoliberal is a liberal who got mugged by reality but has not pressed charges.
Reflections of a Neoconservative: Looking Back, Looking Ahead
People need religion. It's a vehicle for a moral tradition. A crucial role. Nothing can take its place.
Interview in Reason Magazine (1983)
The major political event of the twentieth century is the death of socialism.
Neo-Conservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea (1995)
It was a new kind of class war — the people as citizens versus the politicians and their clients in the public sector.
The Question of Liberty in America
Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions — it only guarantees equality of opportunity.
Irving Kristol was an American columnist, journalist, and writer who was dubbed the "godfather of neoconservatism". As the founder, editor, and contributor to various magazines, he played an influential role in the intellectual and political culture of the last half-century; after his death he was described by
The Daily TelegraphThe Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
as being "perhaps the most consequential public intellectual of the latter half of the 20th century".
Background
Kristol was born in
BrooklynBrooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
,
New YorkNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, the son of non-
observantOrthodox Judaism , is the approach to Judaism which adheres to the traditional interpretation and application of the laws and ethics of the Torah as legislated in the Talmudic texts by the Sanhedrin and subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and...
Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. He received his B.A. from the
City College of New YorkThe City College of the City University of New York is a senior college of the City University of New York , in New York City. It is also the oldest of the City University's twenty-three institutions of higher learning...
in 1940, where he majored in history and was part of a small but vocal
TrotskyistTrotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. Trotsky considered himself an orthodox Marxist and Bolshevik-Leninist, arguing for the establishment of a vanguard party of the working-class...
anti communist group who eventually became the New York Intellectuals. During
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, he served in Europe in the 12th Armored Division as a combat infantryman.
Kristol was affiliated with the Congress for Cultural Freedom; he wrote in
CommentaryCommentary is a monthly American magazine on politics, Judaism, social and cultural issues. It was founded by the American Jewish Committee in 1945. By 1960 its editor was Norman Podhoretz, a liberal at the time who moved sharply to the right in the 1970s and 1980s becoming a strong voice for the...
magazine from 1947 to 1952, under the editor Elliot Cohen (not to be confused with Elliot A. Cohen the writer of today's magazine); co-founder (with
Stephen SpenderSir Stephen Harold Spender CBE was an English poet, novelist and essayist who concentrated on themes of social injustice and the class struggle in his work...
) of the British-based
EncounterEncounter was a literary magazine, founded in 1953 by poet Stephen Spender and early neoconservative author Irving Kristol. The magazine ceased publication in 1991...
from 1953 to 1958; editor of
The ReporterThe Reporter was an American biweekly news magazine published in New York from 1949 through 1968.In its heyday it was viewed as a prestigious intellectual forum...
from 1959 to 1960; executive vice-president of the publishing house
Basic BooksBasic Books is a book publisher founded in 1952 and located in New York. It publishes books in the fields of psychology, philosophy, economics, science, politics, sociology, current affairs, and history.-History:...
from 1961 to 1969; Henry Luce Professor of Urban Values at
New York UniversityNew York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
from 1969 to 1987; and co-founder and co-editor (first with
Daniel BellDaniel Bell was an American sociologist, writer, editor, and professor emeritus at Harvard University, best known for his seminal contributions to the study of post-industrialism...
and then
Nathan GlazerNathan Glazer is an American sociologist who taught at the University of California, Berkeley and for several decades at Harvard University...
) of
The Public InterestThe Public Interest was a quarterly public policy journal founded by established New York intellectuals Daniel Bell and Irving Kristol in 1965. It was a leading neoconservative journal on political economy and culture, aimed at a readership of journalists, scholars, and policy makers...
from 1965 to 2002. He was the founder and publisher of
The National InterestThe National Interest is a prominent conservative American bi-monthly international affairs magazine published by the Center for the National Interest. It was founded in 1985 by Irving Kristol and until 2001 was edited by Anglo-Australian Owen Harries...
from 1985 to 2002. Following
RampartsRamparts was an American political and literary magazine, published from 1962 through 1975.-History:Founded by Edward M. Keating as a Catholic literary quarterly, the magazine became closely associated with the New Left after executive editor Warren Hinckle hired Robert Scheer as managing editor...
publication of information showing
Central Intelligence AgencyThe Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
funding of the Congress, which was widely reported elsewhere, Kristol left in the late 1960s and became affiliated with the
American Enterprise InstituteThe American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research is a conservative think tank founded in 1943. Its stated mission is "to defend the principles and improve the institutions of American freedom and democratic capitalism—limited government, private enterprise, individual liberty and...
.
Kristol was a fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and SciencesThe American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...
, a member of the
Council on Foreign RelationsThe Council on Foreign Relations is an American nonprofit nonpartisan membership organization, publisher, and think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy and international affairs...
, and a fellow emeritus at the
American Enterprise InstituteThe American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research is a conservative think tank founded in 1943. Its stated mission is "to defend the principles and improve the institutions of American freedom and democratic capitalism—limited government, private enterprise, individual liberty and...
(having been an associate fellow from 1972, a senior fellow from 1977, and the John M. Olin Distinguished Fellow from 1988 to 1999). As a member of the board of contributors of the Wall Street Journal, he contributed a monthly column from 1972 to 1997. He served on the Council of the
National Endowment for the HumanitiesThe National Endowment for the Humanities is an independent federal agency of the United States established by the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965 dedicated to supporting research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities. The NEH is located at...
from 1972 to 1977.
In July 2002, he received from
PresidentThe President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
George W. BushGeorge Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
the
Medal of FreedomThe Presidential Medal of Freedom is an award bestowed by the President of the United States and is—along with thecomparable Congressional Gold Medal bestowed by an act of U.S. Congress—the highest civilian award in the United States...
, the nation's highest civilian honor.
Kristol married historian
Gertrude HimmelfarbGertrude Himmelfarb , also known as Bea Kristol, is an American historian. She has written extensively on intellectual history, with a focus on Britain and the Victorian era, as well as on contemporary society and culture....
in 1942. They had two children, Elizabeth Nelson and
William KristolWilliam Kristol is an American neoconservative political analyst and commentator. He is the founder and editor of the political magazine The Weekly Standard and a regular commentator on the Fox News Channel....
, the editor of
The Weekly StandardThe 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...
.
Kristol died aged 89 on September 18, 2009 at the Capital Hospice in
Falls Church, VirginiaThe City of Falls Church is an independent city in Virginia, United States, in the Washington Metropolitan Area. The city population was 12,332 in 2010, up from 10,377 in 2000. Taking its name from The Falls Church, an 18th-century Anglican parish, Falls Church gained township status within...
from complications of
lung cancerLung cancer is a disease characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. If left untreated, this growth can spread beyond the lung in a process called metastasis into nearby tissue and, eventually, into other parts of the body. Most cancers that start in lung, known as primary...
.
Ideas
In 1973,
Michael HarringtonEdward Michael "Mike" Harrington was an American democratic socialist, writer, political activist, professor of political science, radio commentator and founder of the Democratic Socialists of America.-Personal life:...
coined the term "neoconservatism" to describe those liberal intellectuals and political philosophers who were disaffected with the political and cultural attitudes dominating the
Democratic PartyThe Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
and were moving toward a new form of conservatism. Intended by Harrington as a pejorative term, it was accepted by Kristol as an apt description of the ideas and policies exemplified by
The Public InterestThe Public Interest was a quarterly public policy journal founded by established New York intellectuals Daniel Bell and Irving Kristol in 1965. It was a leading neoconservative journal on political economy and culture, aimed at a readership of journalists, scholars, and policy makers...
. Unlike liberals, for example, neoconservatives rejected most of the
Great SocietyThe Great Society was a set of domestic programs in the United States promoted by President Lyndon B. Johnson and fellow Democrats in Congress in the 1960s. Two main goals of the Great Society social reforms were the elimination of poverty and racial injustice...
programs sponsored by Lyndon Johnson; and unlike traditional conservatives, they supported the more limited welfare state instituted by Roosevelt.
In February 1979, Kristol was featured on the cover of
EsquireEsquire is a men's magazine, published in the U.S. by the Hearst Corporation. Founded in 1932, it flourished during the Great Depression under the guidance of founder and editor Arnold Gingrich.-History:...
. The caption identified him as "the godfather of the most powerful new political force in America -- Neoconservatism". That year also saw the publication of the book The Neoconservatives: The Men Who Are Changing America's Politics. Like Harrington, the author,
Peter SteinfelsPeter F. Steinfels is an American journalist and educator best known for his writings on religious topics.A native of Chicago, Illinois, and a lifelong Roman Catholic, Steinfels earned his Ph.D from Columbia University and joined the staff of the journal Commonweal in 1964...
, was critical of neoconservatism, but he was impressed by its growing political and intellectual influence. Kristol's response appeared under the title "Confessions of a True, Self-Confessed -- Perhaps the Only -- 'Neoconservative'".
Neoconservatism, Kristol maintains, is not an ideology but a "persuasion", a way of thinking about politics rather than a compendium of principles and axioms. It is classical rather than romantic in temperament, and practical and anti-Utopian in policy. One of Kristol's most celebrated quips defines a neoconservative as "a liberal who has been mugged by reality". As a former Trotskyist, Irving was indeed himself mugged by the "reality" of conservative philosophy and enfolded leftist policies such as a lack of objection to welfare programs, international "revolution" through nation-building/militarily imposed "democracy" and application of Fabian Socialism/Keynesianism coupled with a socially conservative viewpoint. These concepts lie at the core of neoconservative philosophy to this day.
That "reality", for Kristol, is a complex one. While propounding the virtues of
supply-side economicsSupply-side economics is a school of macroeconomic thought that argues that economic growth can be most effectively created by lowering barriers for people to produce goods and services, such as lowering income tax and capital gains tax rates, and by allowing greater flexibility by reducing...
as the basis for the economic growth that is "a sine qua non for the survival of a modern democracy", he also insists that any economic philosophy has to be enlarged by "political philosophy, moral philosophy, and even religious thought", which were as much the sine qua non for a modern democracy.
One of his early books, Two Cheers for Capitalism, asserts that capitalism, or more precisely bourgeois capitalism, is worthy of two cheers: One cheer, because "it works, in a quite simple, material sense", by improving the conditions of people. And a second cheer, because it is "congenial to a large measure of personal liberty". These are no small achievements, he argues, and only capitalism has proved capable of providing them. But it also imposes a great "psychic burden" upon the individual and the social order as well. Because it does not meet the individual's "'existential' human needs", it creates a "spiritual malaise" that threatens the legitimacy of that social order. As much as anything else, it is the withholding of that third cheer that is the distinctive mark of neoconservatism, as Kristol understands it.
Articles
- "Men and Ideas: Niccolo Machiavelli," Encounter, December 1954.
- "American Intellectuals and Foreign Policy," Foreign Affairs, July 1967 (repr. in On the Democratic Idea in America).
- "Memoirs of a Cold Warrior," New York Times Magazine, February 11, 1968 (repr. in Reflections of a Neoconservative).
- "When Virtue Loses All Her Loveliness," The Public Interest, Fall 1970 (repr. in On the Democratic Idea in America and Two Cheers for Capitalism).
- "Pornography, Obscenity, and Censorship," New York Times Magazine, March 28, 1971 (repr. in On the Democratic Idea in America and Reflections of a Neoconservative).
- "Utopianism, Ancient and Modern," Imprimus, April 1973 (repr. in Two Cheers for Capitalism).
- "Adam Smith and the Spirit of Capitalism," The Great Ideas Today, ed. Robert Hutchins and Mortimer Adler, 1976 (repr. in Reflections of a Neoconservative).
- "Memoirs of a Trotskyist," New York Times Magazine, January 23, 1977 (repr. in Reflections of a Neoconservative).
- "The Adversary Culture of Intellectuals," Encounter, October 1979 (repr. in Reflections of a Neoconservative).
Books
- On the Democratic Idea in America, New York: Harper, 1972 (ISBN 0060124679).
- Two Cheers for Capitalism, 1978 (ISBN 0-465-08803-1)
- Reflections of a Neoconservative: Looking Back, Looking Ahead, 1983 (ISBN 0-465-06872-3)
- Neoconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea, 1995 (ISBN 0-02-874021-1)
- The Neoconservative Persuasion: Selected Essays, 1942-2009, Basic Books, 2011 (ISBN 0465022235).
External links