The War
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Given this news - admittedly from the NYT - I thought I'd pull from my vast archive of unfinished rants and raves an almost completed article on Russell Kirk's foreign policy ideas, particularly those I deemed relevant to the war in Iraq. Kirk was a critic of the Neocons - a friendly critic to be sure, but a critic nonetheless. With that in mind, I submit part of a longer piece I was at one time writing. I don't stand by all of this - that's why I never pursued getting it published - but I'm interested in everyone's thoughts on this...where I was wrong and, just maybe, where I (read: Kirk) was right. A part of my article:
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In particular, their wisdom deficit caused Kirk to harbor doubts in the realm of the Neoconservative’s foreign policy. Indeed, he specifically questioned the “possible long-run consequences of their understanding of America’s international undertakings.” Borrowing a passage from Eliot’s The Rock, Kirk asked the Neoconservatives:
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
Raw information, intelligence, and cleverness did not translate into that supreme political virtue: prudence. Knowledge is no guarantee of wisdom; that Kirk knew well. And so he acknowledged that “In their publications, the Neoconservatives thrust upon us a great deal of useful information, and obviously are possessed of considerable knowledge of the world about us.” But that alone does not make for prudent statecraft and foreign policy formulations. For that, one must go beneath the surface, deeper than the realm of mere data. What they lacked, Kirk believed, was “understanding of the human condition” and an “apprehension of the accumulated wisdom of our civilization.”
This deficiency in understanding and wisdom most egregiously showed itself in what Kirk called their “infatuation with ideology.” Kirk believed the Neoconservatives to hold to ideology rather than prudence, and there could be few greater sins to Kirk. By ideology he meant “a political formula that promises mankind an earthly paradise.” And he did not exempt the ideology of Democratic Capitalism from that malignant category. Kirk found such formulas, even the less malevolent one of Democratic Capitalism to be nothing more than “the substitution of political slogans for real political thought.” With George Orwell, he found ideologues to be “the streamlined men who think in slogans and talk in bullets.”
Could we have a more accurate description of those driving American foreign policy? Is a phrase like “axis of evil” a political slogan or real political thought? Trite and meaningless phrases abound, with platitudes replacing substantive discussion. Proponents of invading Iraq were clever, but were they wise?
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In particular, their wisdom deficit caused Kirk to harbor doubts in the realm of the Neoconservative’s foreign policy. Indeed, he specifically questioned the “possible long-run consequences of their understanding of America’s international undertakings.” Borrowing a passage from Eliot’s The Rock, Kirk asked the Neoconservatives:
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
Raw information, intelligence, and cleverness did not translate into that supreme political virtue: prudence. Knowledge is no guarantee of wisdom; that Kirk knew well. And so he acknowledged that “In their publications, the Neoconservatives thrust upon us a great deal of useful information, and obviously are possessed of considerable knowledge of the world about us.” But that alone does not make for prudent statecraft and foreign policy formulations. For that, one must go beneath the surface, deeper than the realm of mere data. What they lacked, Kirk believed, was “understanding of the human condition” and an “apprehension of the accumulated wisdom of our civilization.”
This deficiency in understanding and wisdom most egregiously showed itself in what Kirk called their “infatuation with ideology.” Kirk believed the Neoconservatives to hold to ideology rather than prudence, and there could be few greater sins to Kirk. By ideology he meant “a political formula that promises mankind an earthly paradise.” And he did not exempt the ideology of Democratic Capitalism from that malignant category. Kirk found such formulas, even the less malevolent one of Democratic Capitalism to be nothing more than “the substitution of political slogans for real political thought.” With George Orwell, he found ideologues to be “the streamlined men who think in slogans and talk in bullets.”
Could we have a more accurate description of those driving American foreign policy? Is a phrase like “axis of evil” a political slogan or real political thought? Trite and meaningless phrases abound, with platitudes replacing substantive discussion. Proponents of invading Iraq were clever, but were they wise?
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