Rome's Radical Conservative
From Michael Novak, writing in the New York Times:
Cardinal Ratzinger's selection as pope, however, has been less heartily welcomed by many commentators in Europe and the United States, who have quickly characterized him as an 'authoritarian,' a 'watchdog' and, most peculiarly, a 'neoconservative.'Indeed. "Neoconservative" is begininning to be used simply to mean "very conservative" or "conservative whom I really dislike," as if "neo" were a prefix that did nothing more than add emphasis to a word. It's not any skin off my nose, I suppose; I'm certainly not a "neo-conservative" in the original sense, and I have no claim to ownership over the term. But I do prefer verbal accuracy. The way that "neo-conservative" is now being used indicates sloppiness and/or illiteracy.
posted by Stuart Buck at
9:10 PM
6 Comments:
The way that "neo-conservative" is now being used indicates sloppiness and/or illiteracy
So I guess it is spelled right if they are describing the GOP.
The prefix "neo" means "sort of" or "later addition" but not "ultra". For example, one would say that the U.S. Capital was in a neo-classical style, meaning that it was not made by the orignial Greeks or Romans, but tries to imitate their buildings. One might say that Anglicans are Neo-Catholics -- but that is another topic.
Although neo-conservative is used sloppily quite often, it actually might be accurate to describe Ratzinger as a neo-conservative; he is, after all, a liberal who saw the effect of liberalism and became conservative becase of those effects.
neo = arch
Who invented that term?
The term refers to people like Irving Kristol. They are neo-conservatives because they reacted against traditionalist conservatism in advocating vigorous government and imperialist rather than isolationist foreign policy. Genealogically speaking they got these ideas from the radical left -- Kristol, for instance, was a Trotskyite in his youth.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home