‘Reading Leo Strauss,’ by Steven B. Smith

Neocon or Not?

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Review by ROBERT ALTER

Published: June 25, 2006

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/25/books/review/25alter.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

I agree that they are not slavery, though I wouldn’t call them a moral act.

Taxation is the price we pay for belonging to a polity; for being memebers of a community. This is one area of social policy with which I totally disagree with many conservatives. Too often they write and act as if taxation were the worst evil in the world.

Yes I could have but I eas tyring to consider founding members of modern conservatism to make the point that it wasn’t exaclty created yesterday.

“However, you are wrong to throw the same accusation back at the left.”

I was focusing on people who post here and not on academics.

“I don’t think JK Galbraith only “halfâ€? understood his intellectual positions, for

example.”

Of course, Galbraith like Alan Greenspan to cite his conservative opposite know what they are talking about. Again, I was focusing on people who post here who for the most part don’t are just mouthing cliches.

I did not hear one word about the poor, the sick, the underprivileged, about social problems like health care ( except to complain about the RX drug benefit). But Bartlett did mention being prepared to “defend” the country.

What was left out of the conversation was very telling.

BTW I think David Brooks descriptions/categories, if valid, are perhaps more representative of the split within the Republicans/Conservatives.

This must be unnerving for a party that likes to be in lock step…”talking points” and all the rest.

I just heard the term “intellectual conservatism�, oxymoron?�

Tell that to Burke, Coleridge, Disraeli, Hegel, etc.

What is true is that contemporary leftist liberals are not intellectuals at all. They just play with ideas they half understand.

You are right to condemn those leftists who claim there is no intellectual weight on the side of conservatism, though you might have chosen somewhat more contemporary figures to illustrate your point. However, you are wrong to throw the same accusation back at the left. I don’t think JK Galbraith only “half” understood his intellectual positions, for example.

And I agree with onevoice: taxes are a moral act. They are not slavery. I just cannot understand the position of those people who really don’t think those less fortunate deserve to be helped out.

Sidenote: I always loved those lyrics from “Armageddon Days Are Here Again.” I put them in the category of “Getting Truer Every Day.”

Yes, and the best commentators of social life have always used a dialectical approach and didn’t bother to call themselves either “conservative” or “liberal.”

They left it to other lesser minds to categorize their views.

After shouting at the radio for the hour I went to read the David Brooks piece and for the life of me I could not identify with one or the other of his new categories

I linked Kos because David Brooks piece is behind a firewall and the Kos piece matched my reaction.

David Brooks own words might make more sense that Kos’s reinterpretation of them. The Kos piece reads like a parody of his views.