Sunday, January 01, 2006
the use of the term neoconservative
Somebody better tell Fr. Neuhaus to stop using this term. He edited a book, which openly used the terms "theocon" and "neocon," but even as recent as the December 2005 issue of FTs, he specifically uses the term himself in his own column, The Public Square, pg. 78. Don't apply an arbitrary rule to me that your own camp does not use itself.
This topic has been addressed many, many times over the history of this blog. Personally I prefer the terms Whig Thomists and Augustinian Thomists b/c it's something both camps openly agree upon. It was Michael Novak who really coined the term "Whig Thomist" and began using it to describe his position and other like minded orthodox Catholic scholars, i.e. Weigel, Neuhaus, Sirico, etc. Tracey Rowland followed this up with coining the term "Augustinian Thomist," which described the position of the opposite camp of orthodox Catholic scholars, i.e. Schindler, etc.
Now sometimes it's appropriate to use the term "neoconservative or neocon" for it has came to mean those people that support the foreign policy of the Bush presidency. Even Fr. Neuhaus alludes to this in his above December column. So instead of whining about the use of "labels" deal with the facts of the War in Iraq and other imperialistic objectives of W's foreign policy.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
I've seen Neuhaus use these same labels on the First Things blog and thought the exact same thing in light of comments I've seen on this blog. Quibbling over labels when leaders within one's one camp uses them is not a good use of one's time, let alone productive.
Solid post, David. Very solid.
That Neuhaus has long used the label "neoconservative" is well known; he's often expressed an appreciation for the work of Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz and the other 'old school' neocons, and at no point has he distanced himself from their camp.
My problem is when the term is used misleadingly or improperly, in which the appliance of the label might add to confusion and becomes in itself an impediment to discussion
- as when David referred to Dario Antiseri as an 'Italian neocon' ("[Antiseri] is criticizing, at bottom, Benedict XVI's positions on relativism, nihilism, and the natural law. . . . Does this surprise anyone? It shouldn't considering this American camp of Whig Thomists have contradicted the last two Holy Fathers on many, many points"); as I contended at the time: "given the lack of qualification, is it in any way helpful to the discussion? If Antiseri is a neocon, and if Neuhaus, Sirico and Novak are likewise neocons, should we then impute the dissenting philosophical critique of Antiseri to the rest of them? On the contrary, it seems that the very application of the label obfuscates the content of Antiseri's article and the positions of Fr. Neuhaus, Sirico and company themselves."
- or when the term is loosely applied to the Acton Institute as a whole, or when the Zwicks (Houston Catholic Worker) state that Neoliberalism is known in the United States as neoconservatism, a charge which Michael Therrien demolished some time ago.
Like David, I think the terms 'Whig Thomist' and 'Augustinian Thomist' are more precise, although while Novak has coined the term, I wonder whether Neuhaus or Weigel have used it in reference to themselves?
Post a Comment