The story goes like this: The Neoconservative movement, so obviously influential in the Bush II administration, consisted of small number in the 1960's. Liberals all, this seemingly paltry (and highly schooled) cadre of intellectuals reacted against the somewhat-socialist Great Society and published papers in The Public Interest and Commentary. Most script-impetus would find haven in the late Harvard-Politician Moynihan's 1967 Maximum Feasible Misunderstanding, wherein the amelioration of poverty problems might best start at home. At this time, matters military had faint priority.

Within the permutations of Straussian text (see IC Review #25), arose in the 70's former Leftists Kristol and Podhoretz the elders, Nathan Glazer, Daniel Bell, and other Public Philosophers (if you can find it, read Richard Bishirjian's keenly edited A Public Philosophy Reader for a taste of the commonality of targets sought for analyses).

The period from 1973 to 1979 was the period of rapid intellectual growth for the movement.  The popular press began to take notice, as the name of Irving Kristol began to assume sexy prominence amongst the trendy literati (those who read the Partisan Review) and the serious students of conservatism. As one of the latter, I remember reading a 1976 Commentary retrospective (!) on the movement in the University of Rhode Island research library and becoming so fully captivated that I missed an important seminar.
The subject of Neo encroachment in the Reagan years has become standard internet talk as of recent, and not without some justification. Certainly Jeanne Kilpatrick and Eliot Cohen were major players. Yet, as Gary North has pointed out, after Martin Anderson left, the CFR people, who had never been out of the circle, became more relaxed within its circumference. But, the point here is: the movement assumed presence in the Washington maelstrom.

Replication would ensue.

After the one-term Bush I CFR/Managerial presidency, and during the "New Democrat" visions of the Clinton Administration, a not-much-understood phenomenon occurred:

The Weekly Standard.

No longer was there a promise to be realized. Retrospectives no longer were necessary. The somber, well-written prose of the (two decades earlier) Kristol would now become inclusions in autobiographical collections.

It was show biz and nary one would now leave the building. The NR crowd would not be so apparent (except on PBS, where the Stevensonian Liberals had once been asked to rest, after the shouting was over).

And what an enterprise it was! Fox News with William Kristol, Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Perle, and the minions from the Tanks.

The talk was military. Gary North:

Then Bush II.

Then, the War in Iraq.

As I have attempted to tell the story so far,
this much is evident:

1. The movement was never broadly based.

2. It had strong intellectual force.

3. Its roots were Leftist, and in some cases,
Trotskyite.

4. It gained sufficient, though not widespread
power during the Reagan reign.

5. Ideas rule, when championed (or maybe, thought to be salable) by the News Corporation.

6. Ideas become wildly popular (superstar stuff, actually) when the "elan" deals with issues related to a society of self-confident, strongly-principled mission.

(I might suggest that IC readers read Lew Rockwell, Gary North, and Sam Francis' September, 1986 piece in The World and I (a brilliant Paleo Peek) for an accurate accounting of Neoconservative history and thought.)

The story I have recounted is necessary.

And it's benign.

And so, in order to proffer what I consider to be (what may become) dastardly consequence, with a true beginning, and a final culmination, as occasions a political movement, with dire implication for us, I offer the faithful IC reader, my explication and analysis of Trilling's The Liberal Imagination.

Trilling (1905-75) was born in New York City and educated at Columbia University. His teaching career, mostly at his alma mater, offered him the opportunity to write some fiction (a very good novel, The Middle of the Journey, a-coming-to-realization-that- Communism-isn't-wholesome book, not a Koestler wallop, but in that range).

His essays were numerous, appearing especially in the formerly Marxist, then Trotskyite, and as it was beginning to more than hint at what is the Neoconservative affirmation, the now defunct Partisan Review.

William M. Chace writes that,

His most important collection of essays is found in the book under review. In his preface, he states,

The volume commences with essays on cultural historian V. L. Parrington (Trilling feels he poorly insisted on "reality" rather than "ideas") and Sherwood Anderson (Trilling likes his early adolescent-like sense of tenderness, but feels he never matured. I find Anderson's lyric study of the free individuals in "Winesburg, Ohio" to be one of the finest prose poems ever written).

The power pieces, those dealing with Freud, the "Kinsey Report," and The Partisan Review demonstrate that, for Trilling, literary criticism first and foremost operates within a socio-cultural milieu. A careful reading, however, (here, I begin to spot trouble) shows that politics and sociology must germinate as the core of interpretation. He praises Nietzche's supple meld of "history" and "art."

Freud is heroic. He senses greatness in this Doctor who finds "in human pride the ultimate cause of human wretchedness."

Trilling continues,

On Tate and the New Critics (more trouble -- I'm beginning to shake), Trilling finds their propensity to shun "appropriate complication" more than troublesome. Here one finds the distance between Vanderbilt and Columbia as infinitely greater than geography would denote.

There are more essays and facets. Every page of The Liberal Imagination, however, leads the reader to form the view that its author is liberalism's chief critic (it should self-reform) or that its corrected correlative should veer to the Right.

As for the former, Robert Rulford,

As for the subtle journey to the Right, Damon Linker's well-written review of Leon Wieseltier's newly-edited Trilling collection, in the August 28, 2000 NR, speaks to,

Here Linker's one sentence, beautifully conceived and most accurate, spells both the true literary beginning of the Neoconservative movement, and for me, signals the anxious danger I find inherent in Trilling's Imagination:

It is precisely Trilling's "disposition" as reflected in his essays that causes me concern. And it justifies my inclusion of his collection as an important "conservative" read.

Trilling's influence on Kristol and Podhoretz and others of the New York set was enormous. Without the "New York Intellectuals," there is no Neoconservative movement as we know it.

M. H. Abrams nails it for me since he is astute enough to differentiate two opposing schools of thought by political implication. In so doing, he creates a solid basis for understanding what the Old Right is all about and sadly causes me worry since its opposite is currently in control of property, freedom, and peace. Abrams:

The New York Intellectuals, those who surrounded the cerebral environs of the old Partisan Review, today's Neoconservatives -- they are not to be treated airily.

They were and are a brilliant lot.

But they wish to imbue the State with Soul.

Individuals have souls.

They have great imaginative qualities.

But they wish to imbue all nations with the liberal imagination implicit in our Founders' American Idea.

Nations evolve by custom.

Trilling's hero was Freud.

Freud's notions on war are most probably correct.

That's why we seek good neighbors, tight-knit communities, and church.

As a corrective!

The Liberal Imagination is available on Amazon.com.

IC's Top 25 Philosophical and Ideological Conservative Books.

Dr. Enrico Peppe is a retired educator who runs the website The Third Way. A widower with too much time on his hands, he spends most of his time reading and thinking about the conservative movement, studying Catholic theology, working on his "Third Way" website, listening to Sinatra and Miles Davis, and admiring Ann Coulter.

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