There has been some difficulty getting a correct handle on the right wing tendency that has become hegemonic over the last 25 to 30 years. Neoliberal is used frequently in Europe, but the problem is, nothing is liberal about them. New Right was a good term, but it seems to have gotten left behind in the Reagan days. Generally people in North America, have used the word “Neocon” to describe the new face of reaction. Neocon was once used in a narrow sense to describe the group that developed under Irving and William Kristol, Wolfowitz and Pearl. But how does one describe Chaney, Rumsfeld, Bush, B-liar etc? Furthermore, Neocons say the term is anti-semitic, since many of the original conmen were Zionists. And last but not least, other than 1950's social values, there is nothing the least conservative about neoconservatism. Better to have a new term. The way to come up with a new term is to zero in on the central aspects of a belief system. Fot this tendency this is its newness and its in-your-face authoritarianism. I suggest calling them the “New Authoritarian Tendency”. A mouthful, true, but the acronym could be NAT or NATcy. Either one has great polemical value. The first reminds you of a blood sucking insect pest and the second, well, you know who...
Neocons are liberals in the "modern" pejorative sense. THIS is the neocon definition of liberalism and it applies to them as well as certain parts of the left. In that respect European commentators are probably a little closer to the truth. Liberal in the old sense is very much related to an older, and better, or at least a bit more honest, definition of conservatism, ie. a jaundiced eye towards the state although not a complete refusal of parliamentary politics.
ReplyDeleteI have also seen them freferred to as "Jacobins", something that I also agree with
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