A Neocon By Any Other Name…
Few words raise hackles these days faster than “neoconservative.” Some see it as an anti-Semitic euphemism for “jewish conservative.” Others defend the term and call the efforts to squelch it self-serving.
For better or worse, the very controversy over “neoconservative” may soon drive it out of polite society. Readers of the great linguist Steven Pinker will remember the “euphemism treadmill,” whereby an inoffensive word becomes tainted by an unpleasant association and so gets replaced by another. For example, “negro,” a politically correct term during the Civil Rights era, was replaced by “black,” which was later replaced by “African American.” Today, just like the term “black”, the term “neoconservative” makes many people uncomfortable. Those who wish to remain persuasive wisely eschew it.
That does not mean that one may no longer identify that in the world which is, in fact, neoconservative. To defuse the charge that “neoconservative” is an anti-Semitic euphemism, one can simply use a euphemism for “neoconservative.” If that euphemism itself becomes disreputable, then a new one can be invented. Public discussion of neoconservatism may thereby continue even as the words in which the discussion is carried out happen to change.
To replace “neoconservative,” I propose “Projectarian.” The term’s advantages are several. First, it implies a neutral test of whether any person or idea is legitimately called “Projectarian”: to wit, the degree to which that person or idea is affiliated or associated with the (unambiguously neoconservative) Project for a New American Century. (A reliable list can already be found on the Project’s wikipedia page.)
Second, the term “Projectarian” helps to distinguish between the core Projectarians and their Republican Party and movement conservative epigones. One must always remember that Projectarianism did not become gospel until after 9/11. As recently as 2000, the Republican Party nominated the anti-Projectarian candidate (i.e. not John McCain).
Third, in contrast to pejorative epithets such as “Neo-Jacobin,” it is hard to imagine anyone taking umbrage at being called a “Projectarian"—at least for the time being. It was the Projectarians themselves, after all, who founded the eponymous “Project” in the first place.
Fourth, the successful coinage of “Projectarian” would help to prove that Projectarian ideas—such as the invasion of Iraq—predate their current “war on terror” rationale. That in itself would greatly enhance public understanding of our current predicament.
Finally, “Projectarianism” sidesteps the fascinating yet misleading history of neoconservatism. Though genetically related, the neoconservatism of the 1970s and the neoconservatism of the 2000s are philosophically opposite. In the 1970s neoconservative Jeane Kirkpatrick refuted the wisdom of “decapitating” Saddam Hussein’s regime 24 years before it was attempted:
“Authority in traditional autocracies is transmitted through personal relations: from the ruler to his close associates (relatives, household members, personal friends) and from them to people to whom the associates are related by personal ties resembling their own relation to the ruler. The fabric off authority unravels quickly when the power and status of the man at the top are undermined or eliminated. The longer the autocrat has held power, and the more pervasive his personal influence, the more dependent a nation’s institutions will be on him. Without him, the organized life of the society will collapse, like an arch from which the keystone has been removed.”
How welcome the truth after seven years in exile!
That “neoconservative” can refer to two mutually exclusive sets of ideas is a coincidence resulting family history of the individuals who happened to promulgate them. “True” neoconservatives, one could argue, necessarily reject Projectarianism. Maybe it’s time that they actually did.
Comments
Here’s a better term for neoconservatives: traitors.
Let’s stop being intimidated by accusations of racism and “anti-Semitism”. We’re already halfway there. The terms have been applied so cheaply over the past few decades, they have lost all their power to spook anyone but the most sheepishly gelded of American suckers.
“Polite” name changes allow the neoconservatives to disappear into the fog of obscurity – and avoid all responsibility for their crimes. Here’s a better plan: Let’s sling them up against the wall and force them to make amends.
At the very least, we can DESIRE that kind of justice, even if our country is too-peppered with sheep and suckers to bring it off.
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Who besides Jewish neocons claim that neoconservative is an “anti-Semitic euphemism for ‘jewish conservative’”? I’ve heard this before, but where is the evidence? Posters on this site, for example, use the term indiscriminately to refer to anyone who disagrees with them. Why not just call jewish conservatives jewish conservatives and leave it at that? You’re joking about “projectarian,” right?
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Projectarian makes it sound kind of goofy (see also libertarian)
which might be the point.
Traitors and Liars, though accurate, are somewhat ineffective due to overuse.
How about Projectile Dysfunctionals?
Pee-knackers?
Branch-Mossadians?
Kristolians?
Himmelpods?
H.I.Q.S (pronounced hix) - High IQ Sophists?
I guess Projectarian will have to do.
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People object to the term neo-con because it correctly identifies the individual as someone who is not conservative. I will bleieve the term neo-con is anti-semitic when Bill O’riley is a conservative.
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Mr. Bramwell, since you were the topic of conversation in a recent thread, would you mind answering a question? Where exactly are you coming from and how exactly do you describe/denominate yourself? I agree with your critique of many things and disagree on others. I guess I am one of those “Reillyists” you wrote about. But I really can’t figure out what you are for. Just what you are against.
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Tory conservatives ought to know something about history. To call Neoconservatives “Hamiltonians” is correct but doesn’t go back far enough. Just call them “Whigs”, the most correct term. Their program has changed since the Exclusion Bill of 1678:
1. A Leviathan central and centralizing state, ruling over a variety of ethnic groups, striving to ever increase its extent and power, and crushing all rebellion: in Scotland in 1746, Ireland repeatedly, Shay’s, the Whiskey Rebellion, Dixie 1861-5, the Philippines 1900-1910, etc. Also, centralizing into the Executive at the expense of other branches.
2. Control of the currency by a central bank that issues fiat money: The Bank of England 1691, The Bank of the US 1793, National Banking Act 1861, The Federal Reserve 1911.
3. Corporate Welfare: imperialism, the East India Company, “internal improvements”, protectionism, etc.
4. A large military for Great Power wars to assert hegemony (Spanish American War, World War I, Iraq, etc.)
5. Opposition to the Catholic Church
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Sid, you forgot a key element of neoconservatism - Proposition Nationalism which is an obviously politically correct left-wing concept. Hmmm ... wonder why you left that one out.
PURGE THE PC ENFORCING LEFTIST PINKS!!!! Before they taint us all.
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“Let’s stop being intimidated by accusations of racism and “anti-Semitism”.
No one who runs away from mere words will fight back. You can take that to the bank.
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Red,
In reply to your childish and foolish attempt to pretend that the Browns—facists, Fascists, racialists, racialist nationalists, and ethnic nationalists (all propositional ideologies)-- don’t have even more PC than the Reds, or that they support free speech and open debate, division of power, and parliament (they don’t, as Sophie Scholl found at [how you must hate Miss Sophie!]), I am of course opposed to “propositional nations” as well—among which nations are Fascist Italy, Stalinist Russia, and Nazi Germany. This just hasn’t been part of the Whig program since 1678. It is, of course, part of the Whig program now.
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Red,
even more fathomlessly stupid is your false dilemma and red herring fallacies that “if your not A, you have to be B”, “if your not Brown, you have to Red”.
A more common error: I have repeatedly said how dumb it is to imagine political ideologies on a line going from Left to Right. If “Left” means Marxism and “Right” means the ideologies that I mentioned in my previous post, the the ecologists, the Jeffersonians, the libertarians, the Whigs, and the Torys are neither Left nor Right. The mapping of political ideology looks more like a Chinese Checkers board.
And the League of the South also is neither Left or Right either. It fights the SPLC and has expelled Nation Alliance members. Get with the program.
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Well, then, Mr. Bramwell, would you object to the
term, “Neocondoms” to describe Goyim in the service
of the “Project”?
Also, I personally prefer the term “Projectiles”
to “Projectarians.” “Projectiles” better suggests
what a McCain / Liberman administration would visit
upon the Middle East.
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Sid,
I didn’t use the color Red on purpose. Because Red is already taken. I am not implying you are a Communist because you are not a “Brown.” That would be silly and simplistic dichotomous thinking. That is why I came up with a new color, Pink, to indicate what you are. You are a PC right think enforcer and have bought into an entirely modern left-wing paradigm re. the proper place of ethnicity. Your attempts to dismiss these perfectly valid and reasonable distinctions that have been shaping and organizing mankind since the dawn of time is unnatural, Utopian, and ideological and downright revolutionary. It must be these things because it is of such recent historical vintage. It can not possibly be conservative to try and stamp out something that is so ubiquitous and natural and not inherently harmful. (Like it can not be conservative to attempt to stamp out gender roles for example.) In fact, a strong case could be made that the purely natural inclination of people to concern themselves with the welfare of others more like them (an extension of the kinship bond) is protective and right and proper. Violence is ubiquitous and natural, but we try to tame it because it is often harmful. The kinship bond, both immediate and at a distance, is not inherently harmful. Attempts to stamp it out are no less Utopian than attempts by Marxist to stamp out the profit motive.
I have no use, as I have said before, for fascism or excessive racialism or much use for white nationalism? I have no use for nationalism and historically speaking “white” is a supra category. Although all these, especially the white nationalists, do serve some useful role in putting a thumb in the eye of the PC crowd. But it is you who are the simplistic dichotomous thinker. You can not allow yourself ANY stray racial or ethnic (as a biological not just cultural entity) thought without fearing you are on the slippery slope to Nazism. So you have constructed this very tight system of reality denial that you insulate yourself in and spout robotically when challenged. You are like any ideologue or true believer when faced by a challenge to your belief system. Like the cult member who mindlessly repeats the dogma after the “prophet’s” prediction has failed to come true.
You are obviously a smart guy. As one example, you can not possibly believe that race is not a real biological entity. You just can’t. It is not a credible position to take. So you resort to spouting dogma and obfuscating the issue.
Intelligent people can disagree on what weight all of this should be given, but the irritating part of your constant PC preening is that you are giving aid and comfort to the enemy. It is gotcha PC enforcers on the left, like the SPLC, and their accomplices on the “right,” like the neocons and you, that have made the intellectual environment so toxic that ANY reasonable discussion of race or demographics or whatever is off limits. People can not have an intelligent conversation on the subject because of it. For example, it is virtually impossible to discuss demographic change as an issue in the immigration debate without being called a racist. That is thanks to people like you Sid.
And it is purely a one way street. No one thinks a thing about the fact that blacks are voting overwhelmingly for Obama because he is black. It is considered a veritable given that they would. No one thinks a thing about the fact that a Jew would be more concerned with the fate of Israel than a Gentile. (Of course people do think a thing about it when they want to translate that into policy.) But if a white person worries about demographic change from immigration it is a scandalous offense. If a Christian chooses not to vote for Romney because he is a Mormon, it is rank bigotry. Surely, surely, you see the problem with this. Why do you persist in carrying water for a revolutionary, Utopian left-wing dogma? It seems to me your motivation is partially one of ritual self-purification. “See, no untainted thoughts here.” Whack! Whack!
Quit being a tool of the left.
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Red:
1. “</i>As one example, you can not possibly believe that race is not a real biological entity.“
“Race” is a fiction invited in he 19th C. I have never denied that <i>skin color is a biological category; so is eye color, and is just as about as important (i.e. of no importance as all except to vendors of eye glasses and suntan oil.)
2. Kinship groups in a pre-civilized, pre-political society are four-fold:
i. the household
ii. the clan (gens) – an extended family living in a village.
iii. the curia (a collection of neighboring villages)
iv. the tribe (ethnos): about 3000 people
Note that ## 3-4 exist only because of the incest taboo. Intermarriage does not take place in ## 1-2
Note that with the coming of the polis – that grouping not based blood – ##3 and 4 are no longer needed and become, as in the Roman Republic, at best vestigial. Red, if you wish to go back to a tribal society, move to an already existing one: Say in the Near East or parts of Africa. Or go live in the woods. The rest of us prefer the polis.
3. An ethnic group in the modern understanding isn’t based on blood, but rather is a people with a common history. I’m Borderer/Backcountry (misnamed “Scots Irish [we are neither]). In our history we are made of of these blood groups
a. Bernician Angles
b. West Briton Celts
c. Lowland Scotish Celts
In the course of our migrations, we mixed with
d. Irish in Ulster
e. in American: with southwest English Saxons
f. American Indians
g. Highland Scots (our ancient enemy)
h. and others
Go to places where we are the overwhelming majority: – Appalachia, the SCV (ever heard of them, Red?), the League of the South – and you will see that we are vast variety of physiological types, attesting to our mulatto genes. So much for “race”!
What unites us Borderers is our common history, a history that produced common folkways.
None of this is Cultural Marxist—except to the extent, as I have argued before, that Cultural Marxism is itself becoming racialist and nationalist.
Get with the program.
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