Irving Kristol - Neoconservatism

About this Episode

Irving Kristol is widely regarded as the godfather of neoconservative thought. Kristol and his early campatriots were disillusioned liberals and former communists. Most were social scientists. They introduced a rigorous social science approach to issues that the Right had lacked previously. Kristol founded the Public Interest magazine to stand as a bulwark against New Liberal orthodoxy. Neoconservatism differed from traditional conservatives in that its chosen enemy was contemporary liberalism, not socialism or statism in the abstract. He saw his role as enlarging the conservative vision to include moral philosophy, political philosophy, and social science research.