Lewis on NR¶
Matt K. Lewis, in The Week, shows that a critical appraisal of Neoreaction really doesn’t require hysteria. (The second half of the article is especially impressive.) If the custodians of Cathedral orthodoxy don’t find a way to punish him for his sobriety, this piece could set a new standard for public discussion of the anti-democratic right.
… these movements tacitly accept that conservatism as a political force is utterly incapable of slowing the leftward march of liberalism. By definition, conservatives, who want to conserve the good things about the past, are always playing defense. When you consider that many of my conservative views aren’t terribly different from John F. Kennedy’s views in 1960, this becomes self-evident.
Can this degree of honesty be allowable?
ADDED: At The American Conservative, two (instantly forgettable) response pieces, by Noah Millman, and Rod Dreher.
ADDED: Jonah Goldberg isn’t shrieking either: “Lewis goes on to talk about the neoreactionaries, an interesting intellectual subculture from what I can tell, but calling them extremely marginal to the mainstream right probably still gives them too much credit.” These kind of responses are making it ever more obvious how unhinged the libertarian commentary has been (with Cato-types being the most despicable).