The
Neo-Jacobins
by Paul Craig Roberts
by Paul Craig Roberts
Do you want to
know why President George W. Bush�s focus on the war against terror
was redirected to war against Iraq and the Muslim Middle East? Read
Professor Claes G. Ryn�s new book, America
the Virtuous: Crisis of Democracy and the Quest for
Empire.
Professor Ryn
is a learned, insightful, and courageous scholar who ably explains
the ideas that are destroying our country.
These ideas are
the property of neo-Jacobins. Professor Ryn calls the ideas �a
recipe for conflict and perpetual war.� Neo-Jacobins are known to
Americans as neoconservatives, a clever euphemism behind which hides
a gang of radicals who stand outside of, and opposed to, the
American tradition. The US has been subverted from within as these
counterfeit conservatives hold the reins of power in the Bush
administration.
Professor Ryn
shows that Jacobins have not a drop of conservative blood in their
veins. For example, the Jacobins� concept of morality is abstract
and ahistorical. It is a morality that is divorced from the
character of individuals and the traditions of a people.
Jacobins are
seduced by power. The foundation of their abstract morality is their
fantastic claim to a monopoly on virtue. Secure in their belief in
their monopoly on virtue, Jacobins are prepared to use force to
impose virtue on other societies and to reconstruct other societies
in the Jacobin image.
Jacobin society
is a centralized one that subordinates individuals and their
liberties to abstract virtues. In short, it is an ideological
society imbued with assurance of moral superiority that justifies
its dominance over others, including its own citizens.
Virtue gives
Jacobins a mandate to rule the world in order to improve it. Opposed
to the American Republic that is based in traditional morality and
limits on power, the Jacobin agenda is to remake America into an
empire capable of imposing virtue on the world.
Jacobin
morality is divorced from moral character, personal conduct, and
treatment of others. Jacobin morality expresses itself in benevolent
sentiments toward abstract entities. Human lives and cultural
diversity mean nothing compared to �making the world safe for
democracy� and �liberating women from the Muslim yoke.� Jacobin
morality seeks to achieve a uniform unipolar world.
Possessed of an
unrelenting will to power, the Jacobins in the Bush administration,
together with their media allies, seized the opportunity afforded by
September 11 to meld America�s nationalistic response to terrorism
with the Jacobin ideological agenda. Once Americans associated
invading foreign countries (Afghanistan) with the �war on terror,�
Jacobins shifted the �terrorist threat� to Iraq. Now they are
working to shift it to Syria, Iran, and Lebanon. Next will be Saudi
Arabia and Egypt.
The Jacobin
agenda requires large numbers of American troops and heavy taxation
to support massive military budgets. It means the return of the
draft.
It also
explains why Jacobins are unconcerned with our own country�s porous
borders while they seek to control Middle Eastern borders. The
hordes of young Mexicans pouring into the US are a convenient source
of cannon fodder, just as President Lincoln redirected the flow of
Irish immigrants in his day into the Union Army.
Jacobins are
dangerous because they lack historical understanding and rely on
abstract righteousness to impose ideological unity. Their drive for
like-mindedness implies coercion, the gulag and the Orwellian state.
The Jacobin agenda means the end of Western civilization.
Professor Ryn
shows that Jacobins are lost in abstractions and do not appreciate
or understand Western civilization as a human achievement resulting
from centuries of struggle to create moral character.
Self-restraint, empathy, and mutual respect are necessary for
pluralistic societies. However, such genuine virtues have no role in
the uniform Jacobin state.
It is difficult
to quibble when Professor Ryn writes that �monopolistic ideological
universalism that scorns historically formed societies is a
potential source of unending war and great disasters.� Professor Ryn
reports that many Americans, including conservatives, find aspects
of the Jacobin message attractive without understanding where it
leads. The Jacobin quest for American world supremacy appeals to
nationalistic patriots, to macho types whose response to September
11 is to �kick butt,� to people fearful of terrorist plots, to
global business and financial interests, to do-gooders anxious to
spread democracy and women�s rights, and to people who enjoy power
and success vicariously like fans of champion sports
teams.
 Jacobins are to be found among both political parties
and among both �conservative� and �liberal� columnists. As a result
of conservative befuddlement, Jacobins now control the formerly
conservative media, foundations and think tanks, and they occupy
most of the putatively �conservative� posts in
universities.
Professor Ryn
acknowledges that he is alerting us to the Jacobin threat late in
the game. Jacobins use their power and influence to suppress
dissent. Jacobin ends justify Jacobin means. Thus, lies, deception,
and manipulation cause Jacobins no shame.
As Professor
Ryn observes, ambition unchecked by intellectual humility and moral
self-control is the source of tyranny.
 October 23, 2003
Dr. Roberts [send him mail] is John M.
Olin Fellow at the Institute for Political Economy and Senior
Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He
is a former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal and a
former assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury. He is the co-author
of The
Tyranny of Good Intentions.
Copyright � 2003 Creators Syndicate
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