Two correspondents make points about the way the neocons pass along their political philosophy to the next generation. Says Joachim Martillo:
The Jabotinskians appear to do an excellent job of socializing and
indoctrinating their children. It makes a generational effort possible. In contrast, Moshe Arens and Yigal Arens are political antipodes.
This phenomenon is historically common in Imperial Systems like the
Spanish and the British. The Imperial ideology is much stronger among
those that never faced the reality in the imperial possessions.
I’d note that Leon Wieseltier states in his book Kaddish that his father was a Jabotinskyite. And my impression is that Wieseltier’s own views on Israel are unreconstructed, or have a factional air about them. Marty Peretz’s intellectual activities also have a paternal quality. He has nurtured god knows how many important journalists, and before each one leaves the factory, or before it even gets to the factory, he stamps him (I don’t think there’ve been many girls) with a Star of David.
And here is my friend Jack Ross reflecting on his political education on dad’s knee:
For many years I felt something very similar [to young Daniel Feith’s ideological obedience to his father] in my relationship to my
own father, carrying on his factional stand against the evolving
neocons in YPSL (Young People’s Socialist League). The ironies of this abound. Only because of his
passion about the neocons did I ever evolve into something roughly
resembling a paleo (though I had old right-populist leanings from the
moment I became something other than an unthinking Clintonite, about
the time I turned 16), but on the other hand I imbibed from him a
left-factional understanding of neoconservatism which I think is vital
to understanding it and which I doubt I could ever have gotten
anywhere, nor from anyone, else. [Weiss emphasis]But unlike Bill Kristol,
John Podhoretz, and Daniel Feith, I broke out of it, at the very least
to the point where it defined me and my politics. The turning point
was probably about the time I moved to New York when I realized how off
the rails my father’s beloved Dissent Magazine is. (My sense is that rather than being just
one step behind Marty Peretz, they are going the way of Partisan Review,
which is to cease being about anything relevant to the world around
them until they finally die). I think my father may have come to
recognize it to a point, but in short, while I don’t buy his spiel
about a “democratic left” anymore, there is undoubtedly more than
something of him in me in my enthusiasm for the rise of such populist
Democrats as Jim Webb and Bob Conley. Essentially, anyone who knows us both will tell you that my father and I are so different and yet so alike.
That’s endearing. I italicized Jack’s line about left-factional politics because I watched Eric Breindel doing it at Harvard, and was stunned. I’d never seen such obedience before. And lo, he soon became a neocon.
