The Wardman Wire

Edward Beaman-Hodgkiss has posted a long interview with Douglas Murray, the leading British Neoconservative political commentator and author.

The interview was originally published on the now defunct NeoConstant website, and has been reposted on Edward’s personal website ‘Politics & Poetry’. I have quoted the first two questions here by permission.

In the year 2000, Douglas Murray became the youngest ever published biographer with his widely acclaimed Bosie: Biography of Lord Alfred Douglas.However, it is probably his most recent book Neoconservatism: Why We Need it that has seen his reputation and popularity soar. He’s also written articles for numerous newspapers and magazines across the globe including The Sunday Times and The New York Sun whilst his lectures, broadcasts and discussions have been featured on BBC radio and television, Sky and Fox, to name just a few. He is the director of the think-tank The Centre for Social Cohesion.

Edward - Mr. Murray, first of all thank you for taking time from your busy schedule to answer some of my questions. Your time and insight are very much appreciated. I’d like this interview to focus on what Neoconservatism really is, with the hope of sparking interest in our reader’s minds to research further and perhaps indeed, purchase your book.

I personally had the great pleasure of reading your book on Neoconservatism; however for our readers who have not, would you please give a brief synopsis and your main reasons for writing the book?

Douglas Murray – Well it’s really my attempt to provide what I hope is a coherent and unified explanation of how I and other people broadly defined as ‘neoconservatives’ view the world. I give a history of neoconservatism’s origins and antecedents. Then an explanation of how this point of view moved from the academy into politics. This is really the ‘what neoconservatism is’ section.

Then in the second half of the book I try to demonstrate why the neoconservative impulse is vital at this moment in history, concluding with a kind of manifesto for British (and in the US edition American) neoconservatism. That’s the structure. But the drive of the book is really an attempt to put down a marker. Having observed the allegedly ‘anti-war’ left sink into what became in large part a pro-war, but pro-the-other-side-winning stance it seemed to me that a philosophical and practical explanation had to be attempted which identified not only the jihadist enemy, but also the disastrous relativistic bent of our time which has given that enemy some of its oxygen. Relativism has deeply damaged my own generation and greatly hindered our chances of defeating this or any future enemy.

The notion of being open to the idea that you or your society might be wrong seems to have transformed into the notion that we and our society could never be right or that anyone who assaults us must have a point. It seems to me that to deny the obvious supremacy of liberal-democratic values over the morals of, say, the Taliban, is a demonstration not of cultural generosity, but of nihilism. The book is an attempt to hit back at that, and an attempt to show that such nihilism is more than indulgent: it is suicidal.

Edward – You mention in your book that a room full of Neoconservatives would be as likely to argue amongst each other as agree, except for a few basic but important points. What are these fundamental beliefs of “Neoconservatism”?

Douglas Murray – Broadly, neoconservatives would agree on the fact that liberal, democratic values constitute the most desirable end-point of human political striving – that accountability of the government to the people is not a luxury but something to be fought for. Much of this we would share with contemporary liberals. What differentiates the neocon from the modern-day liberal is the unanimously-held neoconservative belief that force can be used for the good, and that force should be used, where appropriate, to stand up for liberal-democratic values. Many conservatives agree with the occasional necessity of the use of force, but don’t agree with neoconservatives on using force to carry out regime-change or intervene in situations where a government is abusing its people. So neoconservatives stand at a curious place in the middle of the political debate – not to the far-sides of it as is often alleged, but rather in the middle, making common cause with lots of people for often differing reasons. The term ‘muscular-liberals’ has a slightly embarrassing and self-aggrandizing quality, but it might sum up the tendency best if we agree on using the term ‘liberal’ in the classical sense.

Read it all at Poetry and Politics.