[lit-ideas] Mugged by Reality
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2006 10:52:54 -0700
A lurker sent me the following article about a very interesting young
Englishman named Douglas Murray. I hadn't heard of him before, but he seems
a man after my own heart. I probably fit the traditional Neocon definition
better that Murray does in that I spent much more time as a Leftist before
being Mugged by Reality. I like Murray's optimism, but I don't share it
when I read about Europe.
Lawrence
Mugged by Reality
BY DANIEL FREEDMAN
August 17, 2006
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/38058
Douglas Murray isn't a man you'd immediately peg as being a self-described
neoconservative and Zionist. Eton and Oxford educated, an Anglican - sorry,
a "practicing Anglican," as he corrects me - and complete with the chiseled
features and upper-class accent one associates with the British aristocracy,
Mr. Murray almost seems out of place declaring his admiration for the Jewish
State, Leo Strauss, and everything else the left sneeringly associates with
neoconservativism. But the man who tells me with complete certainty over a
dinner on Manhattan's Upper West Side that "any sensible person is a
Zionist," who when in Holland needs police protection and stays under an
alias, can hardly be described as an ordinary individual.
Already before he started Oxford Mr. Murray had finished a biography of
Oscar Wilde's lover, Alfred "Bosie" Douglas. It won applause on both sides
of the Atlantic. At Oxford he wrote reviews for Britain's Spectator. Upon
finishing Oxford he wrote a play, "Nightfall," about the Swedish anti-Nazi
hero Raoul Wallenberg. Now, at 27 years old, he's touring America
publicizing his latest book, "Neoconservativism: Why We Need It." Mr. Murray
lectures and debates across Europe in support of what he describes as
neoconservative foreign policy. He also writes for, and is profiled in,
numerous publications, and is known on the British television chat show
circuit as "Britain's only neoconservative." With such a resume it's hardly
surprising that Mr. Murray has been described as a "prodigy" and a "great
hope" in Europe.
As his earlier writing interests indicate, Mr. Murray wasn't always a
neocon. That doesn't mean that he fits Irving Kristol's famous definition of
a neoconservative being a "liberal mugged by reality." If he spent any time
on the left, he tells me, it "was a matter of hours." Rather his early
interests lay in literature and the arts, and not in practical government
policy. Mr. Murray was, however, "repeatedly mugged by reality" by three
pivotal events - Kosovo, the September 11, 2001 attacks, and the reaction to
those attacks on America.
Kosovo was his "defining conflict." It shocked him that the governments of
Europe were prepared to allow another genocide take place on European soil.
The September 11, 2001, attacks provided the second jolt, and the third came
with the "reaction to 9/11." He witnessed a large swathe of people in Europe
and in America who still "didn't get it" and whose reaction was self-blame
rather than seeking to defeat the terrorists. Realizing that the world he
loved faced real danger, he turned to the practical world of policy and
became a neocon.
Mr. Murray readily admits that neocon is a confusing label. He says that
it's "not a cabal, a group, a party," but rather comprises people from both
the left and right "united only by their broadest beliefs." It's an
"instinct, a way of looking at world." Neoconservatives, he says, "see the
world as it is, but try to make it as we would like it to be." Other
ideologies fail, according to Mr. Murray, as liberalism fails to see the
world as it is, while old-school conservativism sees the world as it is but
believes the best we can hope for is containment.
We pick Iran as a test case for his neoconservativism. First, basic realism
is applied: When someone threatens to wipe out an ally, as Tehran's
theocrats have repeatedly done toward Israel, you don't just say "that's
interesting" or say that they "don't really mean it," he tells me. You take
it as a real threat. Then you imagine how you'd ideally like Iran to be,
which is as a non-threatening democratic government. Therefore what America
and her allies should have been doing during the past few years is fostering
democratic movements in Iran.
Instead little was done, and now the mullahs are emboldened, openly aid
Hezbollah, and are pursing a nuclear program. Western governments need to
"stop being weak" and "make it clear that this period in history will be run
on our terms and not theirs." We need to make clear in no uncertain terms
that "we hold all the cards" and if they fail to comply either strikes or
regime change will soon follow.
Support for Israel is another solidly neoconservative policy, according to
Mr. Murray. Neoconservatives support Israel as it's a fellow democracy
surrounded by tyrannical regimes. Moreover, he says, one can't but help
admire how the country was turned into "something from nothing." After being
interviewed by the BBC during a recent visit to Jerusalem, a friend pointed
out to him that he referred to Israel as "we." This, Mr. Murray tells me,
was an "instinctive" unconscious reaction, as "Israel is up against the same
things" as we are and "has the same ends." He says that he's always believed
that Israel is the front-line in the war on Islamist terrorism and that
"9/11, 7/7, and every other attack has vindicated" that view.
As we finish the meal I ask him what his next project will be. A career in
politics perhaps, I suggest. He laughs and says he's not sure they'll have
him. For the moment he's working on a book on Europe, which, he is at pains
to stress, isn't lost just yet. If Europe can produce the likes of Mr.
Murray, he may be right.
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