The Death of a Sage

Irving Kristol died on September 18, at the age of 89. He was tagged with the label of "neocon" and had over the years contributed many articles on the opinion page of the Wall Street Journal. On September 19, the Journal, to honor him, published excerpts from these essays under the title of "Irving Kristol's Reality Principles".

I liked the first one in particular, published in 1972. Here it is:

Symbolic Politics and Liberal Reform, Dec. 15, 1972

"All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling," wrote Oscar Wilde, and I would like to suggest that the same can be said for bad politics ...

It seems to me that the politics of liberal reform, in recent years, shows many of the same characteristics as amateur poetry. It has been more concerned with the kind of symbolic action that gratifies the passions of the reformer rather than with the efficacy of the reforms themselves. Indeed, the outstanding characteristic of what we call "the New Politics" is precisely its insistence on the overwhelming importance of revealing, in the public realm, one's intense feelings—we must "care," we must "be concerned," we must be "committed." Unsurprisingly, this goes along with an immense indifference to consequences, to positive results or the lack thereof.

This piece of wisdom for all ages is seldom heeded by liberal politicians who keep designing reforms that have repeatedly resulted in the exact opposite of their intended purposes, but make them feel good about themselves. This behavior is, unfortunately, on display again in Washington ...