This past Friday, Irving Kristol, 89, passed away at Capital Hospice in Arlington County. Heritage Foundation President Edwin J. Feulner remembers Kristol’s impact on the conservative movement:
With the death of editor and scholar Irving Kristol, the conservative movement has lost another of its intellectual champions. In recent years, Irving was a Senior Fellow Emeritus with our friends over at the American Enterprise Institute. That post, though, was merely the capstone to a long career in media, publishing and academia.
Famously, of course, Irving Kristol wasn’t always a conservative, much less a “neoconservative.” He began his career as a Marxist, but from the position of a leftist was able to recognize the weaknesses of Marxism. That realization led to his gradual move to the political right.
Here’s how he once put it: “Ever since I can remember, I’ve been a neo-something: a neo-Marxist, a neo-Trotskyist, a neo-liberal, a neo-conservative; in religion a neo-orthodox even while I was a neo-Trotskyist and a neo-Marxist. I’m going to end up a neo-; that’s all, neo dash nothing.”
Instead, Irving ended up an influential conservative icon.
Among other jobs, he was managing editor of Commentary magazine from 1947 to 1952, executive vice president of Basic Books for eight years and professor of social thought at New York University Graduate School of Business.
Irving Kristol was an inspiration to all of us. During the early days of the conservative movement, liberals controlled academia even more completely than they do today.
Yet Kristol reminded us that ideas were more important than ideology. He gave birth to an intellectual movement that proved conservative ideas work, and he helped make conservatives into what the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York called “the party of ideas.”
“A conservative,” Irving liked to say, “is a liberal who’s been mugged by reality.”
During his long career, Kristol made sure he never lost sight of reality. That’s why he was proud to call himself a conservative.
Our prayers and condolences are with his wife, historian Gertrude Himmelfarb, and his son, Bill Kristol, co-founder and editor of The Weekly Standard.
This is a man who lived through unique times.
He saw the rise of fascism, communism, and socialism in all too many countries.
He turned on his socialist beliefs because he saw them for what they were – loss of freedoms in return for a state-run-caretaker system. Would socialism really help the masses, or stifle ingenuity and opportunity?
I believe he finally understood that the best way for a free person to realize their dreams was for government to get out of the way.
Government's role should be limited and kept small. The question is HOW small?
History proves what happens when government gains virtually total control; a few make out at the expense of the rest AND a true middle class ceases to exist.
Condolences to Bill Kristol and Family
When the good of one man dies, may hundreds be born! Thank you Mr. Kristol, your family and our Holy Father for your existence. Condolences!