IK Is OK

Here's an interesting remembrance of Irving Kristol from Christopher Hitchens. Hitchens disagreed quite a bit with Kristol (who didn't?), but there's no denying Kristol was one of the most lively public intellectuals of the past 60 years. He was also a symbol of a large group of people who moved from the left to the right because they'd been, as Kristol put it, "mugged by reality."

We also have Kristol to thank for the once-useful term "neoconservative." He didn't create it, but he accepted it, and even wore it with pride.

I often wonder how much effect people like Kristol actually have. There's one model where intellectuals come up with important ideas and eventually see them spread out, generally vulgarized, to the masses. The other model is the feelings are already out there, the best intellectuals can do is crystallize (or Kristolize) them, express them so well that they can more easily be rallied around. Kristol was emblematic of that tension. Kristol grew to distrust the intellectual elite, which suggests that one must look elsewhere for the right ideas and people to run society. But he was also a Straussian, who may have supported the people, and democracy, but believed there was a necessary creme de la creme to keep intellectual values alive.