Facing Up to Evil: A Conversation Ruth Wisse and Seth Lipsky are among the most influential, thoughtful Jews associ- ated with neoconservatism. Wisse is the Martin Peretz Professor of Yiddish Literature and professor of comparative literature at Harvard University and recently won the Na- tional Humanities Medal. She is the author of many books, most recently Jews and Power (Nextbook). Lipsky, founding editor of the Forward, is currently the editor of the New York Sun. Sh’ma asked to sit in on a frank, open exchange between Lipsky and Wisse on Jews, conservatism, and the future. Ruth Wisse: I’m always amused when conversation with family friends and discov- people carp about neoconservatives because ered they were extraordinarily hawkish about there is so little in the carping that I tend to Vietnam. And as a naïve, vaguely centrist un- recognize. Some movements declare them- dergraduate at Harvard, I kept asking them, selves, like Communism, Fascism, or Zionism, why? They answered that we’re next in line for but others are labeled by adversaries and then attack and if you flinch in Vietnam, they’re the affronted party decides to wear the title as coming after us. That conversation helped a badge of honor. turn my views. Those who attacked neoconservatives ob- Wisse: Everyone I know who would de- viously felt that there was nothing worse than fine themselves as neoconservative became so being called conservatives, but Irving Kristol, simply because of changing their minds. So, and then Norman Podhoretz, decided that you might almost call it a group of people who there might be an advantage in this designa- changed their minds in the same direction. tion. Since every neocon I know is a maverick, My turning or my recognizing this started a lit- I wanted to know how you would characterize tle earlier than the 1960s. a neoconservative? And how do you feel about In fact, it was a book, Lionel Trilling’s the term when it’s applied to you? novel Middle of the Journey, that I would suggest Seth Lipsky: I feel fine about the term is the original text of neoconservatism. It de- when it’s applied to me. I endorsed Bill Clin- scribes exactly what you were saying about ton twice when I was at the Forward. Amity your trip to Israel. It tells the story of an intel- Shlaes, my wife, voted for George H. W. Bush lectual, John Laskell, who at the beginning of in 1992 and Bob Dole in 1996. She was on the the book is recovering from an illness, and editorial board of the Wall Street Journal, and I this illness changes him because he recognizes voted for Clinton both times when I was editor within it the real presence of death. He then of the Forward. I explained that decision by meets a character based on the figure of Whit- saying that she and I got together and decided taker Chambers who had just broken with to put our newspapers ahead of our country. I Communism who is afraid he is going to be didn’t come up through the intellectual wars. killed for his defection. When Laskell goes to I often think of neoconservatism as a move- meet friends of his who are archetypal pro- ment that one entered through the Jewish gressives, he is terribly disappointed in them struggle; that’s probably how I entered it. Cer- on both counts. The progressives don’t want tainly a lot of this started in Commentary. to talk about death; they think death is reac- Wisse: Being Jewish had a lot to do with it tionary. Neither do they want to give up their for the neocons I know. Many started out on the dream of the Soviet Union. No matter how left. Though they rarely talked about European much they find out about it, they still want to Jewry or the rise of the State of Israel, what hap- carry on as if it were the greatest place on pened in the 1940s influenced them deeply as earth. This confrontation with them (and with Jews. One of the ways it came out was in their his former self) turns him “neoconservative” turning away from an earlier indifference. They by the end of the book. realized how wrong they had been in their di- One could say that progressive attitudes agnosis of domestic and foreign issues. toward Israel went in the opposite direction. Lipsky: I made my first trip to Israel in Jews of the Left assumed the country would be April 2008 1967 as an undergraduate, accredited to the an ideal socialist or communist entity and be- Nisan 5768 Berkshire Eagle and with an assignment from came disillusioned at its deviation from Marx- To subscribe: 877-568-SHMA the Jewish Advocate in Boston. There, I had a ist orthodoxy as they defined it. When Arab www.shma.com 7 nations attacked, they held the Jews of Pales- you always have movements like Christianity tine responsible for the aggression against in its time or socialism in its time that say, let’s them. The neocons came to understand that get beyond the Jewish condition. Let’s univer- the first task of liberal democracy, imperfect salize the Jewish condition. Let’s think of as it might be, was to defend its existence. This bringing this to a higher level without the spe- was as true of America as it was of the Jews of cific laws and restrictions. And if that goes too Palestine. Do you think, then, that neocon- far, then it becomes an anti-Judaism. servatism is kind of a defensive movement? Irving Kristol in 1949 wrote in Commen- Lipsky: We’re certainly under attack, tary, “Judaism today, and especially liberal and I do think there is a war against the Jews Judaism, despite the horrors of modern total- being levied by the same people who are levy- itarianism, seems unable to recognize sin ing war against America. So, in that sense, it’s when it sees it. It does see the evil of individual similar to the Cold War. wickedly-minded men (or nations) but it re- Though there is a war being levied against fuses to assign evil its full and menacing us, there’s also a proactive element to conser- stature. It has preferred to dress itself up in vatives — the creating of conditions for peo- the clothes of 19th-century liberalism in order ple to be free, Americans to be free, Jews to be to attend a 20th-century execution. The tran- free, other people, as George Bush often says. scendental hope of Judaism has settled into Wisse: I’m talking about the defense of uncomprehending, complacent euphoria.” freedom and you’re talking about the obtain- I believe Kristol is saying that Judaism was ment of freedom. Maybe neoconservatism supposed to be hardheaded enough to deal means putting a premium on freedom and with evil. That was really its greatest accom- taking it seriously — truly obtaining political plishment — to delimit evil and to be able to liberty for all. keep evil in check. So how could the Jews be the This may be why it’s so hard to define pre- ones, when so much evil is directed at them, to cisely. Freedom is both liberal and conservative. get caught up, to dress themselves up in the We have the story of the Jews breaking out of clothes of 19th-century liberalism in order to at- tend a 20th-century execution when that exe- Given the laws of Leviticus, the laws of kashrut, cution was their own? Neoconservatives are the the boundaries of the Sabbath, the commands of ones who faced up to the evil and refused to at- tend the liberal masquerade in costume. Per- humility before God, can anyone really think haps that’s what defines neoconservatism and that Judaism itself is not conservative? proves its great virtue, especially for Jews. Lipsky: I don’t know that I have felt a Egypt and trying to be free. On one hand the great deal of disappointment in liberal Jews. I Bible records an amazing rush to freedom but, just don’t agree with them in politics. You on the other hand, this rabble is no sooner free know, there are some streaks of liberalism that than you see what animals they are, you see I admire a great deal still, although it’s more how incapable they are of living in any civilized a European-style liberalism. way until they receive the code of behavior, the Wisse: Liberalism that created the mod- Ten Commandments, a very stringent code of ern liberal state. But what about people who law. Given the laws of Leviticus, the laws of are unwilling to take into account the politi- kashrut, the boundaries of the Sabbath, the cal context within which liberal democracies commands of humility before God, can anyone are trying to flourish? In relation to Israel, really think that Judaism itself is not conserva- many liberals have an idealized version of be- tive — that it doesn’t have a deeply conserva- havior that does not take into account the tive view of the human condition? context within which it functions. Lipsky: The question of whether Ju- Lipsky: One of the formative passages in daism is mainly conservative is widely dis- my own career was editing the Forward. I used puted, though. I take your point completely. to make habit of going back to read what the Wisse: Perhaps everybody has a liberal Forward, a tribune of progressive pro-labor or and a conservative tendency; if things go too socialist worldview, said about things, and I April 2008 far in one direction then you see movement was always startled at how conservative it was in Nisan 5768 To subscribe: 877-568-SHMA in the other.