New Book Blasts America's Neo-Jacobins
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Professor Ryn is a learned, insightful, and courageous scholar who ably explains the ideas that are destroying our country.

These ideas are the property of neo-Jacobins. Professor Ryn calls the ideas "a recipe for conflict and perpetual war." Neo-Jacobins are known to Americans as neoconservatives, a clever euphemism behind which hides a gang of radicals who stand outside of, and opposed to, the American tradition. The US has been subverted from within as these counterfeit conservatives hold the reins of power in the Bush administration.





Jacobin morality is divorced from moral character, personal conduct, and treatment of others. Jacobin morality expresses itself in benevolent sentiments toward abstract entities. Human lives and cultural diversity mean nothing compared to "making the world safe for democracy" and "liberating women from the Muslim yoke." Jacobin morality seeks to achieve a uniform unipolar world.

Possessed of an unrelenting will to power, the Jacobins in the Bush administration, together with their media allies, seized the opportunity afforded by September 11 to meld America's nationalistic response to terrorism with the Jacobin ideological agenda. Once Americans associated invading foreign countries (Afghanistan) with the "war on terror," Jacobins shifted the "terrorist threat" to Iraq. Now they are working to shift it to Syria, Iran, and Lebanon. Next will be Saudi Arabia and Egypt.


It also explains why Jacobins are unconcerned with our own country's porous borders while they seek to control Middle Eastern borders. The hordes of young Mexicans pouring into the US are a convenient source of cannon fodder, just as President Lincoln redirected the flow of Irish immigrants in his day into the Union Army.


Professor Ryn shows that Jacobins are lost in abstractions and do not appreciate or understand Western civilization as a human achievement resulting from centuries of struggle to create moral character. Self-restraint, empathy, and mutual respect are necessary for pluralistic societies. However, such genuine virtues have no role in the uniform Jacobin state.

It is difficult to quibble when Professor Ryn writes that "monopolistic ideological universalism that scorns historically formed societies is a potential source of unending war and great disasters." Professor Ryn reports that many Americans, including conservatives, find aspects of the Jacobin message attractive without understanding where it leads. The Jacobin quest for American world supremacy appeals to nationalistic patriots, to macho types whose response to September 11 is to "kick butt," to people fearful of terrorist plots, to global business and financial interests, to do-gooders anxious to spread democracy and women's rights, and to people who enjoy power and success vicariously like fans of champion sports teams.


Professor Ryn acknowledges that he is alerting us to the Jacobin threat late in the game. Jacobins use their power and influence to suppress dissent. Jacobin ends justify Jacobin means. Thus, lies, deception, and manipulation cause Jacobins no shame.

As Professor Ryn observes, ambition unchecked by intellectual humility and moral self-control is the source of tyranny.



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