Departure of Irving Kristol

The obituary on the death of Irving Kristol reminded me of my experience in the Alcoves at City College (CCNY). In my very radical youth years of the the ‘30s, I was working as a Plumber’s helper and spending my nights as a street corner speaker. One night I was asked to come to one of the Alcoves at CCNY to join the arguments going on between the Stalinists, Trotskyites, DeLeonists and other assorted left wing fervent believers. The Alcoves at CCNY, as I remember it, was part of the College cafeteria, a place where you could get food, but mostly you got hot and heavy arguments. Because plumbing work depended on availability, I did have periodic days off. On one of those days, I was invited to participate in the Alcove arguments. I went off to City College. As a Public School graduate with a few semesters of night High School, I was fearful of a world I knew nothing of.

With much hesitation I got involved in some of the arguments regarding world revolution versus the Russian Revolution. The Trotskyite position was that the Russian Revolution would fail unless there was the same kind of overthrow of all the capitalist systems. Back then I believed, if the Russian model could demonstrate its superiority, that would become a model for workers of the world. My arguments became an oddity as word spread around the Alcove that “there was a real worker here arguing the Stalinist position.” That drew a crowd of curious students who wanted to hear a “real worker.” I didn’t admit it at the time, but man with this crowd, was I ever over my head. They quoted stuff I never even heard of. Though I had been assured by many that I did just fine, I left with an overwhelming feeling that I had an awful lot to learn. I suppose I have had that feeling ever since.

It was there that I encountered many Irving Kristols’, Irving Howes’, and others who in later life would emerge as the new world of neo conservatives. Irving Kristol defined a neo conservative as a liberal who had been “mugged by reality.” Well that depends on how one experiences or views reality. In the CCNY Alcove, it was clear to me that my perception of reality as a plumber’s helper was very different from any of the political positions being argued there.

How one perceives what is going on in society depends on one’s “frame of reference.” For example, in my years of working on employment policy, I was often asked if a particular workplace “was a good place to work?” My standard answer became, “Compared to what?” This grew out of an experience I had touring with a group of economists in Europe. They were looking at unique workplaces where workers were participating in controlling their own work areas. In a truck plant in Sweden an economics Professor said, ‘This place is really noisy and stinks.” In fact it was the Taj Mahal of truck factories. I asked him, “Where have you worked in your life?” He replied, “Columbia University. I started there as a student and now I am a full Professor.” I laughed and he said, So what’s wrong with that?” Of course there was nothing wrong. It was simply that his narrow frame of reference gave him no way to understand what was going on in this truck factory.

One more illustration of this. In the ‘80s there was a television program about the anti-poverty programs. A number of the neo conservatives interviewed said they thought the programs were basically failures because they didn’t in fact end poverty. Needless to say, I was furious. Yes, they didn’t end poverty. I never believed they would. My frame of reference taught me to look beyond the immediate reported results. What I found was the emergence of a whole new group of Black and Latino leaders who came out of those programs. That experience helped them to understand the role of leadership. Their emergence has fundamentally changed the political spectrum in this country.

Irving Kristol, and now his son William, see reality as having been “mugged.” I am sure that being part of the mainstream is far more comfortable than being out there feeling mugged. “Mugged by reality,” there may be the fundamental difference. Being “mugged” infers a fear of reality. Others of us experience reality, but do not fear it. That experience may also make us far more empathic with those out there in the “mugged” world.

Thanks Kate N.H.W.Y.