Outline the historical origins of neo-conservatism and critically Essay

Outline the historical origins of neo-conservatism and critically assess its key themes - Essay Example Neoconservatives originally approached this standpoint from the left political wing, particularly in reponse to main changes in modernhistory of the United States. The majority of predecessors of neoconservativism were liberals or socialists who actively supported theWorld War II, and whose views were influenced by the Depression-era concepts of ex-New Dealers, Trotskyism followers and trade unionists, especially those who supported the political study of Max Shachtman. â€Å"A number of future neoconservatives such as Jeane Kirkpatrick and Ken Adelman were Shachtmanites in their youth, while others were later involved with Social Democrats USA. Most neoconservatives, however, including those who have been close to SDUSA, will strenuously deny, even contrary to evidence, that they were ever Shachtmanites† (Dean, 2004,p.65). Disagreement with Dà ©tente with the USSR and the ideas of New Left, who were against both Soviet and capitalist ideologies, which occurred as a reaction to the USSR’s break with Stalinism ideology in the middle of 1950s, led the Neoconservatives to break with ‘liberal consent’ established in postwar years. The ‘prototypical’ neoconservative intellectuals I.Kristol and N.Podhoretz were connected to with the magazine named ‘Commentary’, and their academic development is quite apparent in those publications of that period (Stelzer, 2004). Over the course of the 1950s and early 1960s the original neoconservatives rejected communism, but accepted socialism and supported Civil Rights Movement initiated by Martin Luter King, and integration. Whereas, at the beginning of its development, the ideas of neoconservatism became well-known among the followers of hardline Communists, usually Jewish immigrant families, who lived in great poverty and those who has now become famous neoconservative thinkers. â€Å"Many neoconservatives also came to despise the counterculture of the 1960s and what they felt was a