What does it mean to think for oneself? Isaac Newton is famously pictured under a tree, the notion of gravity having occurred to him by the fall of an apple "as he sat in contemplative mood." So he told his biographer, but elsewhere he paid tribute to the scientists and philosophers who had honed his contemplative mind, saying, "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants." An independent mind is cultivated by a tradition of intellectual independence and enabled by a society that allows such minds their freedom.
Irving Kristol had such an independent mind. Like Newton, Kristol's bold intellect was also formed by respect for a long tradition of critical thinkers. In his case, this was a rabbinic tradition whose mode of thought he had imbibed from the culture of his youth, even though he never quite embraced it. It is a mode of thinking that grapples with the reality of human nature, and it is fundamental to understanding Kristol and his legacy. It set him apart from his fellow intellectuals who disdained religion, and gave him the wisdom to see more clearly the foibles of his fellow man and the dangers they posed to a healthy society and self-governance.
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