ABSTRACT
Nathan Glazer is neither self-involved nor self-referential. He does not mind changing his mind and it does not bother him either to be called a neoconservative or to be a voluble dissenter from neoconservative ideas—particularly on foreign policy—if that is where the data and his heart move him. The author's effort to claim Glazer as something of a social democrat might be suspect. If he understood "the limits of social policy", he never saw social policy or government action as futile. The goal, always, was to be attentive to what worked and what did not, to be on the lookout for unintended consequences—the heart of the neoconservative critique of all of us who dream progressive dreams—and to accept the insight of his fellow neoconservative James Q. Wilson that "in the long run, the public interest depends on private virtue".
