Gertrude Himmelfarb, Irving Kristol,\n and their milieu learned the art of polemics during years spent in the \nCCNY cafeteria\u2019s celebrated Alcove No. 1, where young Trotskyists waged \nideological warfare against the Communist students who occupied Alcove \nNo. 2. During their flirtations with Trotskyism in the 1930s, when \ntussles with other radical students seemed like a matter of life and \ndeath, future neoconservatives developed habits of mind that never \natrophied.
\u201cFreedom cannot exist outside some system of order, \nyet no system of order is immune from intellectual assault.\u201d"}
In issuing an ominous warning that \u201cthe bonds of civility upon which \nthe maintenance of society depends are more fragile than we often \nadmit,\u201d Wilson hinted that the United States manifested conditions \nprecariously similar to those of Weimar Germany, a specious comparison \nthat nonetheless became a neoconservative mantra.