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A few years ago, there was a dustup between the right and left sides of the blogosphere over each side’s books and intellectual history - the National Review crowd essentially declaring that because of writers like Hayek and Friedman, they had a stronger intellectual base (and therefore more ideological validity) than the Left, which tended to lack knowledge of its authors and thinkers. This ignored the common experience that many younger liberals have had with the Young Republican crowd, which tends to focus around having the same set of quotes from conservative authors tossed at you until they inevitably have to bring their ideological perspective into the here and now and Hayek gets reduced to a series of icky faces at the prospect of some dude wanting to bone them.
One of the central voices on that front was Jonah Goldberg, who foreshadowed a rather telling penchant for inordinate pride in being able to repeat what other thinkers had said without consideration for what it meant. This, of course, led to the nearly five-years-in-waiting production of Liberal Fascism, Goldberg’s augmentation of the conservative canon. For those of you who haven’t read it, it’s really not worth it - by the time you realize that World War II involved the fascist leader of America fighting the fascist leaders of Germany, Italy and Japan with Germany in particular also fighting against the fascist leader of the Soviet Union, you’ve rolled your eyes so much at the thesis that it’s a better use of your time to go see an optometrist and get the damage repaired than read about how Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and George Clinton are all the new standard bearers of Liberal Fascism.
But what Goldberg has done is provide intellectual cover for a growing meme: Obama is the leader of a new fascist revolution. Why, you may ask? Well, it’s all got to do with the defining downward of fascism towards a gooey puddle that virtually anyone not a movement conservative can step in.
The Goldbergian view of fascism (and I’m sure he’ll deny it, which will then be followed by a criticism of my argument, which will in turn be fascist, which will in turn be the exact point he was trying make) is that the marriage of any measurable popularity whatsoever to any state action whatsoever outside the boundaries of Reaganite conservatism is de facto fascist. The point was never to explore fascism or provide an analysis of the phenomenon that cast new light on it - a feat of which Goldberg was summarily incapable - but instead to provide the exact utility we see on display now, and provide a way to brand any popular Democrat or liberal as the handmaiden of evil.
In a way, Goldberg lucked out (but he’s used to that) - Obama’s popularity and McCain’s plodding campaign provide the perfect stand-in for his argument. A Republican candidate with any stature, any devotion from the base, anyone who’s invested in seeing him elected for reasons that extend beyond his party affiliation, and it’s entirely ruined. A boring Republican running a bad campaign (Bob Dole, Gerald Ford) inevitably creates a fascist Democrat, not by anything they’ve said or done but by the simple act of showing up and not being a dumbass.
[Insert Goldberg quip here.]
The old knock against the left was that we overused fascism as an adjective. Our energy policy was quasi-fascist because it was written by Enron. Our post-9/11 discourse was quasi-fascist because it was predicated on the infallible greatness of George W. Bush and the inherent treason in criticizing our war policy in a time of crisis. Right-wing conservative Christians were quasi-fascist because their entire appeal was based on the creation of a false national identity, strict social regimentation and the continual scapegoating of anyone who dared to criticize them.
Like many things that conservatives complain about, the liberal “overuse” of fascism was adopted in whole by them, and then abused worse than a copy of Playgirl at a Young America’s Foundation meetup. The term has been neutered, left to describe nothing and everything at once and to turn even the most basic of campaign traditions - rallies, fundraising, sloganeering - into the drumbeat of tyranny. On the one hand, it’s an awful abuse of the concept of fascism, disrespecting the millions upon millions of people whose lives and livelihoods were destroyed because of the dream of nationalist identity and corporate power uber alles. On the other hand, it is remarkably entertaining to see them try to figure out how Barack Obama’s favorite ice cream flavor plays right into the hands of the fascist dream.
Glad to see you finally accomplished something, Jonah.
Posted by
Jesse Taylor on 08:43 AM •
Permalink
They’re calling Obama fascist?
But...W shredded the Constitution and enshrined the notion of “Unitary Executive”, created the “Department of Homeland Security”, can’t commit any crimes b/c he’s a war president and can decide anyone is an enemy combatant, and said if you aren’t with us you’re against us. That kinda is the definition of authoritarian nationalism.
Is it b/c B. Hussein is a Constitutional scholar? Is that it?
Sorry, just boggled here. Need more caffeine to process this nonsense.
Great post, Jesse. I have indeed noticed the right blogosphere doing mental acrobatics trying to make Obama into the next Franco - even the few righty blogs that I tend to like. It makes me look away in embarassment.
If you write a book, I’ll read it.
Just please don’t make it about fascism.
Wait, what?
The RIGHT thinks it has a stronger intellectual history than the LEFT?
*falls to the floor laughing, only to land on all her copies of chomsky, marx, foucault, gramschi, , said, derrida, bataille, every feminist theorist ever, ad nauseam, in fact she only fell about 6 inches. it was really more of a slouch, actually*
Oooh, Thomas Friedman? Wow, yeah. You guys definitely have us trumped.
Is it b/c B. Hussein is a Constitutional scholar? Is that it?
It is completely, entirely, and solely because he is popular. That’s it. That’s all they’ve got to support the charge.
the marriage of any measurable popularity whatsoever to any state action whatsoever outside the boundaries of Reaganite conservatism is de facto fascist.
I’ve always thought that the reason the Right is able to get away with this stems from the namby-pamby treatment given to any real explanation of what fascism and totalitarianism really are, and the actual reasons that they are wrong/dangerous. Instead you get things like Stalin and Mao being evil because they had cults of personality, Hitler being so ominous because of those big rallies , Mussolini being scary because he beat his shoe on the podium (that was him, right? Or was it Trotsky? Or someone else? Kruschev maybe?).
When those are the primary associations with fascism, it’s hard to understand why every popular politician or forceful speaker isn’t automatically fascist.
But...W shredded the Constitution and enshrined the notion of “Unitary Executive”, created the “Department of Homeland Security”, can’t commit any crimes b/c he’s a war president and can decide anyone is an enemy combatant, and said if you aren’t with us you’re against us.
Yes, but since those powers have been created, Obama will naturally use them for his evil ends of (depending on which end of the political spectrum you come from) either forcing Communism and state control of corporations on us or overturning Roe v Wade and making America into Gilead.
Who would think that the people who spent the last eight years screaming themselves hoarse about incivilitude and rudenessity whenever someone pointed out all of our current president’s actually fascist policies would turn on a dime to start calling a Democratic Party candidate Hitler McEvilington on the grounds that you know, people like him and shit?
Well I mean aside from me, cause I totally saw that one coming.
A lot of conservative commentary is a race to be the first one to use a phrase. By calling liberals fascists they can preempt liberals from comparing them to fascists. If anyone on the left points out the truly fascist totalatarian leanings of the typical right-winger they can be shouted down because conservatives have already said it about liberals, so obviously the liberal is just saying something like “the same to you, but more of it”
If you want to understand conservatives it is best to think back to the politics of third grade.
I’m usually not one to complain about ads, but jeez, I can’t deal with seeing Ann Coulter’s mug everytime I visit this site. Please do something to replace that ad.
A lot of conservative commentary is a race to be the first one to use a phrase. By calling liberals fascists they can preempt liberals from comparing them to fascists.
Except that liberals have already been comparing the Republicans to fascists.. Since at least the first thrust of the anti-Iraq war movement in 2002-2003, if not earlier. And earlier waves of leftists called earlier Republian administrations composed largely of the same core pstaffers (Nixon, Reagan) fascist, too.
It’s more that the Republicans want in on the namecalling than anything else.
It’s definitely a preemptive strike. But what really bothers me is that all kinds of Americans should know better and should speak up against the lunacy — but there’s silence instead. And with the word ruined, we now have to come up with something else that encapsulates the unholy alliance of hard-right politics, totalitarianism, and capitalism.
As usual, the real fascists know exactly who they are. And they’d be the last people on earth to think of Obama as a fellow traveler.
OTOH, an idiot like Goldberg would blindly worship a real Rightwing Authoritarian Cult leader (Bush just didn’t quite have the umph to make it, but the Paulbots were headed that way) — right up until he’s being loaded into the cattle car. Then he’d be too confused to know how to react…
A lot of conservative commentary is a race to be the first one to use a phrase. By calling liberals fascists they can preempt liberals from comparing them to fascists.
I disagree.
Essentially in the conservative movement there are a couple of people who, because their rhetoric is appealing to the vapid and vacuous, are parroted loudly and often in order to create the illusion that their vacuous arguments actually have merit. The MSM in turn repeats these arguments, either on the pretense of offering balance, or because they themselves are vapid and vacuous.
Doughpants in his Liberal Fascism book merely fleshed out an argument made by Limbaugh and Coulter.
Nonetheless, once the right has a formula of rhetorical attack, they will use it, no matter how appropriate. Or stupid.
OTOH, an idiot like Goldberg would blindly worship a real Rightwing Authoritarian Cult leader (Bush just didn’t quite have the umph to make it, but the Paulbots were headed that way) — right up until he’s being loaded into the cattle car. Then he’d be too confused to know how to react…
Antisemitism is not a defining characteristic of Fascist regimes. Most South American fascist/military regimes repressed everyone more or less equally.
sdh, I wasn’t necessarily referring to antisemitism, so much as anybody who diverges from the One True Path, whatever that is, is in danger. And while those of us with leftist leanings might be first up against the wall, sooner or later “intellectuals” get shot too, regardless of whether they are “party members” or not…
Except that liberals have already been comparing the Republicans to fascists
There’s no need to “compare” someone to fascists when they were convicted of supporting fascists:
http://www.tarpley.net/bush2.htm
Actually, yeah, in a real life by-the-book totalitarian regime, Goldberg would be one of the first to bite the dust. Not because he’s Jewish, but because one major symptom of fascism is the impulse to purge anyone who doesn’t spout the correct line, even if the person in question is supposedly a loyal fellow-traveler. Night Of Long Knives, and all that.
Great post...honestly, the only comforting thing about reading it is the knowledge that most academics with any sort of sense, following, and funding agree with you. Now if only everybody else was that smart.
But I do feel like I may have missed something (blame no coffee this morning). Why the Hitler ‘stache on Moore’s Comedian button? Maybe it’s the near fanatical love I have for comic books, or the fact that I just saw the trailer...but I had a serious WTF moment.
Opop, Thomas Friedman is an abomination unto us, but he’s not part of the conservative canon—but _Milton_ Friedman is, at least to the Alex P. Keaton generation of Republicans that includes Goldberg, Lopez, Ponnuru, et al.
What could be more fascist than winning elections? Hitler won elections! True democracy requires giving power to the unpopular. [/snark]
Oh, right. THAT Friedman. Oh. Well, OK.
(We still beat them by a million in the Big Important Intellectuals On Our Side department.))
Rea, you hit that nail on the head. I’ve always had the sense that Doughpants Pantload revels so much in his ill–earned publicity is because the closest he got to being laid in high school was a wedgie. He’s the epitome of that intellectually corrupt conservanerd brand.
Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and George Clinton are all the new standard bearers of Liberal Fascism.
And don’t even get him started about JackBootsy Collins!
Fascism is of course the automythologizing of one’s enemies’s::, who are block.-;
Block also thinks:
Jonah Goldberg thinks there is a fascist in everything he writes about Jonah Goldberg, George Clinton, and Barack Obama.
And one of them was Muslim, and them one of was Jewish, and one of them was Christian. LouD.
And the fascist is too white for American power and very cash-o--experienced.
He might even accuse the President of nothing, being indimetated.
I always knew the ghost of Dr. Bronner would find a way to participate in the blogosphere....
ALL ONE OR NONE!
I missed the cries of authoritarianism from the right when Bush landed on the aircraft carrier like he was in some Leni Riefenstahl film.
FWIW, Friedman was against the Iraq War. oops!
Oooh! Opopo, you gonna use that? I might have to change my commenting handle: The Ghost of Dr. Bronner!
“I missed the cries of authoritarianism from the right when Bush landed on the aircraft carrier like he was in some Leni Riefenstahl film.”
That is incredibly offensive, Ben D.!
Leni Riefenstahl produced evil propaganda promoting the Nazi’s philosophy of world domination through physical and intellectual vigor and superior breeding.
The patriotic pictures of George Bush’s triumphant landing on the aircraft carrier symbolize American domination of the world through physical and intellectual vigor, and superior breeding.
So you see, they are nothing alike…
Hayek was a smart guy and made a good critique of central planning. He also was for:
*Government provided retirement insurance (Social Security)
*Government provided universal health insurance
*Good public schools
*Government provided unemployment insurance
*Government investment in basic infrastructure
So, hes too far to the left for the modern right.
As Ben D points out, Hayek was brilliant and a very influential thinker (who was not into socialism for a bunch of very good reasons). The only recent conservative public intellectual powerhouse I can think of is Oakeshott, and he’s dead now.
Can’t really think of a good all-around liberal equivalent—I don’t know that Chomsky writes for mass media consumption (AK Press doesn’t count), lots of the lefty thinkers don’t have much traction outside of academia (Foucault / Derrida / Lacan / tons of feminist thinkers) or are huge only in smaller communities (Butler, for example). Are there any really widely read public leftist intellectuals these days or recently?
I mean, Milton Friedman is practically a brand of government, and you can see his watermark all over the place even outside of his chosen field of economics. Is there a liberal equivalent of that since, like, John Dewey?
That said, Jonah Goldberg is stupid, Liberal Fascism was a stupid book for jerks, and all this shit has only served to make any public discussion in popular media ten times as stupid as it was.
I just remembered John Rawls existed so I guess that answers my question about the liberal equivalent. But regardless, anybody still alive today like that?
The funny thing about bandying around the term “liberal fascism” is that by the current application, it quickly devolves into unfalsifiable assertions… and the criteria of the lack of falsifiability, per Karl Popper, was used by conservative critics of communism, psychoanalysis, and various other so-called “pseudo sciences” which, the argument went, could not therefore be viewed as providing true knowledge.
Goldberg, in his rush to claim the mantle of intellectual superiority, has abandoned Popper, who was absolutely foundational to 20th century conservative “intellectualism.”
Alright, I found a use for years of grad school philosophy studies. Huzzah!
Are there any really widely read public leftist intellectuals these days or recently?
Are there really any widely read public rightist intellectuals these days or recently?
The people I mentioned are the staples of global intellectual thought—you cannot get through college these days without encountering at least a few of them. I think Friedman only ever comes up in economics.
I also hardly think that saying “Oh, those intellectuals you mentioned? Aren’t they only important in intellectual type circles?” is ridiculous, sorry. That’s kind of the point of being an intellectual. You write intellectual stuff meant for consumption by similarly intellectually-motivated folks.
I guess you’re probably right that there are more facile “popular political science” hack jobs put out by rightists than by leftists. But that’s probably because the leftists have already been accepted as world-class scholars in the world of grownups. They don’t need to chase Wingnut Welfare columnist gigs because they have tenure at at places like MIT, Harvard, Oxford, and the Sorbonne.
Alright, I found a use for years of grad school philosophy studies. Huzzah!
Didn’t you know that’s why the political blogosphere was invented?
Hayek was a smart guy and made a good critique of central planning. He also was for:
*Government provided retirement insurance (Social Security)
*Government provided universal health insurance
*Good public schools
*Government provided unemployment insurance
*Government investment in basic infrastructure
One of the funniest moments my BF and I had was when he read the actual works of Hayek and then proved in his blog that his point of view leaned to the left more than one would think, like when he criticizes the bugs in the market.
The inmediate response from the wingers was that Hayek “wasn’t exactly liberal” (in the european sense of the word, where liberal = conservative).
Our next move was to prove that George Orwell wasn’t actually liberal, either (since the wingnuts in my country have a strange fixation with this author. Like, they totally forgot whom was he fighting against in the Civil War).
I was pretty sure that Goldberg, despite his name, isn’t Jewish - his father’s family were but his mother’s weren’t, which makes you officially not Jewish.
I can think of a leftist equivalent to Jonah Goldberg--Naomi Klein.
Just as Goldberg doesn’t know anything about the left but pretends he does, Naomi Klein doesn’t really know anything about the American right but pretends she does.
I mean, the CATO institute “neocon”? Friedman an Iraq war supporter? Give a me freaking break!
Pepito, I know your mother has to be Jewish for someone to be accepted as a Jew by other Jews (or go through their somewhat frightening conversion ritual), but I’m pretty sure the Nazis had more, shall we say, liberal definitions.
Is Goldberg aware that even most conservative critics panned his book as hollow and poorly researched?
His mother is Lucianne Goldberg, who was known during Lewinskymania for goading Linda Tripp into making her revelations. I don’t know if she’s Jewish or not, but unless I’m really remembering things wrong, Jonah was raised Jewish.
As far as acceptance as being Jewish: let’s just say it depends on who you’re asking. Let’s not get into a frum-off about who’s really a Jew. I’m no rabbi, and I’m not orthodox, but as far as I’m concerned, if Hitler would have killed you, you’re Jewish.
According to Wikipedia Jonah Goldberg is a practicing Episcopalian.
Back to intellectuals, historians tend to classify Edmund Burke as a proto-conservative, usually only because of his “Notes on the French Revolution” and advocacy for virtual representation and constitutional monarchy (emphasis on constitutional and monarchy). Calling Burke a conservative is hard because it has to be in the long run. By today’s rubrick, he appears both progressive and slightly reactionary. In his time, he was on the political-intellectual vanguard. Contemporary conservatives like to lay claim to Burke, but anyone who takes the time to read more than “Notes on the French Revolution” will certainly find something to agree with.
I think most modern-day conservatives probably have to go back to Augustine to find someone they can fully lay claim to—just about all the supposedly “conservative” intellectuals would at least be moderate-to-liberal in the current American climate.
Friedman an Iraq war supporter?
Milton or Thomas? Because Thomas Friedman was a major Iraq war supporter. Didn’t you ever hear his explanation to Charlie Rose about how we have to tell other countries to Suck. On. This.?
Sure, he’s sad now that his pet war didn’t work out, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t think it was a fabulous idea when it first started.
I meant Milton. He was not an Iraq war supporter. Misguided about a shit ton of other things, sure. But he got Iraq right along with his other conservative libertarians/paleocons. As far as foreign policy goes they can be strong allies for the left.
By modern standards, Edumund Burke is a somewhere between Dweight Eisenhower and Bill Clinton on the political spectrum. Hayek is, too. If they were born and raised in 21st Century America they most definitely would not be Republicans.
For the record, I’m a recovering Buchananite Paleocon who over time became a liberal Democrat.
“According to Wikipedia Jonah Goldberg is a practicing Episcopalian.”
As a practicing Episcopalian, I’m going to take a very, very, VERY long shower now. After that, I’ll think I will have a few beers to forget we share the same Church.
Well, McCain is Episcopalian, if he doesn’t consider himself CoA now. As is George Bush pere, and Barry Goldwater. So if Jonah Goldberg wants to make a WASP out of himself, he’s in line with lots of chin-up stalwart conservatives, and as a child of a mixed marriage, I say good on him. I hope he finds a priest who can figure out how to get him a moral sense that isn’t tied to money.
the National Review crowd essentially declaring that because of writers like Hayek and Friedman, they had a stronger intellectual base (and therefore more ideological validity) than the Left, which tended to lack knowledge of its authors and thinkers.
I really didn’t get how conservatives, who have long considered all of academia, especially those who study of history, poli-sci, law, philosophy, literature, and the arts, to be the exclusive domain of lefty, com-symp, pinko hippies can still claim that liberalism (in the contemporary American sense) has a weaker intellectual base.
Does “intellectual” mean something different to conservatives? Or were they just making it up as they go along again?
And since when do conservatives respect intellectuals, anyway? Anti-intellectualism has been a mainstay of the right since as long as I can remember.
Well, it’s all got to do with the defining downward of fascism towards a gooey puddle that virtually anyone not a movement conservative can step in.
And consider that movement conservatism is, in truth, the closest thing to a fascist ideology that you can find outside of the Klan.
1) anti-intellectual, anti-academic
2) disdain for compromise, deliberation, and diplomacy in favor of immediate action
3) war, war, and more war. Every issue framed as a war, war as a solution to all problems, anything for the war effort
4) extreme militarism- obsession with all things military; belief that military people are a breed above the rest of us; nearly fetishistic obsession with military gear, uniforms, weapons, insignia
5) extreme nationalism- not mere patriotism, but equation of the nation with the state: any criticism of the state is an attack against the nation, therefore dissent is unpatriotic. Not just love of our country, but belief that our country is the greatest in the world and can therefore do anything it likes.
6) national security paranoia- everybody is out to get us, because we’re the best in the world. Anything goes to protect national security.
7) little or no restraint on police power- arbitrary arrest for mere suspicion of crimes, indefinite detention, torture, etc. All in the name of protecting us.
8) Yet, no restraint on corporate power- strict adherence to free-market ideology to the point of eliminating any regulation of corporations. Close cooperation between large corps and the government.
9) identification of internal enemies/fifth columnists, often a minority ethnic group.
10) reactionary fantasy of a long-lost Golden Age to which the nation must return. By any means.
11) Obsession with traditional values and the association of such with #9.
12) Anti-communist, anti-socialist, anti-union.
13) Extremely patriarchal: that which is manly is good. Women are relegated to their traditional family roles. Masculine=good, Feminine=bad.
14) Extremely Religious: willing to use state power to preserve traditional values and traditional family- values defined by the dominant religion.
I defy anyone to draw a distinction between contemporary American Movement Conservatism and fascism. The left has been calling the right Fascists for a reason. It isn’t just a cruel epithet: it’s an accurate descriptor.
(This is fascism as defined in Lawrence Britt’s now-famous article, “The Fourteen Points of Fascism”. Still the best description I’ve seen, it’s a rundown of the commonalities between the regimes of Papadopolous, Pinochet, Franco, Suhwarto, Hitler, and Mussolini- all of whose governments are universally recognized as fascist states.
I’m paraphrasing, and probably have a few items mixed up, but here’s the essay:
http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/britt_23_2.htm)
But now, thanks to Goldberg, everything except actual fascism is fascism.
I’m sure this was deliberate. But then, I am paranoid.
I think there are left/liberal thinkers that will be every bit as regarded as Dewey. I agree with Rawls, but there are many others. Amartya Sen, for one. Jurgen Habermas, as well. google the fp/prospect top 100 public intellectuals if you want to consider some more.
Re the Lawrence Britt article: That’s just it. Britt is a political scientist who studied the commonalities of Hitler’s Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, Franco’s Spain, Salazar’s Portugal, Pappadopoulos’s Greece, Pinochet’s Chile, and Suharto’s Indonesia and found a common pattern that is frighteningly similar to GWB’s USA (tho I think “Cult of masculinity” is a more spot-on descriptor than “Rampant sexism"). To counter the uncanny fitness of the term “fascism,” the Right has done the only thing it can do: deploy the word so as to rob it of any useful meaning whatever.
Hayek seems to be safely where the Right wants him to be: in The Road to Serfdom he characterized any government apparatus aimed at economic equity as creeping totalitarianism.
Sorry, I meant that Britt studied the regimes of these countries and found commonalities.
Sorry I skipped over your post, Ben D., I guess Hayek was in favor of some liberal things after all. Including universal health care--put that in your pipe and smoke it, JG.
As a long-time leftist who argued against the over(inaccurate)use of “fascist” in the 1960s-70s, receiving much abuse in the process, my hat is off to you, Jesse. Nicely done.
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They’re calling Obama fascist?
But...W shredded the Constitution and enshrined the notion of “Unitary Executive”, created the “Department of Homeland Security”, can’t commit any crimes b/c he’s a war president and can decide anyone is an enemy combatant, and said if you aren’t with us you’re against us. That kinda is the definition of authoritarian nationalism.
Is it b/c B. Hussein is a Constitutional scholar? Is that it?
Sorry, just boggled here. Need more caffeine to process this nonsense.