I came home last night, and after flipping on the internets to NRO, discovered that a favorite writer/thinker of mine, Jonah Goldberg, was going to be speaking at St. John’s University Tuesday night.
Skip to Tuesday and several emails later some last minute plans came together and my friends, Brad, Juliette and Jason, made the trek to St. Joseph, MN to hear Mr. Goldberg speak.
(Unfortunately my sweet wife had a class and couldn’t join us, but she fully supported my efforts. It’s easy to love such a sensible woman.)
The title he gave his speech was, “No Time For A New Deal.” Essentially, he was holding forth against the egregious growth of government we’ve witnessed over the last 90 days from the basic tenents of his new book Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning.
Here’s my review: It was great.
There’s nothing quite as inspiring as listening to a true intellectual clearly articulate many of your strongly held ideologies. While the event was hosted by the Young Americans Foundation, not everyone in the crowd was cut from the same political cloth. Yet you could hear the wheels of everyone in the room turning as he laid out a clear and rational analysis of the real affects and successes of the “New Deal”, its origins, and out of what political philosophies modern progressivism was actually birthed.
I was happy to hear him speak, happy to pick up his book, which I’ll happily be sharing more thoughts from here I’m sure.
I’ve read all of one page, but I recommend picking up a copy.
Jonah, me, and his book.
Wow. I’ve spent so long in left-wing land that I thought this guy was a right-wing nutcase. I saw him get raked over the coals by Jon Stewart and the Huffington Post. What are Goldberg’s credentials? It’s my largely uninformed impression that he plays identity politics too loosely and stakes too much on guilt-by-association in terms of progressive movements. Given that I respect you, I’m interested in what you have to say.
His book was great, although it seemed a little too preoccupied with shooting down the then-presumptive democratic nominee (oops), which was probably unnecessary considering his audience. It really hits full stride when he is dicussing the left-leaning aspects of the Fascists (and, to a lesser extent, the Nazis).
As for getting raked on the Daily Show, that is one highly edited CF. I don’t understand why they haven’t published the unedited version. It would be great to see how that really shook out (regardless of what people say they heard somebody say, Jonah always seems to hold his own and can actually follow up his views with substantiated data and coherent thoughts), regardless of the outcome.
Hi Sherry,
Thanks for the comment.
If you click on his name in the post I’ve linked to his bio on National Review which will give you some idea about his credentials. I would argue any man who has befriended a snail as a pet can hardly be, as you called him, a “right-wing nutcase.”
As for the book itself, it was voted by Amazon readers as the best history book of 2008. That’s a pretty wide readership base politically speaking.
As for his brave ventures onto TDS and HuffPost, I applaud the man.
While I think Stewart is truly funny and a pretty smart guy (he certainly has built his bully pulpit), and not (yet) a “liberal fascist”, I have to say it sure is odd how much of this interview is left out: http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?title=jonah-goldberg&videoId=147884
The cuts do seem to come right as Jonah is making a salient point.
I have to jump in here with what I thought was an interesting point from his speech the other night, which Stewart literally plays out.
At about 3:05 into the clip Stewart asks him, “Is the idea to establish a paternity for liberalism?” To which Jonah begins his answer and starts to lay out the history. Stewart, eschews a portion of Jonah’s point, and then says, “Don’t you think you’re hung up on labels and ‘ism’s, because I don’t know what you’re saying.” Which is a great answer if you want to discredit someone without honestly dealing with their idea, and slide in the ‘funny’ to appear affable.
Anyway, in his speech the other night, Jonah mentioned how difficult it is to have a debate about this, especially with someone who defines themselves politically as liberal, because we live in a time when people don’t like ‘labels’. To which he added, “the funny thing is ‘label’ is another word for ‘word’. We need words to help us define things, they might not always be perfect, but they do help.”
I think a lot of the interview displays the tactics Stewart so gainfully and artfully employs and very little of an open discussion of the book.
As for your question about identity politics. I would have a wide ranging answer, but I think this quote from the book is great, and I need to wrap this up.
This comes in the intro at pg 17:
“At this point I need to make a few statements of a kind that should be obvious, but are necessary in order to prevent any possibility of being misunderstood or having my argument distorted by hostile critics. I love this country and have tremendous faith in its goodness and decency; under no circumstances can I imagine a fascist regime like that of the Nazis coming to power here, let alone an event like the Holocaust. This is because Americans, all Americans- liberals, conservatives, and independents, blacks, whites, Hispanics, and Asians – are shaped by a liberal, democratic, and egalitarian culture strong enough to resist any such totalitarian temptations. (He goes on to describe a few on both sides, and ends with)..The Americans who cheered for Mussolini in the 1920s (self described liberals) cannot be held to account for what Hitler did nearly two decades later. And liberals today are not responsible for what their intellectual forefathers believed, thought they should account for it.”
I think that says it well.
the book is awesome. I read it a while back and I plan to read it again in light of recent events.
I have recommended it often to others.
Jonah nails it.
I’ve seen Mr. Goldberg a couple of times in Atlanta. He was fun. I learned something. My favorite of his credentials? He’s got a sense of humor.
Sherry,
Read his book – Liberal Fascism. You won’t agree with all of it; but the man makes a powerful and thoroughly coherent case in simple English.
Sherry, Goldberg, as far as I know, has a BA degree. The key thing, it seems to me, is not “credentials,” but his ideas and writings. his one book so far is Liberal Fascism, a well-researched and insightfull history. Check out his columns and articles, many are archived on http://www.nationalreview.com, and evaluate his views directly.
The funny thing about Goldberg’s book is how noncontroversial it actually is to anybody who is a remotely serious student of history.
That’s probably comes off as pretentious and unfair to Goldberg, and I know his book isn’t all about the history of Nazism either. But the basic fact that fascism and Nazism are both leftist/statist political ideologies that have much more in common with what passes for “liberalism” today than they do with “conservatism” is, well, pretty obvious.
National Socialist German Worker’s Party = conservative or “right-wing?”
Only in the minds of historical illiterates.
Wow! A great place to be honest, this forum! I’m a moderate who tends toward liberalism when there’s a right-leaning power structure; toward conservatism, when there’s one left-leaning.
As you can probably figure, I’m on the “right-swing.”
I’m wanting to read a noninflammatory pro-capitalist book right now, and I’m leaning toward P.J. O’Rourke. I don’t know that Jonah’s where I can go yet. Any recommendations?
Signed,
–A former American Enterprise Magazine subscriber (it rocked)
Hey Sherry,
If you want to read a pro-capitalist book I would highly recommend anything by Thomas Sowell. You can get a synopsis of each of his books, sample articles, and essays, here: http://www.tsowell.com/
On economic philosophy and theory I highly recommend, “Basic Economics: A Citizen’s Guide To The Economy”.
I’ve also heard rave reviews for “Quest For Cosmic Justice” and “The Vision of the Anointed.”