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The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin
Late in life, William F. Buckley made a confession to Corey Robin. Capitalism is "boring," said the founding father of the American right. "Devoting your life to it," as conservatives do, "is horrifying if only because it's so repetitious. It's like sex." With this unlikely conversation began Robin's decade-long foray into the conservative mind. What is conservatism, and what's truly at stake for its proponents? If capitalism bores them, what excites them?Tracing conservatism back to its roots in the reaction against the French Revolution, Robin argues that the right is fundamentally inspired by a hostility to emancipating the lower orders. Some conservatives endorse the free market, others oppose it. Some criticize the state, others celebrate it. Underlying these differences is the impulse to defend power and privilege against movements demanding freedom and equality. Despite their opposition to these movements, conservatives favor a dynamic conception of politics and society--one that involves self-transformation, violence, and war. They are also highly adaptive to new challenges and circumstances. This partiality to violence and capacity for reinvention has been critical to their success.Written by a keen, highly regarded observer of the contemporary political scene, The Reactionary Mind ranges widely, from Edmund Burke to Antonin Scalia, from John C. Calhoun to Ayn Rand. It advances the notion that all rightwing ideologies, from the eighteenth century through today, are historical improvisations on a the felt experience of having power, seeing it threatened, and trying to win it back.
305 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 9, 2011
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About the author
Corey Robin
12 books165 followersCorey Robin is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College.
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April 6, 2019
Corey Robin's take on conservatism has helped me understand not only the Tea Party and pro-Trump movements, but also the triumphalist EWTN element of the American Roman Catholic Church.
People who call themselves "conservatives," Robin argues, are not conservatives at all, but rather reactionaries. (In my opinion, real conservatives--who usually do not call themselves "conservatives"--conserve; they are part of a living tradition, doing their best to preserve and adapt it, helping their tradition adjust to an ever-changing environment so that it remains meaningful and viable. In United States' politics, I believe, such people are called "Democrats.")
The reactionary, on the other hand, is quite different in his concerns and methods. Although he professes to be interested in "liberty," particularly for himself and for people who closely resemble him, what moves him to action is the alarming possibility that some suppressed group--peasants, minorities, laity, women, etc.--may not only have the temerity to exercise power, but also to do so in their own names, as if that power belonged to them as a right. The reactionary may proclaim himself the defender of a tradition, but he usually comes upon the scene after the revolution has already transformed or shattered it. He harbors in his heart a contempt for real traditionalists, seeing their softness as the reason why traditions collapse, and he admires the harsh revolutionary methods that destroy the very thing he claims to love. The reactionary fabricates a fantasy image of his moribund tradition, unleashes an appropriated version of his enemy's revolutionary tactics, and attempts to "restore" this faux tradition by imposing it upon a culture that has already evolved and moved on.
You should be aware that this book is not nearly as unified as it seems at first, consisting of articles that originally appeared over more than a ten year period--some written even before 9/11. There is much penetrating analysis of conservative thought here, but you will also find entertaining biographical "hit" pieces on Ayn Rand and Antonin Scalia, as well as a series of articles whose central theme is how conservatives have thrived for years by proclaiming the virtues of the national security state. All of it, even the earlier pieces, are well written and keep the reader entertained.
There was one thing about the book that bothered me. Robin wishes to prove that his interpretation of conservatism harks back its very first days, and so of course he wishes to include Edmond Burke in his thesis. He succeeds in doing so only by using a quote from "On the Sublime and Beautiful'--a work of aesthetics written when Burke was not quite eighteen--to interpret a political passage from "Reflections on the Revolution in France" written some thirty-five years later. (Sort of like exploiting a stray lyric from Joyce's "Poems Penyeach" to launch a definitive interpretation of "Finnegan's Wake".) This is a real stretcher, and the fact that he felt compelled to force his thesis in this fashion lessened my opinion of what is otherwise a persuasive and informative book.
November 9, 2019
Cultural Criticism Is a Tricky Business
Corey Robin’s essay on contemporary conservatism was published in 2011, five years before Pankaj Mishra’s The Age of Anger (See: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) and Mark Lilla’s The Shipwrecked Mind (See: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...). The Reactionary Mind covers much of the same ground at a time when the contours of that ground were less clear than they have become. And, unlike the later books, it was written more for academic consumption than a popular or general literary audience. It is also a better book, quite an achievement given the merits of Mishra’s and Lilla’s obvious skills as writers and social observers.
Unlike Mishra and Lilla, Robin’s analysis starts not with a judgment of a prevailing sentiment of the times - nostalgia for Lilla; ressentiment for Mishra - but with a timeless philosophical and sociological issue: power. For Robin, the perennial source of reactionary conservatism is the concern of those in power to maintain that power. He neatly encapsulates his entire thesis in a single phrase: “Conservatism is about power besieged and power protected.”
According to Robin’s line of argument, there is nothing new about today’s political situation - particularly, neither nostalgia nor ressentinent - which makes our current reactionary politics different except the identities of those who feel threatened by the extension of emancipatory freedom, and by implication, equality. The most intense critics of the ancien regime, whatever that happens to be, are present conservatives. He cites Burke and Maistre at length to make his point that conservative sentiment neither yearns for past glory nor resents the power lost through incompetence. That conservative fear should now be directed toward immigrants and atheists is not qualitatively different from that shown by the less recent immigrants and atheists of the 19th century towards their newly arriving God-fearing neighbors. What goes around comes around.
Robin shows up the analytic flaw in both Mishra and Lilla: post hoc ergo propter hoc. Nostalgia and anger may well be emotional symptoms of our times. But are they causes or effects? Do they provoke the sort of social and political reactions one can observe around the world or are they simply correlates of a more fundamental phenomenon? Robin contends that the conservative creed is “Submission [by the inferior classes] is their first duty, agency the prerogative of the elite.” Lilla’s commentary on Michel Houellebecq’s 2015 novel Submission [i.e. Islam] is in fact a literal confirmation of this thesis. Islamic fundamentalism hardly differs from its Christian evangelical counterparts. All have the same intention to re-establish absolute authority in society, and this means God. Whether God is a nostalgic fiction or a wrathful enforcer is not an essential difference.
The issue of nostalgic, fearful chickens vs. submissive, un-emancipated eggs is not a trivial one. For example, it appears that much of the reactionary momentum in the world is generated not by the rich and powerful but by the threatened lower middle class who feel they no longer can count on the dreams of infinite advance they once had. Is the evident populism of their politics the result of manipulation by the same elite who orchestrated their current condition or a spontaneous eruption of ‘we’re fed up and we’re not going to take it anymore.’? The situation seems similar to that of the South African Boers after the British conquest. The subjugators had become subjugated, their real power already eliminated. Yet their feelings of righteous indignation and cultural threat create both nostalgia and anger for power past and lost. Emotion was the residue but residue with motive force.
Robin’s analysis is intellectually fruitful in a number of ways. First, it gets behind the reactionary rhetoric:
Robin also recognises that ultimately reactionary conservatism is an aesthetic judgment not an ideological belief. For the conservative, the world is threatened with brutality, ugliness, and lack of order by the inclusion of those who are presently or until recently excluded from cultural influence. These latter are barbarians, not essentially because of race or ethnicity or economic status but because their very presence undermines the appearance of power in society - law, authority, entitlement. Their factual impact is of little concern; they make the system look bad. Immigrants, for example, may contribute far more economically than they cost to assimilate. But this is irrelevant. What matters is that they are aesthetically disruptive - on the streets, in the news, and especially in the conservative psyche.
The situation is further complicated by the symbolic significance of power to those that do not have it but admire it. Robin cites Edmund Burke: “When Burke [says] ... that the ‘great object’ of the [French] Revolution is to ‘root out that thing called the Aristocrat or Nobleman or Gentleman’ he is not simply referring to the power of the nobility, he is also referring to the distinction that power brings to the world.” This might imply the possibility of one day holding the power one sees. But, more likely given the obvious probabilities of life, it means something much more attainable - giving power to those who should have it, conservative politicians surely, but also the police, the military, authoritarian religious leaders and the very wealthy in society who have proven their worth. These elites are trustworthy surrogates not enemies of the already oppressed.
Robin quotes an essay by the ultra-conservative Liberty Fund: “To obey a real superior... is one of the most important of all virtues - a virtue absolutely essential to the attainment of any thing great and lasting.” The love of a certain order is enough to grant the monopoly of power to others in order to achieve it. Hierarchy is order. And as Dr Johnson said, “Order cannot be had except by subordination.” Coercion is the product of one’s sense of beauty. How remarkable is that for an interesting conclusion?
Yet another aesthetic paradox is noted by Robin: the conservative aesthetic is one of ‘maintaining excellence.’ This is the creed of those upwardly mobile middle class people who have been successful in the meritocratic process of test-taking, degree-acquisition, and corporate advancement. These people are the current holders of power, at least the power visible to most of us in government, business, and academia. They have emerged by and large from the parts of society which have benefitted most from racial and social emancipation - second and third generation immigrants, working class children given access to higher education, racial minorities given enough opportunity to demonstrate they know how to play the game well.
These people are therefore ‘natural’ liberals, but only so long as the basis of their power is recognised as legitimate and enduring. They are in a sense conservative liberals for whom the meritocratic structure is as sacred as that of historical nobility or bonded serfdom and slavery. So today’s reactionaries are a species of anti-anti-liberal who feel themselves in need of emancipation.
Robin is a tad less elegantly suave than Lilla; he is not as consummately cosmopolitan as Mishra. But he is a more thorough and careful thinker. I have no doubt that among the three I would take Robin’s book to the desert island.
Corey Robin’s essay on contemporary conservatism was published in 2011, five years before Pankaj Mishra’s The Age of Anger (See: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) and Mark Lilla’s The Shipwrecked Mind (See: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...). The Reactionary Mind covers much of the same ground at a time when the contours of that ground were less clear than they have become. And, unlike the later books, it was written more for academic consumption than a popular or general literary audience. It is also a better book, quite an achievement given the merits of Mishra’s and Lilla’s obvious skills as writers and social observers.
Unlike Mishra and Lilla, Robin’s analysis starts not with a judgment of a prevailing sentiment of the times - nostalgia for Lilla; ressentiment for Mishra - but with a timeless philosophical and sociological issue: power. For Robin, the perennial source of reactionary conservatism is the concern of those in power to maintain that power. He neatly encapsulates his entire thesis in a single phrase: “Conservatism is about power besieged and power protected.”
According to Robin’s line of argument, there is nothing new about today’s political situation - particularly, neither nostalgia nor ressentinent - which makes our current reactionary politics different except the identities of those who feel threatened by the extension of emancipatory freedom, and by implication, equality. The most intense critics of the ancien regime, whatever that happens to be, are present conservatives. He cites Burke and Maistre at length to make his point that conservative sentiment neither yearns for past glory nor resents the power lost through incompetence. That conservative fear should now be directed toward immigrants and atheists is not qualitatively different from that shown by the less recent immigrants and atheists of the 19th century towards their newly arriving God-fearing neighbors. What goes around comes around.
Robin shows up the analytic flaw in both Mishra and Lilla: post hoc ergo propter hoc. Nostalgia and anger may well be emotional symptoms of our times. But are they causes or effects? Do they provoke the sort of social and political reactions one can observe around the world or are they simply correlates of a more fundamental phenomenon? Robin contends that the conservative creed is “Submission [by the inferior classes] is their first duty, agency the prerogative of the elite.” Lilla’s commentary on Michel Houellebecq’s 2015 novel Submission [i.e. Islam] is in fact a literal confirmation of this thesis. Islamic fundamentalism hardly differs from its Christian evangelical counterparts. All have the same intention to re-establish absolute authority in society, and this means God. Whether God is a nostalgic fiction or a wrathful enforcer is not an essential difference.
The issue of nostalgic, fearful chickens vs. submissive, un-emancipated eggs is not a trivial one. For example, it appears that much of the reactionary momentum in the world is generated not by the rich and powerful but by the threatened lower middle class who feel they no longer can count on the dreams of infinite advance they once had. Is the evident populism of their politics the result of manipulation by the same elite who orchestrated their current condition or a spontaneous eruption of ‘we’re fed up and we’re not going to take it anymore.’? The situation seems similar to that of the South African Boers after the British conquest. The subjugators had become subjugated, their real power already eliminated. Yet their feelings of righteous indignation and cultural threat create both nostalgia and anger for power past and lost. Emotion was the residue but residue with motive force.
Robin’s analysis is intellectually fruitful in a number of ways. First, it gets behind the reactionary rhetoric:
“Conservatism, then, is not a commitment to limited government and liberty - or a wariness of change, or a belief in evolutionary reform, or a politics of virtue... Neither is a conservative a makeshift fusion of capitalists, Christians and warriors, for that fusion is impelled by a more elemental force - the opposition to the liberation of men and women from the fetters of their superiors, particularly in the private sphere.”This last phrase, ‘the private sphere,’ is important. The current reactionary is aware that the legal, public war is lost. What’s left is populist guerrilla fighting outside of the normal channels of legislation and law enforcement. Hence the importance of the Twitter-sphere for Donald Trump, who recognised both the problem and the solution. There a good case to be made that Robin predicted Trump.
Robin also recognises that ultimately reactionary conservatism is an aesthetic judgment not an ideological belief. For the conservative, the world is threatened with brutality, ugliness, and lack of order by the inclusion of those who are presently or until recently excluded from cultural influence. These latter are barbarians, not essentially because of race or ethnicity or economic status but because their very presence undermines the appearance of power in society - law, authority, entitlement. Their factual impact is of little concern; they make the system look bad. Immigrants, for example, may contribute far more economically than they cost to assimilate. But this is irrelevant. What matters is that they are aesthetically disruptive - on the streets, in the news, and especially in the conservative psyche.
The situation is further complicated by the symbolic significance of power to those that do not have it but admire it. Robin cites Edmund Burke: “When Burke [says] ... that the ‘great object’ of the [French] Revolution is to ‘root out that thing called the Aristocrat or Nobleman or Gentleman’ he is not simply referring to the power of the nobility, he is also referring to the distinction that power brings to the world.” This might imply the possibility of one day holding the power one sees. But, more likely given the obvious probabilities of life, it means something much more attainable - giving power to those who should have it, conservative politicians surely, but also the police, the military, authoritarian religious leaders and the very wealthy in society who have proven their worth. These elites are trustworthy surrogates not enemies of the already oppressed.
Robin quotes an essay by the ultra-conservative Liberty Fund: “To obey a real superior... is one of the most important of all virtues - a virtue absolutely essential to the attainment of any thing great and lasting.” The love of a certain order is enough to grant the monopoly of power to others in order to achieve it. Hierarchy is order. And as Dr Johnson said, “Order cannot be had except by subordination.” Coercion is the product of one’s sense of beauty. How remarkable is that for an interesting conclusion?
Yet another aesthetic paradox is noted by Robin: the conservative aesthetic is one of ‘maintaining excellence.’ This is the creed of those upwardly mobile middle class people who have been successful in the meritocratic process of test-taking, degree-acquisition, and corporate advancement. These people are the current holders of power, at least the power visible to most of us in government, business, and academia. They have emerged by and large from the parts of society which have benefitted most from racial and social emancipation - second and third generation immigrants, working class children given access to higher education, racial minorities given enough opportunity to demonstrate they know how to play the game well.
These people are therefore ‘natural’ liberals, but only so long as the basis of their power is recognised as legitimate and enduring. They are in a sense conservative liberals for whom the meritocratic structure is as sacred as that of historical nobility or bonded serfdom and slavery. So today’s reactionaries are a species of anti-anti-liberal who feel themselves in need of emancipation.
Robin is a tad less elegantly suave than Lilla; he is not as consummately cosmopolitan as Mishra. But he is a more thorough and careful thinker. I have no doubt that among the three I would take Robin’s book to the desert island.
December 29, 2012
I'm tempted to one star it, but I've read worse. The theory felt like Foucalt-lite. And the second half of the book didn't even feel like it was an attempt to write about the mind, just "reactionaries." I really wanted a psychological study of conservatism (or types of conservatism). This wasn't it. It was so crude that it even attempted to lump all "Conservatism" under a single word for hundreds of years. It's sort of laughable in a philosophically naive way. But also somewhat intellectually reprehensible.
The book contains this quote, that I felt was rather telling of the author and the sorts of narrow social circles he is in (i.e. exclusively liberal) "People on the left often fail to realize this, but conservatism really does speak to and for people who have lost something." Having spent a lot of time with liberals and conservatives (having grown up in a conservative community), I know straw conservatives when I see them.
That being said, I can't bring myself to one star it, because it does contain some legitimate truths about Conservative failures in recent history (when it isn't making sweeping abstract generalizations). Still, all in all, disappointing, and not something I'd recommend. There are much better exposes of Conservative failure out there.
The book contains this quote, that I felt was rather telling of the author and the sorts of narrow social circles he is in (i.e. exclusively liberal) "People on the left often fail to realize this, but conservatism really does speak to and for people who have lost something." Having spent a lot of time with liberals and conservatives (having grown up in a conservative community), I know straw conservatives when I see them.
That being said, I can't bring myself to one star it, because it does contain some legitimate truths about Conservative failures in recent history (when it isn't making sweeping abstract generalizations). Still, all in all, disappointing, and not something I'd recommend. There are much better exposes of Conservative failure out there.
April 2, 2017
I enjoyed Corey Robin's collection of essays on conservatism and I do like his approach and analysis. But one must be aware and understand he approaches things from the left. That is where he stands and it's a good idea to be aware of that, I think. Also this is far from comprehensive, it is a slight collection of essays that represents more of an outline or sketch than anything.
I don't know enough about the history of conservatism, so I'm a bit leery to accept all the arguments in here where sometimes it seems like he is making it out to be more monolithic than it really is, simplifying things to fulfill some of his arguments. He does try and distill things to common threads, like conservatism at its core is about protecting (or regaining) privileges and maintaining established power hierarchies in the society. Maybe it is true in general but I don't think it is always true, like I said, I don't have a lot of depth of knowledge on the issue. So I am hesitant to agree, certainly can't agree with confidence and without massive qualifiers.
I have to say my favorite essay was the one on Ayn Rand. Absolutely scathing, Robin really takes the
knives to Rand and her philosophy (?), and I enjoyed every word of it. Here are a few lines from the Rand essay (not all are informative, some are just mean, but from my perspective they are spot on!):
* "Saint Petersburg in revolt gave us Vladimir Nabokov, Isaiah Berlin, and Ayn Rand. The first was a novelist, the second a philosopher. The third was neither but thought she was both."
* "The chief conflict in Rand's novels, then, is not between the individual and the masses. It is between the demigod-creator and all those unproductive elements of society - the intellectuals, bureaucrats, and middlemen - that stand between him and the masses. Aesthetically, this makes for kitsch; politically, it bends toward fascism." (Robin explores interesting linkages between Randian philosophy and fascism. She hated fascism, namely its collectivism, but she shared certain corollaries with it in her thinking, at least this is what Robin argues. Personally I find Rand's view that large subsets of human society are worthless parasites while others are demigods held back by these parasites to be the most dangerous part of her philosophy. It reduces the worth of human beings to their economic productivity which I find insane and anti-humanistic. I also think Rand has a fundamental misunderstanding of human nature, yes, we are selfish, to some degree, but it is not our only driving force)
* "If Kant is an athlete of the moral life, Aristotle is its virtuoso. Rand, by contrast, is a melodramatist of the moral life."
* "Rand was a lifelong atheist with a special animus for Christianity, which she called the 'best kindergarten for communism possible.'" (Robin connects Rand's animus towards Christianity to Nietszche, who Robin says viewed the religion as one for the meek, the servile, the slave, as opposed to attributes Nietszche respected in people which was power, greatness, will, the person willing to take things and make things happen. I haven't read Nietszche, at least not since I was in school, so I can't really comment on that with anything interesting, but Rand seems to have been very influenced by Nietszche)
* "We're still left with a puzzle about Rand: How could such a mediocrity, not just a second-hander but a second-rater, exert such a continuing influence on the culture at large?" (Robin explores Rand's time in Hollywood and says this is where she learned to manufacture and produce consumable Manichean dreams for the public)
* "Rand worked in that quintessential American proving ground - alongside the likes of Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and Glenn Beck - where garbage achieves gravitas and bullshit gets blessed." (just makes me laugh)
It would be interesting to read a book (by someone on the right) that examines the "Progressive Mind." At some point I'd like to read Rick Perlstein's book on conservatism, but once again this is a person on the left writing about the right so it will likely feature similar analysis to Robin's. I would like to get some balance in reading about these movements, so if you have a suggestion for what you consider a good analysis of conservatism by someone on the right (or center) please let me know!
I don't know enough about the history of conservatism, so I'm a bit leery to accept all the arguments in here where sometimes it seems like he is making it out to be more monolithic than it really is, simplifying things to fulfill some of his arguments. He does try and distill things to common threads, like conservatism at its core is about protecting (or regaining) privileges and maintaining established power hierarchies in the society. Maybe it is true in general but I don't think it is always true, like I said, I don't have a lot of depth of knowledge on the issue. So I am hesitant to agree, certainly can't agree with confidence and without massive qualifiers.
I have to say my favorite essay was the one on Ayn Rand. Absolutely scathing, Robin really takes the
knives to Rand and her philosophy (?), and I enjoyed every word of it. Here are a few lines from the Rand essay (not all are informative, some are just mean, but from my perspective they are spot on!):
* "Saint Petersburg in revolt gave us Vladimir Nabokov, Isaiah Berlin, and Ayn Rand. The first was a novelist, the second a philosopher. The third was neither but thought she was both."
* "The chief conflict in Rand's novels, then, is not between the individual and the masses. It is between the demigod-creator and all those unproductive elements of society - the intellectuals, bureaucrats, and middlemen - that stand between him and the masses. Aesthetically, this makes for kitsch; politically, it bends toward fascism." (Robin explores interesting linkages between Randian philosophy and fascism. She hated fascism, namely its collectivism, but she shared certain corollaries with it in her thinking, at least this is what Robin argues. Personally I find Rand's view that large subsets of human society are worthless parasites while others are demigods held back by these parasites to be the most dangerous part of her philosophy. It reduces the worth of human beings to their economic productivity which I find insane and anti-humanistic. I also think Rand has a fundamental misunderstanding of human nature, yes, we are selfish, to some degree, but it is not our only driving force)
* "If Kant is an athlete of the moral life, Aristotle is its virtuoso. Rand, by contrast, is a melodramatist of the moral life."
* "Rand was a lifelong atheist with a special animus for Christianity, which she called the 'best kindergarten for communism possible.'" (Robin connects Rand's animus towards Christianity to Nietszche, who Robin says viewed the religion as one for the meek, the servile, the slave, as opposed to attributes Nietszche respected in people which was power, greatness, will, the person willing to take things and make things happen. I haven't read Nietszche, at least not since I was in school, so I can't really comment on that with anything interesting, but Rand seems to have been very influenced by Nietszche)
* "We're still left with a puzzle about Rand: How could such a mediocrity, not just a second-hander but a second-rater, exert such a continuing influence on the culture at large?" (Robin explores Rand's time in Hollywood and says this is where she learned to manufacture and produce consumable Manichean dreams for the public)
* "Rand worked in that quintessential American proving ground - alongside the likes of Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and Glenn Beck - where garbage achieves gravitas and bullshit gets blessed." (just makes me laugh)
It would be interesting to read a book (by someone on the right) that examines the "Progressive Mind." At some point I'd like to read Rick Perlstein's book on conservatism, but once again this is a person on the left writing about the right so it will likely feature similar analysis to Robin's. I would like to get some balance in reading about these movements, so if you have a suggestion for what you consider a good analysis of conservatism by someone on the right (or center) please let me know!
September 17, 2014
Robin's extremely simplistic pamphlet adds nothing to anyone's understanding of the great Classical Anglo American Liberal Edmund Burke's thinking or philosophy. Like most empty-headed Progressive sheep, the author demonstrates his pathetic ignorance of Burke's historical context by referring to Mr. Burke as a "Reactionary" which is a wildly inappropriate label for one of the the leading thinkers behind the American Revolution's dramatic break with the authoritarian Collectivism that had held sway in the past.
Progressive illiterates like Robin have always rejected the shift that Burke, Franklin, Jefferson, Madison & the rest of America's Framers accomplished in establishing a republic grounded in the radical individualism that has produced the most successful nation in human history. Meanwhile, Marxist Collectivists like Obama & Robin cling to the reactionary philosophies that have brought nothing but misery wherever they've been forced on the common people!!! Charles David Edinger
Progressive illiterates like Robin have always rejected the shift that Burke, Franklin, Jefferson, Madison & the rest of America's Framers accomplished in establishing a republic grounded in the radical individualism that has produced the most successful nation in human history. Meanwhile, Marxist Collectivists like Obama & Robin cling to the reactionary philosophies that have brought nothing but misery wherever they've been forced on the common people!!! Charles David Edinger
July 22, 2019
This is a somewhat disjointed collection of essays that is rescued in the end by the author's uncharacteristically elegant (for an academic) prose. The argument of the book is summed up in the first and last essays: conservatism is at heart a movement based around resistance to the emancipation of society's lower orders. The essays in between riff on different themes from Nietzsche to Ayn Rand to Antonin Scalia and are of varying quality. I don’t think that anyone who is already generally familiar with conservative and reactionary thought will find much that is novel here. Regarding the core argument though, I think there is some truth to it.
The idea of conservatism as a political ideology was borne out of the French Revolution as the vengeful twin of its revolutionary enemy. It was a counteroffensive against the revolution and its radically equalizing tendencies. In many cases, we see that there remains a reflex of defensiveness on the part of conservatives in response to social change which seems to threaten hierarchy. It is a flexible and supple tendency as opposed to being a rigid one, and often takes on the energetic, bombastic style of the radicals that it imagines itself fighting against. Surely the Donald Trump movement is partly related to this.
But there is also a separate issue, which is the belief in absolute truths with a capital T. These would be some type of ontological beliefs about the true nature of the world and how it should be organized, be they religious or philosophical or even biological. In this sense there are conservatives who are not merely reactionaries trying to hold onto their familiar powers in the hierarchy, but people who sincerely believe that there are certain things that are true and therefore must be upheld. It is a distinction that a purely material analysis like this does not get at. I do think that he is right about the vast majority of conservative movements however, including those that like to cloak themselves in higher ideals. It’s why the Evangelical movement so shamelessly prostrates itself to Trump. They believe in power and hierarchy. Anything else is secondary, at best.
I am biased against books of essays as a rule. This one however is more readable and enjoyable than a lot of them. It avoids the pitfalls of too much navel-gazing that many other academics get into when doing intellectual histories. Believe it or not this guy is genuinely a good writer.
The idea of conservatism as a political ideology was borne out of the French Revolution as the vengeful twin of its revolutionary enemy. It was a counteroffensive against the revolution and its radically equalizing tendencies. In many cases, we see that there remains a reflex of defensiveness on the part of conservatives in response to social change which seems to threaten hierarchy. It is a flexible and supple tendency as opposed to being a rigid one, and often takes on the energetic, bombastic style of the radicals that it imagines itself fighting against. Surely the Donald Trump movement is partly related to this.
But there is also a separate issue, which is the belief in absolute truths with a capital T. These would be some type of ontological beliefs about the true nature of the world and how it should be organized, be they religious or philosophical or even biological. In this sense there are conservatives who are not merely reactionaries trying to hold onto their familiar powers in the hierarchy, but people who sincerely believe that there are certain things that are true and therefore must be upheld. It is a distinction that a purely material analysis like this does not get at. I do think that he is right about the vast majority of conservative movements however, including those that like to cloak themselves in higher ideals. It’s why the Evangelical movement so shamelessly prostrates itself to Trump. They believe in power and hierarchy. Anything else is secondary, at best.
I am biased against books of essays as a rule. This one however is more readable and enjoyable than a lot of them. It avoids the pitfalls of too much navel-gazing that many other academics get into when doing intellectual histories. Believe it or not this guy is genuinely a good writer.
June 9, 2018
So much for the Utopianism of the left, we have to understand the inverse utopianism of the right? Indeed, The Reactionary Mind is a braid of linked essays divided into two related sections. The first section is the popular manifestation of conservative intellectual tradition, and the second is on the profound relationship between conservatism and violence.
First, a few caveats: there are a few points in which I have somewhat profound disagreements with Robins, and second I found some of the essays slightly repetitive because they were written to be read individually so many themes and points are hit upon blatantly by restatement because it would have been necessary in the original printing of these reviews and essays. While Robin's style is punchy, often funny, and yet intellectually serious, the nature of the essays themselves sometimes grated on me when reading the book as a whole in a few sittings. When I read the book as a collection of essays and ignored that Robin's essentially laid out his thesis in the introduction, I enjoyed these much more as reading qua reading.
Robin's thesis is highly illuminating: conservatism is not traditionalism of either capitalism or the ancient regime, although it is tied to both. Conservatism is the reactionary impulse to preserve real privileges and ways of life. Furthermore, conservatism maintains itself in the popular mode by mimicking left tactics to expand the circle of contempt: every man and every woman becomes lord of someone who they can take part in the oppression writ small. It's enough to make you wonder if perhaps David Brooks isn't really Calhoun with a friendly face.
Robin's does show, quite convincingly, there is a consistency to the Euro-American right since it emerged after the French revolution. It was fundamentally different from the soft traditionalism that supported the ancient regime before the French Revolution. Oddly, however, my favorite essay on the topic was the departure from that theme: the essay on Edward Luttwark and John Gray which Robin's partially disowns. Indeed, in this essay, Robins seem to hint that some of the values of pre-capitalist world are antithetical to the world conservatives have actually created and the abandonment of people like Luttwark and Gray betray that vision. Yet in opposition to modernity in entirety, their may support the welfare state and accept the cultural contradictions of capitalism, as even Daniel Bell acknowledged, they cannot come up with a coherent politics to support it.
Another theme touched upon by Robins, but only touched upon, primarily in his essays on the Anton Scalia and Ayn Rand, is that liberalism particularly has not been up to the job of actually opposing the right. Indeed, Scalia is allowed a rhetoric wit and scathing barbs in the court, but no liberal or moderate on the court returns the favor. In fact, when barbed Scalia is often thrown off his game. Furthermore, in the Ayn Rand section, "Garbage and Gravitas," Robins points out that often liberal and left readers of Ayn Rand have tried to give her more credit that she earns out of a want to show that large portion of the American public is enamored with someone as contemptuous as Rand. Yet as even a conservative friend of mine once said, "Rand is popular because she is elitism for the masses. It's that simple."
Another thing the second half of Robin's book is good for is an antidote to Andrew Sullivan and Sam Tanenhaus (as well as lesser known and more radical conservatives like Thomas Woods) that conservatism has traditionally been anti-war. While there is a conservative tradition that Robin's ignores that does live up to this standard-Jay Alfred Nock and the America First tradition is explicitly anti-war-the practice of the majority of conservatives since Burke has to glorify in violence as an expression of sublimity even if that violence actually leads to a more mechanized view of power, which is essentially what the conservatives wanted to avoid.
This, however, brings me to my critique of the book: to maintain a consistent view of conservatism in both sections, Robins did have to ignore parts of the conservative tradition and include other thinkers who reactionary credentials are questionable. As I have already noted, Robins does not comment on the traditional anti-war conservatives in America nor does he mention the anti-war conservatives who opposed George W. Bush and their libertarian allies. Indeed, one of the largest anti-war sites was run by primarily be paleo-conservatives and libertarians such as Justin Riamondo. Ron Paul got his street-cred, however questionable you find it, by opposing the warfare state. Furthermore, following Paxton, Robin's sees fascism as essentially conservative and enlists George Sorel's as part of his argument on the decadence cycle and the relationship to violence. I find this misleading, even in his so-called proto-fascist stage, Sorel's was essentially advocating anarchistic syndicalism and his relationship to both Marxism and anarchism is important. Fascism, while I think was a means of maintaining a form of capitalism which functioned like mercantilism, has much more than just a tactical similarity to left-wing thought. While idiots like Jonah Goldberg like to equate liberalism and fascism for incredibly facile reasons, fascism was not merely a defense of the ancient regime. It was an attempt to be both progressive and conservative at once: to ape socialism and keep a ruling class, but also to fundamentally produce a new society not rooted in old privileges. Also, Robins ignores the admittedly hyper-majority of the new far right such as radical traditionalism because these thinkers are not merely defending past privilege like Burke or even Reagan. They truly are inverse utopians.
These flaws aside, Robin's book is still entirely worth engaging with and the overall thrust of his thesis is, in my opinion, correct. Conservatism may be on its death throw because it has nothing really to oppose: leftism has been thrown out of the sphere and is only reemerging from its own ashes, New Labor and Democratic Leadership committee has become the current traditionalism of the liberal establishment unable to do anything new but ape the right and empower the business class, and so the right has become decadent and overreaching. Robin's end note is one of hope rooted in conservative fears of the decline of their own movement in a lack of real opposition. Indeed the view idea of conservatism implies it: one must be on the defense to be interested in conserving something. This is obviously no longer the case in for most conservatives.
First, a few caveats: there are a few points in which I have somewhat profound disagreements with Robins, and second I found some of the essays slightly repetitive because they were written to be read individually so many themes and points are hit upon blatantly by restatement because it would have been necessary in the original printing of these reviews and essays. While Robin's style is punchy, often funny, and yet intellectually serious, the nature of the essays themselves sometimes grated on me when reading the book as a whole in a few sittings. When I read the book as a collection of essays and ignored that Robin's essentially laid out his thesis in the introduction, I enjoyed these much more as reading qua reading.
Robin's thesis is highly illuminating: conservatism is not traditionalism of either capitalism or the ancient regime, although it is tied to both. Conservatism is the reactionary impulse to preserve real privileges and ways of life. Furthermore, conservatism maintains itself in the popular mode by mimicking left tactics to expand the circle of contempt: every man and every woman becomes lord of someone who they can take part in the oppression writ small. It's enough to make you wonder if perhaps David Brooks isn't really Calhoun with a friendly face.
Robin's does show, quite convincingly, there is a consistency to the Euro-American right since it emerged after the French revolution. It was fundamentally different from the soft traditionalism that supported the ancient regime before the French Revolution. Oddly, however, my favorite essay on the topic was the departure from that theme: the essay on Edward Luttwark and John Gray which Robin's partially disowns. Indeed, in this essay, Robins seem to hint that some of the values of pre-capitalist world are antithetical to the world conservatives have actually created and the abandonment of people like Luttwark and Gray betray that vision. Yet in opposition to modernity in entirety, their may support the welfare state and accept the cultural contradictions of capitalism, as even Daniel Bell acknowledged, they cannot come up with a coherent politics to support it.
Another theme touched upon by Robins, but only touched upon, primarily in his essays on the Anton Scalia and Ayn Rand, is that liberalism particularly has not been up to the job of actually opposing the right. Indeed, Scalia is allowed a rhetoric wit and scathing barbs in the court, but no liberal or moderate on the court returns the favor. In fact, when barbed Scalia is often thrown off his game. Furthermore, in the Ayn Rand section, "Garbage and Gravitas," Robins points out that often liberal and left readers of Ayn Rand have tried to give her more credit that she earns out of a want to show that large portion of the American public is enamored with someone as contemptuous as Rand. Yet as even a conservative friend of mine once said, "Rand is popular because she is elitism for the masses. It's that simple."
Another thing the second half of Robin's book is good for is an antidote to Andrew Sullivan and Sam Tanenhaus (as well as lesser known and more radical conservatives like Thomas Woods) that conservatism has traditionally been anti-war. While there is a conservative tradition that Robin's ignores that does live up to this standard-Jay Alfred Nock and the America First tradition is explicitly anti-war-the practice of the majority of conservatives since Burke has to glorify in violence as an expression of sublimity even if that violence actually leads to a more mechanized view of power, which is essentially what the conservatives wanted to avoid.
This, however, brings me to my critique of the book: to maintain a consistent view of conservatism in both sections, Robins did have to ignore parts of the conservative tradition and include other thinkers who reactionary credentials are questionable. As I have already noted, Robins does not comment on the traditional anti-war conservatives in America nor does he mention the anti-war conservatives who opposed George W. Bush and their libertarian allies. Indeed, one of the largest anti-war sites was run by primarily be paleo-conservatives and libertarians such as Justin Riamondo. Ron Paul got his street-cred, however questionable you find it, by opposing the warfare state. Furthermore, following Paxton, Robin's sees fascism as essentially conservative and enlists George Sorel's as part of his argument on the decadence cycle and the relationship to violence. I find this misleading, even in his so-called proto-fascist stage, Sorel's was essentially advocating anarchistic syndicalism and his relationship to both Marxism and anarchism is important. Fascism, while I think was a means of maintaining a form of capitalism which functioned like mercantilism, has much more than just a tactical similarity to left-wing thought. While idiots like Jonah Goldberg like to equate liberalism and fascism for incredibly facile reasons, fascism was not merely a defense of the ancient regime. It was an attempt to be both progressive and conservative at once: to ape socialism and keep a ruling class, but also to fundamentally produce a new society not rooted in old privileges. Also, Robins ignores the admittedly hyper-majority of the new far right such as radical traditionalism because these thinkers are not merely defending past privilege like Burke or even Reagan. They truly are inverse utopians.
These flaws aside, Robin's book is still entirely worth engaging with and the overall thrust of his thesis is, in my opinion, correct. Conservatism may be on its death throw because it has nothing really to oppose: leftism has been thrown out of the sphere and is only reemerging from its own ashes, New Labor and Democratic Leadership committee has become the current traditionalism of the liberal establishment unable to do anything new but ape the right and empower the business class, and so the right has become decadent and overreaching. Robin's end note is one of hope rooted in conservative fears of the decline of their own movement in a lack of real opposition. Indeed the view idea of conservatism implies it: one must be on the defense to be interested in conserving something. This is obviously no longer the case in for most conservatives.
May 12, 2018
NOTE: I read the 2018 version of this and that's the one I highly recommend because he talks about Trump a lot.
This is the book that I've been waiting for to help fully explain this past election. I've read every post-election memoir and doomsday book and they've all left me cold (if not enraged). But in this brilliant book, Robin links Trump to Hobbs and Burke and Hayek and Bush and every other conservative counter-revolution. Granted, this book is not super flattering to conservatives, but I do think it accurately describes the conservative movement and its thought leaders. Everyone should read this book.
An added chapter I would have loved to see is what to do about it. I know that's not his job, but seriously, how to make people in power not feel threatened of their power? Or is that just a result of any leftward movement? The book made me both depressed and totally hopeful. The left can keep having big ideas and the right will keep reacting to them, but that doesn't mean the left is losing. Though the left is losing right now because we aren't really proposing the big ideas though I have a feeling that's already changing.
This is the book that I've been waiting for to help fully explain this past election. I've read every post-election memoir and doomsday book and they've all left me cold (if not enraged). But in this brilliant book, Robin links Trump to Hobbs and Burke and Hayek and Bush and every other conservative counter-revolution. Granted, this book is not super flattering to conservatives, but I do think it accurately describes the conservative movement and its thought leaders. Everyone should read this book.
An added chapter I would have loved to see is what to do about it. I know that's not his job, but seriously, how to make people in power not feel threatened of their power? Or is that just a result of any leftward movement? The book made me both depressed and totally hopeful. The left can keep having big ideas and the right will keep reacting to them, but that doesn't mean the left is losing. Though the left is losing right now because we aren't really proposing the big ideas though I have a feeling that's already changing.
May 10, 2018
Ικανοποιητική ανάλυση σχετικά με το mentalité και τη διαχρονικότητα του συντηρητικού φαντασιακού, με σαφή προτεραιότητα στον αγγλο-αμερικανικό "κορμό" του. Ξεκινώντας από την εποχή του προπάτορα E. Burke, περνώντας στον Friedrich Hayek, την περιβόητη (και παντελώς ατάλαντη btw) Ayn Rand, ως και τους ουραγούντες Neocons της εποχής μας, επιχειρείται η ανασκόπηση των βασικότερων ιδεών, ιδεοληψιών και πρακτικών του συντηρητικού ρεύματος της ιστορίας (με ευθαρσώς επικριτική διάθεση, δεδομένου πως ο συγγραφέας εμφορείται από τις ιδέες του αντίπαλου "στρατοπέδου").
Τώρα, για ποιους ακριβώς λόγους το ζήτημα αυτό θα έπρεπε να απασχολεί κάποιον/α, απάντηση δεν έχω. Μπορώ να μιλήσω μόνο για τον γράφοντα: Στην παρούσα -παθητικής ενατένισης, άρα σαφώς "συντηρητικής", σύμφωνα με τους ασαφείς ιδεολογικούς διαχωρισμούς που δίνουν προτεραιότητα στην πράξη- φάση της ζωής μου, οι λόγοι είναι αμιγώς εγκυκλοπαιδικής φύσης.
Εν τέλει, μιας και τα βιβλία του είδους ποτέ δεν καταλήγουν σε εκείνους που υποτίθεται πως απευθύνονται, η μεγάλη μάζα των ανθρώπων θα συνεχίσει να πιστεύει και να πράττει, όπως αυτή πιστεύει και πράττει - nunc et semper…
Τούτου δοθέντος, πρόκειται για ένα αρκετά ενδιαφέρον ανάγνωσμα.
Τώρα, για ποιους ακριβώς λόγους το ζήτημα αυτό θα έπρεπε να απασχολεί κάποιον/α, απάντηση δεν έχω. Μπορώ να μιλήσω μόνο για τον γράφοντα: Στην παρούσα -παθητικής ενατένισης, άρα σαφώς "συντηρητικής", σύμφωνα με τους ασαφείς ιδεολογικούς διαχωρισμούς που δίνουν προτεραιότητα στην πράξη- φάση της ζωής μου, οι λόγοι είναι αμιγώς εγκυκλοπαιδικής φύσης.
Εν τέλει, μιας και τα βιβλία του είδους ποτέ δεν καταλήγουν σε εκείνους που υποτίθεται πως απευθύνονται, η μεγάλη μάζα των ανθρώπων θα συνεχίσει να πιστεύει και να πράττει, όπως αυτή πιστεύει και πράττει - nunc et semper…
Τούτου δοθέντος, πρόκειται για ένα αρκετά ενδιαφέρον ανάγνωσμα.
February 17, 2013
Rather than serving up a historical overview of conservatism "From Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin", as the subtitle promises, author Corey Robin has produced a familiar, if unoriginal, polemic against the destructive impact of today's Republican party. The briefest of historical narratives is offered early on, providing the reader with a basic understanding of Burke and the French Revolution as a defining moment for conservatism as a political idea. But these topics are quickly dispensed with so that the author may devote large sections to what has become a familiar laundry-list of liberal criticisms against the Republican party:
* the terrible human cost of the Cold War, including a detailed exposition on the hot wars in Latin America
* an out-of-place discourse on Ayn Rand, whose place in the conservative pantheon is grossly overrated
* a random takedown of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia
* the political use of 9/11 as a means for the right to establish a global American empire
One senses that Robin really wanted to write a series of articles critical of the Republican party from 1968 onward. But in doing so, he misleads the reader who waits, patiently for a true historical account of conservatism's origins to occur. Much better accounts of modern Republican politics exist for those who wish to read them.
* the terrible human cost of the Cold War, including a detailed exposition on the hot wars in Latin America
* an out-of-place discourse on Ayn Rand, whose place in the conservative pantheon is grossly overrated
* a random takedown of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia
* the political use of 9/11 as a means for the right to establish a global American empire
One senses that Robin really wanted to write a series of articles critical of the Republican party from 1968 onward. But in doing so, he misleads the reader who waits, patiently for a true historical account of conservatism's origins to occur. Much better accounts of modern Republican politics exist for those who wish to read them.
December 17, 2011
The Republican primaries were the perfect time to read about this. I love political theory, but it's rare to see a scholar really dig deeply into conservative intellectual thought, especially as far back as the French Revolution. This might be the first time I felt the subject was adequately explored. It reads as a series of essays that fall into one of two parts - the first emphasizing the role of the conservative as a counterrevolutionary, the second about the importance of violence in the ideology's canon. Corey Robin never gets overly theoretical while digging so deeply into the writings of Burke or Maistre, always able to connect these issues to concrete movements and events.
March 11, 2012
The ambitious premise is to try to define/understand conservatism through time and space. The author logically explores various popular assumptions about conservatism (it's about following rules, traditions, etc.) and explains why they are false. He makes a good case for his use of the word "reactionary" as a frame.
This is a collection of essays but they are connected enough that the whole thing works as a book. Robin is not a conservative but his points are based on quoting famous conservatives directly, so it seems like a fair treatment, though I'm not familiar with the work of the historical thinkers he's quoting and so can't verify his accuracy.
Personally, I would like to see our leadership move beyond conservatism/liberalism to competence and integrity. While waiting for that faraway future, a book like this is useful for understanding the past and present. That's the first step for moving forward.
This is a collection of essays but they are connected enough that the whole thing works as a book. Robin is not a conservative but his points are based on quoting famous conservatives directly, so it seems like a fair treatment, though I'm not familiar with the work of the historical thinkers he's quoting and so can't verify his accuracy.
Personally, I would like to see our leadership move beyond conservatism/liberalism to competence and integrity. While waiting for that faraway future, a book like this is useful for understanding the past and present. That's the first step for moving forward.
November 14, 2011
A fascinating journey into the mind of darkness. The author ties together conservative strains of thought that, on the surface, may appear dissonent, but when you unpack the history and logic, make perfect "sense." If you want to get a better understanding of how the modern American conservative "thinks," this is a must-read book.
February 20, 2012
At the close of The Deepening Darkness: Patriarchy, Resistance, and Democracy's Future by Carol Gilligan and David A.J. Richards, another five-star book, the authors ask why patriarchal men are so fearful of meeting females on equal footing. Corey Robin, in The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin, has the answer.
Without hierarchy, they would not exist. Without some external measure of their supposed superiority, they are nothing. Without someone to stand upon, they haven't the ability to stand upright.
In a masterful introduction that lays out his case, Robin cuts through the many logical inconsistencies of modern conservatism (small government boosters who want to legislate each centimeter of intrusion into women's bodies, etc., into infinity) to get to the heart of the matter. Conservatives must have, above all else, a hierarchy. A contest, with winners and losers. Some way to measure and prove that they are better, stronger, smarter, more than The Other. Than you.
Where liberals look at human existence and see community--a family of man--conservatives look at humanity and see a contest. There are no internal measures of self-esteem in the conservative mindset, only externals. Money. Body counts. Notches on the bedpost. Numbers of people fired.
This is also the same sort of divide between empaths and sociopaths. And if the score can be increased by ruthless brutality and violence for its own sake, more's the better.
In a series of essays and articles written over a decade, Robin considers everything from Edmund Burke's railings against the French Revolution to the selfish hypocrisy of Ayn Rand. And with a conclusion that (much like Thomas Franks' recent Pity the Billionaire) freely acknowledges the crushing victories of the modern conservative, the only mystery remaining is what these control freaks will do once they've brought the country to inevitable ruin.
If you have ever wondered what makes these people tick, herein lies the most logical answer I have found.
Without hierarchy, they would not exist. Without some external measure of their supposed superiority, they are nothing. Without someone to stand upon, they haven't the ability to stand upright.
In a masterful introduction that lays out his case, Robin cuts through the many logical inconsistencies of modern conservatism (small government boosters who want to legislate each centimeter of intrusion into women's bodies, etc., into infinity) to get to the heart of the matter. Conservatives must have, above all else, a hierarchy. A contest, with winners and losers. Some way to measure and prove that they are better, stronger, smarter, more than The Other. Than you.
Where liberals look at human existence and see community--a family of man--conservatives look at humanity and see a contest. There are no internal measures of self-esteem in the conservative mindset, only externals. Money. Body counts. Notches on the bedpost. Numbers of people fired.
This is also the same sort of divide between empaths and sociopaths. And if the score can be increased by ruthless brutality and violence for its own sake, more's the better.
In a series of essays and articles written over a decade, Robin considers everything from Edmund Burke's railings against the French Revolution to the selfish hypocrisy of Ayn Rand. And with a conclusion that (much like Thomas Franks' recent Pity the Billionaire) freely acknowledges the crushing victories of the modern conservative, the only mystery remaining is what these control freaks will do once they've brought the country to inevitable ruin.
If you have ever wondered what makes these people tick, herein lies the most logical answer I have found.
April 15, 2022
Books like this one do us a great disservice. The conservative movement as captured by the psychotic narcissist Trump who speaks for the MAGA hat morons just says the crazy parts out loud and they love him all the more because they hate the same people.
There is no firm foundation behind today’s conservatives who overwhelming support Trump, and there is no mystery to what they believe in. They hate the same people and fairness is anathema to their core beliefs. For them Know thy Place is their watchword and for all who aren’t them it does not include a place at their table.
The Republican (conservative) leadership had been selling a pack of lies and unleashed a demon because they and their supporters are the demons and Trump is them and they are Trump. The myth of a conservative firm foundation is just a myth.
This book skirts at the edges of the fascism that is Trump but it still thinks there are sane conservatives and there have been sane conservatives and there is a rich tradition that modern conservatives can read about. I’ve got news for you, the party of Trump is full of racist, homophobes, Masculine loving, god-fearing righteous folks who have found their soul-mate within Trump because that is who they are.
Stuart Spencer’s It was all a lie gets at the rot that is the conservative movement. Robin’s book does not. Thomas Mann’s Mario the Magician where the people were magically swayed by a Mussolini Svengali is a myth, the people create the demon because they are the demon; Mann’s book Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man captures who the MAGA hat morons are today and who they want to be, and sadly who Mann was in 1920.
Ayn Rand’s political essays are a hoot, and they capture the rot of a wannabe fascist frustrated with democracy better than Corey Robin acknowledges. Rand made up the fact that ‘hippies’ don’t take showers and stink fundamental to her imaginary world view. That is metaphorically how MAGA hate moron’s think about the world. If you aren’t part of their hateful group, you must stink.
Books like this one have made us drop our guard by making us believe that conservatives have a real belief system beyond the hate that Trump espouses. He is a psychotic narcissist and that makes the MAGA hat morons like him all the more because they hate the same people and he says how they feel out loud.
Trump’s lies, inconsistencies and incoherence only make him shine more in their world because they also are deplorable human beings who would rather believe his myths: that Vaccines don’t work, Trump won the election, climate change is a Chinese hoax, Florida teachers are ‘grooming’ your children, Tom Hanks leads a pedophilia ring, chattel slavery never existed in America and Robert E. Lee was fighting a noble cause and Gone With the Wind is the greatest movie ever made, and Russia is brilliant when they attacked the Ukraine.
As long as we are fed the myth of reasonable conservatives existing, we are at risk of losing America to the Trump Fascist, and books like this one are a danger to our democracy. Just watch one hour of Fox News and you will see the crazy on display.
There is no firm foundation behind today’s conservatives who overwhelming support Trump, and there is no mystery to what they believe in. They hate the same people and fairness is anathema to their core beliefs. For them Know thy Place is their watchword and for all who aren’t them it does not include a place at their table.
The Republican (conservative) leadership had been selling a pack of lies and unleashed a demon because they and their supporters are the demons and Trump is them and they are Trump. The myth of a conservative firm foundation is just a myth.
This book skirts at the edges of the fascism that is Trump but it still thinks there are sane conservatives and there have been sane conservatives and there is a rich tradition that modern conservatives can read about. I’ve got news for you, the party of Trump is full of racist, homophobes, Masculine loving, god-fearing righteous folks who have found their soul-mate within Trump because that is who they are.
Stuart Spencer’s It was all a lie gets at the rot that is the conservative movement. Robin’s book does not. Thomas Mann’s Mario the Magician where the people were magically swayed by a Mussolini Svengali is a myth, the people create the demon because they are the demon; Mann’s book Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man captures who the MAGA hat morons are today and who they want to be, and sadly who Mann was in 1920.
Ayn Rand’s political essays are a hoot, and they capture the rot of a wannabe fascist frustrated with democracy better than Corey Robin acknowledges. Rand made up the fact that ‘hippies’ don’t take showers and stink fundamental to her imaginary world view. That is metaphorically how MAGA hate moron’s think about the world. If you aren’t part of their hateful group, you must stink.
Books like this one have made us drop our guard by making us believe that conservatives have a real belief system beyond the hate that Trump espouses. He is a psychotic narcissist and that makes the MAGA hat morons like him all the more because they hate the same people and he says how they feel out loud.
Trump’s lies, inconsistencies and incoherence only make him shine more in their world because they also are deplorable human beings who would rather believe his myths: that Vaccines don’t work, Trump won the election, climate change is a Chinese hoax, Florida teachers are ‘grooming’ your children, Tom Hanks leads a pedophilia ring, chattel slavery never existed in America and Robert E. Lee was fighting a noble cause and Gone With the Wind is the greatest movie ever made, and Russia is brilliant when they attacked the Ukraine.
As long as we are fed the myth of reasonable conservatives existing, we are at risk of losing America to the Trump Fascist, and books like this one are a danger to our democracy. Just watch one hour of Fox News and you will see the crazy on display.
February 21, 2012
I bought this book on the recommendation of Chris Hayes from his MSNBC show Up With Chris when he invited Corey Robin and introduced him as someone who had written one of Chris' favorite books of the year.
Before I started to read it there was an article in the NYTimes (1/19/12) "Online Fracas For a Critic of the Right" with links to two book reviews - NY Times Book Review and NYRB. So I had conflicting opinions about the book before I opened it.
Well, I agree with Hayes and think the 2 reviewers were sorry that Robin hadn't written a book they way they would have. Sheri Berman (NY Times 10/7/11). A book documenting the wreckage (sorry state of contemporary American politics) and carefully tracking the links between right-wing ideas, policies and outcomes.... Unfortunately [this] is not that book." So?
The NYRB review more reasonably takes issue with the arguments of the book. But in the end I didn't agree.
For one thing, the book is mostly a collection of reviews Robin has written in The Nation, the London Review of Books, et al from about 2001 to 2010. So it is relevant to but decidedly not about the 2011-2012 election cycle.
Overall, the arguments are complex and bear following closely.
First sentence of the Introduction, p3, "Since the modern era began, men and women in subordinate positions have marched against their superiors in the state, church, workplace, and other hierarchical institutions."
From the Conclusion, pp 246-48, "Conservatism has dominated American politics for the past forty years. Just as the Republican administrations of Eisenhower and Nixon demonstrated the resilience of the New Deal, so have the administrations of Clinton and Obama demonstrated the resilience of Reaganism....The success of the right is not an unmixed blessing....Several recent books of conservative introspection suggest that many on the right are indeed concerned about the state of conservative ideas. But most of these attempts at self-criticism seem motivated by a simple fear of defeat at the polls...[But] Conservatism requires defeat; failure is its most potent source of inspiration."
That sums it up.
Before I started to read it there was an article in the NYTimes (1/19/12) "Online Fracas For a Critic of the Right" with links to two book reviews - NY Times Book Review and NYRB. So I had conflicting opinions about the book before I opened it.
Well, I agree with Hayes and think the 2 reviewers were sorry that Robin hadn't written a book they way they would have. Sheri Berman (NY Times 10/7/11). A book documenting the wreckage (sorry state of contemporary American politics) and carefully tracking the links between right-wing ideas, policies and outcomes.... Unfortunately [this] is not that book." So?
The NYRB review more reasonably takes issue with the arguments of the book. But in the end I didn't agree.
For one thing, the book is mostly a collection of reviews Robin has written in The Nation, the London Review of Books, et al from about 2001 to 2010. So it is relevant to but decidedly not about the 2011-2012 election cycle.
Overall, the arguments are complex and bear following closely.
First sentence of the Introduction, p3, "Since the modern era began, men and women in subordinate positions have marched against their superiors in the state, church, workplace, and other hierarchical institutions."
From the Conclusion, pp 246-48, "Conservatism has dominated American politics for the past forty years. Just as the Republican administrations of Eisenhower and Nixon demonstrated the resilience of the New Deal, so have the administrations of Clinton and Obama demonstrated the resilience of Reaganism....The success of the right is not an unmixed blessing....Several recent books of conservative introspection suggest that many on the right are indeed concerned about the state of conservative ideas. But most of these attempts at self-criticism seem motivated by a simple fear of defeat at the polls...[But] Conservatism requires defeat; failure is its most potent source of inspiration."
That sums it up.
January 29, 2013
Interesting, but falls down in that it's a collection of disconnected essays with only a somewhat loose theme connecting them - contrary to what the book's description would lead you to believe. The book is most interesting as a brief survey of conservative thought historically. When it talks about the past decade it doesn't really connect the ideas about conservative thought that he's developed with modern movements. The introduction is really a pretty good summary of the whole book and probably the best part. I did enjoy the book as a whole but I wish it delivered more of what the title and description suggest.
August 18, 2017
Connor Kilpatrick's review for the eXiled says it better than I can:
Robin’s thesis is simple: ignore the Right-wing taxonomy. Conservatism–despite the seemingly incompatible respective ideologies of free-marketeers, slavers, neocons, neofascists, Buckleys, Federalists, Bloombergians, traditionalists, Tea Baggers, Randians, McCarthyists, libertarians, Birchers, Goldbugs, Jesus Freaks, J .Edgars, pro-lifers—has been, in reality, firmly united behind a single mission since the French Revolution: the creation of new regimes of privilege and domination in the face of democratic threats.
http://exiledonline.com/conscience-of...
Robin’s thesis is simple: ignore the Right-wing taxonomy. Conservatism–despite the seemingly incompatible respective ideologies of free-marketeers, slavers, neocons, neofascists, Buckleys, Federalists, Bloombergians, traditionalists, Tea Baggers, Randians, McCarthyists, libertarians, Birchers, Goldbugs, Jesus Freaks, J .Edgars, pro-lifers—has been, in reality, firmly united behind a single mission since the French Revolution: the creation of new regimes of privilege and domination in the face of democratic threats.
http://exiledonline.com/conscience-of...
October 20, 2017
Rubin is at his best when he's gleefully shitting on other people. The chapter on Ayn Rand, titled "Garbage and Gravitas," is particularly fun. The Scalia chapter is a good read too. Other than that, I don't feel like I got a whole lot out of this book.
I wonder if this book is trying to do too much. It's cultural criticism and biography and intellectual history all at once. I don't feel like it's especially innovative in any of these areas. Maybe I'm just misunderstanding its essential project? But for the record -- no misunderstanding here -- Nietzsche was definitely anti-fascist and pro-fun. I suspect Burke was more interesting than Rubin gives him credit for too.
I wonder if this book is trying to do too much. It's cultural criticism and biography and intellectual history all at once. I don't feel like it's especially innovative in any of these areas. Maybe I'm just misunderstanding its essential project? But for the record -- no misunderstanding here -- Nietzsche was definitely anti-fascist and pro-fun. I suspect Burke was more interesting than Rubin gives him credit for too.
April 16, 2014
This is the epitome of how unfairly liberals mis-characterize and misrepresent conservatives' motives and arguments. The Tea Party is the single-most important movement that has arisen in America, but the author is quick to dismiss them as "counter-revolutionaries" bent to deny "freedom to all" and defend their "privilege."
I could go further but the scathing reviews published in The New York Times and The New York Book Reviews do a pretty good job.
I could go further but the scathing reviews published in The New York Times and The New York Book Reviews do a pretty good job.
January 16, 2016
Lucid, sobering, impressively learned and, rarest of all, EARNS and rigorously supports every last shred of its counter-intuitiveness (it's not merely contrarian in the manner of op-ed poseurs; there are real stakes Robin takes seriously enough to patiently and forbearingly develop and account for his ideas and arguments, rather than merely declaim or opine). Offers all the pleasurable discomfort of fresh, new, expansive thoughts.
Read
August 1, 2019A striking and incisive analysis of conservatism that could do with more elaboration than a decade-spanning collection of essays.
UPDATE:
The Second Edition improves on the first, expanding on conservatism’s relationship with capitalism via essays on Burke as von Mises avant la lettre, the Neitszchean dimensions of Hayek and Ayn Rand’s metaphysical kitsch.
UPDATE:
The Second Edition improves on the first, expanding on conservatism’s relationship with capitalism via essays on Burke as von Mises avant la lettre, the Neitszchean dimensions of Hayek and Ayn Rand’s metaphysical kitsch.
January 19, 2023
“Conservatism is about power besieged and power protected. It is an activist doctrine for an activist time. It waxes in response to movements from below and wanes in response to their disappearance” (p. 52)
The problem facing modern American conservatism is that it defeated all of its enemies. Communists, social liberation movements of the 1960s, New Dealers, and others were all handled and defeated by the 1980s. While reactionary movements might spawn and dissipate rapidly, they really have no real goals left to attain. This is exemplified in Trump, who once elected really accomplished no real goals promised to his constituents and did nothing radically different than what even Obama did in power. Even the January 6th riots were just that: a short dissipation of rage without any real goals or objectives.
At its heart, conservatism is the “felt experience of having power, seeing it threatened, and trying to win it back.” (P. 27). It is an “animus against the agency of the subordinate classes” (p. 30) When the subordinate peoples and classes of the world try to contest their subordination this angers their superiors. The superiors love freedom for themselves, but see any extension of this freedom to the lower classes as a loss of their own freedom. If people are provided with the resources to make their own choices, whether this be a worker in a factory or a woman in her own home, they will be more free to disobey their employer or husband. The conservative identifies and defines itself by their power over others; any attack on this power is therefore an intimate attack on the conservative themself. “The conservative may or may not be directly involved in or benefit from the practices of rule he defends; many… are not - the conservative position stems from a genuine conviction that a world thus emancipated will be ugly, brutish, base, and dull. It will lack the excellence of a world where the better man commands the worse.” (P. 39). And who is this “better man”? He is a warrior; one who has either proved himself through conquest on the battlefield or in the marketplace.
“Historically, the conservative has sought to forestall the march of democracy in both the public and the private spheres, on the assumption that advances in the one necessarily spur advances in the other.” (p. 38) The reaction to this is based off the assumption that some are fit to rule others, while the rest are fit to serve those who rule. What distinguishes conservatism from traditionalism, which is the tendency to stay attached to already formed habits like buying the same clothing brand, is that “conservatism is a deliberate, conscious effort to preserve… forms of experience which can no longer be had in an authentic way.” (p. 46). Conservatism only becomes conscious when new ways of life/being appear on the scene to challenge the conservative’s ‘natural order/hierarchy of the world’. The conservative fights for things precisely because “they are being - or have been - taken away.” (p. 46).
It is not simply that the conservative wishes to “conserve” the existing social hierarchy. The conservatives, much like their American incarnation in the 1960s, are inherently radical. “The conservative not only opposes the left; he also believes the left has been in the driver’s seat since, depending on who’s counting, the French Revolution or the Reformation.” (p. 48). The damages of the left must be rolled back and a war must be declared against the culture that the supposed empowered left has created.
As a reaction to certain emancipation movements at a certain time in a certain space, each and every conservative reaction will bear specific traces of the very movements it opposes. The right not only reacts against the left, but also borrows strategies, ideas, and tactics from the left as well. “As the movements of the left change - from the French Revolution to abortion to the right to vote to the right to organize to the Bolshevik revolution… so too do the reactions of the right”. (p. 52)
Conservatism was originally born as a backlash and reaction to the French Revolution. It had two major components that are often little understood: it both critiqued the old regime for its inadequacies and also borrowed the ideas and tactics from the very revolution it opposed. Both of these elements of reaction constitute a major element of conservatism. The French Revolution’s two major reactionary thinkers, Burke and Maistre, both heavily criticized the ancien regime; they believed the greatest enemy of the old regime was, in fact, “the old regime itself or… the defenders of the old regime. They (lacked) the ideological wherewithal to press the cause of the old regime with the requisite vigor, clarity, and purpose.” (p. 65). Conservatives often believe the regime of the old order has grown fat and complacent, and therefore it has withered away its political muscle and willpower. While they despise the inept weakness of the old regimes, conservatives often learn strategies and tactics from their left wing enemies. “Sometimes, their studies are self-conscious and strategic, as the look to the left for ways to bend new vernaculars, or new media, to their aims” (p. 70). An example of this would be Nixon’s southern strategy, where, as Republican strategist Lee Atwater pointed out, in the 1950s the political strategy was to be as openly racist as possible. By 1968 this was not socially acceptable, so instead you use coded, more abstract terms like “states rights” and “school busing” to push the same message: that “blacks get hurt worse than whites.” (p. 71). Sometimes this results in the unintentional education of the conservative. They spend so much time engaging with left wing arguments and disguising their intentions through language that “the disguise has seeped into and transformed the intention.” (p. 72).
From studying their revolutionary opponents conservatives harness and improve their abilities as populists. They find ways to win over the masses and harness their political energy in order to reinforce or restore the power of the elites. What section of the masses does the conservative most appeal to? It is those who feel like they have lost something: the dispossessed. Conservatism takes their loss and “threads the strands of that experience into an ideology promising that that loss, or at least some portion of it, can be made whole… it may be a landed estate or the privileges of white skin… as material as money or as ethereal as a sense of standing… even so, it is a loss, and nothing is ever so cherished as that which we no longer possess.” (p. 79).
According to the father of Conservatism, Edmund Burke, the conservative craves power which is both terrifying and awe inspiring; sublime power, a “delightful horror”. This can be found in hierarchy, but also in violence. Most sublime of all is when violence is used to reinforce hierarchy. But the conservative should keep at a distance from the violence. “Distance and obscurity enhance sublimity; nearness and illumination diminish it.” (p. 84). Life and health are pleasurable, and pleasure makes us weak and susceptible to becoming a complacent, easily toppled regime. Pain, danger, and death are elicitors of the strongest, most sublime emotions. Therefore pain and danger are “generative experiences of the self” (p. 88). Social hierarchies allow people, excluded those on the very top and very bottom, to both experience that pain of being dominated by those above while also administering pain to someone on the lower rung of the hierarchy.
A counterrevolutionary conservative always faces the same issue: how do they defend an old regime that has been or is being destroyed? To try and use the ideological “truths” that once held up the regime is no longer viable, as many of these truths helped get the regime into trouble in the first place. New “truths” must be invented. An example of this can be seen in the works of the original great counterrevolutionary thinker Thomas Hobbes. During the English civil war of the 1640s Hobbes vehemently defended the monarchy over the democratic ideals of the ‘democraticals’. He took the ideas of freedom championed by the democraticals and turned it on its head, thus creating counterrevolutionary ideology out of revolution itself. In his work “Leviathan” Hobbes explains that freedoms include “the Liberty to buy, and sell, and otherwise contact with one another; to choose their own aboad, their own diet, their own trade of life” so that “To whatever degree the sovereign can guarantee the freedom of movement, the ability to go about our business without hinderance of other men, we are free. Submission to his power, in other words, augments our freedom. The more absolute our submission, the more powerful he is and the freer we are. Subjugation is emancipation.” (p. 126)
We can see the seeds today's dominant neoliberal ideology being conjured as early as in the writings of Burke. Burke rejects the labor theory of value, claiming: “the value of money must be judged like everything else, from its rate at market.” (p. 139). The market doesn’t just settle values, it makes them. Capital is the “thinking and presiding principle to the labourer” (p. 149) and therefore “Labor needs a principle of reason to guide it; that principle is to be found in capital. It is thus critical that the hierarchy between capital and labor be maintained” (p. 150). The Austrian school of economics, the true brains behind many of the ‘theories’ underpinning neoliberalism, built upon this elitist view of value, the market, and labor. Friedrich Hayek, in his writing “The Constitution of Liberty”, developed a top-down view of economics. Instead of a market of consumers dictating what the producers would make, it was the wealthy that determined the tastes of the masses and the culture resulting from this. “The working stiff is a being of limited horizons. Unlike the employer… (who is) dedicated to “shaping and reshaping the plan of life”, while the worker’s orientation is “largely a matter of fitting himself into a given framework.”” (p. 183). To Hayek the freedom of these elite trend-setters is more useful than the freedom of the masses. “We may never know what serendipity of knowledge and know-how will produce the best results… will yield the greatest advance. For that reason, individuals - all individuals - must be free to pursue their ends, to exploit the wisdom of others for their own purposes…What is important is not what freedom I personally would like to exercise but what freedom some person may need in order to do things beneficial to society.” (p. 181-182). Great wealth allows one to see above the horizon in a way the working man can not, and therefore it is imperative for progress that the men of great wealth have the freedom to pursue their goals and therefore further progress society. All men may have the same freedoms, but only those of the ruling class have the means at their disposal to fully make use of those freedoms. With great wealth also comes the freedom to pursue other goals than obtaining money. The wealthy are “cultural legislators” who “liberated from the workplace and the rat race, the “idle rich”… can devote themselves to patronizing the arts, subsidizing worthy causes like abolition or penal reform, founding new philanthropies and cultural institutions.” ( p. 185). To Hayek those born of wealth are “beneficiaries of higher culture and nobler values that have been transmitted across generations” (p. 185) and therefore should be given any freedoms necessary, including the right to pass their fortunes on to their children for generations, so that they may push society in a better direction. Otherwise we risk living in a “seriously lacking” society “in which all the intellectual, moral, and artistic leaders belong to the employed classes” (p. 185).
Ayn Rand, the pseudointellectual right-wing hack, helped bring the hyperindividualistic elitism of the Austrian school into the cultural mainstream. Von Mises heaped copious praise upon her seminal work, “Atlas Shrugged”, saying: “you have the courage to tell the masses what no politician told them: you are inferior and all the improvements… which you take for granted you owe to the effort of men better than you.” (p. 206). Beloved by the Hollywood elite and the average conservative alike, Rand’s works still sell massively today, yet her ideology is essentially akin to fascism. Rand justified capitalism as both rational and fair because “men prosper or fail, survive or perish in proportion to the degree of their rationality… It is the basic, metaphysical fact of man’s nature- the connection between survival and his use of reason- that capitalism recognizes and protects… the exceptional men” (p. 203) much in the same way that Hitler justified private property: “people are not of equal value or ethical importance… (private property) can be moral and justified only if we admit men’s achievements are different” (p. 204). This social Darwinism which connects Rand and the Nazis runs strong, as both use it to justify the hierarchical nature of private property as a moral necessity. To Rand, “exceptional minorities” lift up all of society very much in the same way that Hayek claimed an intellectual elite dictated production and culture, or like how Hitler claimed that all achievements can be “solely attributed to the importance of personality… All the worldly goods we possess we owe to the struggle of a select few.” (p. 203).
So now we come to the heir of all these reactionary movements and intellectuals: Donald Trump. Like the right of old Trump sneers at convention, norms, and rules as part of his appeal. He refuses to be constrained by ‘political correctness’. His racism is nastier than his recent predecessors; no longer is the right content with mere dog whistles, Trump has amplified nativist resentment and laser focused it on Muslims and Mexicans. Where “conservatism is an elitist movement of the masses, an effort to create a new-old regime that, in one way or another, makes privilege popular” (p. 266) Trump signifies that the white right is no longer content with their racial and imperial privileges. Although the right has crushed many of the gains of the civil rights movement “African Americans in the South attend (schools) today that are more segregated than they were under Richard Nixon; the racial wealth gap has tripled since 1984; and… voting rights for African Americans are under attack” (p. 266) these victories no longer satiate the right. The combination of neoliberalism's ills (stagnant wages, rising debt, increasing precariousness) combined with the symbolism of a black president has exacerbated the right’s anxieties and led to Trump. Rhetorically Trump has turned his back on Reagan and Reaganomics; instead of “morning in America” Trump says we are “mourning in America”. Yet, economically and political, Trump has neither accomplished or even marginally pushed forward any goals of a new economic system or political order. While there are strings of weak emancipatory movements (Occupy Wallstreet, BLM, Bernie, LGBTQ campaigns) none of them are strong or organized enough to discipline the right into more coherence. “Without a formidable enemy on the left, without an opponent to discipline and tutor the right, the long-standing fissures of the conservative movement are allowed to deepen and expand.” (p. 268). Like all right wingers Trump is a social Darwinist who believes that economic life is a struggle for power, where the best men win and the weak men lose. To Trump the victory of “the deal” is both his all consuming source of libidinal pleasure and “an unexpected sigh of emptiness, even boredom” where Trump states “if you ask me exactly what the deals… all add up to in the end, I’m not sure I have a very good answer” (p. 278). In fact, trump has no answer at all. He sees through the veneer and falsity of capitalism. He breaks the rule and says the quiet part out loud: it’s all a gamble, and there is no difference between luck at a casino and success on the stock market. The only true goal is habitual, constantly depleting hedonistic pleasure. The core at the center is emptiness and endless accumulation. While often called a fascist, Trump does not fit the mold. Where previous political leaders like Nixon used anger as a political tool, without a viable enemy Trump’s rage just comes across as the narcissistic “ranting and raving of an old man.” (p. 293). Fascism was an invigorating movement spurred by the youth. It was original and harnessed the energy of a young political base to fight off a genuinely powerful left. The MAGA movement is a movement of old, unoriginal boomers screaming at the emptiness of a system they have no real desire to reconstruct, whose only real enemy resides in their minds.
The problem facing modern American conservatism is that it defeated all of its enemies. Communists, social liberation movements of the 1960s, New Dealers, and others were all handled and defeated by the 1980s. While reactionary movements might spawn and dissipate rapidly, they really have no real goals left to attain. This is exemplified in Trump, who once elected really accomplished no real goals promised to his constituents and did nothing radically different than what even Obama did in power. Even the January 6th riots were just that: a short dissipation of rage without any real goals or objectives.
At its heart, conservatism is the “felt experience of having power, seeing it threatened, and trying to win it back.” (P. 27). It is an “animus against the agency of the subordinate classes” (p. 30) When the subordinate peoples and classes of the world try to contest their subordination this angers their superiors. The superiors love freedom for themselves, but see any extension of this freedom to the lower classes as a loss of their own freedom. If people are provided with the resources to make their own choices, whether this be a worker in a factory or a woman in her own home, they will be more free to disobey their employer or husband. The conservative identifies and defines itself by their power over others; any attack on this power is therefore an intimate attack on the conservative themself. “The conservative may or may not be directly involved in or benefit from the practices of rule he defends; many… are not - the conservative position stems from a genuine conviction that a world thus emancipated will be ugly, brutish, base, and dull. It will lack the excellence of a world where the better man commands the worse.” (P. 39). And who is this “better man”? He is a warrior; one who has either proved himself through conquest on the battlefield or in the marketplace.
“Historically, the conservative has sought to forestall the march of democracy in both the public and the private spheres, on the assumption that advances in the one necessarily spur advances in the other.” (p. 38) The reaction to this is based off the assumption that some are fit to rule others, while the rest are fit to serve those who rule. What distinguishes conservatism from traditionalism, which is the tendency to stay attached to already formed habits like buying the same clothing brand, is that “conservatism is a deliberate, conscious effort to preserve… forms of experience which can no longer be had in an authentic way.” (p. 46). Conservatism only becomes conscious when new ways of life/being appear on the scene to challenge the conservative’s ‘natural order/hierarchy of the world’. The conservative fights for things precisely because “they are being - or have been - taken away.” (p. 46).
It is not simply that the conservative wishes to “conserve” the existing social hierarchy. The conservatives, much like their American incarnation in the 1960s, are inherently radical. “The conservative not only opposes the left; he also believes the left has been in the driver’s seat since, depending on who’s counting, the French Revolution or the Reformation.” (p. 48). The damages of the left must be rolled back and a war must be declared against the culture that the supposed empowered left has created.
As a reaction to certain emancipation movements at a certain time in a certain space, each and every conservative reaction will bear specific traces of the very movements it opposes. The right not only reacts against the left, but also borrows strategies, ideas, and tactics from the left as well. “As the movements of the left change - from the French Revolution to abortion to the right to vote to the right to organize to the Bolshevik revolution… so too do the reactions of the right”. (p. 52)
Conservatism was originally born as a backlash and reaction to the French Revolution. It had two major components that are often little understood: it both critiqued the old regime for its inadequacies and also borrowed the ideas and tactics from the very revolution it opposed. Both of these elements of reaction constitute a major element of conservatism. The French Revolution’s two major reactionary thinkers, Burke and Maistre, both heavily criticized the ancien regime; they believed the greatest enemy of the old regime was, in fact, “the old regime itself or… the defenders of the old regime. They (lacked) the ideological wherewithal to press the cause of the old regime with the requisite vigor, clarity, and purpose.” (p. 65). Conservatives often believe the regime of the old order has grown fat and complacent, and therefore it has withered away its political muscle and willpower. While they despise the inept weakness of the old regimes, conservatives often learn strategies and tactics from their left wing enemies. “Sometimes, their studies are self-conscious and strategic, as the look to the left for ways to bend new vernaculars, or new media, to their aims” (p. 70). An example of this would be Nixon’s southern strategy, where, as Republican strategist Lee Atwater pointed out, in the 1950s the political strategy was to be as openly racist as possible. By 1968 this was not socially acceptable, so instead you use coded, more abstract terms like “states rights” and “school busing” to push the same message: that “blacks get hurt worse than whites.” (p. 71). Sometimes this results in the unintentional education of the conservative. They spend so much time engaging with left wing arguments and disguising their intentions through language that “the disguise has seeped into and transformed the intention.” (p. 72).
From studying their revolutionary opponents conservatives harness and improve their abilities as populists. They find ways to win over the masses and harness their political energy in order to reinforce or restore the power of the elites. What section of the masses does the conservative most appeal to? It is those who feel like they have lost something: the dispossessed. Conservatism takes their loss and “threads the strands of that experience into an ideology promising that that loss, or at least some portion of it, can be made whole… it may be a landed estate or the privileges of white skin… as material as money or as ethereal as a sense of standing… even so, it is a loss, and nothing is ever so cherished as that which we no longer possess.” (p. 79).
According to the father of Conservatism, Edmund Burke, the conservative craves power which is both terrifying and awe inspiring; sublime power, a “delightful horror”. This can be found in hierarchy, but also in violence. Most sublime of all is when violence is used to reinforce hierarchy. But the conservative should keep at a distance from the violence. “Distance and obscurity enhance sublimity; nearness and illumination diminish it.” (p. 84). Life and health are pleasurable, and pleasure makes us weak and susceptible to becoming a complacent, easily toppled regime. Pain, danger, and death are elicitors of the strongest, most sublime emotions. Therefore pain and danger are “generative experiences of the self” (p. 88). Social hierarchies allow people, excluded those on the very top and very bottom, to both experience that pain of being dominated by those above while also administering pain to someone on the lower rung of the hierarchy.
A counterrevolutionary conservative always faces the same issue: how do they defend an old regime that has been or is being destroyed? To try and use the ideological “truths” that once held up the regime is no longer viable, as many of these truths helped get the regime into trouble in the first place. New “truths” must be invented. An example of this can be seen in the works of the original great counterrevolutionary thinker Thomas Hobbes. During the English civil war of the 1640s Hobbes vehemently defended the monarchy over the democratic ideals of the ‘democraticals’. He took the ideas of freedom championed by the democraticals and turned it on its head, thus creating counterrevolutionary ideology out of revolution itself. In his work “Leviathan” Hobbes explains that freedoms include “the Liberty to buy, and sell, and otherwise contact with one another; to choose their own aboad, their own diet, their own trade of life” so that “To whatever degree the sovereign can guarantee the freedom of movement, the ability to go about our business without hinderance of other men, we are free. Submission to his power, in other words, augments our freedom. The more absolute our submission, the more powerful he is and the freer we are. Subjugation is emancipation.” (p. 126)
We can see the seeds today's dominant neoliberal ideology being conjured as early as in the writings of Burke. Burke rejects the labor theory of value, claiming: “the value of money must be judged like everything else, from its rate at market.” (p. 139). The market doesn’t just settle values, it makes them. Capital is the “thinking and presiding principle to the labourer” (p. 149) and therefore “Labor needs a principle of reason to guide it; that principle is to be found in capital. It is thus critical that the hierarchy between capital and labor be maintained” (p. 150). The Austrian school of economics, the true brains behind many of the ‘theories’ underpinning neoliberalism, built upon this elitist view of value, the market, and labor. Friedrich Hayek, in his writing “The Constitution of Liberty”, developed a top-down view of economics. Instead of a market of consumers dictating what the producers would make, it was the wealthy that determined the tastes of the masses and the culture resulting from this. “The working stiff is a being of limited horizons. Unlike the employer… (who is) dedicated to “shaping and reshaping the plan of life”, while the worker’s orientation is “largely a matter of fitting himself into a given framework.”” (p. 183). To Hayek the freedom of these elite trend-setters is more useful than the freedom of the masses. “We may never know what serendipity of knowledge and know-how will produce the best results… will yield the greatest advance. For that reason, individuals - all individuals - must be free to pursue their ends, to exploit the wisdom of others for their own purposes…What is important is not what freedom I personally would like to exercise but what freedom some person may need in order to do things beneficial to society.” (p. 181-182). Great wealth allows one to see above the horizon in a way the working man can not, and therefore it is imperative for progress that the men of great wealth have the freedom to pursue their goals and therefore further progress society. All men may have the same freedoms, but only those of the ruling class have the means at their disposal to fully make use of those freedoms. With great wealth also comes the freedom to pursue other goals than obtaining money. The wealthy are “cultural legislators” who “liberated from the workplace and the rat race, the “idle rich”… can devote themselves to patronizing the arts, subsidizing worthy causes like abolition or penal reform, founding new philanthropies and cultural institutions.” ( p. 185). To Hayek those born of wealth are “beneficiaries of higher culture and nobler values that have been transmitted across generations” (p. 185) and therefore should be given any freedoms necessary, including the right to pass their fortunes on to their children for generations, so that they may push society in a better direction. Otherwise we risk living in a “seriously lacking” society “in which all the intellectual, moral, and artistic leaders belong to the employed classes” (p. 185).
Ayn Rand, the pseudointellectual right-wing hack, helped bring the hyperindividualistic elitism of the Austrian school into the cultural mainstream. Von Mises heaped copious praise upon her seminal work, “Atlas Shrugged”, saying: “you have the courage to tell the masses what no politician told them: you are inferior and all the improvements… which you take for granted you owe to the effort of men better than you.” (p. 206). Beloved by the Hollywood elite and the average conservative alike, Rand’s works still sell massively today, yet her ideology is essentially akin to fascism. Rand justified capitalism as both rational and fair because “men prosper or fail, survive or perish in proportion to the degree of their rationality… It is the basic, metaphysical fact of man’s nature- the connection between survival and his use of reason- that capitalism recognizes and protects… the exceptional men” (p. 203) much in the same way that Hitler justified private property: “people are not of equal value or ethical importance… (private property) can be moral and justified only if we admit men’s achievements are different” (p. 204). This social Darwinism which connects Rand and the Nazis runs strong, as both use it to justify the hierarchical nature of private property as a moral necessity. To Rand, “exceptional minorities” lift up all of society very much in the same way that Hayek claimed an intellectual elite dictated production and culture, or like how Hitler claimed that all achievements can be “solely attributed to the importance of personality… All the worldly goods we possess we owe to the struggle of a select few.” (p. 203).
So now we come to the heir of all these reactionary movements and intellectuals: Donald Trump. Like the right of old Trump sneers at convention, norms, and rules as part of his appeal. He refuses to be constrained by ‘political correctness’. His racism is nastier than his recent predecessors; no longer is the right content with mere dog whistles, Trump has amplified nativist resentment and laser focused it on Muslims and Mexicans. Where “conservatism is an elitist movement of the masses, an effort to create a new-old regime that, in one way or another, makes privilege popular” (p. 266) Trump signifies that the white right is no longer content with their racial and imperial privileges. Although the right has crushed many of the gains of the civil rights movement “African Americans in the South attend (schools) today that are more segregated than they were under Richard Nixon; the racial wealth gap has tripled since 1984; and… voting rights for African Americans are under attack” (p. 266) these victories no longer satiate the right. The combination of neoliberalism's ills (stagnant wages, rising debt, increasing precariousness) combined with the symbolism of a black president has exacerbated the right’s anxieties and led to Trump. Rhetorically Trump has turned his back on Reagan and Reaganomics; instead of “morning in America” Trump says we are “mourning in America”. Yet, economically and political, Trump has neither accomplished or even marginally pushed forward any goals of a new economic system or political order. While there are strings of weak emancipatory movements (Occupy Wallstreet, BLM, Bernie, LGBTQ campaigns) none of them are strong or organized enough to discipline the right into more coherence. “Without a formidable enemy on the left, without an opponent to discipline and tutor the right, the long-standing fissures of the conservative movement are allowed to deepen and expand.” (p. 268). Like all right wingers Trump is a social Darwinist who believes that economic life is a struggle for power, where the best men win and the weak men lose. To Trump the victory of “the deal” is both his all consuming source of libidinal pleasure and “an unexpected sigh of emptiness, even boredom” where Trump states “if you ask me exactly what the deals… all add up to in the end, I’m not sure I have a very good answer” (p. 278). In fact, trump has no answer at all. He sees through the veneer and falsity of capitalism. He breaks the rule and says the quiet part out loud: it’s all a gamble, and there is no difference between luck at a casino and success on the stock market. The only true goal is habitual, constantly depleting hedonistic pleasure. The core at the center is emptiness and endless accumulation. While often called a fascist, Trump does not fit the mold. Where previous political leaders like Nixon used anger as a political tool, without a viable enemy Trump’s rage just comes across as the narcissistic “ranting and raving of an old man.” (p. 293). Fascism was an invigorating movement spurred by the youth. It was original and harnessed the energy of a young political base to fight off a genuinely powerful left. The MAGA movement is a movement of old, unoriginal boomers screaming at the emptiness of a system they have no real desire to reconstruct, whose only real enemy resides in their minds.
January 10, 2024
DNF@20% Това би трябвало да е статия. В по-дългата си версия е нещо страшно хаотично и разхвърляно.
Реакционерите са като от вица за ирландеца: “Ирландецът никога няма да позволи да бъде погребан в английско гробище. Той по-скоро ще пукне!” Горе-долу натам се е запътил и големият свят в много отношения през 2024 г., когато - ако не друго - предстоят избори в държави като САЩ и Индия. Всъщност и в Русия - но там това е чиста формалност, така че те не се броят.
А междувременно бая народ се озърта кого да посочи като виновник за проблемите. Реакционерите нямат такъв проблем, при тях списъците са готови и са дълги. В исторически план основната цел на всеки реакционер е да не изтърве от ръцете си реалната или илюзорната власт, която упражнява. Честно казано, обектът на тази власт няма значение. Дали ще е долната обществена и неграмотна класа, дали ще е съпругата и децата, дали ще са робите - няма значение, важното е властта (или илюзията) да остане ненакърнена. Тук справедливост няма, има божествен комплекс и пълен отказ от промяна. Реакционерите в личния си живот са такива и в обществения - когато могат да си го позволят. А личната сфера и обществената са свързани много повече от очевидното.
Като цяло споделям антипатиите на автора (симпатиите му са ми малко неясни). Но в книгата просто са нахвърляни несвързани изказвания и сравнения. Или пък само американците си разбират написаното - за останалия свят лишените от особен контекст твърдения са неясни и лишени от смисъл.
Реакционерите са като от вица за ирландеца: “Ирландецът никога няма да позволи да бъде погребан в английско гробище. Той по-скоро ще пукне!” Горе-долу натам се е запътил и големият свят в много отношения през 2024 г., когато - ако не друго - предстоят избори в държави като САЩ и Индия. Всъщност и в Русия - но там това е чиста формалност, така че те не се броят.
А междувременно бая народ се озърта кого да посочи като виновник за проблемите. Реакционерите нямат такъв проблем, при тях списъците са готови и са дълги. В исторически план основната цел на всеки реакционер е да не изтърве от ръцете си реалната или илюзорната власт, която упражнява. Честно казано, обектът на тази власт няма значение. Дали ще е долната обществена и неграмотна класа, дали ще е съпругата и децата, дали ще са робите - няма значение, важното е властта (или илюзията) да остане ненакърнена. Тук справедливост няма, има божествен комплекс и пълен отказ от промяна. Реакционерите в личния си живот са такива и в обществения - когато могат да си го позволят. А личната сфера и обществената са свързани много повече от очевидното.
Като цяло споделям антипатиите на автора (симпатиите му са ми малко неясни). Но в книгата просто са нахвърляни несвързани изказвания и сравнения. Или пък само американците си разбират написаното - за останалия свят лишените от особен контекст твърдения са неясни и лишени от смисъл.
July 22, 2024
A compelling, incendiary, thought-provoking, and sometimes outlandish study of conservative ideas. The book has a very odd structure, with basically a few long essays introducing some new ways of looking at conservatism followed by 7-8 short chapters dealing with one major figure in conservative thought. The long essays are very compelling, and the individual essays are sort of hit or miss (the ones on Trump, Burke, and Scalia didn't do much for me but I loved the ones on the Austrian school of economics and Rand.
Robin tries to shift our understanding of conservatism to the following idea: conservatism can only really be conscious of itself when an existing order is challenged or overthrown. That is why we often identify Burke as the first conservative: he defended a lost order of society and politics after it was lost. The ancien regime, Robin argues, didn't need a systematic philosophical justification from a de Maistre or Burke until after it was overthrown. Thus the conservative project will never be just about conserving; it will always be somewhat about recreation of a new order that captures some essence of the old. Robin sees conservatism essentially as the opposition to the expansion of power and rights to the lower order. I think he's basically right, given that at any point in history most conservatives will be opposed to these expansions, although they often reconcile themselves to them in part once they have become part of the new moral norm. One brilliant point I thought he made was that conservatives greatly fear the trickling of these changes into the household and into private relations, which is why the family has become a conservative icon/bastion/ideal concept during the age of sexual/gender revolution. Conservatism offers the group still in power the chance to hang on to some sphere in which they are still king, even if is just over one person, and these wages of whiteness/maleness/straightness/American-ness/whateverness help explain its tenacious political resilience.
This sounds harsh, and I do think Robin blatantly ignores many important parts of conservatism: the wise caution against trying to draw up society's blueprints from scratch, the importance of national/local tradition and belonging, and, frequently, a sense of tragedy in politics (think Niebuhr, although he's not that conservative). Robin often verges on the polemical, which doesn't serve him well (even though I enjoyed the sick burns on Ayn Rand, who is truly garbage).
His second big point about conservatism is its enduring fixation with heroism and the individual striving against great forces and trends. When Buckley said he would stand athwart history and say stop, he was getting (somewhat unconsciously) as a deep thread in conservative identity: that the lone hero must stand against evil, and that, in fact, these stands and pursuits of greatness make life worth living in the first place. This doesn't apply to all conservatives, obviously, but the skepticism of the comfy bourgeois life as lacking meaning and struggle strikes deep in the heart of all kinds of conservatives, and figures like Rand, Hayek, Trump, Buckley, Nietzsche (not a conservative but influential among them in this regard), and others love the idea of the single man (always a man) escaping the doldrums and drift of normal life to build something great. In this sense conservatism is not conservative, but radically transformative, and this man must have no restraints or burdens placed upon him (hence the contempt for laws, taxes, and other collectivist restrictions-man they would have loved Fight Club). Once again, this is a provisional idea that I found very interesting, not a conclusive statement about conservative thought.
And this is basically why I found this book so interesting. It opens up new perspectives and questions without necessarily proving a lot of stuff. For that reason it is fun (and brief) to read, and well worth your time if you are interested in political thought or conservatism more specifically.
Robin tries to shift our understanding of conservatism to the following idea: conservatism can only really be conscious of itself when an existing order is challenged or overthrown. That is why we often identify Burke as the first conservative: he defended a lost order of society and politics after it was lost. The ancien regime, Robin argues, didn't need a systematic philosophical justification from a de Maistre or Burke until after it was overthrown. Thus the conservative project will never be just about conserving; it will always be somewhat about recreation of a new order that captures some essence of the old. Robin sees conservatism essentially as the opposition to the expansion of power and rights to the lower order. I think he's basically right, given that at any point in history most conservatives will be opposed to these expansions, although they often reconcile themselves to them in part once they have become part of the new moral norm. One brilliant point I thought he made was that conservatives greatly fear the trickling of these changes into the household and into private relations, which is why the family has become a conservative icon/bastion/ideal concept during the age of sexual/gender revolution. Conservatism offers the group still in power the chance to hang on to some sphere in which they are still king, even if is just over one person, and these wages of whiteness/maleness/straightness/American-ness/whateverness help explain its tenacious political resilience.
This sounds harsh, and I do think Robin blatantly ignores many important parts of conservatism: the wise caution against trying to draw up society's blueprints from scratch, the importance of national/local tradition and belonging, and, frequently, a sense of tragedy in politics (think Niebuhr, although he's not that conservative). Robin often verges on the polemical, which doesn't serve him well (even though I enjoyed the sick burns on Ayn Rand, who is truly garbage).
His second big point about conservatism is its enduring fixation with heroism and the individual striving against great forces and trends. When Buckley said he would stand athwart history and say stop, he was getting (somewhat unconsciously) as a deep thread in conservative identity: that the lone hero must stand against evil, and that, in fact, these stands and pursuits of greatness make life worth living in the first place. This doesn't apply to all conservatives, obviously, but the skepticism of the comfy bourgeois life as lacking meaning and struggle strikes deep in the heart of all kinds of conservatives, and figures like Rand, Hayek, Trump, Buckley, Nietzsche (not a conservative but influential among them in this regard), and others love the idea of the single man (always a man) escaping the doldrums and drift of normal life to build something great. In this sense conservatism is not conservative, but radically transformative, and this man must have no restraints or burdens placed upon him (hence the contempt for laws, taxes, and other collectivist restrictions-man they would have loved Fight Club). Once again, this is a provisional idea that I found very interesting, not a conclusive statement about conservative thought.
And this is basically why I found this book so interesting. It opens up new perspectives and questions without necessarily proving a lot of stuff. For that reason it is fun (and brief) to read, and well worth your time if you are interested in political thought or conservatism more specifically.
December 5, 2018
Short summary: Very interesting thesis, but not worked out well enough to be an instant classic.
As the title suggests, Robin's aim is to explain what drives the reactionary conservative, as well as reactionary political movements. His argument, in a nutshell, is that they are not concerned primarily with 'conserving' any particular status quo, or with keeping the rate of societal change as low as possible. Rather, their primary goal is to make sure that society is organized in such a way that it is for people to be hierarchically ranked, and for the (value) differences between unequal people to (once again) be recognized; in their opinion, society should make room for, if not maximize, the amount of room it leaves for such contests to occur. As such, reactionaries differ fairly markedly from regular conservatives, who are perfectly happy to rest on their laurels, and simply assume their superiority. (Which is not to say that reactionaries aren't perfectly happy to stack the deck in their own favor, by favoring an unfair division of the available resources; but I guess that shouldn't surprise anyone.) The actual inequality, poverty, etc., that results from their efforts to make society more 'competitive' again matters little to them, as it is simply the (proper) consequence of the 'existential fact' that life is struggle and necessarily contains winners and losers, combined with the fact that people should be able (and want) to constantly test themselves. In other words (although Robin doesn't put it this way), they want society to be as Dionysian as possible.
Yet although I found the premise intriguing, and parts of the book quite illuminating as well as compelling as a first attempt to understand the way the reactionary mind works, I have to say that it fell rather short of my expectations about the book after reading about it online. This is mainly because of the fact that Robin's approach strikes me as somewhat lacking in rigor. The book consists of an introduction, which was written especially for the book, followed by eleven essays all previously published elsewhere. In the introduction, Robin makes a number of what seem to me to be valid observations and good suggestions as to how to understand the later essays. Yet the later essays appear not to have been edited at all, so that they contain next to no links to the discussions in the other chapters, or even back to the introductory remarks. Furthermore, it seems to me that rather too little little is said about the question how the various strands of conservatism relate to each other. To the extent he does compare, the purpose is to clarify how or why someone or some attempt should be considered reactionary. Now, although this is justifiable given the premise of the book, it left me feeling somewhat unconvinced, while I cannot shake the feeling that if he had paid more attention to these questions -- either by including more original work, or by revising the essays more when preparing them for publication as part of this book -- I suspect that his case would've been rather more compelling than it is now.
Having said that, the question Robin poses seems to me an important one, and what he has to say certainly provides food for thought -- especially the analysis of Burke, and the essays about Ayn Rand and the one about the relationship between the Neoconservatives and the Neoliberals.
(Edit: For another review that gets at these issues, while focusing more strongly on the question what this means for politics, see this.)
"From life's school of war. -- What doesn't kill me makes me stronger." (Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, Maxim 8)
As the title suggests, Robin's aim is to explain what drives the reactionary conservative, as well as reactionary political movements. His argument, in a nutshell, is that they are not concerned primarily with 'conserving' any particular status quo, or with keeping the rate of societal change as low as possible. Rather, their primary goal is to make sure that society is organized in such a way that it is for people to be hierarchically ranked, and for the (value) differences between unequal people to (once again) be recognized; in their opinion, society should make room for, if not maximize, the amount of room it leaves for such contests to occur. As such, reactionaries differ fairly markedly from regular conservatives, who are perfectly happy to rest on their laurels, and simply assume their superiority. (Which is not to say that reactionaries aren't perfectly happy to stack the deck in their own favor, by favoring an unfair division of the available resources; but I guess that shouldn't surprise anyone.) The actual inequality, poverty, etc., that results from their efforts to make society more 'competitive' again matters little to them, as it is simply the (proper) consequence of the 'existential fact' that life is struggle and necessarily contains winners and losers, combined with the fact that people should be able (and want) to constantly test themselves. In other words (although Robin doesn't put it this way), they want society to be as Dionysian as possible.
Yet although I found the premise intriguing, and parts of the book quite illuminating as well as compelling as a first attempt to understand the way the reactionary mind works, I have to say that it fell rather short of my expectations about the book after reading about it online. This is mainly because of the fact that Robin's approach strikes me as somewhat lacking in rigor. The book consists of an introduction, which was written especially for the book, followed by eleven essays all previously published elsewhere. In the introduction, Robin makes a number of what seem to me to be valid observations and good suggestions as to how to understand the later essays. Yet the later essays appear not to have been edited at all, so that they contain next to no links to the discussions in the other chapters, or even back to the introductory remarks. Furthermore, it seems to me that rather too little little is said about the question how the various strands of conservatism relate to each other. To the extent he does compare, the purpose is to clarify how or why someone or some attempt should be considered reactionary. Now, although this is justifiable given the premise of the book, it left me feeling somewhat unconvinced, while I cannot shake the feeling that if he had paid more attention to these questions -- either by including more original work, or by revising the essays more when preparing them for publication as part of this book -- I suspect that his case would've been rather more compelling than it is now.
Having said that, the question Robin poses seems to me an important one, and what he has to say certainly provides food for thought -- especially the analysis of Burke, and the essays about Ayn Rand and the one about the relationship between the Neoconservatives and the Neoliberals.
(Edit: For another review that gets at these issues, while focusing more strongly on the question what this means for politics, see this.)
June 26, 2019
Note: This is a review of the second edition, overhauled after Trump's election.
Robin has a few simple theses in the first part of the book.
One is that conservativism is indeed "reactionary." Great conservative thinkers recognize the world is not static, and when major liberal or leftist shifts occur, they accept that this is because the old order at that time was decayed and flawed, presumably fatally. Rather than hold on to the ancien regime, Robin says conservative thinkers look to appropriate from the new order the tools of how it succeeded, and apply that to a new old world order.
The second main thesis is that, despite conservativism appearing to be very disjunct, it really is not. Robin said it is animated by two main forces:
A desire for hierarchialism and
Use of violence.
Notes on the second one first. Remember that not all violence is physical, that not all physical violence is by the government, and not all government violence is by the military.
The police in democratic countries are generally separate from the military. And police, police off-duty as private security, and pure private security, have engaged in plenty of conservative violence in America. Besides actual policing (often to uphold hierarchies), in the second and third forms, as paid security, or non-police paid security, union busting in various forms is a prime example. Plenty a libertarian in the US will decry state violence by the military, and a fair chunk of on-duty state violence by the police. But, whether hiring out policemen or having its own security guards, libertarians in general will give a pass to corporate violence.
Now, hierarchies. They comes in many forms besides old Europe's titled nobility. Hierarchies can be based on race — either straight up on skin color or pseudoscience like social Darwinism — land, money and capital and many other things. And conservativism is about using violence to uphold them.
Conservatives have had their philosophers of violence. Maybe Nietzsche wasn't anti-Semitic in the way his sister made him out to be, but in glorifying slavery and master-slave relationships, he was in other ways. Hobbes gets extensive mention. Rousseau, noble savagery and all, gets checked-marked more than once.
And, Theodore Roosevelt (a call with which I agree) is placed among conservative American politicians.
The reworked latter half of the book is of two parts.
One is a tour of modern economic theories, mainly Austrian school ideas and spinoffs. Robin uses this as a bridge from conservativism in general to modern political conservativism.
Within this, the chapter on Ayn Rand is worth a read all by itself.
Robin finishes by showing that Trump is NOT an aberration but rather right in the mainstream of conservativism in America, albeit more gauche and boorish than many conservatives. (Hey, Nietzsche was that way, too, somewhat.)
Outside the book, Robin has shown that Trump is a "disjunctive president," which is normal at the end of one of America's political systems. My take on that is here: https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2...
Robin has a few simple theses in the first part of the book.
One is that conservativism is indeed "reactionary." Great conservative thinkers recognize the world is not static, and when major liberal or leftist shifts occur, they accept that this is because the old order at that time was decayed and flawed, presumably fatally. Rather than hold on to the ancien regime, Robin says conservative thinkers look to appropriate from the new order the tools of how it succeeded, and apply that to a new old world order.
The second main thesis is that, despite conservativism appearing to be very disjunct, it really is not. Robin said it is animated by two main forces:
A desire for hierarchialism and
Use of violence.
Notes on the second one first. Remember that not all violence is physical, that not all physical violence is by the government, and not all government violence is by the military.
The police in democratic countries are generally separate from the military. And police, police off-duty as private security, and pure private security, have engaged in plenty of conservative violence in America. Besides actual policing (often to uphold hierarchies), in the second and third forms, as paid security, or non-police paid security, union busting in various forms is a prime example. Plenty a libertarian in the US will decry state violence by the military, and a fair chunk of on-duty state violence by the police. But, whether hiring out policemen or having its own security guards, libertarians in general will give a pass to corporate violence.
Now, hierarchies. They comes in many forms besides old Europe's titled nobility. Hierarchies can be based on race — either straight up on skin color or pseudoscience like social Darwinism — land, money and capital and many other things. And conservativism is about using violence to uphold them.
Conservatives have had their philosophers of violence. Maybe Nietzsche wasn't anti-Semitic in the way his sister made him out to be, but in glorifying slavery and master-slave relationships, he was in other ways. Hobbes gets extensive mention. Rousseau, noble savagery and all, gets checked-marked more than once.
And, Theodore Roosevelt (a call with which I agree) is placed among conservative American politicians.
The reworked latter half of the book is of two parts.
One is a tour of modern economic theories, mainly Austrian school ideas and spinoffs. Robin uses this as a bridge from conservativism in general to modern political conservativism.
Within this, the chapter on Ayn Rand is worth a read all by itself.
Robin finishes by showing that Trump is NOT an aberration but rather right in the mainstream of conservativism in America, albeit more gauche and boorish than many conservatives. (Hey, Nietzsche was that way, too, somewhat.)
Outside the book, Robin has shown that Trump is a "disjunctive president," which is normal at the end of one of America's political systems. My take on that is here: https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2...
January 31, 2021
Although Robin's The Reactionary Mind has been savaged by many serious left-wing and right-wing commentators and scholars (Mark Lilla, Sheri Berman, Christian Gonzalez, etc), the updated edition (responding superficially to previous criticism by reorganizing a bit and including an essay on Donald Trump) warrants further savaging.
Robin's thesis is that conservatism is an adaptable counterrevolutionary mode of thought designed to preserve existing hierarchies of power and privilege. This is eyeroll inducing. It is a reflexively and predictably left-wing perspective on right-wing thought rather than one arrived at through scholarly distance and dispassionate analysis. Robin's attempt to understand the nature and evolution of Anglosphere conservative thought since its purported inception as a reaction to the French Revolution (i.e. Edmund Burke's Reflections) to the presidency of Donald Trump relies too heavily on a simplistic Marxist analysis. Moreover, the effort overall is an exercise in over-fitted revisionism, a flattening of the variability of conservative thought and its disparate ontologies. It is largely nonsensical, straining credulity to believe that there is a continuity of ideology or even sensibility that connects the disparate figures subject to Robin's analysis (Burke, John C. Calhoun, Ayn Rand, William F. Buckley, Antonin Scalia, Trump, etc). Subsequently, Robin largely ignores the heated internecine ideological battles among various version of conservatism both historical and contemporary.
Even if we are to be extremely charitable and entertain Robin's thesis, his analysis fails to justify many of his conclusions. For instance, he claims that conservative thought has been quite successful and persuasive, especially in the face of strong liberal or left-wing challenges (i.e. a reactionary mechanism), but he does not illustrate how or why. This is because it would require actually entertaining the real possibility (if not likelihood) that social hierarchies and inequality more broadly are emergent properties of human biology and human nature when challenged by environments of scarcity and other threats. Thus, conservatism may look so successful to Robin because its advocacy has been aimed at ends that are often inevitable, especially in contrast to utopian or fantastical left-wing visions.
Robin is ostensibly well read in political thought and is not without erudition, there was such a great opportunity for him to say something insightful or original about conservative thought. Instead, he couldn't muster anything but hackneyed arguments and cheap jabs at figures that have provoked his ire. And on top of these failure, he has neglected to define liberalism or left-wing thought in any way other than in opposition to conservatism (oh, the irony!).
Robin's thesis is that conservatism is an adaptable counterrevolutionary mode of thought designed to preserve existing hierarchies of power and privilege. This is eyeroll inducing. It is a reflexively and predictably left-wing perspective on right-wing thought rather than one arrived at through scholarly distance and dispassionate analysis. Robin's attempt to understand the nature and evolution of Anglosphere conservative thought since its purported inception as a reaction to the French Revolution (i.e. Edmund Burke's Reflections) to the presidency of Donald Trump relies too heavily on a simplistic Marxist analysis. Moreover, the effort overall is an exercise in over-fitted revisionism, a flattening of the variability of conservative thought and its disparate ontologies. It is largely nonsensical, straining credulity to believe that there is a continuity of ideology or even sensibility that connects the disparate figures subject to Robin's analysis (Burke, John C. Calhoun, Ayn Rand, William F. Buckley, Antonin Scalia, Trump, etc). Subsequently, Robin largely ignores the heated internecine ideological battles among various version of conservatism both historical and contemporary.
Even if we are to be extremely charitable and entertain Robin's thesis, his analysis fails to justify many of his conclusions. For instance, he claims that conservative thought has been quite successful and persuasive, especially in the face of strong liberal or left-wing challenges (i.e. a reactionary mechanism), but he does not illustrate how or why. This is because it would require actually entertaining the real possibility (if not likelihood) that social hierarchies and inequality more broadly are emergent properties of human biology and human nature when challenged by environments of scarcity and other threats. Thus, conservatism may look so successful to Robin because its advocacy has been aimed at ends that are often inevitable, especially in contrast to utopian or fantastical left-wing visions.
Robin is ostensibly well read in political thought and is not without erudition, there was such a great opportunity for him to say something insightful or original about conservative thought. Instead, he couldn't muster anything but hackneyed arguments and cheap jabs at figures that have provoked his ire. And on top of these failure, he has neglected to define liberalism or left-wing thought in any way other than in opposition to conservatism (oh, the irony!).
July 24, 2017
Corey Robin's analysis of modern American conservatism in The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin was assembled in 2011, long before the catastrophe and chaos that has taken over/decimated our government today. There is, however, an eerily predictive quality about his essays, and the continuity of criticism that is illuminated by this collection. In his conclusion, Robin quotes Edmund Burke in the following appropriately placed statement on conservatism, "'It is our ignorance of things that causes all our admiration, and chiefly excites our passions. Knowledge and acquaintance make the most striking causes affect but little'" (244).
In general, his arguments center around three main failures of modern criticism of American conservatism. First, current criticisms ignore the deep-rootedness of European conservatism in American politics as it disconnects from capitalism and aligns with fascism. Second, and similarly, modern theory fails to examine this connection far enough back historically. Finally, Robin argues, conservatism is reactionary and counterrevolutionary.
Robin illustrates the ways in which those on the right perceive themselves as outsiders forced to protect the American values that preserve and protect patriarchal, hierarchical power. He states, "The conservative, to be sure, speaks for a special type of victim: one who has lost something of value, as opposed to the wretched of the earth, whose chief complaint is that they never had anything to lose" (58). In this, the conservative is a privileged reactionary whose dispossession is the center of impassioned struggle, indeed definitive of it. From here, Robin extends nuanced threads of analysis to address the undercurrents (or floods) of violence that have mysteriously captivated western conservatives, expertly deconstructing Hobbes and Rand while remembering to integrate Goldwater and Schlafly. Ultimately, he returns to Burke and his explanation of the sublime as the inspiration for right-wing violence and the faux ambivalence the conservative presentation of self has mastered.
This book is sophisticated in its analysis but accessible to anyone willing to set aside their personal revulsion or adoration for a stab at a cohesive explanation. Robin offers a compelling viewpoint, singularly complex, that can inform a much broader consideration of the current desperation that has paralyzed American society on all fronts.
In general, his arguments center around three main failures of modern criticism of American conservatism. First, current criticisms ignore the deep-rootedness of European conservatism in American politics as it disconnects from capitalism and aligns with fascism. Second, and similarly, modern theory fails to examine this connection far enough back historically. Finally, Robin argues, conservatism is reactionary and counterrevolutionary.
Robin illustrates the ways in which those on the right perceive themselves as outsiders forced to protect the American values that preserve and protect patriarchal, hierarchical power. He states, "The conservative, to be sure, speaks for a special type of victim: one who has lost something of value, as opposed to the wretched of the earth, whose chief complaint is that they never had anything to lose" (58). In this, the conservative is a privileged reactionary whose dispossession is the center of impassioned struggle, indeed definitive of it. From here, Robin extends nuanced threads of analysis to address the undercurrents (or floods) of violence that have mysteriously captivated western conservatives, expertly deconstructing Hobbes and Rand while remembering to integrate Goldwater and Schlafly. Ultimately, he returns to Burke and his explanation of the sublime as the inspiration for right-wing violence and the faux ambivalence the conservative presentation of self has mastered.
This book is sophisticated in its analysis but accessible to anyone willing to set aside their personal revulsion or adoration for a stab at a cohesive explanation. Robin offers a compelling viewpoint, singularly complex, that can inform a much broader consideration of the current desperation that has paralyzed American society on all fronts.
September 5, 2016
I read “The Reactionary Mind” by Corey Robin.
I have developed a sort of intellectual crush on Robin in the last several months as I became more aware of his work. I know I have read it before in different platforms, but I started following him on the blogs and the tweeter and the facebooks. I liked his work so much that I wanted to grab something long-form to see the depth of his though. Though this is ultimately an interesting book, it is not as deep as I was hoping. It’s like that because of how the book is structurally more existing essays that were yoked together to serve a common thesis than a book that evolved from the original thesis.
I have developed a sort of intellectual crush on Robin in the last several months as I became more aware of his work. I know I have read it before in different platforms, but I started following him on the blogs and the tweeter and the facebooks. I liked his work so much that I wanted to grab something long-form to see the depth of his though. Though this is ultimately an interesting book, it is not as deep as I was hoping. It’s like that because of how the book is structurally more existing essays that were yoked together to serve a common thesis than a book that evolved from the original thesis.
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