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Age of Folly: America Abandons Its Democracy
America’s leading essayist on the frantic retreat of democracy, in the fire and smoke of the war on terror
In twenty-five years of imperial adventure, America has laid waste to its principles of democracy. The self-glorifying march of folly steps off at the end of the Cold War, in an era when delusions of omnipotence allowed the market to climb to virtual heights, while society was divided between the selfish and frightened rich and the increasingly debt-ridden and angry poor. The new millennium saw the democratic election of an American president nullified by the Supreme Court, and the pretender launching a wasteful, vainglorious and never-ending war on terror, doomed to end in defeat and the loss of America’s prestige abroad.
All this culminates in the sunset swamp of the 2016 election—a farce dominated by Donald Trump, a self-glorifying photo-op bursting star-spangled bombast in air. This spectacle would be familiar to Aristotle, whose portrayal of the “prosperous fool” describes a class of people who “consider themselves worthy to hold public office, for they already have the things that give them a claim to office.”
In twenty-five years of imperial adventure, America has laid waste to its principles of democracy. The self-glorifying march of folly steps off at the end of the Cold War, in an era when delusions of omnipotence allowed the market to climb to virtual heights, while society was divided between the selfish and frightened rich and the increasingly debt-ridden and angry poor. The new millennium saw the democratic election of an American president nullified by the Supreme Court, and the pretender launching a wasteful, vainglorious and never-ending war on terror, doomed to end in defeat and the loss of America’s prestige abroad.
All this culminates in the sunset swamp of the 2016 election—a farce dominated by Donald Trump, a self-glorifying photo-op bursting star-spangled bombast in air. This spectacle would be familiar to Aristotle, whose portrayal of the “prosperous fool” describes a class of people who “consider themselves worthy to hold public office, for they already have the things that give them a claim to office.”
384 pages, Hardcover
First published October 25, 2016
60 people are currently reading
597 people want to read
About the author
Lewis H. Lapham
180 books134 followersLewis Henry Lapham was the editor of Harper's Magazine from 1976 until 1981, and again from 1983 until 2006. He is the founder and current editor of Lapham's Quarterly, featuring a wide range of famous authors devoted to a single topic in each issue. Lapham has also written numerous books on politics and current affairs.
Lapham's Quarterly
http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/
Lapham's Quarterly
http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
November 6, 2017
Several years ago, maybe 2014, in March, I spent a weekend in Philadelphia. I had gone to school there, University of Pennsylvania and worked there as well. And lo and behold, my youngest son landed a job there and small world, lived on South Fawn Street, about three blocks from my apartment in graduate school, 16th and Spruce! Funny how things work out. Long story short. Hanging out at his house, waiting for something, I was sitting in his living room and picked up a Harper's Magazine, and started reading an article about the 75th anniversary of the publication of "The Yearling" by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, her 1937 Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction. I remember my mother saying years ago that she does not know what her favorite book was...."The Yearling" or Stegner's "Angle of Repose" I read both of them. And to this day, can be brought to tears when I recall what Rawlings wrote describing Jodie's discoverey of "the yearling." Beautiful. Simply beautiful. I took the magazine with me for the Amtrak trip back to Vermont. I realized then and there that I should subscribe to Harper's, as something connected with me; I think it is Lewis Lapham.
Shortly after starting this book I realized that I was experiencing a sense of controlled outrage. Controlled, because as I was reading I did not do anything rash, or something that I would regret: like shoot someone, or OD on opioids in an act of self-medication, or insult my wife or a neighbor. You know what I mean. I just sat in my chair and read and highlighted with a neon-pink marker particularly satiric or cynical observations by the author. And it was not long into the book, perhaps 1994 when I realized where it was going. So despite the fact, and it is a fact, that the presidential contest between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump — was disgusting and depressing and an insult to educated individuals, was long on vitriol, pussy-grabbing, and pandering; was short on serious policy ideas and honest debate — and was a disgrace to some, it was inevitable to Mr. Lapham, that Donald Trump, or sTRUMPY as I like to refer to him would win. There are other august figures who are included in that group: Michael Moore, Richard Rorty and the Los Angeles Times to name a few, and I am sure that you could google something and find out more. But that is all moot.
Beginning with the greed-is-good policies of Ronald Reagan, Lapham describes America’s Age of Folly — see also: George H.W. Bush’s Excellent Persian Gulf Adventure, the hanging chads of Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade, Mission Accomplished, enhanced interrogation techniques and tax breaks for billionaires, Heck-of-a-Job Brownie, the USA Patriot Act, the never-ending buzz of drone warfare, the Achievetrons of the Obama administration as we continued the run of neoliberal politics illustrating how and why our democracy has given way to a dysfunctional plutocracy of the super-rich, by the super-rich, and for the super-rich. Who were the Princeton University economists who published a paper that said, without a doubt, Amerika is an oligarchy? A fucking oligarchy. And perhaps a third-world oligarchy at that.
It is enough to make you vomit or want to OD on Vicodin or drown yourself in Negronis. I am proud to say/admit that I was one of the 18,000 in the Green Mountain State, who wrote in the name Bernie Sanders on my ballot on Tuesday, November 8, 2016 - a day, truly, that will live in infamy. What is happening with Trump would have happened with HRC as well, perhaps not as blatant, but she was in bed with Wall Street and it would have happened. She would not have gutted the EPA, or slammed the door of civil rights but still, Trump picked Gary Cohn, late of Goldman Sachs, HRC would have done the same thing. Obama did it. Bush did it. Clinton did it. It is how the world operates and how we, the one % as well as the POOR, WHITE TRASH and uneducated that elected him. And then there is the whole reality TV, celebrity, branding aspect of the American experiment. Take this quote from the Grifter/Liar-in-Chief's first campaign manager Cory Lewandowski: "This is the problem with the media. You guys took everything that Donald Trump said so literally. The American people didn’t. They understood it. They understood that sometimes — when you have a conversation with people, whether it’s around the dinner table or at a bar — you’re going to say things, and sometimes you don’t have all the facts to back it up.” This is the problem with the media. No, this is the problem with Amerika.
And I do think I will subscribe to Harper's and maybe even Lapham's Quarterly. Lewis Lapham is a real treasure, an elegant and wonderful writer and as Kurt Vonnegut said "Learned and fair. I love reading him." And so do I. His scorn is like a roller-coaster. No stone left unturned. And you want to be his friend.
Shortly after starting this book I realized that I was experiencing a sense of controlled outrage. Controlled, because as I was reading I did not do anything rash, or something that I would regret: like shoot someone, or OD on opioids in an act of self-medication, or insult my wife or a neighbor. You know what I mean. I just sat in my chair and read and highlighted with a neon-pink marker particularly satiric or cynical observations by the author. And it was not long into the book, perhaps 1994 when I realized where it was going. So despite the fact, and it is a fact, that the presidential contest between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump — was disgusting and depressing and an insult to educated individuals, was long on vitriol, pussy-grabbing, and pandering; was short on serious policy ideas and honest debate — and was a disgrace to some, it was inevitable to Mr. Lapham, that Donald Trump, or sTRUMPY as I like to refer to him would win. There are other august figures who are included in that group: Michael Moore, Richard Rorty and the Los Angeles Times to name a few, and I am sure that you could google something and find out more. But that is all moot.
Beginning with the greed-is-good policies of Ronald Reagan, Lapham describes America’s Age of Folly — see also: George H.W. Bush’s Excellent Persian Gulf Adventure, the hanging chads of Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade, Mission Accomplished, enhanced interrogation techniques and tax breaks for billionaires, Heck-of-a-Job Brownie, the USA Patriot Act, the never-ending buzz of drone warfare, the Achievetrons of the Obama administration as we continued the run of neoliberal politics illustrating how and why our democracy has given way to a dysfunctional plutocracy of the super-rich, by the super-rich, and for the super-rich. Who were the Princeton University economists who published a paper that said, without a doubt, Amerika is an oligarchy? A fucking oligarchy. And perhaps a third-world oligarchy at that.
It is enough to make you vomit or want to OD on Vicodin or drown yourself in Negronis. I am proud to say/admit that I was one of the 18,000 in the Green Mountain State, who wrote in the name Bernie Sanders on my ballot on Tuesday, November 8, 2016 - a day, truly, that will live in infamy. What is happening with Trump would have happened with HRC as well, perhaps not as blatant, but she was in bed with Wall Street and it would have happened. She would not have gutted the EPA, or slammed the door of civil rights but still, Trump picked Gary Cohn, late of Goldman Sachs, HRC would have done the same thing. Obama did it. Bush did it. Clinton did it. It is how the world operates and how we, the one % as well as the POOR, WHITE TRASH and uneducated that elected him. And then there is the whole reality TV, celebrity, branding aspect of the American experiment. Take this quote from the Grifter/Liar-in-Chief's first campaign manager Cory Lewandowski: "This is the problem with the media. You guys took everything that Donald Trump said so literally. The American people didn’t. They understood it. They understood that sometimes — when you have a conversation with people, whether it’s around the dinner table or at a bar — you’re going to say things, and sometimes you don’t have all the facts to back it up.” This is the problem with the media. No, this is the problem with Amerika.
And I do think I will subscribe to Harper's and maybe even Lapham's Quarterly. Lewis Lapham is a real treasure, an elegant and wonderful writer and as Kurt Vonnegut said "Learned and fair. I love reading him." And so do I. His scorn is like a roller-coaster. No stone left unturned. And you want to be his friend.
February 10, 2017
This is a collection of essays Lapham has written between 1990 and 2015. My reasons for reading it were twofold: first, Lapham has a reputation as a brilliant social satirist; and second, the time period these essays cover happens also to be the time period in which i've been alive. I was interested in getting a running commentary on the broad trends that have changed American society during my lifetime.
While Lapham is undoubtedly a talented prose stylist, the aesthetic qualities of his writing do little to mask the relative insubstantiality of his ideas.
Allow me to summarize what happened in America between 1990 and 2015, according to Lewis Lapham: the rich got richer; the poor got poorer; the combative ambiguity of democratic politics was abandoned in favor of a pseudo-religious praise of the redemptive power of the free market and private capital; George W. Bush stole the 2000 presidential election and waged an illegal war on intangible ideas with little regard for the real-world consequences; Obama put a new face on the great corporate enterprise that is the U.S. government but did little to change its policies; and now Donald Trump is the personification of everything evil and corrupt in American life that has been brewing for the last quarter century.
If you subtracted Lapham's clever turns of phrase, most of these essays could have been taken directly from the comments section of a New York Times article. I get the sense that Lapham is quite pleased with his wit and perceptiveness, fancying himself a latter-day Juvenal, but what exactly has he accomplished besides repeating liberal-left platitudes with a dollop of self-important humor; a humor incapable of laughing at itself? He has no sense of irony when he quotes Franklin Roosevelt on the anti-democratic corrosions of private wealth, even though Roosevelt had himself been accused of being a proto-fascist and was deflecting genuine criticism of his policies by attempting to redefine fascism as the Republican Party platform.
For all of his pretend edginess, the geographical range of Lapham's faux-Ciceronian skepticism does not appear to extend to the east coast. As a New Yorker, he has come to the scientifically-objective conclusion that New York liberals are the good guys.
While Lapham is undoubtedly a talented prose stylist, the aesthetic qualities of his writing do little to mask the relative insubstantiality of his ideas.
Allow me to summarize what happened in America between 1990 and 2015, according to Lewis Lapham: the rich got richer; the poor got poorer; the combative ambiguity of democratic politics was abandoned in favor of a pseudo-religious praise of the redemptive power of the free market and private capital; George W. Bush stole the 2000 presidential election and waged an illegal war on intangible ideas with little regard for the real-world consequences; Obama put a new face on the great corporate enterprise that is the U.S. government but did little to change its policies; and now Donald Trump is the personification of everything evil and corrupt in American life that has been brewing for the last quarter century.
If you subtracted Lapham's clever turns of phrase, most of these essays could have been taken directly from the comments section of a New York Times article. I get the sense that Lapham is quite pleased with his wit and perceptiveness, fancying himself a latter-day Juvenal, but what exactly has he accomplished besides repeating liberal-left platitudes with a dollop of self-important humor; a humor incapable of laughing at itself? He has no sense of irony when he quotes Franklin Roosevelt on the anti-democratic corrosions of private wealth, even though Roosevelt had himself been accused of being a proto-fascist and was deflecting genuine criticism of his policies by attempting to redefine fascism as the Republican Party platform.
For all of his pretend edginess, the geographical range of Lapham's faux-Ciceronian skepticism does not appear to extend to the east coast. As a New Yorker, he has come to the scientifically-objective conclusion that New York liberals are the good guys.
March 14, 2018
This is what I had hoped Rebecca Solnit's "Hope in the Dark" would be.
Lewis Lapham, longtime editor of Harper's Magazine and founder and current editor of Lapham's Quarterly, lampoons America's spin from democracy to oligarchy, focusing specifically on the period from the Regan years to our present debacle with lots of insight from history. If you know as much history as Lapham does and if you also keep up with current politics as Lapham does then you will never be at loss for material. My own observation from watching the cable news is that the anchors and the talking heads already know everything and would be more than happy to return to a sunny status quo where business can go on as usual once the current dummy in chief is impeached. However, Lapham reminds us that democracy was not made for TV, and it relies on a citizenry willing to tell the truth and brave enough to face uncertainty.
Perhaps these are not totally original thoughts. It's Lapham's writing style that sets him apart. He's erudite, and many of the clever references are lost on a modern audience that's not used to reading stuff like this. In fact, I've made a mental note to reread this, hopefully sooner rather than later.
Lewis Lapham, longtime editor of Harper's Magazine and founder and current editor of Lapham's Quarterly, lampoons America's spin from democracy to oligarchy, focusing specifically on the period from the Regan years to our present debacle with lots of insight from history. If you know as much history as Lapham does and if you also keep up with current politics as Lapham does then you will never be at loss for material. My own observation from watching the cable news is that the anchors and the talking heads already know everything and would be more than happy to return to a sunny status quo where business can go on as usual once the current dummy in chief is impeached. However, Lapham reminds us that democracy was not made for TV, and it relies on a citizenry willing to tell the truth and brave enough to face uncertainty.
Perhaps these are not totally original thoughts. It's Lapham's writing style that sets him apart. He's erudite, and many of the clever references are lost on a modern audience that's not used to reading stuff like this. In fact, I've made a mental note to reread this, hopefully sooner rather than later.
July 14, 2017
A delightful book. Lewis Lapham is a writer I like to read.
At the end of every chapter, if not several times during the chapter, I wished for a companion across the room to whom I could read bits aloud. Comprised of published columns (mostly for Harper's Magazine) over several years beginning in 1990, the book lays out Lapham's version of our current political history. (No wonder we have Trump.)
I did not rummage around for a neon highlighter, although the impulse was strong. Almost the entire book would have been marked up.
You might find yourself parsing out chapters to delay the inevitable end as I did.
At the end of every chapter, if not several times during the chapter, I wished for a companion across the room to whom I could read bits aloud. Comprised of published columns (mostly for Harper's Magazine) over several years beginning in 1990, the book lays out Lapham's version of our current political history. (No wonder we have Trump.)
I did not rummage around for a neon highlighter, although the impulse was strong. Almost the entire book would have been marked up.
You might find yourself parsing out chapters to delay the inevitable end as I did.
February 4, 2017
Tracing the moment when American democracy became an oligarchy (when the 'folly' of money buying elections and policies really kicked off) starting with Reagan's entry into the White House in 1981 which then took on this particular mix of neoliberal hubris after the 'defeat' of Soviet Russia, End Of History, exporting the American model foreign policy under Bush senior, Bill Clinton's entrenchment of American oligarchy plus neoliberal reorganization of the welfare and labour market system, Bush junior's post 2001 war against terrorism madness and Obama and Hillary Clinton's continuation of neoliberal imperialism (wallstreet bailout, deportations, Libya, Syria, anti-Russia etc).
It is important to put both Trump and Bernie in the context of 30 or so years of radical transformation of a democracy into an outright oligarchy, a system where a popular Socialist (Bernie) is being outmaneuvered by millionaires (Clinton establishment) and, eventually, big capital (Trump) takes over power directly to protect its interests (selective economic protectionism, tax cuts, privatization, etc).
Any way forward must begin with looking back and understanding how the fuck we ended up with the orange boy king in the white house.
So this is a great book to look back. The majority of the 30 or so essays are articles from 1990 to 2015 which were originally published as monthly commentary in the Harper's Magazine (a magazine I normally don't enjoy reading too much but these essays are great). What it says more than anything is that the way forward is not going back to the Obama Clinton years, they are part and parcel of how we got into this mess. The way forward is a progressive alliance, a reconfiguration of democracy beyond the liberal establishment. Bernie has shown that there is popular support for such a project.
Arise ye starvlings!
It is important to put both Trump and Bernie in the context of 30 or so years of radical transformation of a democracy into an outright oligarchy, a system where a popular Socialist (Bernie) is being outmaneuvered by millionaires (Clinton establishment) and, eventually, big capital (Trump) takes over power directly to protect its interests (selective economic protectionism, tax cuts, privatization, etc).
Any way forward must begin with looking back and understanding how the fuck we ended up with the orange boy king in the white house.
So this is a great book to look back. The majority of the 30 or so essays are articles from 1990 to 2015 which were originally published as monthly commentary in the Harper's Magazine (a magazine I normally don't enjoy reading too much but these essays are great). What it says more than anything is that the way forward is not going back to the Obama Clinton years, they are part and parcel of how we got into this mess. The way forward is a progressive alliance, a reconfiguration of democracy beyond the liberal establishment. Bernie has shown that there is popular support for such a project.
Arise ye starvlings!
Read
March 4, 2017A refreshing, concise and perceptive joy. Excellent collection of essays tracing the roots of how America found it's way to Trumpania.
June 7, 2017
Perspectives: Fascism Lite: The ‘Ur-fascism’ of Donald J. Trump and Company
Things to read:
“On Message” by Lewis H. Lapham: From Age of Folly: America Abandons its Democracy (Verso, London/New York, 2016).
“Containing Trump” by Jonathan Rauch: From ‘The Atlantic’, March 2017.
“How to Build and Autocracy” by David Frum: From ‘The Atlantic’, March 2017.
“But I venture the challenging statement that if American democracy ceases to move forward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot of our citizens, then Fascism and Communism, aided, unconsciously perhaps, by old-line Tory Republicanism, will grow in strength in our land.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt, November 4, 1938
Lewis Lapham’s new book, “Age of Folly” chronicles as a series of ‘Harper’s’ essays the demise of America’s democracy. An avalanche of political, social and cultural garbage delivers a coup against the democratic project, which was designed to be fragile at best by founding father’s whose interest was property and privilege against the mobs. In a 2005 essay, Lapham takes note of an Umberto Eco essay from the ‘New York Review of Books’ (1995) in which Eco suggests that it is a mistake to translate fascism into a figure of literary speech. Lapham writes, “By retrieving from our historical memory only the vivid and familiar images of fascist tyranny (Gestapo firing squads, Soviet labor camps, the chimneys at Treblinka), we lose sight of the faith-based initiatives that sustained the tyrant’s rise to glory.” In this regard, we can think of American initiatives in this direction as well, the glorification of endless military adventures and the adulation by mobs of returning veterans as Roman heroes against the barbarian horde, the pageants of flags, symbols and signs glorifying the Nation, glory sustained only by emotion without intellect or reason. “The several experiments with fascist government,” Lapham continues, “didn’t depend on a single portfolio of dogma, and so Eco, in search of their common ground, doesn’t look for a unifying principle or a standard text. He attempts to describe a way of thinking and a habit of mind…”
Eco describes these habits of mind:
The truth is revealed once and only once.
Donald Trump has often announced that he possesses the truth, which will
be revealed after the election.
Parliamentary democracy is by definition rotten because it doesn’t represent the voice of the people, which is that of the supreme leader.
Donald Trump “alone” an solve America’s problems.
Doctrine outpoints reason, and science is always suspect.
Science—meaning climate science, environmental science not just
suspect, but deviously and conspicuously in opposition to culture.
Critical thought is the province of degenerate intellectuals, who betray the culture and subvert traditional values.
Climate change is a Chinese hoax.
The national identity is provided by the nation’s enemies.
Donald Trump hates his nation’s enemies, foreigners, Muslims, Chicago
thugs, the media and anyone doubting his means and ends.
Argument is tantamount to treason.
Donald Trump shuttles the guilty to prison without trial. (Bo Bergdahl, the
Central Park Five, etc.)
Perpetually at war, the state must govern with the instruments of fear.
Donald Trump and his minions demonize every opponent.
Citizens do not act; they play the supporting role of “the people” in the grand opera that is the state.
Donald Trump leads a “movement”, not a political party with ideals and goals.
Lapham’s essay goes on to show how in our modern “democracy” the descent to fascist tyranny doesn’t need the standard tools. “We don’t have to disturb, terrorize, or plunder the bourgeoisie; we don’t have to gag the press or seize the radio stations; we don’t have to murder the intelligentsia. Our atomized citizens, dormant or bored, don’t have the power to resist, the press is thoroughly demonized and disregarded, social media substitutes for the “masses”, and white identity politics (racism, misogyny etc.) substitutes for marching bands and uniting symbols.
Anyone concerned about fascism lite should read the essays by David Frum and Jonathan Rausch. We in the resistance need to organize, speak out, and act. The end of civil society and its long-standing institutions (newspapers, schools, unions, bowling leagues, political parties, lodges, etc.) give men like Donald Trump and open door. Now is the time to stand up.
Things to read:
“On Message” by Lewis H. Lapham: From Age of Folly: America Abandons its Democracy (Verso, London/New York, 2016).
“Containing Trump” by Jonathan Rauch: From ‘The Atlantic’, March 2017.
“How to Build and Autocracy” by David Frum: From ‘The Atlantic’, March 2017.
“But I venture the challenging statement that if American democracy ceases to move forward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot of our citizens, then Fascism and Communism, aided, unconsciously perhaps, by old-line Tory Republicanism, will grow in strength in our land.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt, November 4, 1938
Lewis Lapham’s new book, “Age of Folly” chronicles as a series of ‘Harper’s’ essays the demise of America’s democracy. An avalanche of political, social and cultural garbage delivers a coup against the democratic project, which was designed to be fragile at best by founding father’s whose interest was property and privilege against the mobs. In a 2005 essay, Lapham takes note of an Umberto Eco essay from the ‘New York Review of Books’ (1995) in which Eco suggests that it is a mistake to translate fascism into a figure of literary speech. Lapham writes, “By retrieving from our historical memory only the vivid and familiar images of fascist tyranny (Gestapo firing squads, Soviet labor camps, the chimneys at Treblinka), we lose sight of the faith-based initiatives that sustained the tyrant’s rise to glory.” In this regard, we can think of American initiatives in this direction as well, the glorification of endless military adventures and the adulation by mobs of returning veterans as Roman heroes against the barbarian horde, the pageants of flags, symbols and signs glorifying the Nation, glory sustained only by emotion without intellect or reason. “The several experiments with fascist government,” Lapham continues, “didn’t depend on a single portfolio of dogma, and so Eco, in search of their common ground, doesn’t look for a unifying principle or a standard text. He attempts to describe a way of thinking and a habit of mind…”
Eco describes these habits of mind:
The truth is revealed once and only once.
Donald Trump has often announced that he possesses the truth, which will
be revealed after the election.
Parliamentary democracy is by definition rotten because it doesn’t represent the voice of the people, which is that of the supreme leader.
Donald Trump “alone” an solve America’s problems.
Doctrine outpoints reason, and science is always suspect.
Science—meaning climate science, environmental science not just
suspect, but deviously and conspicuously in opposition to culture.
Critical thought is the province of degenerate intellectuals, who betray the culture and subvert traditional values.
Climate change is a Chinese hoax.
The national identity is provided by the nation’s enemies.
Donald Trump hates his nation’s enemies, foreigners, Muslims, Chicago
thugs, the media and anyone doubting his means and ends.
Argument is tantamount to treason.
Donald Trump shuttles the guilty to prison without trial. (Bo Bergdahl, the
Central Park Five, etc.)
Perpetually at war, the state must govern with the instruments of fear.
Donald Trump and his minions demonize every opponent.
Citizens do not act; they play the supporting role of “the people” in the grand opera that is the state.
Donald Trump leads a “movement”, not a political party with ideals and goals.
Lapham’s essay goes on to show how in our modern “democracy” the descent to fascist tyranny doesn’t need the standard tools. “We don’t have to disturb, terrorize, or plunder the bourgeoisie; we don’t have to gag the press or seize the radio stations; we don’t have to murder the intelligentsia. Our atomized citizens, dormant or bored, don’t have the power to resist, the press is thoroughly demonized and disregarded, social media substitutes for the “masses”, and white identity politics (racism, misogyny etc.) substitutes for marching bands and uniting symbols.
Anyone concerned about fascism lite should read the essays by David Frum and Jonathan Rausch. We in the resistance need to organize, speak out, and act. The end of civil society and its long-standing institutions (newspapers, schools, unions, bowling leagues, political parties, lodges, etc.) give men like Donald Trump and open door. Now is the time to stand up.
March 7, 2022
A selection of some of the best essays of the paradoxical Lewis H. Lapham, a man circulating at the heart of the American elite and yet utterly disdainful of modern America and its elite. The essays are stylistically superb and even though they focus almost exclusively on modern American politics and are relentlessly critical of such politics, they don't seem repetitive, as collections of weaker essayists often do. Lapham's superb style and marvellous turn of phrase makes every essay a fresh and eye-opening treatment, regardless of whether it's Lapham's first essay on the subject or not. And his put-downs make the book un-putdownable:
On the CIA, "People accustomed to knowing they know everything worth knowing resent having to turn away from the mirror."
On Spycraft, "Le Carré understands that covert actions usually take place at the not very important margins of not very important events, and that when extended over a period of more than four days they hide nothing from anybody except the people paying the bills."
On George Bush, "Six months ago we were looking at a man so obviously in the service of the plutocracy that he could have been mistaken for a lawn jockey in the parking lot of a Houston golf club or a prize fish mounted on the wall of a Jacksonville bank."
On America's rich, "Here were the people who owned most of what was worth owning in the country (the banks and business corporations as well as the television networks and most of the members of Congress) pretending that they were victims of a conspiracy raised against them by the institutions that they themselves controlled."
On the CIA, "People accustomed to knowing they know everything worth knowing resent having to turn away from the mirror."
On Spycraft, "Le Carré understands that covert actions usually take place at the not very important margins of not very important events, and that when extended over a period of more than four days they hide nothing from anybody except the people paying the bills."
On George Bush, "Six months ago we were looking at a man so obviously in the service of the plutocracy that he could have been mistaken for a lawn jockey in the parking lot of a Houston golf club or a prize fish mounted on the wall of a Jacksonville bank."
On America's rich, "Here were the people who owned most of what was worth owning in the country (the banks and business corporations as well as the television networks and most of the members of Congress) pretending that they were victims of a conspiracy raised against them by the institutions that they themselves controlled."
July 26, 2020
This book views the collapse of modern democratic governments as a repeat of the fall of Rome. Knowing that the outsiders, the "barbarians" (Huns, Goths) were a critical element of Rome's final collapse, Lapham questions where they will come from in a global civilization that has no "outside". His answer is clear: the barbarians will come from within. My book, Collapse 2020: Fall of the First Global Civilization explains the psychological factors, which Lapham only superficially mentions. These factors will create "barbarianism" within our society.
The major result of "barbarianism" will be the collapse of modern democracy through the collapse of people's ability to communicate.
The major result of "barbarianism" will be the collapse of modern democracy through the collapse of people's ability to communicate.
July 24, 2018
There is only one Lewis Lapham. Lapham's Quarterly and his monthly essay are some of the best writing in the English language. His book is no exception.
September 24, 2018
A collection of timely & well written essays about the condition of American democracy at a crucial time.
March 22, 2025
Everything old is new again. You can see the trail of rhetorical bullshit, cheap money, lazy sensationalized media, lazy journalism, exaggerated wealth disparities, imperial arrogance, trickle down fraud, which winds through the W years (remember them?) and up to now.
But you don't always have it as analyzed and described by someone as elegant, erudite, and worldly as Lewis Lapham to lead you there.
November 18, 2016
PS & History were 2 of my many undergrad degrees.
History, politics, War & much more.
Yahoo President Donald Trump & VP Mike Pence.
Very long but a must read.
I did not receive any type of compensation for reading & reviewing this book. While I receive free books from publishers & authors, I am under no obligation to write a positive review. Only an honest one.
A very awesome book cover, great font & writing style. Wow, a very well written political informative book. It was very easy for me to read/follow from start/finish & never a dull moment. There were no grammar/typo errors, nor any repetitive or out of line sequence sentences. Lots of exciting scenarios, with several twists/turns & a great set of unique characters to keep track of. This could also make another great political informative movie, a PS college PP presentation, or better yet a mini TV series. There is no doubt in my mind this is a very easy rating of 5 stars.
Thank you for the free Goodreads; MakingConnections; Verso; Maple Press; Penguin Random House LLC.; paperback book
Tony Parsons MSW (Washburn)
History, politics, War & much more.
Yahoo President Donald Trump & VP Mike Pence.
Very long but a must read.
I did not receive any type of compensation for reading & reviewing this book. While I receive free books from publishers & authors, I am under no obligation to write a positive review. Only an honest one.
A very awesome book cover, great font & writing style. Wow, a very well written political informative book. It was very easy for me to read/follow from start/finish & never a dull moment. There were no grammar/typo errors, nor any repetitive or out of line sequence sentences. Lots of exciting scenarios, with several twists/turns & a great set of unique characters to keep track of. This could also make another great political informative movie, a PS college PP presentation, or better yet a mini TV series. There is no doubt in my mind this is a very easy rating of 5 stars.
Thank you for the free Goodreads; MakingConnections; Verso; Maple Press; Penguin Random House LLC.; paperback book
Tony Parsons MSW (Washburn)
August 20, 2025
Excellent book.
January 2, 2019
I bought this book when it came out, and in the time it took me to read it, the space it occupies on the shelf at Tattered Cover has since been replaced with the paperback edition. I never found myself driven to sit down and read more than one or two essays in a sitting, but the slower burn was perhaps the best way to read these texts from a bygone(?) era.
I picked up this book because it had the big Verso "V" on the spine and I knew Lewis Lapham as the Harper's/ Lapham's Quarterly guy. I used to read Harper's at my local library in high school. At this point, Harper's - along with The Nation - was my sole access to the world of anti-war/ anti-Bush opinion. In the interim, I've mostly restricted my reading of Harper's to waiting in airport terminals. Seeing that Verso logo, though - maybe Lapham is a bit more radical than I remember him? Alas, he is not.
However, it occurred to me while reading this book that Lapham fits into the Verso-verse. He is, after all, a sort of liberal doppelganger of Perry Anderson himself. Whereas Saint Perry's points of reference span all of human history but with an emphasis on Western Europe, China, and Brazil, Lapham seems focused on American history. Whereas Perry's philosophical references consist largely of 20th century Italians and Frenchmen (alas, all men) - Gramsci, Colletti, Timpanaro, Sartre, Levi-Strauss, Althusser - Lapham prefers his political theory to be derived either from the ancients or from the annals of Americana - Aristotle, Cicero, Thomas Paine, Mark Twain.
While there's no question of my own preference between Lapham and Anderson, there is still quite a lot to recommend Lapham's book. Although Lapham (like Anderson) is, in effect, a very privileged old white liberal writing about history from a non-academic vantage point, he is, after all, a *good* liberal. Of course Lapham is an inveterate elite - among his many personal anecdotes, he was interviewed by the CIA to become a secret agent in the 1950s - but his elitism carries with it a benevolent paternalism that appears to be a lasting response to the radicalism of the 1960s. Apparently too old to have taken part directly in the upheavals of the Left's last great moment (he was born just 3 years before Anderson, although the New Left had an earlier birth date across the Atlantic), Lapham recoils at revolutionary politics. However, he has enough of a sincere belief in both the New Deal and the Gettysburg Address to likewise recoil at US aggression in Vietnam and, later, Iraq.
The book's subtitle - "America Abandons Its Democracy" - seems to imply that America's inexorable march to Trumpism was perhaps a long time coming, but Trump is mostly absent (as is Obama). The argument is never quite made explicit, but the book's overall arrangement seems to suggest that the Bush years were a grand reversal of democratic gains from a previous era and that the response to this - Obama's elitist technocratic management - was utterly insufficient, paving the way for the abandonment of democracy altogether under Trump. But this leads to the question - which "age" is the "age of folly"? The (heavily represented here) Bush years? The less represented Obama years? The entire era leading us to Trump?
Which brings me to my ultimate recommendation of this book - this is a fun book for anyone looking to relive the intellectual opposition to the Bush-era (which may or may not still be *our* era). The Bush era was, after all, the time when I became politically conscious, an era where the Left consisted of, say, Michael Moore and AdBusters and, less prominently, people like Lapham. While there are a handful of great essays collected here (including the book's closer, which is also its best), I'd hesitate to recommend it to anyone who wasn't around the for it the first time. However, even if you weren't there, I'd still recommend this for anyone willing to do some of their own thinking about how the no-so-distant past eventually created the present.
I picked up this book because it had the big Verso "V" on the spine and I knew Lewis Lapham as the Harper's/ Lapham's Quarterly guy. I used to read Harper's at my local library in high school. At this point, Harper's - along with The Nation - was my sole access to the world of anti-war/ anti-Bush opinion. In the interim, I've mostly restricted my reading of Harper's to waiting in airport terminals. Seeing that Verso logo, though - maybe Lapham is a bit more radical than I remember him? Alas, he is not.
However, it occurred to me while reading this book that Lapham fits into the Verso-verse. He is, after all, a sort of liberal doppelganger of Perry Anderson himself. Whereas Saint Perry's points of reference span all of human history but with an emphasis on Western Europe, China, and Brazil, Lapham seems focused on American history. Whereas Perry's philosophical references consist largely of 20th century Italians and Frenchmen (alas, all men) - Gramsci, Colletti, Timpanaro, Sartre, Levi-Strauss, Althusser - Lapham prefers his political theory to be derived either from the ancients or from the annals of Americana - Aristotle, Cicero, Thomas Paine, Mark Twain.
While there's no question of my own preference between Lapham and Anderson, there is still quite a lot to recommend Lapham's book. Although Lapham (like Anderson) is, in effect, a very privileged old white liberal writing about history from a non-academic vantage point, he is, after all, a *good* liberal. Of course Lapham is an inveterate elite - among his many personal anecdotes, he was interviewed by the CIA to become a secret agent in the 1950s - but his elitism carries with it a benevolent paternalism that appears to be a lasting response to the radicalism of the 1960s. Apparently too old to have taken part directly in the upheavals of the Left's last great moment (he was born just 3 years before Anderson, although the New Left had an earlier birth date across the Atlantic), Lapham recoils at revolutionary politics. However, he has enough of a sincere belief in both the New Deal and the Gettysburg Address to likewise recoil at US aggression in Vietnam and, later, Iraq.
The book's subtitle - "America Abandons Its Democracy" - seems to imply that America's inexorable march to Trumpism was perhaps a long time coming, but Trump is mostly absent (as is Obama). The argument is never quite made explicit, but the book's overall arrangement seems to suggest that the Bush years were a grand reversal of democratic gains from a previous era and that the response to this - Obama's elitist technocratic management - was utterly insufficient, paving the way for the abandonment of democracy altogether under Trump. But this leads to the question - which "age" is the "age of folly"? The (heavily represented here) Bush years? The less represented Obama years? The entire era leading us to Trump?
Which brings me to my ultimate recommendation of this book - this is a fun book for anyone looking to relive the intellectual opposition to the Bush-era (which may or may not still be *our* era). The Bush era was, after all, the time when I became politically conscious, an era where the Left consisted of, say, Michael Moore and AdBusters and, less prominently, people like Lapham. While there are a handful of great essays collected here (including the book's closer, which is also its best), I'd hesitate to recommend it to anyone who wasn't around the for it the first time. However, even if you weren't there, I'd still recommend this for anyone willing to do some of their own thinking about how the no-so-distant past eventually created the present.
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