Liberal Fascism: Two Words Next to Each Other

I recognize I criticized Sadly, No! rather harshly not but three days ago, so it may seem strange for me to trumpet this, but they've been putting yeoman's screws to Jonah Goldberg's insufferably stupid Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning.  I'm normally not one to join the gagging chorus, but this book demands mockery.  I'm not sure where I should even begin, so why don't we begin where the book did: 

I. Composition

In October of 2005, Goldberg unashamedly used his Corner pulpit to ask other people to do his research for him:

I'm working on a chapter of the book which requires me to read a lot about and by Herbert Spencer. There's simply no way I can read all of it, nor do I really need to. But if there are any real experts on Spencer out there—regardless of ideological affiliation—I'd love to ask you a few questions in case I'm missing something.

Repeat after me: "Real scholars do their own research.  Real scholars do their own research."  Since I was genuinely interested in what someone else had to say about Spencer, I responded to Goldberg's plea.  (Why not aid a fellow Jew maintain the illusion of integrity?)  He told me what he thought Spencer was up to. 

I informed him (politely) he couldn't be more wrong.

He responded (haughtily) that other people said Spencer had said that.

I informed him (politely) those other people were wrong too.

He inquired (brusquely) why they wrote it then.

I said (politely) Spencer is the most misunderstood thinker of the 19th Century.

He told me (angrily) I hadn't helped him at all and not to write back.

So, without even having read the book, I can say with certainty that whatever it says about Herbert Spencer will not reflect anything Spencer himself wrote or believed.  (For that you should go here.)  I'll even go so far as imitate Spencer and draw a sweeping general conclusion from this particular incident:

People should not write books about things they haven't read.  (That's what blogs are for.) 

II. Promotion

Two years later, Goldberg reversed tack: instead of proclaiming his intellectual irresponsibility from the mount, he claimed Liberal Fascism would be "a very serious, thoughtful, argument that has never been made  in such detail or with such care."  Given my experience with him, I must ask:

By whom will this very serious, thoughtful, argument that has never been made in such detail or with such care be made?  Certainly not by the person who rebuffed my attempt to inform him of what Spencer actually said. 

That guy clearly doesn't know from care or detail when it comes to research. 

That guy clearly has an agenda he won't let inconvenient truths upset.

Yet Goldberg would have us believe that these two guys are one and the same.

I say there is no universe in which the guy who begged scholars for misinformation is the same guy who will make a careful and detailed argument.  (What with two objects not being able to occupy the same space at the same and all.)

III. The Title

Liberal Fascism. 

Just because you put two words next to each other doesn't make them related.  (This rule also applies to people.) 

(Unless they're on an altar in the presence of some speech acts.)

IV. The Sub-Title

The Secret History of the American Left, from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning. 

Mussolini? 

Not American. 

V. The Text

The folks at Sadly, No! have spent the better part of the week taking pictures of Goldberg's words.  These pictures demonstrate that Goldberg was unable to overcome his self-handicapping: for all the research he didn't do and all his protestations of care and detail, Liberal Fascism is a sublimely stupid book.  Were a student to write such nonsense I'd vow to make them uncomfortable with my words and what I say.  Liberal Fascism is that stupid.  To wit:

Where to begin?  YOU ARE A BAD JEW .  (Sorry.  Just slipped out.) 

YOU ARE A BAD JEW.  (Don't know where this is coming from.  I'll stop.)

YOU ARE A ... A ... A ... PERSON WHO DOES NOT KNOW ANYTHING.  (Better.)

Logic is one of the many things Goldberg does not know.  Here is what he thinks it is:

All X believe Y.

All Z believe Y.

Therefore all X are Z.

I take it back: Goldberg does know logic.  You can find the above syllogism in logic textbooks.  Just turn to the section on the fallacy of the undistributed middle and there it is right there in your logic textbook.  It is logic.  Goldberg is wise to employ it:

All [animal rights activists] believe [in animal rights].

All [Nazis] believe [in animal rights].

Therefore all [animal rights activists] are [Nazis].

Logic is fun!  I want to do more!

All [liberals] believe [orgasms are fun].

All [Nazis] believe [orgasms are fun].

Therefore all [liberals] are [Nazis].

You know what else is fun?  Poetry!  Poetry is fun! 

You know what's even funner?  Poetry about Goldberg!  Poetry about Goldberg is even funner!  Flippanter proves it:

Thirteen and a Half Ways of Looking at Jonah Goldberg

I.
In the haunted thoughts of Jonah Goldberg
The only hallowed thing
Was the fear of the Clintons.

II.
He was of two minds,
Like an Enterprise
On which there were two captains.

III.
The Goldberg flailed at the keyboard,
Pantomimed the smallness of his parts.

IV.
A liberal and a fascist
Are one.
A liberal and a fascist
And a schoolteacher are one.

V.
I know which to prefer:
The beauty of the war
Is the beauty of Bush.
You'd better agree now
Or at least soon.

VI.
Nachos filled his belly
With barbaric gas.
The shadow of the liberal
And the liberal's girlfriend
Ruined his mood.
Stupid liberals
And their exclusive parties.

[the rest]

 

Comments

[Sadly, No! Investor Relations]

I recognize I criticized Sadly, No! rather harshly not but three days ago

Where? What did we do?

[SEK]

Here. Thought I'd linked to it in the original post. Turns out, I'm stupid.

[Michael Blaine]

Goldberg engages in this inanity, and last week the US Congress effectively proclaimed Jesus Christ to be our national savior!

Read the details at:

‘Minnesota’s Own Version of “Verjudung,” or How Somali Refugees Threaten Christmas In The Upper Midwest’

at:

“Rudely Stamped,” www.rudelystamped.blogspot.com

Michael Blaine
www.rudelystamped.blogspot.com

[Rich Puchalsky]

Oh, sure, hang out on Scott's blog for ages writing stupid parody poems and does he ever say "poetry is fun?" No.... Well that's the last drinking song featuring you, SEK.

In re: Goldberg there's some weird inversion of time and space such that the fish so entirely fills the barrel such that when you go to shoot at it, the barrel momentarily becomes entire blogospheric world. Disconcerting.

[SEK]

My friend, your drinking song drives me to drink. Plus, it'd be vain to lift a song about myself from the comments and I'm not vain.

I mean, sure, I'm a blogger, but ...

[Rich Puchalsky]

I'll Email you a copy of the whole thing with the two errant verses in the right place. Just don't read it, or something, until you're drinking at MLA; I'd guess some people there might be willing to try it out. It is pretty funny that not only have the subjects of all of those verses actually happened (well, actually been blogged; we take it on trust that they've actually happened), there were so many that I actually had to combine two and eliminate of couple of other more minor ones.

Maybe Goldberg is trying to drive everyone crazy just as the beloved Capt. Kirk did with computers. "Anything this stupid must be parodied. Anything this stupid must be ignored. Oh no, basic directive conflict -- abort, retry, fail! Abort, retry, fail!"

[Mike Russo]

That's great that you actually got in touch with Goldberg about the Spencer thing -- I thought of you when I saw that post! Sounds like it went about precisely as I would have thought.

Also, I thought the subtitle was now "...from Hegel to Whole Foods"? Though I have it on good authority: Hegel, not American.

[Carly Simon]

You're ... so vain. I bet you think this post is about you.

[John Emerson]

Repeat after me: "Real scholars do their own research. Real scholars do their own research."

Unless they have graduate students, paid research assistants, or learned slaves captured when their nation was destroyed.

[ben wolfson]

You didn't link to my villanelle because I'm the type of person who points out that you mean "altar", and not "alter", isn't that right?

[SEK]

Yes.

[SEK]

(Also, thank you.)

(In my defense, the deaf don't deal well with homonyms.)

[Sadly, No! Investor Relations]

Scott, the thing you have to remember in dealing with characters like Jonah Goldberg (and included in this category is Michelle Malkin, Ann Althouse, and Patterico, from the previous thread) is that they literally, expressly do not care whether what they say is true or false. They don't think in terms of truth or falsity, but are instead minutely attuned to the success or failure of the rhetorical tactics in play.

You might be like, "Sure, sure, I understand that," But I don't think you appreciate the lunar moral vacuum. When you say that they're acting in other than good faith, they don't even understand what you mean.

And I actually like Patterico personally, by the way. There's no current grudge between us that I'm aware of.

[Nullifidian]

“The main report to the [Tenth Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International] did indeed seek to ‘intensify’ the Comintern line… The identification of Social Democracy with Fascism was completed, and Social Democracy became Social Fascism… For several months already the KPD’s [German Communist Party] propaganda had been claiming that ‘reformism is socialism in words and Fascism in deeds.’”

—Fernando Claudìn, The Communist Movement: From Comintern to Cominform (Penguin Books, 1975)

Is it dirty pool to point how much the New Right resembles the old Stalinist hegemony?

Thanks for your amusing response to Goldberg. I'm glad to know that Goldberg evinced the precise degree of intellectual honesty I would have expected of him in that exchange.

[David]

Spencer Ackerman also has a copy and is writing some great stuff about Liberal Fascism:

http://toohotfortnr.blogspot.com/

[Frotz]

I'm interested in reading the book, having placed my Amazon pre-order back in April. When I briefly talked to Jonah about it two years ago, he was somewhere in between Hayek and the professional political science literature, i.e., fascism as a movement of the left and fascism as an impossibly vague word that is more of an indication of disagreement than anything else. The sub-title "From Mussolini" is important, because it's there that we can see the important problem of conflating Nazism with Fascism. It's safe to say, even if some smart people will disagree with you, that Nazism is a kind of fascism, but that does not mean that Nazism is the sum total of what fascism means. Mussolini and Hitler spent the war papering over their deep ideological disagreements. I don't mean to give the impression that it's the last word on the subject, but I've found Allardyce's "What Fascism Is Not: Thoughts on the Deflation of a Concept", from The American Historical Review, Vol. 84, No. 2 (Apr., 1979), pp. 367-388, to be very informative.

[Fritz]

Two quotes:

"I have tried to be fair to the academic literature, though this is not an academic book."

And,

"Herbert Spencer, the supposed founder of social Darwinism, was singled out as the poster boy for all that was wrong in classical liberalism. Spencer was indeed a Darwinist--he coined the phrase "survival of the fittest"--but his interpretation of evolutionary theory reinforced his view that people should be left alone. In almost every sense, Spencer was a good--albeit classical-- liberal: he championed charity, women's suffrage, and civil liberties. But has was the incarnation of all that was backward, reactionary, and wrong according to the progressive worldview, not because he supported Hitlerian schemes of forced race hygiene but because he adamantly opposed them. To this day it is de rigueur among liberal intellectual and historians to take potshots at Spencer as the philosophical wellspring of racism, right-wing "greed," and even the Holocaust."

[Jeffrey Kramer]

Assuming SEK has given a fair summary of his interactions with Jonah, we really have a landmark moment in the annals of chutzpah here. In promoting his books, the message is 'Everything you thought you knew about fascism is wrong! Free yourself from the tyranny of liberal academic groupthink!' But, inform him that he's wrong about Spencer and the response is 'You can't be serious: everybody knows Spencer believed such-and-such; it's an Academically Acknowledged Fact!'

[Late arrival, drawn by Crooked Timber]

[John Emerson]

Episcopalian.

[spencer]

I don't know for sure, but I am pretty sure Goldberg isn't (despite his name) actually Jewish.