[MD] Babylonian intellectuals

[Platt Holden]

[Platt}
Is this what an "intellectual" does, quote a bunch of like-minded critics to
judge a work instead of seeing for himself?
If that's the criteria, the MOQ must be next to worthless, according to
"respected intellectuals."

On Mon, Jul 19, 2010 at 4:35 PM, david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com>wrote:

>
> Goldberg is a hack that nobody takes seriously, except other hacks. There
> is no shortage of negative reviews...
>
> Austin W. Bramwell wrote in The American Conservative:Repeatedly, Goldberg
> fails to recognize a reductio ad absurdum. ... In no case does Goldberg
> uncover anything more ominous than a coincidence. ... In elaborating
> liberalism’s similarities to fascism, Goldberg shows a near superstitious
> belief in the power of taxonomy. ... Goldberg falsely saddles liberalism not
> just with relativism but with all manner of alleged errors having nothing to
> do with liberalism. ... Not only does Goldberg misunderstand liberalism, but
> he refuses to see it simply as liberalism... Liberal Fascism reads less like
> an extended argument than as a catalogue of conservative intellectual
> clichés, often irrelevant to the supposed point of the book. ... Liberal
> Fascism completes Goldberg’s transformation from chipper humorist into
> humorless ideologue.
>
>
> In The Nation, Eric Alterman wrote:The book reads like a Google search gone
> gaga. Some Fascists were vegetarians; some liberals are vegetarians; ergo...
> Some Fascists were gay; some liberals are gay... Fascists cared about
> educating children; Hillary Clinton cares about educating children. Aha! ...
> Like Coulter, he's got a bunch of footnotes. And for all I know, they check
> out. But they are put in the service of an argument that no one with any
> knowledge of the topic would take seriously.
>
> Journalist David Neiwert, wrote in The American Prospect that Goldberghas
> drawn a kind of history in absurdly broad and comically wrongheaded strokes.
> It is not just history done badly, or mere revisionism. It’s a caricature of
> reality, like something from a comic-book alternative universe: Bizarro
> history. ... Goldberg isn't content to simply create an oxymoron; this
> entire enterprise, in fact, is classic Newspeak. ... Along the way, he
> grotesquely misrepresents the state of academia regarding the study of
> fascism...
>
> David Oshinsky of The New York Times wrote: "Liberal Fascism is less an
> exposé of left-wing hypocrisy than a chance to exact political revenge. Yet
> the title of his book aside, what distinguishes Goldberg from the Sean
> Hannitys and Michael Savages is a witty intelligence that deals in ideas as
> well as insults — no mean feat in the nasty world of the culture wars."
>
> Michael Tomasky wrote in The New Republic: "...I can report with a clear
> conscience that Liberal Fascism is one of the most tedious and inane—and
> ultimately self-negating—books that I have ever read. ... Liberal Fascism is
> a document of a deeply frivolous culture, or sub-culture. ... However much
> or little Goldberg knows about fascism, he knows next to nothing about
> liberalism.
>
> In his book Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the
> Free, Charles P. Pierce describes Goldberg's book as "Apparently written
> with a paint roller" and "a richly footnoted loogie hawked by Goldberg at
> every liberal who ever loosely called him a fascist." Pierce also claims
> that Goldberg ignored historical facts relating to his accusations against
> Woodrow Wilson: It seems that Wilson was a Progressive, and Goldberg sees in
> the Progressive movement the seedbed of American fascism which, he argues,
> differs from European fascism, especially on those occasions when he needs
> it to differ because he has backed up the argument over his own feet.
> Anyway, Wilson brought the country into World War I. Therefore, Progressives
> love war.
>
>
> David Gordon, a libertarian scholar with the Mises Institute, wrote in his
> review "Fascism, Left and Right" that "Jonah Goldberg has ruined what could
> have been a valuable book." While offering agreement with some of Goldberg's
> underlying thesis concerning the progressive nature of fascism, Gordon
> nonetheless finds insurmountable flaws to the book. Gordon states that
> "[Goldberg] seems to me too ready to call any resort to "identity politics"
> fascist; and while he criticizes the 'compassionate conservatism' of George
> Bush, he turns a blind eye to the effects of Bush's bellicose foreign policy
> on the domestic scene. Goldberg himself supports the Iraq war; when one is
> faced with a "good" war, apparently, the link between war and fascism no
> longer need be of concern"  Gordon's review discovered numerous historical
> errors that other negative reviews failed to mention. He faults Goldberg's
> claim that Rousseau is a precursor to fascism and his interpretation of
> various philosopher's statements.
>
> In January 2010, History News Network published essays by David Neiwert,
> Robert Paxton, Roger Griffin, Matthew Feldman, Chip Berlet, and Michael
> Ledeen criticizing Liberal Fascism. They also published Goldberg's response
> which several authors responded to.[27]
>
> Also, James did not "admire" Mussolini and the latter's claim to pragmatism
> has been refuted by James scholars since 1926. When James died in 1910,
> Benito was still an elementary school teacher in his twenties and fascism
> hadn't even been invented yet.
>
> Since you are recommending this book while reading it for the second time,
> you might be tempted to keep defending it. Believe me, you don't want to do
> that. Jonah Goldberg doesn't know what he's talking about. Intellectually
> speaking, he's not much more respectable than Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh.
>
>
> > Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 13:38:55 -0500
> > From: combinedefforts at earthlink.net
> > To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
> > Subject: Re: [MD] Babylonian intellectuals
> >
> > On 7/19/10 12:25 PM, "John Carl" <ridgecoyote at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > I'd considered this before, reading an answer of Royce to James'
> critics,
> > > but that Goldberg book sounds fascinatingly like a confirmation of this
> > > idea.
> >
> > [Dave]
> > Not being familiar with Royce I can't say.
> >
> > Goldberg basically traces the socialist/fascist impulse back to the
> French
> > Revolution and follows its twists and turns up to the present (2007 when
> it
> > was published)"it takes a village" form.  He claims that James and
> Mussolini
> > early on were mutual admirers and that Hitler had positive things to say
> > about both James and Dewey's work. In the period after WWI all the future
> > "bad boys" were to one degree or another participants in the development
> and
> > spread of international socialism. H & M in their rise to power, partly
> > because of their fear of Russia, and partly for pragmatic reasons split
> off
> > of the "international" strain developing a modified nationalistic
> socialism
> > that later became labeled fascism. He claims all of them used James "Will
> to
> > Believe" and "Moral Equivalent of War" married with Nietze's "Will to
> Power"
> > concepts to some degree or another as philosophic underpinning for their
> > actions.
> >
> > So the real danger is not "cafeteria Christians" but "cafeteria
> > Philosophers." But it seems to one degree or another we all are.
> >
> > Dave
> >
> >
>