Interesting books, and news items about books and periodicals, particularly with respect to political and social issues. Since May, 2016, many of my larger book reviews have been put on a hosted Wordpress site; so now this blog emphasizes previews, interviews with authors, booklets, large periodical articles, and literary business issues. Note: no one pays me for these reviews; they are not "endorsements"!
Saturday, May 12, 2018
"Suicide of the West": introducing a book "franchise movie" with two conservative authors
I am not ready for a full review yet (to be done soon on
Wordpress), but I have started Jonah Goldberg’s “Suicide of the West” with
subtitle “How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity
Politics is Destroying American Democracy”, from Crown Forum 379 pages before
the notes.
The book maintains that civilization with the rule of law and
individualism is somewhat of a “Miracle” and a geographical accident for which
we should be grateful.It probably
started in England in the 17th Century.
Even more than Amy Chua, the author explains how tribalism
is hardwired animal behavior, and how easy it is to backslide once social norms
are broken.It is more important to
support the right “tribe” and its grievances than to succeed of be respected “in
the world” as an individual, in this thinking. The aggressive tribalist demands
not only individual freedom from discrimination in the usual sense but also positive
affirmation from others of his or her (or “their”) group identity.
The book is a real page turner. A lot of the material reminds me of George Gilder ("Sexual Suicide", 1973). A particularly disturbing claim is that leftist tribalism sees "meritocracy" as a code for "racism".
Goldberg thinks that when diverse people live in close quarters, there is less social capital -- yet what seems to be needed is people reaching across tribal divides, sometimes very personally.
But it is also a “sequel” to James Burnham’s 1964 classic “Suicide
of the West: An Essay on the Meaning and Destiny of Liberalism” (Encounter
Books – the Kindle isn’t as pricey as print) which had followed “The Managerial
Revolution” (1941).Burnham had started
out dabbling in Marxism and Trotskyism before becoming anti-Communist.He opens this essay with with “This book is a
book” and not a collection of papers, and soon says that Communism used free
speech to destroy free speech.Burnham seems critical of putting peace over liberty
and wary of “moral busybodies”.At a
rough level, some of this sounds a little like Trump sometimes, and maybe Goldwater
others.
I am quite shocked at how determined and coercive some
tribalist behavior has become in the past four years. Tribalism seems even to explain the reaction
to James Damore’s memo (April 29).
Goldberg mentions Burnham's book on p 115 where he says Burnham thinks that the intellectual development of Communism was motivated by guilt.
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