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You are here: Home / Books & Music / Books / Reminder

Reminder

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Tomorrow at 8 pm eastern time, we’ll be discussing the first chapter of “The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin” by Corey Robin.

Here’s an interview with Corey Robin about the book at Naked Capitalism.

Update. Here’s an interesting excerpt from the interview:

I had always known about the presence of romanticism on the right, going back to Coleridge, the early German Romantics, and so on. What surprised me was: a) seeing that same romanticism alive and well in the late 20th/early 21st century; b) seeing it not in a defense of Gothic cathedrals or landed estates but in a defense of the “free market” and war.

Reader Interactions

101Comments

  2. 2.

    gaz

    @DougJ,

    despite flukebucket’s criticism, I like the nick change. Seems you changed it in a nod of solidarity with ABL.

    If so I applaud you. Especially considering the anti-ABL-anything trolls (many of them, white male racists) will continue to bash you over it. Idiots.

    Cheers dude. Hang on to the nick. Fuck the haters.

  3. 3.

    BO_Bill

    Good luck with this one Angry DougJ. Here are your challenges:

    1. 80% of Democrats are illiterate.
    2. Of the Literate Democrats, 10% are heartless open Fascists, half of whom are drunk at any given time.
    3. Leaving you with a fairly limited pool for a book group.

    TEA Party book clubs are much better. Have fun in any case.

  4. 4.

    kMc

    I guess we could just get past the whole ABL thing and move on to discuss other things. We could do that. It would even be awesome, I bet…

  5. 5.

    Poopyman

    “The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin” presupposes there is a mind there to be reactionary with.

    I call shenanigans.

  7. 7.

    gaz

    @kMc: And yet, there you go. My guess is you won’t let it die, despite your comment.

    If you really want to stop discussing ABL, you could start right in your own backyard.

  8. 8.

    Benjamin Franklin

    I’ve come away from all of this convinced that conservatism is not really about conservation at all – except in one sense: the conservation of established relations of hierarchy and privilege

    The Status Quo…..nuff said.

  12. 12.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    I am adding this to the list of books I have them play in my casket when I’m dead, but is romanticism used in this case mean believing that the way things used to be done was better than they are now? As equivalent to the old definition of conservatism.

  15. 15.

    BO_Bill

    Dude, I’m not the one who fired Angry Black Lady. In fact, there is a big black person at The Facility who calls me ‘brother’.

  16. 16.

    gaz

    @BO_Bill: lolwut?

    Nobody connected you to anything about ABL on this thread. Are you lost? (You don’t have to answer that, we know you are)…

    And predictably, you trot out a variant of the “some of my best friends are black!” defense. Telling, especially considering it was unprovoked.

  17. 17.

    Chyron HR

    I don’t know if this site is on a revolving troll program or what, but can we please dump Time Cube Jr. and get VICTORY!! back in here? Thanks.

  19. 19.

    gaz

    @BO_Bill: None of what you are posting makes ANY SENSE AT ALL. It’s like you are reading a different thread, but posting on this one.

    It’s pretty early to be drunk already, dontcha think?

    All of this is hilarious, considering your first post, BTW

    /grabs popcorn

  20. 20.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    BO_Bill @ “at The Facility who calls me ‘brother’.”

    So like most free market conservatives you pull yourself up by your boot straps at a government job. Why is this no surprise?

  21. 21.

    harlana

    I wish I knew what happened with ABL – my computer was out of commission for a few days, but I had no idea I missed THAT much!

    Anybody want to share what happened? Something to do with Glenn Greenwald? That’s all I got so far from previous comments.

  25. 25.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    @Belafon (formerly anonevent): 18 C/early 19th C Romanticism is odd. Yes, you have the radical conservatives who long for the good old medieval days, not for surfdom per se, but for order, a hierachy, a sense of place (e.g. them at the top), traditional medieval city liberties (that’s where the libertarian streak comes in — remember Magna Carter was a bunch of nobles who were pissed at the king for trying to consolidate power). The thing is, of course, what they remembered from the past was incorrect. Twist it around, and you get socialists like William Morris and Percy Byshe Shelly, who also longed for the “good old days,” but because they disliked what English society has become through capitalism and the industrial revolution. Alas, they too remembered the past incorrectly.

  26. 26.

    gaz

    @harlana: It had to do with GG, yes.

    Basically, as I understand the events:

    Some commenter on twitter made a rape analogy that was in poor taste.

    Something to the effect of – If Obama raped a nun live on MSNBC, ABL would defend him…

    Both JCole and GG were playing high-fivin’ white guy and piling on ABL at this point – and then GG doubles down on the dumbstupid – and says that HE DIDN’T TAKE THE Nun rape thing to be an analogy, but a hypothetical possibility.

    ABL, understandably lost it – and meanwhile JCole is still backing GG at this point…

    So ABL left the blog. Understandably, IMO. The whole situation was pretty sordid. I expect GG to be an ass, but I hoped that JCole would have been the bigger person. He wasn’t.

    AFAIAC he still owes ABL a couple of apologies. First (a couple of days earlier) for piling on ABL with a Front Page dedicated to how she sucked, and then the twitter incident above.

    So, take that as you will. That’s just my opinion, and my interpretation of events. I’ll even provide the grain of salt.

  28. 28.

    Mark S.

    I’ve come away from all of this convinced that conservatism is not really about conservation at all – except in one sense: the conservation of established relations of hierarchy and privilege. But what matters there is not the conservation per se – in fact, as I show in my book, conservatives will turn the world upside down in order to turn it right side up – but the hierarchy/privilege.

    That’s pretty much conservatism in a nutshell. Conservatives are willing to support things that would cause great social upheaval (such as repealing SS and Medicare, returning to the gold standard) as long as they think the right people will come out on top.

  30. 30.

    Hob

    @Belafon (formerly anonevent): “is romanticism used in this case mean believing that the way things used to be done was better than they are now?”

    No, you’re thinking of “romanticizing”. Robin is talking about Romanticism in the aesthetic sense: an emotional trip where everything is larger than life and the heroes are moody and misunderstood, questing after the sublime.

  33. 33.

    gaz

    The word conservative seems to have been redefined so much in American politics, that it really is nothing more than a misnomer at this point – or if nothing else, it is utterly useless. I think this is actually kinda by design. In the late 60’s it got turned toxic, and since then has been rebranded so many times, in order to avoid the tells of racism that underlie the Southern Strategy element of conservative politics.

    The closest example I can find of a conservative in the media anymore is David Frum, and that ain’t saying much.

    Otherwise, conservative is now just a euphemism for “27%’er”, or “nutjob”.

  35. 35.

    Amir Khalid

    @gaz:
    This point has been made here many times before, I think: the American right isn’t “conservative” in any real ideological sense, not anymore. All they stand for now is Republican partisanship.

  37. 37.

    gaz

    @Amir Khalid: Agreed. I kinda wish I had something else to jump to with this, but I can’t use the word conservative as any kind of rational springboard on which to discuss the nutters.

    So I got nuthin’

  39. 39.

    harlana

    @gaz: thanks so much for the explanation and background – that helps! apparently, while my puter was out, i missed all the drama!

  40. 40.

    gaz

    @Judas Escargot: Heh.

    I heard they tried paint by numbers in their “advanced” groups, but that ended… badly. Apparently it was too challenging, and it devolved into numerology and conspiracy theories about how the numbers prove the j000z will eat their babies and turn their teenagers teh ghey. Or something.

    Also too, they learned that feces doesn’t actually maintain it’s pigment very well.

  43. 43.

    Samara Morgan

    @flukebucket: no but since conservatives have more grey matter in the amygdala and less in the ACC, they are more emotional and less empathetic.
    So often they have a rage response to places where reality and empirical data conflict with their preferred world view.
    @Amir Khalid: of course modern american conservatism is STILL “conservative”. Here’s a thought experiment for you, O Deathless. Was WFB a conservative? The guy that advocated standing athwart history hollering stop?

  44. 44.

    Gus

    I find it odd that he connects Romanticism with conservatism. The English Romantics wound up as conservatives, but they all started out as political radicals, big fans of the French Revolution.

  45. 45.

    Samara Morgan

    @Angry DougJ: oh how cute. an angryblack boutique armband.
    Angryblack must be so proud.

    Update. Here’s an interesting excerpt from the interview:…….blah blah blah…

    Again if Corey isnt gunna mention race, hes just another loozer First Culture Intellectual.
    not worth my time at least.

  46. 46.

    jake the snake

    @Hob:
    Historically, the Romantic movement was a reaction to the
    “Age of Reason”. Being always stuck in the past, conservatism is still clinging to it. The rest of us have gone through “Modernism” and “Post-Modernism since then.

    Though to be fair, they are still in reaction to the Enlightenment

  47. 47.

    handsmile

    Angry DougJ:

    I appreciate the alert about kick-off time. It may be necessary for me to join the proceedings after the half-time show (a medley of Carpenters’ tunes I presume).

    I hope some thought has been given to troll fumigation. The subject of Robin’s book, as opposed to that of Perlstein’s, I suspect will prove a strong incentive for their vexations. While I’m not one to advocate banning (pretty much a free speech absolutist), it would be unfortunate to have the conversation get mired in insult and invective.

  49. 49.

    wrb

    @Hob:
    Romanticism is tricky because it is closely tied to real conservatism: that which believes in valuing conserving the environment, the artistic achievements of the past etc. These values are often held by liberals today. It contains a rejection of a Cartesian/mechanistic world view. As Keats put it “cold philosophy [natural philosophy aka science] would unweave a rainbow.”

    The relationship to the enlightenment is also peculiar, as they tended to place high value on the rediscovered classical world while being suspicious of the enthusiasm for industrialization.

  50. 50.

    Calouste

    @gaz:

    ‘Reactionaries’ describes them pretty well. They actually want to turn back the clock rather than slow progress.

  52. 52.

    Samara Morgan

    @Calouste:

    “…But they had, perversely, been living among people who were peering into the wrong end of the telescope, or something, and who had convinced themselves that the opposite was true – that the world had once been a splendid, orderly place…and that everything had been slowly, relentlessly falling apart ever since.”
    ― Neal Stephenson, Quicksilver

  54. 54.

    Samara Morgan

    @wrb: its not that hard wrb.
    conservatives worship the past, and liberals worship the future.
    whats the FUCKING point of writing a book about that?

  55. 55.

    handsmile

    @Amir Khalid: [O/T, but in the event you are still reading this thread]

    If it would interest you to reply, I am curious about your thoughts on the acquittal of Anwar Ibrahim.

    I am familiar with the contours of the story, having read the occasional Western media report since 2008, and find the original allegations and their political context to be truly sensational (in all the connotations of that word). At the very least, it suggests that American political “dirty tricks” really are just “bean bag.”

    Any other insightful link you could suggest/provide (other than the Guardian article below) would be appreciated as well.

    guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/09/malaysia-anwar-ibrahim-acquitted-sodomy?INTCMP=SRCH

  57. 57.

    Amir Khalid

    @Samara Morgan #42: \
    Read the interview at Angry DougJ’s link. Take note of the paragraph Mark S. block-quotes #27. William F. Buckley was certainly a conservative; but he fought to marginalize the Teabaggers of his day in the John Birch Society, whom he saw as a threat to conservatism as an intellectual force. Today’s American conservatism is “conservative” in the narrow sense of desiring the restoration of an idealized status quo ante; but in a practical sense its political agenda is limited to privileging the already privileged, and to nihilistic opposition toward Democratic efforts at day-to-day governance.

    @Samara Morgan #44:
    It will be difficult, I fear, but I think participants in the upcoming Book Club threads will somehow manage a reasonably fruitful discussion without the brilliant insights you share with us on so many other topics.

  60. 60.

    Samara Morgan

    @Amir Khalid:

    I’ve come away from all of this convinced that conservatism is not really about conservation at all – except in one sense: the conservation of established relations of hierarchy and privilege.

    Social Dominance Order, which has a biological basis.
    Again, Robin is just another First Culture Intellectual, dissecting the philosophical bones of Dead White Males…you cannot get DNA from fossils– did you know that?

    So in your and Robin’s opinion WFB was just posturing for kabuki when he made his famous statement?

  61. 61.

    Samara Morgan

    @wrb: WTF does that have to do with the discussion?
    always with the white male triumphalism.
    i suppose you are gunna lecture me about the glorious achievements of Christiandom next.

    and i heart twitter.
    ;)

  62. 62.

    handsmile

    @Samara Morgan: (#50)

    Please know that you were not among the “nyms” I had in mind with my comment above.

    Truth be told, I usually enjoy reading and considering your remarks/provocations (must confess I don’t always understand the abbreviations and neologisms); it is their emotional tenor that often seems problematic. But then again, I’ve not (yet) been the target of your wrath.

    I surmise that political theory is an interest of yours; if in fact so, Robin’s book may be worth your time. Race and gender are instructive, but not determinative, indices in the evaluation of conservatism’s origins and professed development.

  63. 63.

    Samara Morgan

    @handsmile:

    Race and gender are instructive, but not determinative

    oh, but they are today. its frustrating that NO ONE will admit that the contemporary conservative in america is a white male, and indeed, that today’s GOP is nearly uniformly white and christian.
    Robins book is simply another turn on first culture intellectualism, and Robin is a reactionary himself…

    Indeed, the traditional American intellectuals are, in a sense, increasingly reactionary, and quite often proudly (and perversely) ignorant of many of the truly significant intellectual accomplishments of our time. Their culture, which dismisses science, is often nonempirical. It uses its own jargon and washes its own laundry. It is chiefly characterized by comment on comments, the swelling spiral of commentary eventually reaching the point where the real world gets lost.

  64. 64.

    wrb

    @Samara Morgan:

    Just pointing out that you seem to value some aspects of the past.

    I quite like Sufi writing, but I think you need to give them up for the sake of consistency. They come pretty close to transmitting a believable voice of god. Of course only Whitman transmitted the actual voice of god.

    Don’t have much use for Christendom except for the architecture, which blows away the primitive stuff of today.

    The classical mind is a mind fuck, however. Try Lucretius.

  65. 65.

    Paul in KY

    @handsmile: There are a whole lot of ‘white males’ (many of them with lots of power) who embrace this ‘conservatism’. Might be instructive to see how this political mindset came to be.

  67. 67.

    Samara Morgan

    @wrb: i can reject useless baggage from the past, while retaining valuable ideas. i quite like Plato and Pythagorus, and sapentia poetica is one of my favorite things.
    If you consider the Quantum Quran, its just that Sufi writings have travelled into the future much better than christian dominionism and individualism.
    Ibn Arabi and Sean Carroll have a lot in common.
    ;)

  69. 69.

    "Fair and Balanced" Dave

    [C]onservatism is a theory, a moral and political argument, of hierarchy and elitism, which believes that all that is good in the world – all that is fine and beautiful and superior and excellent – is the product of not only superior people but superior people presiding over a society of unequals. Inequality, in their minds, is the condition of greatness – individual greatness and the contributions that greatness makes to all of civilization.

    This is all of “Atlas Shrugged” boiled down to two sentences.

  70. 70.

    Amir Khalid

    @handsmile:
    amk asked me about Anwar’s acquittal in this thread yesterday, and you’ll find my replies toward the end.

    Here’s a bit more:

    Anwar’s war with Barisan Nasional, in particular Umno where he was Dr Mahathir’s heir apparent and PM-in-waiting, goes back to 1998 when Dr M fired him from his party and Cabinet posts (party deputy president, finance minister and deputy PM respectively.) The firing came right after TIME Asia did a big and very favorable cover story on Anwar, which might not be a coincidence.

    Part of the reason for the firing was that Anwar wanted to follow the IMF’s prescriptions for dealing with the 1997 financial crisis, while Dr M had other ideas. The other part was that Dr M apparently came to suspect that Anwar was tired of waiting to become PM, and had begun to scheme against him.

    Between his firing and his arrest on the first round of trumped-up sodomy charges that year, Anwar began addressing large protest rallies in Kuala Lumpur — the “reformasi” (reform) rallies that eventually led to the formation of Pakatan Rakyat a decade later and its successes in the 2008 general elections. Najib Abdul Razak, current PM and Umno/Barisan leader, understandably sees Anwar as the number 1 threat to Barisan’s hold on power.

    I’ll need some time to think up some links for you. Many political sites and blogs here are largely or mostly in Malay, and independent news sites tend to have paywalls because they can’t get a print-edition licence. But for a start, try my old newspaper The Star and Free Malaysia Today. Also, Google “Pakatan Rakyat” for their online presence.

  71. 71.

    Amir Khalid

    Help me, Angry DougJ, you’re my only hope:
    handsmile asked me for comments on Anwar Ibrahim’s acquittal yesterday on sodomy charges. My reply seems to have included too many links for FYWP’s liking. It needs to be liberated from moderation.

  72. 72.

    Samara Morgan

    “Fair and Balanced” Dave – January 10, 2012 | 2:28 pm · Link this is also an integral part of christian individualism, while christian dominionism validates the rapacious excesses of the “freed” market.
    Not all white christians are conservatives…..but all conservatives are white christians….(in America).

  76. 76.

    Amir Khalid

    @handsmile:
    My reply to you had too many linke, so I’m reposting it:

    amk asked me about Anwar’s acquittal in this thread yesterday, and you’ll find my replies toward the end.

    Here’s a bit more:

    Anwar’s war with Barisan Nasional, in particular Umno where he was Dr Mahathir’s heir apparent and PM-in-waiting, goes back to 1998 when Dr M fired him from his party and Cabinet posts (party deputy president, finance minister and deputy PM respectively.) The firing came right after TIME Asia did a big and very favorable cover story on Anwar, which might not be a coincidence.

    Part of the reason for the firing was that Anwar wanted to follow the IMF’s prescriptions for dealing with the 1997 financial crisis, while Dr M had other ideas. The other part was that Dr M apparently came to suspect that Anwar was tired of waiting to become PM, and had begun to scheme against him.

    Between his firing and his arrest on the first round of trumped-up sodomy charges that year, Anwar began addressing large protest rallies in Kuala Lumpur — the “reformasi” (reform) rallies that eventually led to the formation of Pakatan Rakyat a decade later and its successes in the 2008 general elections. Najib Abdul Razak, current PM and Umno/Barisan leader, understandably sees Anwar as the number 1 threat to Barisan’s hold on power.

    Will think up some links for you later.

  77. 77.

    handsmile

    @Samara Morgan: (#63)

    Certainly the standard-bearer of contemporary American conservatism is a White Male. In much of the political analysis I read (and I’d suspect at least some of what you read as well) that is a predicate assumption.

    Re your John Brockman excerpt: while I derive a good deal of intellectual pleasure from “The Edge” website and am grateful for Brockman’s initiative, I find his own exhortations about a “Third Culture” to be unpersuasive. More marketing than matter.

    Corey Robin is white and is male, but he is, in my view, no reactionary. His columns for Al Jazeera alone indicate another political orientation.

    @Paul in KY: (#65)

    I’m in complete agreement with both statements. I expect that a discussion of Robin’s book may provide that instruction, and I hope that you will have the time and inclination to join in.

  78. 78.

    Paul in KY

    @handsmile: Do not have the book. Still working on ‘Wealth of Nations’. I did have and had read ‘Nixonland’, so I felt better about jumping in. Will probably just lurk & try to learn something.

  79. 79.

    Samara Morgan

    @wrb: not part f the base, per se, and statistically insignificant.
    no one wants to admit this, but 2008 was the first demographic election, the extinction event of the all white GOP.
    as long as the GOP base is painted white, they can never win another general election.
    at this point, the GOP candidate needs an impossible 65% of the white vote to beat Obama.
    it cant be done, and the demographics get worse for the GOP every year.

  80. 80.

    handsmile

    @Amir Khalid: (#75)

    Very grateful to you for the time devoted to the reply here and on the earlier thread. (Sorry to have missed that, but as it was included among garment rendings and imprecations about a football game, I’m not too surprised I had passed it by.)

    I appreciate your providing me and other interested parties here with a fuller understanding of what transpired. Thanks much!

  81. 81.

    Samara Morgan

    @handsmile: well…im a third culture intellectual. so is Sean Carroll. so is Chris Mooney. so is Jerry Coyne. and on the other side, so are Razib Khan and Bob Wright.

  83. 83.

    Samara Morgan

    @handsmile:

    Corey Robin is white and is male, but he is, in my view, no reactionary

    ahh, but would you say he is a first culture intellectual?
    it appears like that to me.

  84. 84.

    Samara Morgan

    @Amir Khalid:

    the narrow sense of desiring the restoration of an idealized status quo ante

    as a malay, i dont think you quite get it. conservatives actually believe they can restore the past order if they can just get rid of Obama. its magical thinking, like Wovoka’s ghost dance cult.

  85. 85.

    "Fair and Balanced" Dave

    @Paul in KY:

    Senator McConnell is also married to a non-white conservative fucktard. Forget her name

    Elaine Chao. Dubya’s anti-union Labor Secretary.

  86. 86.

    Amir Khalid

    Further to my comment #76:

    Al Gore had a brief walk-on part in the 1998 reformasi protests. The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting that year took place here in Malaysia right at the peak of the protests. Gore paid his only visit to Malaysia as VP to give a brief pre-dinner speech at this meeting, during which he spoke approvingly of the protesters’ calls for political reform in Malaysia — which was objected to the next day by Malaysians on all sides, on the grounds that our local politics were not his or America’s business. Then he left, without even eating his dinner. Because of this double breach of etiquette, his one visit here is not kindly remembered.

  87. 87.

    Amir Khalid

    @Samara Morgan:

    as a malay, i dont think you quite get it.

    How non-racist of you. Do you think we don’t have racial politics and conservative nutjobs here in Malaysia?

  89. 89.

    jake the snake

    @ Samara Morgan

    Everything is not about ethnicity. Especially since we are all one race (Though many don’t want to accept that)
    It is more about class. But, for practical discussion, race and class are so intertwined that it makes no difference. And gender trumps both.
    Sometimes I think we could have an interesting discussion, if I know what the hell you were talking about.

  93. 93.

    Samara Morgan

    no offense Mr. Robin, but i just think a discussion of the reactionary mind and conservatism is pretty anachronisticly useless if it doesn’t include race and religion.
    i’ve had a bellyful of the first culture.

    btw i wont be a spoiler on your thread. i may read, but i wont comment.

  96. 96.

    THE

    @Samara Morgan:
    Actually I just realized:

    The latin version of the text is here.

    But I actually think I prefer John Selby Watson’s prose translation to William Ellery Leonard’s poetic one.

    And Watson’s version is available as an audiobook for free download from LibriVox.org

    So I was listening to it on my MP3 player yesterday, when I went for a walk, and it knocks me out all over again with its sheer awesomeness.

    Lucretius was an amazingly modern mind. There are a lot of things he didn’t know about the natural world, two thousand years ago, but his reasoning is stunning.

    What a tragedy that the rationalism of GrecoRoman civilization was replaced by the brain-rotting woo of Dark Ages religion, IMHO we could have been a thousand years more advanced by now.

  100. 100.

    Samara Morgan

    @THE: did romans have classical minds?

    “For if the modern mind is whimsical and discursive, the classical mind is narrow, unhesitating, relentless. It is not a quality of intelligence that one encounters frequently these days. But though I can digress with the best of them, I am nothing in my soul if not obsessive. ”
    ― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

  101. 101.

    THE

    There is so much overlap between the two. Greek philosophy profoundly influenced Roman thought too.

    It’s often said that Romans were more practical — engineers rather than theoreticians and philosophers, like the Greeks.

    For myself I am not sure what you mean by “classical mind”.

    It seems to me that many enlightenment scholars recapitulated the classical mind, because their education was classical until late in the 19th century when modern “practical” education took over the more literary education of the elites.

    Up until around a century ago, every educated person had a classical education and learned Latin and Greek in school so they could read the classics in the original.

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