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A review by holodoxa
The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin by Corey Robin
1.0
Although Robin's The Reactionary Mind has been savaged by many serious left-wing and right-wing commentators and scholars (Mark Lilla, Sheri Berman, Christian Gonzalez, etc), the updated edition (responding superficially to previous criticism by reorganizing a bit and including an essay on Donald Trump) warrants further savaging.
Robin's thesis is that conservatism is an adaptable counterrevolutionary mode of thought designed to preserve existing hierarchies of power and privilege. This is eyeroll inducing. It is a reflexively and predictably left-wing perspective on right-wing thought rather than one arrived at through scholarly distance and dispassionate analysis. Robin's attempt to understand the nature and evolution of Anglosphere conservative thought since its purported inception as a reaction to the French Revolution (i.e. Edmund Burke's Reflections) to the presidency of Donald Trump relies too heavily on a simplistic Marxist analysis. Moreover, the effort overall is an exercise in over-fitted revisionism, a flattening of the variability of conservative thought and its disparate ontologies. It is largely nonsensical, straining credulity to believe that there is a continuity of ideology or even sensibility that connects the disparate figures subject to Robin's analysis (Burke, John C. Calhoun, Ayn Rand, William F. Buckley, Antonin Scalia, Trump, etc). Subsequently, Robin largely ignores the heated internecine ideological battles among various version of conservatism both historical and contemporary.
Even if we are to be extremely charitable and entertain Robin's thesis, his analysis fails to justify many of his conclusions. For instance, he claims that conservative thought has been quite successful and persuasive, especially in the face of strong liberal or left-wing challenges (i.e. a reactionary mechanism), but he does not illustrate how or why. This is because it would require actually entertaining the real possibility (if not likelihood) that social hierarchies and inequality more broadly are emergent properties of human biology and human nature when challenged by environments of scarcity and other threats. Thus, conservatism may look so successful to Robin because its advocacy has been aimed at ends that are often inevitable, especially in contrast to utopian or fantastical left-wing visions.
Robin is ostensibly well read in political thought and is not without erudition, there was such a great opportunity for him to say something insightful or original about conservative thought. Instead, he couldn't muster anything but hackneyed arguments and cheap jabs at figures that have provoked his ire. And on top of these failure, he has neglected to define liberalism or left-wing thought in any way other than in opposition to conservatism (oh, the irony!).
Robin's thesis is that conservatism is an adaptable counterrevolutionary mode of thought designed to preserve existing hierarchies of power and privilege. This is eyeroll inducing. It is a reflexively and predictably left-wing perspective on right-wing thought rather than one arrived at through scholarly distance and dispassionate analysis. Robin's attempt to understand the nature and evolution of Anglosphere conservative thought since its purported inception as a reaction to the French Revolution (i.e. Edmund Burke's Reflections) to the presidency of Donald Trump relies too heavily on a simplistic Marxist analysis. Moreover, the effort overall is an exercise in over-fitted revisionism, a flattening of the variability of conservative thought and its disparate ontologies. It is largely nonsensical, straining credulity to believe that there is a continuity of ideology or even sensibility that connects the disparate figures subject to Robin's analysis (Burke, John C. Calhoun, Ayn Rand, William F. Buckley, Antonin Scalia, Trump, etc). Subsequently, Robin largely ignores the heated internecine ideological battles among various version of conservatism both historical and contemporary.
Even if we are to be extremely charitable and entertain Robin's thesis, his analysis fails to justify many of his conclusions. For instance, he claims that conservative thought has been quite successful and persuasive, especially in the face of strong liberal or left-wing challenges (i.e. a reactionary mechanism), but he does not illustrate how or why. This is because it would require actually entertaining the real possibility (if not likelihood) that social hierarchies and inequality more broadly are emergent properties of human biology and human nature when challenged by environments of scarcity and other threats. Thus, conservatism may look so successful to Robin because its advocacy has been aimed at ends that are often inevitable, especially in contrast to utopian or fantastical left-wing visions.
Robin is ostensibly well read in political thought and is not without erudition, there was such a great opportunity for him to say something insightful or original about conservative thought. Instead, he couldn't muster anything but hackneyed arguments and cheap jabs at figures that have provoked his ire. And on top of these failure, he has neglected to define liberalism or left-wing thought in any way other than in opposition to conservatism (oh, the irony!).