Scan barcode
A review by socraticgadfly
The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin by Corey Robin
5.0
Note: This is a review of the second edition, overhauled after Trump's election.
Robin has a few simple theses in the first part of the book.
One is that conservativism is indeed "reactionary." Great conservative thinkers recognize the world is not static, and when major liberal or leftist shifts occur, they accept that this is because the old order at that time was decayed and flawed, presumably fatally. Rather than hold on to the ancien regime, Robin says conservative thinkers look to appropriate from the new order the tools of how it succeeded, and apply that to a new old world order.
The second main thesis is that, despite conservativism appearing to be very disjunct, it really is not. Robin said it is animated by two main forces:
A desire for hierarchialism and
Use of violence.
Notes on the second one first. Remember that not all violence is physical, that not all physical violence is by the government, and not all government violence is by the military.
The police in democratic countries are generally separate from the military. And police, police off-duty as private security, and pure private security, have engaged in plenty of conservative violence in America. Besides actual policing (often to uphold hierarchies), in the second and third forms, as paid security, or non-police paid security, union busting in various forms is a prime example. Plenty a libertarian in the US will decry state violence by the military, and a fair chunk of on-duty state violence by the police. But, whether hiring out policemen or having its own security guards, libertarians in general will give a pass to corporate violence.
Now, hierarchies. They comes in many forms besides old Europe's titled nobility. Hierarchies can be based on race — either straight up on skin color or pseudoscience like social Darwinism — land, money and capital and many other things. And conservativism is about using violence to uphold them.
Conservatives have had their philosophers of violence. Maybe Nietzsche wasn't anti-Semitic in the way his sister made him out to be, but in glorifying slavery and master-slave relationships, he was in other ways. Hobbes gets extensive mention. Rousseau, noble savagery and all, gets checked-marked more than once.
And, Theodore Roosevelt (a call with which I agree) is placed among conservative American politicians.
The reworked latter half of the book is of two parts.
One is a tour of modern economic theories, mainly Austrian school ideas and spinoffs. Robin uses this as a bridge from conservativism in general to modern political conservativism.
Within this, the chapter on Ayn Rand is worth a read all by itself.
Robin finishes by showing that Trump is NOT an aberration but rather right in the mainstream of conservativism in America, albeit more gauche and boorish than many conservatives. (Hey, Nietzsche was that way, too, somewhat.)
Outside the book, Robin has shown that Trump is a "disjunctive president," which is normal at the end of one of America's political systems. My take on that is here: https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2019/05/no-trump-is-not-fascist-hes-disjunctive.html
Robin has a few simple theses in the first part of the book.
One is that conservativism is indeed "reactionary." Great conservative thinkers recognize the world is not static, and when major liberal or leftist shifts occur, they accept that this is because the old order at that time was decayed and flawed, presumably fatally. Rather than hold on to the ancien regime, Robin says conservative thinkers look to appropriate from the new order the tools of how it succeeded, and apply that to a new old world order.
The second main thesis is that, despite conservativism appearing to be very disjunct, it really is not. Robin said it is animated by two main forces:
A desire for hierarchialism and
Use of violence.
Notes on the second one first. Remember that not all violence is physical, that not all physical violence is by the government, and not all government violence is by the military.
The police in democratic countries are generally separate from the military. And police, police off-duty as private security, and pure private security, have engaged in plenty of conservative violence in America. Besides actual policing (often to uphold hierarchies), in the second and third forms, as paid security, or non-police paid security, union busting in various forms is a prime example. Plenty a libertarian in the US will decry state violence by the military, and a fair chunk of on-duty state violence by the police. But, whether hiring out policemen or having its own security guards, libertarians in general will give a pass to corporate violence.
Now, hierarchies. They comes in many forms besides old Europe's titled nobility. Hierarchies can be based on race — either straight up on skin color or pseudoscience like social Darwinism — land, money and capital and many other things. And conservativism is about using violence to uphold them.
Conservatives have had their philosophers of violence. Maybe Nietzsche wasn't anti-Semitic in the way his sister made him out to be, but in glorifying slavery and master-slave relationships, he was in other ways. Hobbes gets extensive mention. Rousseau, noble savagery and all, gets checked-marked more than once.
And, Theodore Roosevelt (a call with which I agree) is placed among conservative American politicians.
The reworked latter half of the book is of two parts.
One is a tour of modern economic theories, mainly Austrian school ideas and spinoffs. Robin uses this as a bridge from conservativism in general to modern political conservativism.
Within this, the chapter on Ayn Rand is worth a read all by itself.
Robin finishes by showing that Trump is NOT an aberration but rather right in the mainstream of conservativism in America, albeit more gauche and boorish than many conservatives. (Hey, Nietzsche was that way, too, somewhat.)
Outside the book, Robin has shown that Trump is a "disjunctive president," which is normal at the end of one of America's political systems. My take on that is here: https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2019/05/no-trump-is-not-fascist-hes-disjunctive.html