Pajamas Media

Daniel Flynn’s Conservative History of the American Left

The Left's tendency to repeat its mistakes over and over actually illustrates the conservative view of life: that human nature is fallen, universal, and cannot be permanently improved.

May 10, 2008 - by Kathy Shaidle

Support Pajamas Media; Visit Our Advertisers

“I write the books that I want to read,” says Daniel J. Flynn. After four years of writing and research, Flynn — whose previous books include Intellectual Morons and Why the Left Hates America — is back with the irresistibly titled A Conservative History of the American Left.

“Conservatives, unfortunately, have been content to rely on some variant of ‘It all started in the 1960s’ when tracing the origins of the Left,” Flynn continued when reached by email just before the book’s release. “My book goes back to Plymouth Rock.”

Leftists, too, are often content to believe that history began at Little Rock rather than Plymouth Rock, and no wonder: they’d rather forget their one-time embrace of eugenics and other crackpot fads.

For example, in researching early birth control advocate Margaret Sanger’s papers for Intellectual Morons, Flynn told Pajamas Media that he “came across a vile 1932 speech calling for a vast system of concentration camps in America. What do her biographers say about this, I wondered. Nothing. All of the biographers, who had access to the exact information that I had access to, decided to leave that rather consequential information out of their books. Historians shouldn’t be cheerleaders. They should be truth tellers.”

And the truth, according to Flynn, is that the Left has always attracted very peculiar people who’ve preached very peculiar “solutions” to life’s “problems.” In fact, the sameness of the Left as chronicled by Flynn actually illustrates the conservative view of life: that human nature is fallen, universal, and cannot be permanently altered for the better through education or engineering.

Certain leftist types turn up again and again through the centuries, brought back to colorful life in Flynn’s book: fanatics, altruists, adventurers, splitters, spiritualists, free spirits, and one particular type Flynn dubs the “puritanical perverts”: Alfred Kinsey, Timothy Leary, and other “overbearing personalities whose zeal for sex, drugs, or whatever other pleasure made them paternalistic libertines.”

What they all have in common, Flynn writes in Conservative History, isn’t a “laundry list of complaints and wishes” so much as “an attitude”: “It is, in its simplest form, scorn for what is and hopes for what could be. The ideology’s appeal exists in neither the experienced past nor the concrete present, but in the imagined future.”

The Left boasts enthusiasm and energy to spare, but its inability to learn from the past is its fatal flaw. As Flynn explains in the book’s introduction, “because of the suspicions of tradition inherent within radicalism, [the Left] largely ignores that past.” After all, visionaries “preoccupied with the triumphal future cannot pause to learn from the mistakes of the past.”

This refusal to check the rear-view mirror is reflected in the Left’s compulsion for coining extravagant, inapt, and frequently offensive historical analogies: these days, every conservative leader is “Hitler”, every war is “Vietnam,” and every petulant protester is the new “Rosa Parks.”

As Flynn points out to devastating effect, the sheer stupidity of such comparisons should, by rights, be enough to cripple them as rhetorical devices; alas, widespread historical illiteracy and an aversion to criticizing “protected” identity groups render healthy mockery almost impossible. Hence these poor analogies metastasize, bringing the level of public discourse down yet another notch. To cite just one of many examples throughout the book:

Pages: 123Next »

20 Comments

Concerned Citizen:

In Senate Judiciary Committee testimony:

Milton Friedman: “Senator, socialism hasn’t worked in 6,000 years of recorded history. Why won’t you give up on it?”

Sen. Kennedy: “It hasn’t worked in over 6,000 years of recorded history because it didn’t have me to run it.”

QED

May 10, 2008 - 8:15 pm Justin:

Concerned Citizen:

Is that a real quote? Where can I look it up?

May 10, 2008 - 8:43 pm David Thomson:

“Historians shouldn’t be cheerleaders.”

I cynically describe a number of these leftists as the “leave it outers.” They may not overtly lie—but a few facts are conveniently ignored to serve the purposes of a “greater truth.” If memory serves, Daniel J. Flynn also pointed out the impossibility of learning from history when the historians of note are distorting the record. The Internet, thankfully, is making it more difficult for ideologues to get away with their nonsense.

May 10, 2008 - 9:23 pm Roger L Simon:

Actually, in one area, conservatives are demonstrably wrong and human life has improved considerably and it’s a big one–longevity. (Of course if you’re an Islamofascist or some other form of religious fanatic, you may not care about that.)

May 11, 2008 - 7:41 am Ed Wallis:

RE: R.L.S. comment: I ascribe the advanced of “longevity” to advances in technology (be it in medicine - i.e. treating/curing more illnesses or housing - i.e. improvements in insulation, water supply, waste removal, etc.) rather than politics; therefore I see the post as a non sequitur….

May 11, 2008 - 8:54 am Mohammed the Teddy-Bear:

“Of course if you’re an Islamofascist or some other form of religious fanatic, you may not care about that.”

Way to parse, you atheist dickweed! Which goes to prove conservatives are wrong in one other way; allowing brainless twits like you to live instead of being aborted by your whoring mother. That would cure the “longevity” problem for you, wouldn’t it?

May 11, 2008 - 9:07 am Kathy Shaidle:

Longevity has nothing to do with human nature, that is: character, impulses, foibles.

May 11, 2008 - 9:28 am Concerned Citizen:

Justin, I heard the recording on the radio once, then found it on the internet:

http://blog.globaltoad.com/?p=626

also here:

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=60537

Google: friedman kennedy “socialism hasn’t worked”

I’d like to find the audio recording, let us all know if you dig it up. Good luck.

May 11, 2008 - 9:31 am Sissy Willis:

Roger: Why should scientific discoveries disprove the tragic — vs the utopianist — view of human nature? We all of us contain the potential for both good and evil. It’s what we do with our nature that counts.

May 11, 2008 - 9:56 am David Thomson:

“…conservatives are demonstrably wrong and human life has improved considerably”

I am unaware of any mainstream conservatives denying this fact. Even the hard right Russell Kirk was not against scientific advancement. Nonetheless, this has little to do with my own views. Friedrich A. Hayek mostly speaks for my position. Here is a link to his famous essay, “Why I Am Not a Conservative.”:

http://www.fahayek.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=46

May 11, 2008 - 10:34 am Jim R:

Excellent book review Kathy. And her blog too, btw, at FiveFeetOfFury.Com.

May 11, 2008 - 11:39 am Kathy Shaidle:

thanks, jim — that is very kind!

May 11, 2008 - 2:47 pm jeff:

I think to fight the left, you must distill their arguments economically. If you apply free market solutions, things become very simple and efficient. You can apply free market solutions to immigration, to health care, to welfare.

The free market will service the most amount of people at the least cost. Obviously, there will always be outliers. And the government or charitable organizations will have to take care of them. But they will not be left out.

May 11, 2008 - 5:49 pm Kathy Shaidle:

I’m not sure, Jeff. So many people these days make judgments based on emotional appeals and junk science — because, frankly, they aren’t that bright.

The fatal flaw in libertarianism is that it presupposes a population as intelligent as the average libertarian.

May 12, 2008 - 5:22 am J.J. Sefton:

“The death of one is a tragedy. The death of a million is just a statistic.” Josef Stalin

May 12, 2008 - 2:25 pm Jean Q. Publique:

Hey Hey Hey…

Thanks for the synopsis and saving me money to get another copy of this fellas work.

My dadgum leftist leaning Loozy the Labrador done ate the book ‘fore I could get a read.

At the very least it’ll be recycled in the old compost heap for the veggies.

Good dog! Good Dog!

jean q. publique
~

May 12, 2008 - 11:55 pm Javelin:

““He’s always been ugly, fat, and obnoxious, a troubled child with no close friends to speak of.”” And this passes for intelligent commentary? I could probably find similiar quotes about her from teachers if i had the desire.
So Shaidle is just another witch who substitutes cheap insults and superficial quotes for real thinking, like her Witch goddess Anne Coulter. Since she professes some great love for Christianity, well isn’t Christianity, as well as Judaism, an attempt to improve human nature by curbing selfishness, dishonesty and murder? I believe the idea of universal brotherhood is a religious one too> It seems that cafeteria Catholics like her love the Pope on sexual details but forget much of what else he preaches is the same as the Left.

May 13, 2008 - 4:01 pm Ed Wallis:

Javelin, what you have quoted was said by the TEACHER of Michael Moore, NOT Ms. Shaidle. Learn to read, buster.

May 14, 2008 - 2:00 am Javelin:

Yes, Ed I am not dense. Can’t you see that she is using insulting, petty quotes like that as a surrogate and that it is nothing more than an ad-hominem attack? Sorry, but I find her to be a rude, second rate utterly derivative blog witch. But she certainly plays to the crowd. Speak in vast generalities, make up a bunch of intellectual sounding terms and leaven it with insults, it never fails.

But for some pompous website that is supposed to be sending the MSM down the river, all I see is the same cheap commentary from the same lame bunch of right wing bloggers. If you want to send the MSM packing, like you have to go out and report on something first, not rant about petty crap.

May 14, 2008 - 11:36 am