Fascism is Seductive – to Liberals and Conservatives Alike
Charlie Martin thinks that Jonah Goldberg's bestseller Liberal Fascism delivers an important lesson on human failings.
Web reaction to Jonah Goldberg’s book %%AMAZON=0385511841 Liberal Fascism%% has been a classic example of what James Taranto calls a kerfuffle: the book, a serious historical argument about the roots of many threads of modern political thought with an inflammatory cover, was immediately resoundingly denounced by the right-thinking, often in essays starting “I haven’t read the book and I don’t think I’m going to bother, so I don’t think I should express an opinion…” followed by thousands of words of opinion.
More conservative writers, probably relieved that for a change they weren’t being called fascists, rallied around Goldberg’s book and around Goldberg himself.
Often, it quickly became clear that those conservatives weren’t really reading the book either; had they read it, they’d have noticed that many of the points Goldberg makes could be — and were — applied to some of the common threads of conservative thought, and to things done by “conservative” politicians.
It’s a shame that people on both sides aren’t reading more carefully, because Goldberg is on the trail of a deep truth. (Contrary sort that I am, I have read the book, but I’m primarily interested in what Goldberg didn’t say.) He describes fascism, properly, as collectivist and authoritarian, and notes that these collective and authoritarian threads run through American politics. The whole thesis of Goldberg’s book is that the use of “fascist” as a pejorative applied to the “right wing” ignores, or perhaps purposely obscures, the roots of nationalist collective authoritarianism on the “left”.
Certainly we think of Hitler and Mussolini as being in some sense fascist; Goldberg shows that it’s difficult to distinguish between the “fascism” of Mussolini and the “progressive” politics of both Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt. He then shows how those same threads of centralized planning, group identification, and willing obedience to some charismatic leader show up over and over again, from LaFollette to the present.
A lot of Goldberg’s book is devoted to showing how these themes are much more clearly identifiable with the “left” as we now understand the term. In fact this effort is, finally, unimportant: what we consider to be the “left” or the “right” is purely arbitrary. What Goldberg is really showing is that whether we call it left or right, authoritarianism runs through both political parties and all political movements. It’s as if authoritarianism has some seductive power that makes it nearly impossible to resist.
Why is this? Consider a person who wants to run for office in the United States, anything from part-time dogcatcher to President of the United States. The underlying urge, in general, is the desire to make things better coupled with the idea that one knows what “better” is.
But merely knowing what you think the better course is isn’t sufficient. You have to publicize your ideas, make yourself available. You must campaign.
The more significant the office, the greater effort you must make to achieve it, the greater the sacrifices needed. Fred Thompson’s campaign is the example that tests the rule, and in its failure it demonstrated that in the modern political campaign, only the truly obsessed can compete.
Someone sufficiently obsessed with the goal of making something better to run a successful national campaign is also necessarily sufficiently convinced of their own righteousness that they want to bend people to their will, first in the election, then after.
This is the appeal of authority.
The unstated lesson of Goldberg’s book is that the appeal of authority is a human failing, shared equally by those on the left, and on the right.
Charlie Martin is a Colorado computer scientist and nearly-successful screenwriter who contributes to the Flares Into Darkness political blog as ‘Seneca the Younger,’ and blogs under his own name at the aggressively non-political Explorations blog.
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40 Comments
1. gcblues:one of the most accurate assessments i have read ever on this site.
hayek warned of this long ago. not just communists are susceptible to the road to serfdom, it is a path social right wing facists and even believers in the moder democratic republic systems that regulate every aspect of your life. a pox on all the ant farmers.
Mar 2, 2008 - 2:22 am 2. Mark William Paules:Charlie Martin is spot on with his analysis. German national socialism and Soviet style Bolshevism are/were close cousins, flip sides of the same coin. Collectivist systems differ only by degree and the methods they employ to force compliance. The antidote, as always, is liberty. Apparently this is a lesson we need to learn over, and over, and over again.
Mar 2, 2008 - 6:05 am 3. Steve:I find this article remarkable for its evenhandness in the face of half a century or more of lack of self-criticism by the left. And of course everyone does it, so leaders of democracies are just as bad as leaders of totalitarian communist countries.
Mar 2, 2008 - 6:17 am 4. gcblues:no steve,
Mar 2, 2008 - 8:21 am 5. gitmo:democracies in their progression to central state control ends up controlling their populace just like communist country’s do. that is the comparison. there is a difference in degree not kind. for your information freedom is not just the right to stand on a corner and scream bush sucks. it is the right to live as you wish, raise your family as you wish, ingest what you wish, build and or remodel your house as you wish, go where you wish etc etc etc. the usa as a land of freedom is long gone. i own a home in Rivas Nicaragua. i will tell you in Nicaragua, despite the communist government and obvious totalitarianism especially in the press that the taxes here are lower, my personal freedoms are greater, and my rights to live however i wish are considerable greater. the usa has become the ant farm Hayek warned us about.
Well written article. I would like to see more on this subject.
Mar 2, 2008 - 8:58 am 6. David Thomson:“…applied to some of the common threads of conservative thought..”
Common threads? I don’t think so. Someone needs to offer some examples and not rely on broad insinuations. Conservative thinking inherently rejects utopianism. It perceives the state as having a limited role in our lives—and most certainly does not believe the government can offer salvation. Those American conservatives who start get goofy soon find themselves marginalized. Please note that Mike Huckabee is not going to be the Republican standard bearer. Also, Pat Buchanan if he decided to run in 2008 would unlikely earn even 2% of the total vote.
The only serious candidate flirting with fascism is Barack “Barry” Obama. His followers often remind one of Jim Jones’ Kool-Aid drinkers. Democratic Party voters are far more attracted to fascism than Republicans. There is simply no comparison between the two.
Mar 2, 2008 - 11:16 am 7. Rubicon:From the right or the left, tyranny is tyranny. At issue is that apparently every so many decades, free men will have to fight the system lords so they can keep the freedoms they want. Many will die in the effort, and many others will have their lives destroyed.
Mar 2, 2008 - 11:19 am 8. Charlie (Colorado):But unless we are willing to accept the “yoke” applied by those “who know better than others,” fighting is the only alternative.
Man’s desire for freedom & the incessant actions of fascist tyrants, means there can never be a one world government of “free” people.
Read the book yet, David?
Mar 2, 2008 - 11:54 am 9. David Thomson:“Read the book yet, David?”
I was among the very first to receive a copy from Amazon.com.—and I have thoroughly read it. Only last night I also listened to half of a radio interview Jonah Goldberg had with Investor Business Daily. I will listen to the rest of it later today:
http://ibdeditorials.com/images/IBD_022808_Goldberg.mp3
Mar 2, 2008 - 12:01 pm 10. Charlie (Colorado):Okay, that’s a start, then: it puts you ahead of, eg, Megan McArdle. But simply defining the people who start to show the effects of the appeal of authority as “not conservative” is tautology, not argument. But if we start to define everyone who sees the appeal of nationalistic authoritarianism in any context as “not a conservative”, we’re going to end up with the category of “conservatives” being nearly or completely empty.
This is not to say, by the way, that I would argue the “yes we can” cult of personality around Obama doesn’t start to smell of fascism.
Mar 2, 2008 - 12:31 pm 11. DaveW:Not AT ALL convincing; insipid moral relativism. This essay sounds remarkably like what the contemporary useful idiots say about jihadi terrorists being just like Christian fundamentalists — except of course for their respective real-world behaviors.
Mar 2, 2008 - 12:47 pm 12. heather:one of Goldberg’s insights is there is “Mommy” fascism as well as “Daddy” fascism. With “Mommy” in charge, we are all her children, and by gosh, we had better be GOOD children, happy in her hugging arms. Check out the Canadian Human Rights Commission ‘kerfuffle’ for a great example of this…
When you attempt to argue against government welfare, you are accused of being “mean”: like Bad Mommy. Who wants to be Bad Mommy??? Yet, people like Krauthammer have, in my opinion, made a strong argument that welfare-ism has led to really ugly societal problems, eg, Gaza.
And of course, retaining individual liberty is almost impossible when everyone has an address. I would expect that Nicaragua is kind of spotty on the latter front: and here’s hoping it remains that way!
Mar 2, 2008 - 1:01 pm 13. Charlie (Colorado):Hardly moral relativism, DaveW. Whether “liberal fascism” or “conservative fascism”, its objectionable.
Mar 2, 2008 - 2:02 pm 14. David Thomson:“But if we start to define everyone who sees the appeal of nationalistic authoritarianism in any context as “not a conservative”, we’re going to end up with the category of “conservatives” being nearly or completely empty.”
Even Mike Huckabee hesitated to turn politics into some sort of a secular religion. There are zero major American conservative thinkers or politicians currently flirting with fascism. Do you disagree? If so, you need to provide some examples.
Mar 2, 2008 - 2:27 pm 15. Fat Jolly Penguin:Yay! I’m glad I’m not the only one who got that out of this book. Fascism is one of those unique little things that doesn’t apply based on political orientation, but on the level of one’s love of power over others. I can easily envision scenarios in which liberals turn this country into a fascist state, but it doesn’t take much more effort to imagine conservatives doing the same thing. It’s a great book; if you haven’t read it, DO.
Mar 2, 2008 - 2:37 pm 16. Charlie (Colorado):“If so, you need to provide some examples.”
David, you already have: Buchanan, for example. Lew Rockwell. Of course, you’ve defined Buchanan out of “conservatism” saying he wouldn’t get two percent of the vote today, but I suspect Buchanan would be struck senseless, if not speechless, by the suggestion that he’s not a “conservative”.
Mar 2, 2008 - 3:00 pm 17. gcblues:david you are wrong as wrong can be.
to say fascism is more of the left than the right is a comment with blinders. like asking a donkey to draw a picture of god, he draws a donkey.
there is noting conservative about wall building, immigrant controlling, anti homo sexualism and prayer inscribed into law, public, or government schools, that one in every 100 people are incarcerated mostly for drugs, all none of the govts business. not to mention the gigantic myriad of business laws proposed by the right. so if defining conservatives means the border morons and nativists and pseudo nationalists no longer have a conservative home. GOOD. how the heck else to you have a platform of actual conservative thought. simple things like the ponzi scheme or ssi. or that we fought a civil for the right of all men to the fruits of their labor, and now must file every iota of our finance info to the state and pay them a significant percentage or they break our legs. non conservative conservatives have provided no benefit to the usa. and the border morons will render the republican party as perennial losers with no help from traditional liberalism, or libertarianism of the right. boot the facists, the sooner the better.
Mar 2, 2008 - 3:45 pm 18. Curly Smith:have even one of you border morons calculated what it will take in the % of white vote to get a future republican in office? cause darn few blacks or browns will ever vote for border morons. do the math.
David says: There are zero major American conservative thinkers or politicians currently flirting with fascism.
Well, there’s John McCain and his fascist McCain-Feingold bill plus his fascist Global Warming Carbon Tax boondoggle. Oh, yeah, you said conservative politician not Republican politician. Then there’s Mike Bloomberg who busy banning everything edible, smokeable and drinkable in New York City. Oh, yeah, you said conservative and not Republican. Then there’s Mike Huckabee who wants to ban smoking in the United States. Oops, you said conservative and not Republican. Then there’s the social conservative wing of the Republican Party that tells me that I MUST vote for John McCain, nothing fascist about that at all…
Charlie mentioned Buchanan but he’s not the only self-professed and widely recognized conservative “thinker” who wants to ban this, that, and other things. The problem arises, David, because your definition of classic conservatism includes the phrase “doesn’t exhibit any fascist behavior”. Unfortunately, there aren’t many classical conservatives thinkers (who are actually classical liberals) and, as far as I know, there are zero classical conservative politicians.
I don’t disagree with your assertion that a classic conservative wouldn’t flirt with fascism, I’m merely stating that we don’t have any classic conservatives, we have Republicans, Democrats and Libertarians –> all of whom exhibit fascist behavior on occasion. Conversely, the Green Party will occasionally not exhibit fascist behavior.
Mar 2, 2008 - 3:48 pm 19. David Thomson:“David, you already have: Buchanan, for example. Lew Rockwell.”
Both of these men are marginal figures. They are not major players. John McCain does not want anything to do with them.
I truly regret that John McCain is greatly responsible for the McCain-Feingold mess and has been conned by the global warming fanatics. However, this is not per se evidence of fascism. Advocating dumb policies is not the same thing as seeking secular salvation via politics. McCain perceives politics as a means to an end—not the end itself. “Barry” Obama is the only major candidate who is flirting with utopianism. Even Hillary Clinton does not quite go that far.
Mar 2, 2008 - 4:09 pm 20. David Thomson:Jonah Goldberg often reminds people that the state cannot love you. I will add that it is one thing to respect your leader, but not to the point of adoration. Conservatives may have admired Ronald Reagan, but none turned him into a secular god. Fascist leaders not only enjoy being worshipped—they demand it! One is eventually required to live totally for the state. All other relationships are deemed of secondary importance.
Mar 2, 2008 - 6:26 pm 21. Independent-Minded Correct-Thinker:There is no difference between the Republicans and the Democrats.
They’re both as stupid, evil, greed, and corrupt as the Republicans.
Mar 2, 2008 - 7:10 pm 22. tom swift:“Shared equally by the left, and the right”? Someone’s talking about a different book than the one I just read. Goldberg’s thesis is reasonably clear and logically developed. The fascist tendency crops up in those who believe themselves to be on a mission to engineer society, regulate it in all its annoying details, and grow the government to whatever size is necessary to do that. That is hardly a “conservative” vision. It is, of course, identical to the “progressive” vision of the WW1 era, the “fascist” vision of the interwar years, and the modern “liberal” PC vision. Goldberg’s book is devoted to demonstrating this.
Mar 2, 2008 - 7:39 pm 23. Charlie (Colorado):David, you’re doing a lovely job of making my point. Thanks.
Mar 2, 2008 - 7:55 pm 24. buddy larsen:Seductive fascism? Here, see it in sound & motion in this artful vignette:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=EdM8PDu6VMg
Mar 2, 2008 - 8:04 pm 25. John Dunshee:For an interesting thought experiment, read Jonah’s book, and then watch this clip from 1933. Especially toward the end.
YouTube – Shanghai Lil’
Just adjust some of the images for nationality and see what you think.
The thought isn’t original with me. Someone posted this a few days ago. It might even have been here, but I can’t find it now.
Mar 2, 2008 - 8:19 pm 26. David Ross:gcblues: “there is noting conservative about wall building, immigrant controlling, anti homo sexualism and prayer inscribed into law, public, or government schools, that one in every 100 people are incarcerated mostly for drugs, all none of the govts business.”
That a nation has borders and gets to maintain them, and that it may define its own laws and enforce them, are exactly what distinguishes Conservatism from extreme libertarianism / anarchism.
I award you no points.
Mar 2, 2008 - 9:56 pm 27. Luither McLeod:David Ross…
Well done.
Thank you for that clip…
I am still laughing my ass off.
Mar 3, 2008 - 2:47 am 28. Andrew:Martin’s point, such as it is, has a certain validity, but in making it he has simply provided cover for the re-definition of fascism that is the very point of Goldberg’s book.
Fascism is not, Not, NOT mere authoritarianism, which has existed since the dawn of time. Fascism is a unique breed of command-economy totalitarianism mixed with bombastic pieties of the patria mixed with cultic collectivist miasma, focused on a divinized Leader. This is distinct from Communism, where the leader is not divine, but succeeded (even Stalin), and the patria is Good only as a Servant of the Historical Inevitability, Comrade. Desiring to restrict the flow of unwanted immigrants is no more fascist than enforcing postal rates.
Fascism is the original Third Way, the point between the Material Emptiness of Communism and the Anarchy of the Free Market. Yes, the impulse to seize authority is found all over the political spectrum. I’m sure you could somewhere find a Libertarian who wouldn’t mind being Dictator for oh, six months, just so he could re-order the mos maiorum and then ride off, Cincinnatus-like, into the sunset. But Fascism is something specific. And it looks like something else specific, too.
Mar 3, 2008 - 7:02 am 29. Tom Linehan:I too have read the book, at least most of it. I agree that much of what Jonah Goldberg writes applies as much to the left as it does to the right. But he defines the right as Classical Liberals. If you accept that definition his thesis holds. The trust in spontaneous order of Classical Liberals is in no way authoritarian. If his thesis, that the Classical Liberals constitute the entire right were true, conservatives would win almost no elections. As a Classical Liberal, I seldom have a successful conservative Republican candidate to any office whom I consider a Classical Liberal especially at the national level.
Mar 3, 2008 - 7:29 am 30. jp:there is a huge seperation between “liberal fascism” and any conservative leanings to it. the Liberals are fascist by definition, they legisilate their morality more so than any “Social Conservative” does. But their whole entire economic system, school system, etc. are fascistic to the core. The “conservative” side is in general for limited govt., strong defense and less regulation…none of this is ‘fascist’ and is the conservative starting point. The liberal starting point is fascism!!!
Just because a conservative politician or an idiot ‘thinker’ like Buchanan/Rockwell are in favor of ‘fascistic’ things does not make them equal to “liberal fascism”. Afterall, “fascism” is popular as Goldberg points out. Any politician that wants to get elected nationally will need to appeal to enough voters to get elected. Sometimes that means moderating and coming on the fascistic side of some issues, like say Global Warming. It sucks but thats the game.
Mar 3, 2008 - 7:30 am 31. dclydew:Any politician or political party that promotes nationalism over individualism, or promotes the reduction of freedoms of the individual… are acting in a fascist manner. While most people consider the Gipper a conservative, some of his actions were fascist… like the War on Drugs, for example. Anytime a politician turns to legislation to ‘fix’ social issues, they risk a step toward fascism, be it forcing carbon emission standards, or throwing sick people in prison for smoking Pot (or defining the word Marriage, or demanding that X be taught (or not taught) in schools) or any of a myriad of other issues that both major parties think important that its worth limiting freedom through legislation.
Mar 3, 2008 - 8:56 am 32. Louis Wheeler:Any string of comments that get this confused must be because people aren’t applying good definitions. If Goldberg defines Fascism as “Collectivist AND Authoritarian” then authoritarian behaviors ALONE are not Fascist. Monarchies are often Authoritarian, but few people accuse them of being Collectivist.
The traits that you assign to Fascism on the American Right are Authoritarian. The Right are individualists combining reluctantly to defend themselves against the collective actions of the Left.
Worst, given the way politics is, you must start somewhere to effect change. That means if the political battleground has been the domain of the Left for seventy years, you must tolerate collectivist organizations, and sometime cooperate with them, before you can build a consensus to tear them down.
Defending borders and maintaining a military may be authoritarian. But, if the Founders of our country fought wars without becoming Fascists, so can we. Thomas Jefferson, in attacking the Barbary Pirates in 1803, was not acting as a Fascist. He was defending US commerce from Muslim tyrants. He had no autocratic authority; he had to go to Congress to get the funds to prosecute the war.
The point is that while Authoritarianism runs through both parties, collectivism tends to be the domain of the Left. It is the Left who says that individuals don’t matter, that only groups do.
Of course, individual politicians can muddy the waters by “triangulation” the way Bill Clinton stole conservative ideas to gain popularity with the electorate. Teddy Roosevelt was a “progressive” who pretended to be a Republican. And Hoover was an “interventionist” on the right.
The fact is that bad ideas can effect both parties, but ultimately, they get washed out if they are not in accord with the basic principals of the party.
There are many forms of group action which aren’t collectivist, because they are voluntary. Collectivism always assumes the right of the state to “force us” to do what is “good for us.” Collectivism assumes that decisions will be made “on high” rather than locally or personally.
Mar 3, 2008 - 9:18 am 33. Bob:Facism is attractive to a wide variety of people on both the left and the right; Hitler and Mussolini won free elections. But, liberalism is facism
Mar 3, 2008 - 5:03 pm 34. Charlie (Colorado):Louis, pick up Jonah’s book. The definition I wrote in three words can’t possibly do justice to the work he does in the first three chapters.
Mar 3, 2008 - 7:33 pm 35. tanstaafl:It’s as if authoritarianism has some seductive power that makes it nearly impossible to resist.
Common impulses in the human breast underlie all the “isms” and their continuous reemergence and recycling…plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
Liberty, personal responsibility, freedom and individual choice are the hard route, the most demanding and the most difficult to sustain.
“Eternal vigilance is the safeguard of liberty.”
It’s difficult to maintain the level of vigilance required to sustain these principles. Especially in these lazy, self- indulgent times we live in in “the west” and under constant fire from those who would assault them in the name of their version of “the good of the people”.
A William F. Buckley observation on the current version of the impulse to collectivism, the impulse to embrace authoritarianism.
“Back in the thirties we were told we must collectivize the nation because the people were so poor. Now we are told we must collectivize the nation because the people are so rich.”
Mar 4, 2008 - 9:24 am 36. hoosiertoo:“Conservative” is a relative term. As the nation drifts left, so do conservatives. Moynihan and Scoop Jackson would be perfectly comfortable in the modern Republican Party.
Thomas Jefferson OTOH would probably be wandering in 3rd party purgatory – or just oting out of the process altogether – like many of my libertarian brethren.
Mar 4, 2008 - 9:40 pm 37. NatTurner:Hitler and Mussolini were “in some sense fascist”?? That may be the stupidest thing I’ll read all day. That’s like saying Obama and Hillary are “in some sense” Democrats.
Hitler and Mussolini WERE THE DEFINITION of fascists (the latter coined the word “fascism”); they are the “gold standard” of fascism. Whatever comparison anyone wants to make of other leaders, systems, and the like to fascism has to start with these two thugs.
Jeebus. . . .
Nat Turner
Mar 5, 2008 - 6:55 am 38. Steve:“The unstated lesson of Goldberg’s book is that the appeal of authority is a human failing, shared equally by those on the left, and on the right.”
Sounds like the Founding Fathers had it right, so very long ago.
Mar 5, 2008 - 10:49 am 39. bill greene:The seductiveness of authority may be a human weakness, but it does not follow that collectivist ideas are attractive to the man in the street. A society can be authoritarian without being collectivist, but all collectivist societies are authoritarian. Some of the most successful societies in history have allowed free enterprise under an authoritarian umbrella–such as Hong Kong, Singapore, the Renaissance cities under the Medicis, and now Dubai whose Prince recently discovered laissez-faire policy and encouraged free enterprise by removing bureaucratic regulations. It is the modern democracies that have allowed populist welfare/victim mentalities to limit the free market that we see reduced freedom and economic stagnation. Indeed an enlightened despot can do more for his people than a modern nation does once it falls under the influence of the Enlightened Liberasl leftists who seek to destroy capitalism.
Mar 5, 2008 - 5:13 pm 40. whatthe...:Holy cow, I bet someone 5 bucks that nobody could as mind-numbingly, I-grieve-for-the-future, what-do-we-tell-the-children goofy as to utter these words. …some sense…? Really? You’ve read some actual history right? Bueler?
Please, please, please confess that this is some kind of irony signal – a wink-wink if you will – that the review is just a tongue-in-cheek nod to the special “genius” that is Jonah’s ode to redefining seriousness down.
Wait a minute, you almost sound serious here. Jeez, there goes the 5 bucks.
Mar 5, 2008 - 6:03 pm