Smile, You're On Candid Cover

Science is not alone when it comes to dumbing down by popularization. For those indisposed to read the Bible for its prose, kid's television has upchucked 'Veggie Tales , in which Jonah, born again as a stalk of talking asparagus , repeats his voyage of chastisement, and Daniel the articulate turnip ( or is he the walking rutabaga?) emerges still crunchy from the Fiery Furnace.

Nor are ideologies immune. Jonah Goldberg of National Review is all over the map hawking a book with a  cover logo so far in advance of its contents  as to make  reading it moot-- it's vexiligous enough to serve as as the national flag of the People's Republic Of Liebensraumia  in some dark Alternative Universe.

Its iconic  novelty betrays Liberal Fascism's  failure to acknowledge its pedigree. Goldberg is a prolific columnist at the magazine Bill Buckley founded, one that  has drifted as far from its moorings  as The American Mercury did in the decades after the acerbic  H.L.Mencken's demise, witness  NR's link to this self celebration of the book by its author-- Goldberg's blog is a review of his book's bad  reviews by his admirers: 

                             “The We Already Know This Canard”
From a reader:
Mr. Goldberg: I’ve finally figured out what I find so unsatisfying about the complaints.... the standard practice when reviewing a book that is allegedly derivative or unnecessary is to recommend the acknowledged authoritative book on the subject. Funny that in all the reviews I’ve read of LF I haven’t seen a single one that suggested an alternative book to read on the subject of Progressivism and fascism..."

This whitewash does not quite wash, for though the fan letter continues :

"This is a very good point. Since I can say with pretty much total certainty that there is no other single book that comes close to collecting all of these facts in one place," you would think some honest liberal reviewers would say “Goldberg’s all wrong on his interpretation of the facts, but these things are worth knowing.”

, a commenter at Taki's Magazine points out :

" Leftism Revisited by the late Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn. Doubtless young Jonah overlooked this book and its author. After all he [R. v.K-L] was just some PhD Austrian fellow employed as the European correspondent for the National Review for about thirty years! As Jonah might say, Who Knew? The book... is magisterial, well researched and footnoted with with original sources. It is in short, everything that Liberal Fascism is not. Of course, Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn had the advantage of both knowing what Fascism was and having met a lot of actual Fascists. "

That's putting it mildly, since  Jonah relegates to an end-note Ritter von Kunelt -Leddihn, an astonishingly erudite D. Mult. who addresed my Institute of Politics seminar at Harvard in the 70's. He awoke one unfortunate morning to find his modest Tirolean castle impaled on the proverbial Axis, commandeered  by Germans overrunning the Alps to join their Italian buddies following the Anchluss.

Comments

[Henry Barth]

Russell:

Erik Kuehnelt-Leddihn was a thoroughly nice man at that. His book "The Intelligent American's Guide to Europe" is still worth reading, though you won't find any hotels listed therein.

See his grandson's website in his honor: http://www.geocities.com/wuestenpauli/opapa_neu/opapa_start.htm

Typos:

"That's putting it mildly, since Ritter von Kunelt -Leddihn, an astonishingly erudite D. Mult. who adrese an Institute of Politics seminar I organized at Harvard in the 70's, awoke one unfortunate morning to find his modest Tirolean castle impaled om the proverbial Axis. It was commandeered by Germans overrunning the Alps en route to join their Italian buddies following Hitler's Anchluss."

HB

[Paul Rupert]

Sorry, but this is mistaken. Jonah Goldberg lists Kuehnelt-Leddin's book "Leftism: From de Sade and Marx to Hitler and Marcuse" as endnote #21 in chapter 2. The endnote itself is on page 421 of the book.

[Ken Talton]

Leftism Revisted is extremely well researched (nearly a quarter of the book is end notes) and it really makes an airtight argument for Goldbergs' thesis.

[hotel tuerkei]

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