Rating: 
Summary: Just as true today and more appropriate than ever.
Review: "Radical Chic and Mau-mauing the Flak Catchers" is comprised of two short essays written by Tom Wolfe and first published in book form in 1970. While much has changed over the last three decades in America regarding the topic of race, the essays of this book are just as applicable now as they were when Wolfe wrote them. "Radical Chic" is the story of a party thrown by Leonard Bernstein to raise money for the Black Panthers; specifically, for their legal defenses. Wolfe lets their own words and actions at this typical party be the objects by which these elite, Manhattanite, "limousine liberals" completely humiliate themselves. The lengths to which the Bernstein crowd goes--from whom they employ to what they wear--to remove anything that could possibly be viewed as "intolerant" is simply comical to almost anyone except for this crowd. As one who currently lives in New York City, this book was hilarious to read since any differences between the crowd Wolfe satirized in 1970 and the Manhattanite left-wing elitists of today, are virtually non-existent. As "Radical Chic" closes, this crowd is sent scrambling to distance themselves from the Panthers, not because the Panthers were anarchist street thugs, but because they are shown to be virulent racists, especially regarding anti-Semitism. Upper class Leftists, scrambling to distance themselves from the anti-Semitic comments of black leaders they once supported politically... my, how things have changed. While "Radical Chic" is the longer and usually more famous of the two essays, "Mau-mauing the Flak Catchers" is Wolfe writing at a better, more colorful level than in "Radical Chic", where the essay's subjects do most of the talking. In "Flak Catchers" Wolfe again takes on the topic of angry minorities and their more affluent supporters in the white community. This time, Wolfe uses the racial melting-pot in San Francisco to show the numerous "impoverished" groups uniting to make themselves seen and heard by the local government. Wolfe demonstrates his perspicacity in putting a human face on these groups and objectively showing their personal motives for giving the white government office workers (the Flak Catchers), an occasional shakedown. But here too, Wolfe is not commenting on the minority group nearly as much as he is on the white, middle class, Northern Californians that seek to appease these groups at any cost. His cynical view of these people comes not from disagreement with their wanting to help the less fortunate, but from their complete phoniness, which ultimately blinds them to the acts and words of some nefarious characters. As Wolfe writes in "Flak Catchers": "You'd turn on the TV, and there would be some dude you had last seen just hanging out on the corner with the porkpie hat scrunched down over his eyes and the toothpick nodding on his lips--and there he was now on the screen, a leader, a 'black spokesman,' with whites in the round-shouldered suits and striped neckties holding microphones up to his mouth and waiting for The Word to fall from his lips." Exactly.
Rating:
Summary: Just as true today and more appropriate than ever.
Review: "Radical Chic and Mau-mauing the Flak Catchers" is comprised of two short essays written by Tom Wolfe and first published in book form in 1970. While much has changed over the last three decades in America regarding the topic of race, the essays of this book are just as applicable now as they were when Wolfe wrote them. "Radical Chic" is the story of a party thrown by Leonard Bernstein to raise money for the Black Panthers; specifically, for their legal defenses. Wolfe lets their own words and actions at this typical party be the objects by which these elite, Manhattanite, "limousine liberals" completely humiliate themselves. The lengths to which the Bernstein crowd goes--from whom they employ to what they wear--to remove anything that could possibly be viewed as "intolerant" is simply comical to almost anyone except for this crowd. As one who currently lives in New York City, this book was hilarious to read since any differences between the crowd Wolfe satirized in 1970 and the Manhattanite left-wing elitists of today, are virtually non-existent. As "Radical Chic" closes, this crowd is sent scrambling to distance themselves from the Panthers, not because the Panthers were anarchist street thugs, but because they are shown to be virulent racists, especially regarding anti-Semitism. Upper class Leftists, scrambling to distance themselves from the anti-Semitic comments of black leaders they once supported politically... my, how things have changed. While "Radical Chic" is the longer and usually more famous of the two essays, "Mau-mauing the Flak Catchers" is Wolfe writing at a better, more colorful level than in "Radical Chic", where the essay's subjects do most of the talking. In "Flak Catchers" Wolfe again takes on the topic of angry minorities and their more affluent supporters in the white community. This time, Wolfe uses the racial melting-pot in San Francisco to show the numerous "impoverished" groups uniting to make themselves seen and heard by the local government. Wolfe demonstrates his perspicacity in putting a human face on these groups and objectively showing their personal motives for giving the white government office workers (the Flak Catchers), an occasional shakedown. But here too, Wolfe is not commenting on the minority group nearly as much as he is on the white, middle class, Northern Californians that seek to appease these groups at any cost. His cynical view of these people comes not from disagreement with their wanting to help the less fortunate, but from their complete phoniness, which ultimately blinds them to the acts and words of some nefarious characters. As Wolfe writes in "Flak Catchers": "You'd turn on the TV, and there would be some dude you had last seen just hanging out on the corner with the porkpie hat scrunched down over his eyes and the toothpick nodding on his lips--and there he was now on the screen, a leader, a 'black spokesman,' with whites in the round-shouldered suits and striped neckties holding microphones up to his mouth and waiting for The Word to fall from his lips." Exactly.
Rating: 
Summary: An pioneering study of human biodiversity in America
Review: "Radical Chic" has become a byword, but the often overlooked "Mau-mauing the Flak Catchers" resonates more today. It's the story of how Great Society poverty programs were set up to only give out grants to "authentic" inner city groups, their "authenticity" being measured by how well they could physically intimidate the bureaucrats administering the give-aways. Wolfe's hilarious account of the different average physiques of black, Mexicans, Chinese, and Samoan protestors and the greatly differing degrees of fear they elicited in whites foretells by 3 decades "A Man in Full's" obsession with the muscle to fat ratio of each character. Mau-Mauing remains an early masterpiece in the emerging field of human biodiversity studies. Plus, it's extremely funny. Steve Sailer
Rating:
Summary: Timeless
Review: Although I found Wolfe's prose a bit difficult at times during parts of "Radical Chic," I found this book amusing on the deepest level. Wolfe takes a set of circumstances that seem highly peculiar to their place and time, and yet somehow spins a tale that reveals plenty about the constancy of human behavior. I can't help but smile every time I think of Otto Preminger antagonizing the Panther leader--"But you didn't answer ze kvestion! "
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Delightful.
Review: I can't believe it took me this long to get around to reading this book. Here we see the rich and famous cavorting with violent anti-white, anti-American, and anti-Semitic criminals during the 1960s. It's hard to say who these pampered masochistic high society types hated more; themselves or their own people. Wolfe's recounting of Leonard Bernstein's "ode to the Panthers" party is outstanding. It's great journatlism. Heck, you know a situation is surreal when Barbara Walters is a voice of reason at a social gathering.
As a writer, Wolfe, could not possibly have done a better job. The narrator is everywhere but is not himself a character in the proceedings. He may be a fly on the wall but he is a fly that takes copious notes. The details are magnificent and he has a savant's eye for great quotations. You'll laugh, you'll rage, the limousine liberals and champagne socialists will astound you. The book was written over 30 years ago but it is just as applicable today as one could replace The Black Panthers with a nineties fellon like Mumia Abu Jamal. The section on mau-mauing, or the fine art of the racial shakedown, is totally priceless. It too is as applicable to the present as to the past. Wolfe foreshadows the great future successes of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson at coercing cash out of whites who willingly give it away to ease their politically correct minds. A magnificent effort and, at 10 bucks, the price isn't bad--a pity that he didn't write another 200 pages.
Rating:
Summary: the funniest journalism of all time
Review: If you are a conservative, one of the things you become accustomed to is Society's tacit assumption that liberals--even when disastrously and predictably wrong--are well-intentioned, while conservatives--even when demonstrably right--are motivated by selfishness, animus or simple crotchetiness. Even those who should know better accept this general proposition, witness George W. Bush's savvy but offensive campaign slogan "Compassionate Conservative" or Winston Churchill's famous dictum: Any man who is not a liberal when young has no heart, any man who is not a conservative when older has no brain. This notion is particularly galling if you rooted for the Chicago police at the 1968 Convention and for the Guardsmen at Kent State, while aged 6 & 10 respectively. It is really frustrating that this misconception prevails regardless of the evidence of human experience. Thus, the American Communists and fellow-travelers of the '30s & '40s are considered to be misguided do-gooders, but those who opposed them on the Right are considered fascists. Like something out of Alice in Wonderland, it is better in social circles to be Alger Hiss than Whittaker Chambers. But there's no use complaining about any of this, first because no one cares, second because it is so deeply ingrained in the political psyche. It is something that we simply learn to accept, sort of the way you learn to accept that Blacks will continue to vote Democrat despite the fact that Democrat policies have lead directly to the ghettoization or imprisonment of a significant portion of the black populace. It does however lead to some uncomfortable moments, especially when you are young. So most conservatives have some Ur-text that has a particular meaning to them--that first book (or magazine--for many it was National Review) that whispered: "You are not alone. You are not abnormal." Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France (read Orrin's review), Witness, Buckley's God and Man at Yale, Conscience of a Conservative (read Orrin's review), all of these books fit the bill for many, but for me, the first great text was Radical Chic by Tom Wolfe. Radical Chic, which famously chronicles a party hosted by Leonard Bernstein and his wife to raise money for the Black Panthers, did something unique, something which I don't believe had been done up until that time. It's not a polemic; it doesn't come right out and say anything directly negative about the Panthers or their white upper class supporters. It does something much more insidious; it makes them appear ridiculous. What a sublime moment that was, to have someone out there saying, not simply that the other side was wrong, but that they were silly. Somehow it made it alright that folks considered us troglodytes, after all, if our views seemed harsh and uncaring at least we didn't look imbecilic. Since then of course the floodgates have opened--much of Ronald Reagan's appeal lay in his ability to make conservatives feel proud of their beliefs and to poke gentle fun at the most ridiculous aspects of liberal dogma and authors like PJ O'Rourke and Chris Buckley do a brilliant job of exposing the profound idiocy at the heart of liberalism. The old dictum that to a liberal life is a tragedy, to a conservative a comedy, is amply borne out in the writing of these genuinely funny observers. Had Tom Wolfe never written another word we would still be beholden to him for blazing this trail. Lucky for us, this was simply the first great salvo in a long career of puncturing the pretensions of the Establishment Left, as evidenced by the second story in the book, Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers. Here he chronicles the exploitation of white guilt by minority activist applying for government grant money in San Francisco. He would go on to write several terrific conservative novels--Bonfire of the Vanities and A Man in Full (read Orrin's review)--and one great audio novella--Ambush at Fort Bragg (read Orrin's review)--but he may never have written anything better than Radical Chic. GRADE: A+
Rating:
Summary: Peirce that sanctimoniousness...
Review: Mr. Wolfe writes a powerful book (actually a pair of essays) in his lively prose as he skewers, as only irony and sarcasm mixed with true-to-life scenes can, feel-good social consciousness. I enjoy his writing in virtually all settings (though I felt the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test was a bit much) but this particular pair of essays has a force not seen in many of his other works. He typically includes in his skewer those "on top" like bond-traders or cops. Here, he focuses entirely on what many would consider "underdogs" and shows how they manipulate the sensibilities of the socially minded wealthy and government officials in extorting money (yes, it's all about money) to support whatever version of anti-social behavior they happen to be devotees of. A joy to read. - Kelly Whiting
Rating:
Summary: Witty, sharp observer....
Review: People of so many stripes rely on Tom Wolfe's reputation as a "conservative." For it, he's either canonized--one critic compared him to David Horowitz, which is absurd as Wolfe can write, not just spout off unsubstantiated opinions--or damned as a racist, etc., and all the other terms someone whose rhetoric is condemned as "conservative" is often called. Despite whether Wolfe is "conservative" or not, he's a writer with a keen eye, and a sharp wit. As others have pointed out, the book consists of two essays, the first on an elite party---errr, "meeting"--at the residence of Leonard Bernstein and his wife designed as a fundraiser for the Black Panthers in the late 1960s. The second is on the activists largely of minority populations who used their constituents to set up job programs--which invariably meant long term jobs in the programs allegedly designed to alleviate poverty. Wolfe's metaphors had me laughing throughout the whole book. I plan to give the book to many a friend who calls him or herself a "former radical." Some of us, as we've aged, have grown to see through what we once endeared. True, the Bernsteins and others MEANT well...but they also had the maintain what is now known as "PC" symbols, e.g., non-black servants for the event. And they were out of their culture, and weren't sure how to respond to certain controversies. True, the anti-poverty programs were well-intended. But it seems some who criticized them as being self-perpetuating may have been right after all. Despite my--or other critics'--political commentaries, the essays are, again, side-splitters. Even if you disagree with them, you won't be able to deny the quality of the writing, and the clarity of the observation.
Rating:
Summary: What to buy for the Man who has everything? A Revolutionary!
Review: Take a half-cup of William F. Buckley, mix with a spoonful of Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, stir in a dollop of David Horowitz, and leaven with a pinch of Hunter S. Thompson; boil, simmer, and stir----and you have Tom Wolfe, acerbic and acid observer of 20th century American society and possibly one of the keenest society writers since Ambrose Bierce. Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers is a slender little tome, with just 152 pages comprising two essays that cut to the quick of race and class relations in American society during the "Summer of Love." These two witty and mesmerizing little essays cut to the heart of the bizarre practice of society's elite espousing radical causes, and effectively capture and explain the seeming paradox of that strangest of modern beasts, the Limousine Liberal. The first essay, "Radical Chic", is Wolfe's account of the high-society party thrown by New York Symphony conductor Leonard Bernstein and his wife for members of the Black Panthers, at the time a rising group of racialist incendiaries, revolutionaries, and terrorists. But as Wolfe points out, to the jaded, bored, decadent Central Park elite, they were exciting! Glamorous! Naughty! And highly fashionable, which is why the Thing to Do in New York High Society in 1969 was to throw penthouse parties for radicals. What caused this? And why is it that so many of the affluent and wildly rich of today's American high society sport such radically leftist views, championing causes from banning fur to banning handguns to abolishing capitalism? According to Wolfe, it's a tactic of the newly rich called "nostalgie de la boue." Translated as "nostalgia for the mud", it takes the form of romanticizing the trappings, fashion, style, and even radical philosophies of the underclass in pursuit of irony, social aplomb, and prestige. While Wolfe doesn't mention this, even Marie Antoinette engaged in her own "nostalgie de la boue", meticulously recreating a 17th century French peasant village on the grounds of Versailles, where she and her ladies-in-waiting would play at being French peasant women. "Radical Chic" takes the reader on a fascinating trip inside Bernstein's Park Avenue luxury apartment, but the reporter-style writing is actually drier than the more engaging "Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers." And best of all, "Radical Chic" offers a hysterical running dialogue between Lenny Bernstein and Black Panther Don Cox that Hollywood itself couldn't improve upon---with guest appearances by Barbara Walters, the Belafontes, and Otto Preminger! "Mau Mau-ing the Flak Catchers" is more flamboyant, and, oddly enough, more interesting. "Mau-mauing" operates as a sort-of handbook for inner-city psychological against the "Man" (read: white middle-class social services bureaucrats) for fun, prizes, and most of all, money. Interestingly enough, Mau-Mauing (getting some friends and going down to the local social services office for a demonstration) played off white dread of the Racial Other, but Wolfe notes how effectively the largely white bureaucracy of the time used the system to co-opt the Revolutionaries. As Wolfe himself notes, "maybe the bureaucracy isn't so stupid at all. All they did is sacrifice one flak-catcher, and they've got hundreds, thousands." Best of all, the second essay shows the early literary seedlings and ideas which would germinate in "Bonfire of the Vanities", including the idea of mau-mauing for fun and profit, wily social services operators who did (and do) understand the fear that white liberals have of appearing racist, the "pimp roll" and "pimp style" that infuriated Bonfire's young Assistant D.A., and even the Radical Chic parties that crop up in Bonfire and Wolfe's later novel, A Man in Full. Both essays are fantastic reads, full of perceptive observations that illuminate how the Other Half was living the Summer of Love, and providing some insight into our own upside-down world of American race and class politics.
Rating:
Summary: Dostoevsky With A Sense of Humor
Review: There probably hasn't been as good (and meaningful) a satire since the days of Jonathan Swift and Voltaire. Tom Wolfe was not the first to call attention to the radical chic phenomenon; journalist Eugene Lyons wrote about it approximately 25 years earlier, inventing the phrase "pent-house bolsheviks" to describe it. But no one can capture the real flavor of a scene like Wolfe, whose creative use of style and language makes it possible to be there without actually having been there. Reading this book immediately called to mind the famous scene in Dostoevsky's POSSESSED (or, THE DEMONS; or, THE DEVILS), where a young nihilist--who says he has a plan to save mankind--is forced to announce, after thinking through the logic of his scheme, that it began with absolute freedom but ends with absolute despotism. The parlor radicals parodied by Wolfe were neither as serious about their radicalism nor as dedicated to it as genuine revolutionaries would be, but this is the whole point. It might have spoiled the impact of this short book if Wolfe had speculated on WHY these limousine liberals found it so comforting to support radical causes, but one finds one's self wondering what Wolfe would have concluded about this. Incidentally, there's a good non-fiction book on the Amazon site--GUILT, BLAME, AND POLITICS--that does exactly that, tracing the entire history of political radicalism and showing how it has always sprung from upper-class guilt, using a plethora of examples as evidence. RADICAL CHIC is well worth reading even now, about 30 years after it was written, because we can still see the phenomenon at work -- like when multimillionaire Ted Turner recently said he considered himself "just a socialist at heart." Is it compassion that motivates these people, or guilt? Wolfe's excellent satire was a first step in learning how to distinguish between the two.
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