The Seduction of Unreason : The Intellectual Romance with Fascism from Nietzsche to Postmodernism

Rating:
Summary: Clear as Mud
Review: The theme suggested by the title is fine, but the author does not stick with his agenda. This book is full of erratic observations, not least the notion that Jung was a fellow traveler with the Nazis. Anyone who has read Jung at all well, would know that he devoted considerable energy to the task of trying to understand the 'unreason' which seized hold of the German spirit (Jung actually regarded it as a kind of collective 'posession' by the spirit of Wotan). Unlike Heidegger (and Nietzsche), Jung remained grounded in the positive values of Western civilisation - including democracy. He did not turn his back on 2,500 years of Graeco-Roman/Judeo-Christian culture. To allege that he did is sheer nonsense and exceedingly poor scholarship.

Unfortunately, Wolin seems utterly unable to see that there are paradoxes in life - and human reason. In his assessment, America comes out as the exemplary source of 'rational' culture - as against a quirky Europe, prone to unreason and crippling scepticism. But, in its present mode -dominated by Neo-con philosophy, advocating 'full spectrum dominance' ('Amerika uber alles,' we might say) - some scepticism seems needed right now. There is a new 'Macarthyism' at work in the USA - and it is driven by hubris and UNREASON. 'Star wars'is hardly the attribute of a 'rational' culture. America has few friends in the world today - and why? Because its current administration has abdicated from the principles ostensibly lauded in Wolin's book. Quite rightly, that worries many Americans - and platitudes like those served up by Wolin will not make the problem go away.

The zenophobia in Wolin's book is part of the problem - not part of the solution. For Wolin, even Europe is 'alien' - so, how much more so is he likely to find problems relating to other, non-caucasian cultures? In this sense - a fatal flaw runs through Wolin's book. He fears fascism - but advocates an agenda whereby one culture stands in judgement of every other, ready to use force - if needs be, in any corner of the world - to protect and assert its alleged superiority - and that, by definition - is fascism. Paranoia and reason don't make good partners.


Rating:
Summary: Attacks postmodernism to promote 'the American way'
Review: In this book New York University Professor Richard Wolin digs up postmodernism in order to kill it yet again. Nicholas Fox demolished it in 1993, Paul Gross and Norman Levitt in 1994, and John O'Neill in 1995.

Now Wolin reprises that postmodernism reprised the counter-Enlightenment, concluding banally, "Postmodernism's hostility towards 'reason' and 'truth' is intellectually untenable and politically debilitating."

Postmodernism was just a version of the ancient idealist claim that objective knowledge is impossible. Idealism is a dangerous, reactionary philosophy, whether religious or post-whateverist, because it denies knowledge, reason and truth, and denigrates science, industry, technology, democracy and socialism. It prefers metaphor, myth and magic.

Wolin reminds us that Friedrich Nietzsche was a leading counter-Enlightenment writer, who preached, "The annihilation of the decaying races ... Dominion over the earth as a means of producing a higher type." Naturally, Nietzsche adored the Roman Empire, Alexander the Slayer and Cesare Borgia.

Later, Third Way theorists in the 1930s flirted with fascism. Martin Heidegger was an outright Nazi, and Carl Jung was a Nazi fellow-traveller. After the war, post-structuralists, like Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucault, and postmodernists like Chantal Mouffe were briefly famous. All worshipped Nietzsche.

But why does Wolin bother with these discredited poseurs? They have no influence now - who reads Heidegger? Who, apart from his publisher Verso, has ever heard of Mouffe?

Wolin's attacks on German and French philosophy chime in with the US state's attacks on 'old Europe'. So Wolin plays up the German and French New Rights, just as Labour plays up the BNP. He obediently links Al Qa'ida with Iraq, and sneers at national liberation struggles, absurdly lumping Fidel Castro with Idi Amin, Mobutu and Duvalier.

Wolin reveals his hostility to democracy when he writes of "the regressive social psychological tendencies displayed by the masses." Finally, he praises the USA's "breathtaking social mobility ... in striking contrast with Derrida's tradition-bound, native Europe."

Recent research has proved that the USA has even less social mobility than Europe's nations, but Wolin, in a postmodernist kind of way, doesn't let mere facts get in the way of capitalist dogma!