Comments on: The Uses and Abuses of Political Philosophy: On Michael Ledeen’s “We are All Fascists Now”

By: Maladjusted

Maladjusted — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 12:53:40 +0000

I really like this, despite the fact that I can’t really see the basis for even your very qualified praise of Ledeen’s article.

I mean, sure, in Part II he rightly suggests that his coinage ‘economic fascism’ is not meant to be equivalent to’political fascism’, but I can’t see how his argument that if something is neither pure capitalism nor communism than it must be fascism makes any sense at all; but Ledeen rides this one as confidently as if he had a surfboard made of Euclidean axioms and Madison, Hamilton and Jay yelling “Cowabunga” at him to indicate the oncoming wave.

Also, as you say, the quotes from Tocqueville are appallingly opportunistic:

Tocqueville certainly isn’t talking about ‘economic fascism’ (which Ledeen surely knows), he’s talking about tyranny ‘democratic style’, which might indeed be relevant if we were talking about ‘political fascism’ as a regime emerging from a democracy sufficiently enervated not to be able to stop therise of a demagogic tyrant, but it seems ludicrously tenuous if we’re in fact talking about Ledeen’s coinage and his unjustified assumption that the stimulus package puts the U.S. three quarters of the way down the ‘road to serfdom’. Your point about the tyranny of the majority being more everyday and more hidden is spot on.

For me, this post was a great example of the enormous gulf between “Rethink” and the blogs of people whom I can’t (sorry!) help thinking of as interchangeable right-wing apparatchiks. This even though you obviously don’t quite share my assessment of the likes of Ledeen.

Here’s to blogs whose readership is more diverse than the ranks of the already converted.

Salut!

-Mal.

By: Kay

Kay — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 17:50:31 +0000

Consequence-based resolution ends up seemingly histrionic BUT ignoring consequences results in irresponsibility and imprudence. I appreciate Leeden’s insightful exposure of the “smothering” and “seductive” compassionate fascist agenda–which “helps” by removing individual responsibility–and gorges itself until the individual has no purpose except to build the state.

The question we should be asking those who love the state is, “How can individual responsibility benefit the state? (At least it is a start) This question eludes the histrionics of focusing on the consequences while building a positive structure based on prudence and responsibility. But it does (still) begin with the assumption that individual responsibility is important…and I’m not sure whether that thought fits anywhere in fascist philosophy…

By: David

David — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 15:18:25 +0000

What makes political philosophy strange aren’t the sentiments that animate it which raise working hypotheses that replace dogma, nor the conclusions it reaches that sound like some New Age metaphor and are utterly uncommunicable to anyone who’s more practical in the least. What makes it strange is that it never, ever takes learning for granted at any time, and it is constantly looking for the best question. We’re always asking “what are the true consequences of such-and-such,” and that kind of question is typically a quick way to lose sight of what’s important: it gets loaded with what we already think, and ends up conflating the great with the small and vice versa.
Or if you can’t dazzle them with brilliance… Baffle them with B.S.??

By: ashok

ashok — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 14:52:37 +0000

@ thag: The older notion of practical (pragmata, governed by prudence – phronesis) vs. theoretical (note the “theo”) is one way to approach the issue.

By: thag

thag — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 14:44:06 +0000

Great post. So what’s political philosophy again? Haha, I think I’m kidding, I’m just not sure…

I should have been a sports science major

I understand how both sides could confer stuff like Tocqueville (or whoever it happens to be) in a cheap way, but I’m still not sure how Constitutional debates end up not mattering..