Customer Reviews

How I Accidentally Joined the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy: (and Found Inner Peace)

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3 star:		(9)
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Journalist and former radical liberal, Harry Stein, puts together a fine account of how life experiences changed his views and turned him into a conservative. Mr. Stein presents his beliefs with compelling evidence that would be difficult to argue against regardless of which side of the political spectrum you are on. Below is a brief list of topics he touches on:

1. Honor: Why has this become meaningless? Why do so many liberals view a man that cheats on his wife as someone who is just, "trying to find himself?"

2. The Media: How did it become so biased toward the left? Insider, Harry Stein, will tell you.

3. "Blame the Victim": A phrase directed at conservatives by liberals. But in certain instances, such as sexual promiscuity leading to STD's, are all "victims" 100% innocent? What about personal responsibility?

4. Sexgate: The Clinton scandal. Initially most liberals were outraged. But soon the liberal press made statements such as, "it's just between Hillary and Bill," or "let's just censure the guy and move on," and even "everybody does it." Do we no longer expect our President to set moral standards?

5. Feminism: Who doesn't support equal opportunity, a level playing field, and equal pay for equal work? But did the pendulum swing too far?

6. Higher Education: What ever happened to our colleges and universities mission to preserve and defend the essential truths of the past while providing a safe haven for open debate? How can we have open debate when we must be politically correct? Why do we now have "speech codes" designed to mute talk deemed insensitive?

7. Minority Conservatives: Why are these people so viciously attacked? Why is Clarence Thomas belittled for asserting his right to think for himself and refusing to have his ideas assigned to him because he is black? Is Colin Powel a trader to his race?

What Stein does surprisingly well is that he leaves out the bitterness and condescending attitude that most political authors draw on. He is actually quite complimentary toward many democrats, never insulting the person, only challenging the notion. This would be a terrific read for the conservative democrat, liberal republican, or anyone else who teeters with his or her own convictions.

Considering the left bent of most of today's media (I work for a major metropolitan newspaper, so I know what I'm talking about here), along with his own leftist leanings in the 60s and 70s, Stein has stepped out on a limb here. But it's a risk he's willing to take. Taking a phrase from the AIDS movement; no one should be cowed into silence. He has as much right to the moral high ground as any left- or right-winger does, and his arguments are well reasoned.

If you reside on the Left side of any of the issues Stein skewers in "Right-Wing Conspiracy," you'll hate this book. You'll probably hate it if you're on the extreme Right as well. But, if like most people, you're in the middle of the road, trying to make sense of what has happened to America since the 1960s, then you'll probably get a kick out of it. It should make for some interesting discussion at your next party when a liberal confronts you on your political views.

I rate this at four stars because I think there are some parts that could have done with some judicious editing. Not on the content, but on some of the long-winded-ness of some of the chapters.

Most of my reading this summer has been in preparation for a new course on Political Correctness in American Society. The amount of material out there is staggering. A recent search on the phrase "political correctness" had over 50,000 hits. The phrase is all over the culture in skirmishes left and right. I am enjoying this research, but it is professional, not pleasure, reading. Thus it was with great interest and anticipation that I ordered How I Accidentally Joined the Vast-Right Wing Conspiracy (And Found Inner Peace). I was not disappointed.

Harry Stein is my senior by almost a decade, but the ideological journey and cultural landmarks he chronicles look familiar to me. Stein is a writer and journalist with 6 books and credits at the New York Times, GQ, Esquire and TV Guide. He is currently an ethics columnist for the Wall Street Journal. His account of his journey is breezy, funny, well-researched, open and honest. It has the distinct advantage, in my view, of being simultaneously pleasurable, professional AND subversive in the cause of freedom. Hard to beat that combination.

Stein's journey from 60's radical student activist to 90's conservative begins with paternity and family life circa 1980 (there's that decade difference again) That's probably not a big surprise. But the Manhattan media and literary world and upper middle class Hastings-on-Hudson suburban neighborhood that Stein and his family inhabit might well be the most politically correct environment known in modern America, other than a university campus that is. Stein chronicles how his father's eye view takes in the culture wars on Clinton, abortion, gay rights, feminism, affirmative action and more, and how the disconnect between received liberal wisdom and his perspective on these issues places him and his wife, who is the quiet leader of this expedition, at ideological odds with their professional and local communities.

The Presidential election of 1992 is a revealing landmark in ideological journeys. Stein is well aware of Clinton's (now) obvious moral and ethical failings and casts a protest vote for Perot. (It must be noted that this author was not nearly so prescient, but there's that decade again, slightly compressed. I dropped my Democratic registration after Hillary's health care debacle, was an independent for Angus King in '94 and a registered Republican in '97. My journey started later, but progressed somewhat faster in the 90's. Of course it's not over yet.)

Stein has done his research, sifting through the cultural archives both recent and historical to chronicle the personal and societal consequences of our debates on gender equality, gay rights, diversity and freedom of speech and association. He writes quite personally about abortion, and his continued support for choice against a backdrop of deep regret for an American culture that takes it so cavalierly. He documents how ideological viewpoint effects what is and is not presented by various media outlets, including The New York Times at some length. He misses the degree to which the internet has energized and enabled the subversive vast right-wing conspiracy, but there's that ten years again.

It's a great read, and food for your brain too. I'll be ordering a copy for the UMM library.

How to Tell if You've Joined the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy

You hear someone talking about morality and you no longer instantly assume he must be a sexually repressed religious nut. You're actually relieved that your daughter plays with dolls and your son plays with guns. Watching network news, you notice that the person opposing affirmative action is identified as a conservative spokesman," while the one supporting is just a "Harvard professor". Jon Reisman is a faculty member at the University of Maine at Machias

I first read something by Harry Stein back in college, when a friend gave me a copy of Ethics and Other Liabilities, a collection of his early columns on the subject in Esquire Magazine. While for the most part I found it interesting and insightful, it did display a discomfiting tendency towards self-righteousness, and an underlying tone that was very "p.c." (although this being the early 1980's, that particular term hadn't been coined yet, much less beaten to death). Just One of the Guys, his memoir of a few years later about what it means to be male in America suffered from similiar weaknesses, as well as conveying the sense (very prevalent among baby-boomers I find) that simply 'fessing up to rotten behaviour in and of itself absolves one of it.

So, it's very interesting to see where Stein is at now, lo these many years later. Basically, the book relates the story of how over the years Stein has "evolved" (or "devolved" depending on one's point of view) from young sixties Movement radical to middle-aged neoconservative.

Needless to say, he's hardly breaking new ground here. However, for the most part Stein manages to avoid the crippling self-seriousness, anguished mea culpas, and grim score settling that has often dragged down other works which mine this particular vein (are you listening David Horowitz?).

Though there is much in the book that is serious, Stein's primary intent is to entertain and amuse, at his own expense as often as not. He usually succeeds (I say "usually" only because some of his targets are a little obvious - shooting fish in a barrel as it were). Scattered throughout the book are little quizzes (Name the most biased News Anchor, Guess how certain modern-day celebrities would behave if they had been aboard the Titanic), lists (How to tell if you've joined the vast right-wing conspiracy), and even a faux news item reporting on the expulsion of his less than scholarly teenage son from Dartmouth (despite his never having actually been ADMITTED in the first place). His chapters on why we should hate the French (as gleefully nasty as only a lapsed Francophile can be), the sexcapades of Bill Clinton, and the sad decline of the New York Times are by themselves almost worth the price of admission.

Stein also writes quite seriously (even movingly) of the trials and tribulations involved in keeping his 20-year marriage together, as well what it's like raising children amidst an increasingly coarse public culture. Overall though, the tone is light, and infused (despite all the great zingers) with a genuine generosity of spirit.

After all, as Stein himself halfway concedes at one point,his "journey" was not as long or ardous as it may seem on the surface. He was never THAT far left, and he's not THAT far right today. Indeed, much like one Ronald Wilson Reagan a generation earlier, he didn't so much leave the Democratic Party, as feel that the Party left him.

All in all, this is a breezy, entertaining, well-written work. It should be required reading for doubt-ridden liberals of all ages, if only to demonstrate that "The Dark Side" is not really so dark after all. Even if they don't "cross over", if it at least enables them to reevaluate their more dated notions and defend their position with vigorous argument as opposed to bromides and ad hominen personal attacks, and do so without guilt or recrimination, this book will have performed a valuable service.

"How I Fought My Way Out of a Paper Bag" might be a better title for this book -- that was my sardonic thought as I progressed through this vastly entertaining, readable book. But before long I had to admit I shared in his moral struggles to emerge from the cocoon of self-righteous leftism; struggles that seem easy in hindsight, but which took both of us years and years and lots of critical thinking to overcome. It's hard because liberalism (as it has devolved in the last few decades) is not so much an idea as a spirit; a spirit of self-righteousness, of always being the Good Guy/Gal, of being "progressive" (as if anyone knew what we were progressing towards); and it's difficult to come to grips with a geist. Also, it's hard to face up to the fact that your beliefs may not, after all, be the conclusions of reason but simply feelings inculcated by TV, movies and the press. Harry Stein does a remarkable job in this book of tracing the emergence of his critical thinking from the web of leftist rhetoric. I believe that he emerges not as the right-winger he characterizes himself as, but rather as a true, traditional liberal; i.e. fair, open-minded, committed to justice.

(I give the book 4 of 5 stars only because it is a bit disjointed. It sometimes seems assembled from many short pieces and the seams show. Other than that criticism I highly recommend the book.)

It's the tale of a good-hearted ex-hippie liberal journalist who kept thinking, questioning, and reading, and eventually comes to be on the right side of things. It's a story much like my own intellectual journey. I have never read a book faster. I highly recommend it for its deft prose, light style, and concise summation of arguments.

He tackles the cultural arena exclusively (whereas the economic side of things turns my crank more), and his targets are the fat easy ones (feminism, left-wing press bias, political correctness, affirmative action, etc), but he gets it so right, and he shows how and why he changed from his old views to his new ones, never losing his good heart or his decency; in fact, it is those qualities that drove him (and me) to reject the current left-wing agenda.

Liberals should read this not so much to have their minds changed (that takes more work than a single book can do) as to understand that most people who disagree with them also have pure motives and kind hearts.

I enjoyed Harry Stein's Book, "How I Accidentally Joined the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy : (And Found Inner Peace)." It had me nodding in agreement, laughing, and saying "Honey, listen to this..." That is because Mr. Stein is himself thoughtful and fun. It is also because his personal philosophical journey in many ways matches my own, that of my wife, and (I suspect) that of many other now aging baby boomers who were raised in the New York liberal Jewish tradition. Indeed, the title of the book could have been: "Hey, America Was Right and I Just Realized it Now!"

Where the book falls short is in coherence of style. "Falls short" may be too strong a phrase. Maybe the fault was in my expectations. What I expected was more of a David Horowitz type reasoned from every quarter approach, not the affable musings of a 'light' philosopher. In a sense this, too, is unfair. Mr. Stein's THINKING is not light, just his style.

So, in the end it gets four stars. If you are tired of all the election year positioning and repositioning, and would like a dose of sincere polical thought, "How I Accidentally Joined the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy : (And Found Inner Peace)" may be just the ticket. Just don't get caught reading it in the Old Neighborhood. ;-)~

Lots of people will dislike this book. Liberals who don't want to think about anyone else's ideas, or to admit that conservatives aren't evil, will hate it. Conservatives who don't like to think won't see any point to it at all.

But if you are willing to have your assumptions challenged, if you like to actually re-consider your ideas, then this will be a very good start to some interesting soul-searching.

A straightforward liberal will discover, perhaps for the first time, that conservatives are neither selfish nor hateful. A straightforward conservative (like myself) will read a sympathetic portrayal of the liberal mind-set (*not* many of its current policies) from someone who understands the real differences. Both sides will see what the real beliefs of the other side are, as opposed to the trivializing versions of the other side we are so eager to cling to

And everyone will come to realize that what separates us most is not compassion or ideology or goals, but unthinking discrimination against ideas we don't like, from the McCarthyism of the fifties to the political correctness of today. The people who disagree with you are neither stupid nor evil. If you can't accept that belief, then you aren't mature enough for this book yet.

(Or, just possibly, it's exactly what you need.)

Harry Stein writes one of the most poltically honest memoirs I've read in a long time. In straightforward speak that skirts no liberl ideals, Stein chops down an ideology that he swore by in the 1960s but now sees as a hinderance to our modern-day culture. While his liberal foes cringe, every independently-minded American should give Stein's views a chance. For the naysers of this book, especially hardcore liberals, I found it interesting that many of the facts Stein used to back up his positions were pulled out of the liberally-slanted media he so accurately portrays.

If you're a veteran of the "culture wars", you've been frustrated, beaten-down, labeled, laughed at, and worse by the "mainstream". It often feels like the slippery slope to socialism is just getting slicker and cannot ever by reversed. With the media as an ally, how can the Left possibly lose? After reading this book, I honestly feel hope for the future. One day, we'll look back on this era, as a nation, and marvel at our stupidity -- logic, responsibility, and integrity will win out in the end. Mr. Stein, a former soldier on the front lines of liberalism, has defected. And for all the Right reasons. More than just switching sides, he's brought the code book with him. While he says nothing we didn't already know (and could never convince a Liberal to believe) it somehow rings truer coming from him. Liberal bias in the media? Of course there is. Disdain for REAL free speech -- obviously. Narrow minded? Yeah, we knew it was the Left all along. This book is priceless and should be read by everyone. It's a very good read also. Clever, well-thought out, and written superbly. Thanks, Harry.