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Encounters: My Life with Nixon, Marcuse, and Other Friends and Teachers

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PaulGottfried's new memoir, "Encounters: My Life with Nixon, Marcuse, and Other Friends and Teachers," provides an ideal introduction to the works of this scholar, who is perhaps the most acute "political genealogist" of our time.

Having spent an enormous amount of time trudging through "Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance" to write my reader's guide to the President's autobiography, "America's Half-Blood Prince," I was pleased to see that Dr. Gottfried made consistently opposite choices in molding his memoir. While "Dreams" is long, "Encounters" is short. "Dreams" is evasive, featureless, and self-absorbed, while "Encounters" is forthright, anecdotal, and interesting about Gottfried's better-known friends.

Gottfried's academic career has been notoriously incommensurate with his talents. In "Encounters," he refers to his professional frustrations with a melancholic wit reminiscent of Nabokov's narrators, in asides such as "... a point that I have made to a generally unreceptive public in my recent books".

Yet, the lack of an Ivy League chair is not an impediment to striking up a dialogue with idiosyncratic thinkers, as Gottfried repeatedly did through the U.S. Mail: "What makes my life ... perhaps even worth reading about is that it has gone nowhere in particular but has been nonetheless packed with fascinating encounters".

Gottfried, for example, wrote to Richard Nixon, the most intellectual President since at least Coolidge, after the former President had publicly praised his 1986 book "The Search for Historical Meaning." They became rather good friends. In "Encounters," Gottfried notes:

"Like John Adams and John Quincy Adams, Nixon was a brooding political thinker who fitted badly into a job that depended on public favor."

The portrait of Nixon that Gottfried paints is rather similar to the onscreen portrayal that stage great Frank Langella essayed in last year's film "Frost/Nixon," especially in the touching final scene in which screenwriter Peter Morgan has Nixon muse that talk show host David Frost, with his gift for being liked, would have been a natural politician, while he, with his incisive mind, should have made a career out of asking tough questions. (Gottfried commented in a column after he finished his book that "I had the impression while watching Langella that I was standing again in Nixon's presence".)

Gottfried argues that the source of Nixon's policy of détente with the Soviets and Red Chinese was that:

"Nixon belonged to a tradition of pessimistic realism that would place him well to the right of his neo-Wilsonian critics ... The question is not whether this approach was correct. It is rather whether it was actuated by conservative assumptions about politics and human nature. ... He was thoroughly Hobbesian, in the sense that ... Nixon thought that violence was inherent in human nature. The purpose of statecraft was to institutionalize and restrict the manifestations of an all-too-human propensity."

Encounters focuses less on retelling Gottfried's own life tale than on providing a buffet of succinct personal and political portraits of the more intriguing personalities he's befriended. Even limiting himself to those who are deceased, or at least older than he is, leaves him quite an array.

For example, Gottfried profiles such unlikely bestseller-writers as historian John Lukacs, social critic Christopher Lasch, and Eugene Genovese. Genovese, the pre-eminent historian of antebellum plantation owners, puzzlingly called himself a Marxist until converting to Catholicism in the 1996. Gottfried pegs the always stylishly-dressed Genovese more plausibly as "an antibourgeois elitist trying to fit into American academia".

Gottfried recounts a 1993 meeting called by Pat Buchanan "to come up with advisors for a new foundation ... [that] would serve as the intellectual nucleus for a second presidential campaign ..." The confab featured the penetrating Southern rightist Sam Francis, the exuberant libertarian economist Murray Rothbard, and the gentle traditionalist political philosopher Russell Kirk.

Gottfried notes, however, with some understatement, that what Buchanan "needed was advice from someone who would be able to get Pat lots of votes on Election Day. While the present company was more honorable and more interesting than this hypothetical strategist, my friends did not strike me as being well-suited to manipulating the public".

Still, Gottfried makes good use of this opportunity to sketch vivid portraits of Francis, Rothbard, and Kirk, and sympathetically yet critically outline the differences in the thinking of these influential thinkers.

Chilton Williamson, Jr. defines paleoconservatism as "the expression of rootedness: a sense of place and of history, a sense of self derived from forebears, kin, and culture--an identity that is both collective and personal". [What Is Paleoconservatism? Man, Know Thyself!, Chronicles Magazine, January 2001] Gottfried's clarity about his own idiosyncratic roots and his empathetic sensitivity to others' roots makes him an ideal explicator of the evolution of schools of thought over time.

Paleoconservatives are reactive rather than reactionary. They do not idealize the past, much less seek to restore it. As exemplified by Prof. Paul Gottfried, the leading intellectual among them, paleoconservatives loathe the regnant political elite and how it glorifies the present as the most enlightened age in history. This viewpoint has become mainstream, and paleoconservatives hate it all the more. According to its tenets, something approaching human perfection will be achieved when through the ministrations of equally firm and benevolent government, people are irreversibly "liberated" from the last remaining vestiges of sexism, racism, homophobia, and sundry inhibitions inculcated by repressive religious and/or cultural practices. Allegedly only then will individuals be truly free for self-actualization. Nauseating nonsense, say the paleoconservatives. Neither radical freedom nor the intrusive government necessary to mold individuals for it is desirable; both are incompatible with ordered liberty in community with others.

Gottfried's autobiography reviews his growth as a person and scholar. He presents his life as a series of "encounters" with influential people, some famous and others not. His paleoconservatism comes out in his interactions with his students at Elizabethtown College. Their ignorance, typical of their generation, dismays him. They know virtually nothing about Western civilization except its reputation, altogether counterfactual, for the worst imaginable oppression of of women, nonwhites, Jews, homosexuals, etc.

The author's most consequential encounters were with his father, Andrew Gottfried, an interwar Jewish refugee from Hungary. Though the Gottfried family lost members to Nazi genocide, the elder Gottfried proudly refused to wallow in feelings of Jewish victimization. This principled aversion to self-pity, whether in oneself or others, passed from father to son. It is typically paleoconservative.

Readers will be fascinated by Gottfried's involved and formative experiences with such notable personages as Richard Nixon, Herbert Marcuse, Pat Buchanan, Sam Francis, and Russell Kirk. Sparkling acoounts of "encounters" with these and others less well known take up much of the book.

This isn't in any way an autobiography written for fellow Jewish intellectuals. Gottfried comes across, in his own words, as "a Hebrew rather than a Rabbinic Jew or a passionate Zionist." His involvement with his own ethnicity throws light on what it means to be paleoconservative.

This autobiographical work revolves around Paul Gottfried's personal encounters with other significant figures rather than focusing on himself, as he contends that the "stimulating relations I have formed over the years should interest my readers more than my undistinguished professional life." (p. ix) Gottfried's standard of judgment is rather high here since he has authored numerous scholarly books and is generally considered the leading intellectual figure of the paleoconservative movement, and that his scholarly achievements took place while raising five children and confronting the tragic death of his first wife from cancer.

Although Gottfried devotes considerable attention to his father, a Hungarian-Jewish immigrant who became a successful businessman and local civic leader (whom Gottfried regards as more successful than himself), his book primarily dwells on various intellectual figures of diverse ideological hues, including the anarcho-libertarian Murray Rothbard; right-wing populist Samuel Francis; Catholic rightist Thomas Molnar; conservatives, Russell Kirk, John Lukacs, Robert Nisbet, Peter Stanlis, M. E. Bradford, and Will Herberg; Marxists Eugene Genovese, Paul Piccone and Herbert Marcuse. As someone who might seem as an outlier in this group, he also includes former President Richard Nixon, whom Gottfried shows to be a deep thinker. Moreover, it might be news to many readers of Gottfried's political articles that he would have close intellectual associates on the left, which exemplifies both his broadmindedness and that of these particular leftists. Gottfried mainly discusses these individuals in separate vignettes, which he weaves together into a coherent whole.

The unifying trait of this ideologically diverse group is that they were all substantial thinkers with independent minds who eschewed the shallow politically correct cant and careerism that has characterized both the liberal and conservative establishments and reigns supreme in the modern American academy. These individuals were essentially non-conformists and outsiders like Gottfried himself. Gottfried points out that even the leftists under study expressed views that were quite contrary to the reigning left-liberal hegemony and, in fact, had rightist implications. For example, he devotes an entire chapter (more than he devotes to any other intellectual figure) explaining his attraction to Herbert Marcuse, the Marxist Frankfort School philosopher, whom Gottfried studied under at Yale University just prior to Marcuse's becoming the philosophical guru of the "New Left." While never accepting the content of Marcuse's political or social views--the "polypomorphous sex" that would allegedly exist in the Marxist Communist utopia--Gottfried has made use of Marcuse's (and the Frankfort School's) critical methodology to unmask the hegemonical power of the left, which, of course, was the polar opposite of the author's intent. Gottfried's treatment of Marcuse is not unique. Although he is favorably disposed to all the intellectual figures covered, he provides trenchant critiques of their ideas and his portraits are far from being hagiographic.

Gottfried provides insightful comments not only on ideas but on personalities, which are often strikingly different from the conventional ones. For example, Gottfried points out that Nixon was a Hobbesian realist who believed it the role of statecraft to restrain the violent potentialities of mankind, though he concomitantly saw the vital need to appeal to American idealism to gain the necessary public support for policy. Gottfried also illustrates that the private Nixon was an accomplished raconteur, quite in contrast to his stuffy, straight-laced public persona.

With its novel insights, the book provides a major contribution to understanding the social and political ideas of the latter part of the twentieth century. Written in a very readable style, and interspersed with enough human (and sometimes all-too human) interest episodes, the book should appeal to the educated layperson as well as the academic specialist. From a scholarly perspective, however, it is too bad that the work was limited to 220 pages, since many of Gottfried's novel insights deserve much more attention. Perhaps, he can further develop these in a future sequel.

I just finished reading Encounters and very much enjoyed learning about the fascinating people who have influenced Dr. Gottfried throughout his distinguished career. For a young mind like myself, tracing how some of his key ideas were developed was particularly constructive. I found the most stimulating chapter to be "Three Central Europeans" because of the debate Gottfried has with John Lukacs on page 110-111. I have ordered Lukacs' book Democracy and Populism and intend to read it as soon as possible. The brief summary Gottfried provides of their two competing ideas has already provoked serious thought from me.

Gottfried argues that the left has enjoyed a steady recruiting advantage relative to the far Right because it has drawn support by recycling Judeo-Christian ideals and eschatology. More specifically, "Christian Universalism and the Christian commitment to comforting the oppressed" have been used to ensnare Western Man into leftwing movements. I completely agree that the ability of the Left to manipulate Western Man by using Christianity has played a pivotal role in the Left's rise to power. Christian universalism and the susceptibility of Christian doctrine to equalitarian interpretation have become the chains of a slave morality that have destroyed the self-preservation instinct of Western people. However, Lukacs' spin on things is worth exploring. In discussing the rise of Communism, he argues that "what made these [communist] movements work in the past was their leaders shrewd incorporation of nationalist movements into their globalist ideology." This argument seems particularly relevant in today's political climate of liberalism and neoconservatism. Liberal ideals, like communist ideals, do appeal to Western Man for reasons of Judeo-Christian values, but why they appeal to some liberals and neoconservatives may have less to do with morality than they do with nationalist, ethnic, or even patriotic sentiment.

For reasons of pride and group loyalty, men are predisposed to value the ideas and culture of their own people more than that of others. Such a statement might seem laughable when discussing liberals, a people who so adamantly hate their Western heritage, but to assume liberals operate above human nature (as many of them claim to do) gives them far too much credit. Pride and group loyalty do exist among liberals and it is worth considering that this pride may be of the ethnic and nationalist variety. What gives this seemingly remote possibility credence is the relationship that exists between liberalism and Christianity.

Since liberalism is arguably the natural evolution of Christianity, or at the very least, shares many core Christian principles, some members of Western society may be attracted to liberalism because of their historical and cultural affinity to Christianity. Liberalism is perceived to be stamped with a "made in the West" endorsement which arouses a certain degree of prideful ownership among Western people. In this light, pride for some liberals may be a more compelling motivation than the fantasy fulfillment of Western moral imagination. Certainly this would not be true of those radical factions on the Left who desire the complete destruction of the West, but for the more moderate elements who have thrown in with the liberal cause, it is not too farfetched to believe they have done so because of an ethnocentric belief in the superiority of the liberal creed.

The great irony of course is that one of the primary reasons liberals believe they are morally superior is because of their enlightened adherence to the equalitarian notion that all values, cultures, and peoples are created equal. Moral superiority for the liberal then is contingent upon the recognition of the non-existence of superiority. This is only one of the many paradoxes the liberal comfortably accepts without question and will not be discussed here in further detail. The point to be made is that that pride rather than morality and the need for sacrifice may be a stronger motivation for some Western people who subscribe to liberalism, and in some cases, this pride may take the form of ethnic or nationalist loyalty.

Because of their longer history and stronger cultural connection to Christianity, white people in particular may be motivated by ethnic pride to support liberalism since they believe this ideology to be of their own creation. If ethnic pride does indeed exist among white liberals, it would almost always operate subconsciously, as most white liberals would resent the accusation that they are being motivated by ethnic or nationalist loyalty. Interesting enough, nationalist motivations have been, without a doubt, the strongest impetus for blacks and Latinos who make no effort to conceal their racially-charged reasons for subscribing to liberalism. They may be rewarded overtly with redistribution government polices, but ethnic pride is also a strong emotion among minorities who support liberalism because they are rewarded psychologically with a victimology that rationalizes their comparatively low levels of group productivity. Jews are another minority group that have often supported liberalism or neoconservatism for reasons of nationalist sentiment.

Lukac's theory seems particularly useful when examining neoconservatism because the argument that morality fantasy fulfillment rather than nationalist pride is the reason Western Man is attracted to liberalism seems to fall short in the era of interventionism and global democracy. It is highly likely that many neoconservatives have been seduced by the idea of conquering nations abroad and forcing the democratic way of life upon them. Certainly these neocons perceive themselves to be good and sacrificing individuals who want to bring freedom to foreign lands, but their true motivation is the underlying psychological urge to achieve glory for one's own people. The line here between nationalism and patriotic sentiment may be blurred, but the fact remains that these individuals are probably less motivated by sacrifice than they are by a crusader-missionary instinct that has more to do with hubris than it does with morality. Liberals too are inclined to pursue the pride instinct and believe supporting global democracy and human rights makes them appear to be "good" and "dignified" citizens of the world. For many such as these, the drive to support liberalism has less to do with altruism than individual vanity, but this self-indulgence is achieved by cleansing a deep-rooted guilt that is very much nationalist in its origin. When Luckas discusses the Left's successful incorporation of nationalist movements, it is doubtful he was speaking of nationalist guilt, but this certainly seems to be a strong motivation among whites for throwing in with an ideology that openly professes a need to punish whites and their Western created societies.

So what does all this mean? If we accept that neoconservatism is just another strain of liberalism, then it seems that the two most dominating motivations for supporting liberalism are sacrifice and glory. Liberals and neoconservatives are attracted to liberalism for both, but in most cases the need for sacrifice will be probably be greater among liberals and the need for glory among neoconservatives. Neocon pundits would balk at this claim and insist their motivation is patriotic duty or the drive for strong national security. It is unfortunate that so many American citizens have bought into the neoconservative propaganda that U.S. security is dependant upon interventionism for the purpose of global democracy. The ability of the neoconservative cadre to abuse patriotic sentiment has been heightened in the present era of Islamic terrorism and this has done much to prevent an authentic conservative challenge from arising. A third motivation might therefore be added to the list of primary motivations for following liberalism. By appealing to patriotism and the need for security, which in itself appeals to nearly all nationalities in the United States, neocons have put themselves in a position to maintain their supremacy on the Right. Consequently, liberalism will continue to dominate as an ideology because no serious challenge from the Right will present itself so long as questioning neoconservative ideology is synonymous on the Right with being traitorous.

In conclusison, it seems that Gottfried and Lucaks are both correct in their assessment. The Left has been able to seize power by appealing to both the morality and pride of Western Man. Christianity, nationalism, and patriotism have all been shrewdly incorporated by the Left into their globalist ideology. Unbelievably, many followers of liberalism are motivated by guilt and sacrifice while others are motivated by pride and glory, but this paradox fits snugly alongside all of the many paradoxes that encompass the sheer madness that is liberalism.

Paul Edward Gottfried could be seen as the George Orwell of the current age, or, indeed, our own time-line's version of "Emmanuel Goldstein", who has been charting for decades what Orwell referred to in his dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four as "the theory and practice of oligarchic collectivism" (that is, the managerial-therapeutic regime). Although Gottfried is credited with coining the term "paleoconservative" he is far more than a usual "paleo". Some have called him a "right-wing Marxist". Indeed, he is a true intellectual, who exists beyond today's narrow, conventional, reductive, Left/Right categories.
This gracefully written, intellectual autobiography pushes at the boundaries of conventional memoir-writing and conventional political writing to perhaps begin a new subgenre of writing. Gottfried charts his meeting with various intellectual and more directly political figures of the current age, including (among others) Herbert Marcuse, Will Herberg, Paul Piccone (the longtime editor of Telos Journal), Thomas Molnar, John Lukacs, Christopher Lasch, Murray Rothbard (the irrepressible paleolibertarian thinker), and Richard Nixon. These constitute excellent introductions to the character and thought of the various persons. For example, I read here for the first time a truly cogent explanation of the intellectual evolution of Paul Piccone and of Telos Journal.
Nevertheless, Prof. Gottfried properly begins with his own family background, especially his stern, hardworking, get-things-done father (of Hungarian Jewish origins). Paul's first wife, Dana, was tragically struck down by cancer in her forties. Her mother's Polish Catholic background has probably enhanced Prof. Gottfried's sympathy for the suffering of Christian Poles during World War II and its aftermath, something that speaks highly of his capacity to transcend currently conventional narratives.
Prof. Gottfried is someone who should have been acclaimed as one of the greatest intellects of the current age, but because of his sharp dissent from the currently reigning orthodoxies, ended up slammed down at various turns. A lesser man might have become embittered, but this memoir is quite free of personal invective. Indeed, Gottfried has come close to achieving that Classical Greek ideal of sophrosyne (equanimity).

Paul Gottfried is not only one of America's leading "paleo-conservative" intellectuals, he invented the term. More importantly, he paid for it with his career. One of the most promising young minds to emerge from the generation of the 1960s, his writings quickly earned him admission into some of the highest levels of intellectual discussion. But Gottfried never fully "made it" into the governing classes, and therein lies the great value of this book. For, it tells the tale of how conservatism came to be "neo," and why the ideas, feelings, and values that were once thought to be plain, old conservatism came to be shunted aside under the label "paleo."
The great value of all sets of memoirs, and especially this one, is Gottfried's early insight that: "There is an intention in political theory, unlike, say, technology, that is inseparable from a particular form of inquiry." This intention is something that can rarely be discerned by simply reading the writings of the politically influential; one can only discover it in personal conversation with them. Gottfried's memoirs are a gold mine of insights into the personal intention behind many political ideas of late twentieth century America. This work will be invaluable to any twenty-first century historian of ideas who wants to know what really went on in the minds of intellectuals back then.
But Gottfried's encounters are of much more than historical interest. They cannot be recommended highly enough to any young, aspiring conservative today. The best prism through which to read these memoirs is of an intellectual Mr. Smith Goes to Washington--except there is no last-minute vindication by Senator Paine to save Gottfried's career. Gottfried wrecked the ship of his career trying to discover where the dangerous shoals are that must be safely navigated if one wants to maintain one's integrity and still be successful today.
Gottfried was not alone on his journey; the term "paleo" was invented to refer to the many good people and great ideas shunted to the side in the march of the "neos' to intellectual dominance in America. One of Senator Jefferson Smith's (Jimmy Stewart's) most memorable lines in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is: "Lost causes are the only causes worth fighting for." Paul Gottfried's Encounters tells the stories, through conversations, of many lost causes of the late twentieth century, which may be the only ones worth fighting for in the twenty-first.

Encounters is a facinating read in which the well traveled Paul Gottfried takes us to some of the lesser known corners of contemporary politics and academia. Most of all, I was absorbed in Gottfried's tales of his former professor at Yale, the infamous Herbert Marcuse. Gottfried recalls a different Marcuse than the one who went "off the deep end" later in life. Apparently, Prof M. was a radical but fairly open minded leftist who encouraged debate and not the PC tyrant we are familiar with.

Other chapters dealing with Paul Piccone, the evolution of the journal Telos, and surprisingly, President Richard Nixon are just as engaging. Gottfried makes an argument that puts Nixon somewhere on the right in foreign policy terms though he doesn't hide from Nixon's progressive tendencies domestically.

What is perhaps most interesting of all of Gottfried's revelations is the one unstated, lurking under the surface, and which is threaded throughout the book. That is, Gottfried's dealing with a particular aspect of his identity: His "Central European" Jewishness, which Gottfried seemingly goes to great lengths to establish and surprisingly, to distinguish from an Eastern European Jewishness. This was both surprisng to me and questionable. I have grown up all my life among a large and diverse Jewish population and have NEVER heard of a distinction between Eastern or Central European Jews that was at all signifigant.

The authors penchant for all things Austro-Germanic shows up seemingly everywhere. Gottfried, despite being born in the US, makes the point of trying to identify with anything Central European, whether food, politics or behavioral tendencies. He suggests that Henry Kissinger might be interested in talking to him because of their shared backrounds. Of course Kissinger was born and lived in Europe for 16 or so years, unlike Gottfried. I wouldn't doubt that Kissinger would be interested in talking to the Professor, but not for those reasons.

Gottfried at one point distinguishes between two types of Jewsish intellectuals, one Central European, who he largely likes and the other Eastern, who he likes much less. The reader might be left with the impression the Jewish community is divided along those lines. Again, never have a seen or heard of such a thing. Perhaps early on in the century, when groups of immigrants came to the US, they originally resided in Hungarian, German or Russian Jewish neighborhoods, but I am certain the barriers never lasted long and in my lifetime I have seen Jews from all backrounds mix with no conscious awareness of differences. Between Orthodox and Reform Jews, probably. Between Sephardic and Ashkenazic, definitely. Not along geographic lines.

Strange that when Gottfried discusses his late friend Murray Rothbard, he never mentions Murray's Eastern, Polish-Russian Jewish roots. He doesn't ascribe to him a personality based on his heritage and doesn't emntion him chowing down on rich Eastern European cuisine. Nope, Murray is just plain old Murray, who came out of nowhere.

So what gives? I think Gottfried pulls back the curtain when he speaks about the German poet Stefan George who wanted to bring the German people and the German Jews together. Gottfried states that he would have been a member of George's circle had he been around then. There seems to be an air of desperation and insecurity in Encounters about this whole Jewish identity business which Gottfried appears to be trying to workout for himself. He also seems to be trying to give himself a one up on other Jews by saying, "Look, we're the good ones. Those Eastern European Jews are the ones you can't trust."

None of this lowers the book's rating and in fact makes it all the more interesting of a read. Highly reccomended on multiple levels.

Professor Gottfried gives us a lively tour of some overlooked conservative intellectuals. Others have commented on the depth & breadth of his anecdotal encounters. You will learn something on every page.

I do have to point out that a 2nd edition should correct some careless proofreading. A wrong date for the death of Sam Francis is given a few pages before the correct one. In the first half there is an unexplained reference to The Historical Society, but only a much later mention is in the index. We read about "Bayside, Brooklyn" which doesn't exist. It could mean Bayside, Queens or maybe Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Along with a few more such lapses, one does then have to wonder about other possible mistakes.

None of this detracts from the fundamental soundness of this compelling intellectual autobiography.