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Guilt, Blame, and Politics

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This is the kind of book that leaves the reader thinking,"All of this is so obvious and so obviously true, why hasn't anyone said it before?" Or perhaps I should say it left this particular reader with that thought. There may be other writers I am unaware of who have exposed the essential foundation of the liberal mindset, but I doubt if any have done it as masterfully as Allan Levite.

Although he makes a pre-emptive apology (on the back cover) for being "an ordinary office worker by profession, not a writer," this is like Alexander Borodin apologizing for being a chemist by profession, not a composer. I found the book to be extremely well written. There is hardly a page that does not include at least one sentence that qualifies as an aphorism. My favorite:

"Those who sell blame have already bought guilt, its most essential raw material."

As Levite shows, it is not only the members of the so-called "oppressed" classes the do-gooders seek to save who are ultimately and actually the victims of policies based on the guilt that motivates the do-gooders. In the mind of the extreme liberal, just about anyone who is not below the poverty level and does not share their guilt for the woes of the world is blameworthy. If this book helps fortify at least some of these "ordinary" people against the peddlers of the politics of blame and guilt it will have done an immensely valuable service to society.

In making his case for his theory that guilt motivates liberals, one of the helpful things Levite does is point out some of the blatant contradictions of the Left. One of these is that Socialist movements have been led by children of the affluent, and comfortable intellectuals, not workers themselves. Another is that Marxists simultaneously believe in historical inevitability, yet unlimited human potential. Another is the contradiction of environmental determinism: leftists believe that the environment determines poor people's behavior, so they are not responsible for their actions, but rich people ARE responsible, not only for their own actions, but for society's ills. Well, which is it? Do people have free will or not? People in some economic classes have free will but not others? What about poor people who become rich? Levite's observations leave one scratching one's head, wondering how intelligent people could ever buy into leftist inconsistencies. Levite makes some logical errors too though, unfortunately. For instance, he theorizes that the children of the affluent who develop guilt and become socialists do so due to cultural influences of the Judeo-Christian ethic. Though there may be some members of the religious left (as he mentions) that are fuzzy brained enough to confuse socialism with Christian principles, Levite's theory incorrectly assumes that all "philosophical guilt" is from Judeo-Christian sources. Clearly this is not true. Levite himself contradicts his own theory because throughout his book, he portrays Asian leftists and Communists as being motivated by the same kind of "philosophical guilt" as their Western counterparts. Clearly, Chairman Mao, Pol Pot, the Viet Cong, and other brutal Communists of the East were never much influenced by the Judeo-Christian ethic, if at all. Levite also theorizes that Plato, one of the political leftists of ancient Greece, was motivated by the guilt of inheriting unearned wealth when he wrote his despotic Republic. Obviously, Plato was not influenced by Judaism or Christianity, Christ being born 400 years later than Plato. I also took exception when Levite mischaracterized religion by alleging that religion has "...two flawed precepts: that self sacrifice is always right, and selfishness is always wrong."(p. 185) Christianity never says this, Levite got it wrong. Christianity says, "Love your neighbor as yourself," which means treat your neighbor AND yourself well, period. I don't have the space to do it here, but I would argue that it is not Judeo-Christian influences that cause children of the wealthy to feel guilty and set out to (sometimes brutally) equalize everyone, it is the LACK of Judeo-Christian beliefs that cause them to do so. It is not just that these people are cut off from the world of manual labor, it is that they are cut off from knowledge of their Creator. Knowledge of their Creator would teach them things that would prevent them from becoming totalitarians or bleeding heart limosine liberals. These include 1) that Divine Providence has a reason they were born into affluent circumstances, and they should discover that reason, 2) that they may well decide to volunteer to help the poor, but forcing everyone else into interventionist government schemes that often hurt the poor is wrong, 3) that only the falsely virtuous give to the poor in order to get public "credit" for it, via the symbolic gesture (like the Sadducees of old), that 4) human life is sacred, and the shedding of human blood is never justified, except in self-defense, and finally 5)as only God can create perfection, and one man's idea of utopia is another man's hell, secularist utopian schemes are not only doomed to fail, but evil when forced upon on the unwilling. So Levite missed the target in tagging Western religion as the source of "philosophical guilt," but he did illuminate things about the Left that I hadn't understood before. One of his ending recommendations is that libertarian efforts should be aimed at helping guilt ridden liberals end their self-hatred and instead foster self-respect. But how is this to be accomplished? How about making liberals accountable, in real tangible ways, for the programs they advocate? How about insisting on the truth of liberal claims as judged by results, instead of letting them get away with their ad hominem attacks on their opponents and their empty symbolic gestures? All in all, this is a very provocative book, and one that hopefully will generate honest discussion. I am definitely more knowledgeable for having read it.

Detailing just about everything but shoe sizes and bank accounts, Levite goes into exactly and factually why the leaders of world socialism have been, not members of an oppressed worker class as commonly thought, but the offspring of wealthy executives, artisans, merchants, and other productive members of their societies; and why members of the working class are so opposed to socialism as an economic system.

"Guilt, Blame, and Politics" picks up where Ayn Rand's fictional "Atlas Shrugged" leaves off regarding the guilt of the looters. Levite clearly shows how un- or easily- earned wealth can contribute to a corruption of the soul; the desire to destroy the same values which allowed that wealth to be lawfully earned in the first place.

The book itself is a rather dry read, sometimes overloading the reader with information and references, but shows a remarkable and heretofore unseen degree of research into exactly why and how socialism operates.

Levite offers a number of interesting insights on what motivates middle and upper-class leftists, which I, as a college student, found especially relevant and interesting. His examination of leftist movement history and the role of the wealthy was eposecially interesting.

Normally I am very leery of books that purport to describe something I consider axiomatic and obvious. This is because the book then tries to spin a political dross out of the gold of truth. Noam Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent" book was of this sort: proposing the obvious, only to spin it into a radicalist mold of "right wing" bias, which is clearly absurd, arguing the truth at the boundaries instead of the core (i.e. the "reflexive" anti-communism of the press, which there never was). Normally, those kinds of books are nearly worthless.

Not so this book. It is incisive without going too far, exploring the truth of something that is obvious yet has been seriously neglected as a part of the central truth of the undertsanding of leftism. It does not go too far to state that Levite has given the primary impetus behind leftist politics outside the philosophical renditions given in various "theoretical" guises.

I am used to taking apart theory and philosophy on their own terms. Doubtless, that is good. But were I only to be considering the various guises of leftist motivation based on their own articulated motives, I would be doing myself a disfavor. Understanding the totality of the Left means necessarily understanding the guilt of the radicals and liberals I grew up with.

This book is fantastic. Buy it. It's conclusions are almost truisms.

Winston Churchill once said that someone who is not a socialist at 20, has no heart, but if he is still a socialist at 30, he has no brain. If only it were that simple! Allan Levite does a terrific job analyzing guilt as the main motivating force of adult socialist/Marxist/ leftist activists -- the ones who just won't quit and who pose real danger to our individual liberties and choices. His book is magnificently researched and full of fresh, original points of view that will appeal to anybody who is fed up with holier-than-thou self-righteousness of the self-proclaimed moral superiors. Unfortunately, Mr. Levite seems too nice of a guy not to mince some points. For example, throughout the book he persistently repeats that the feeling of guilt he is analyzing is political, not psychological. Me thinks, he doth protest too much. This overwhelming guilt that requires dragging others into it, cannot, by definition, avoid being psychological and Freudian (even when it is Judeo-Christian, as Mr. Levite aptly points out), and a British psychologist, Dr. Aric Sigman, has been successfully studying "middle-class guilt" as such. Another small drawback of Mr. Levite's witty and timely book is that once he starts making a point, he will continue making it to death. It is especially painful in the 60-page long Chapter 3, which reads like a veritable Who's Who of the leftist movements. However, when you buy this book (for you will, if you've had enough of those snidely sniveling socialists), don't lose heart and keep on reading. It pays off big.

This is a profound book that answers questions I have had since youth when I noticed kids much richer than myself in a 1960s private school auditorium cough in protest at the hour the State of California executed (by gas) Carrol Chessman, a heinous (male) murderer. It always confounded me why children of privilege were drawn to things like the scene described in Tom Wolfe's "Radical Chic" of Leonard Bernstein's party for the Black Panthers (who wanted to kill everyone in the room - after taking their money, in donations I assume). Now I have a significant answer, thanks to Mr. Levite.

Notice that the publisher is not a major house, to say the least. As this book explains, publishing is full of those who feel guilty over their good fortune to make a living with their words.

The concluding chapter alone, where the author sums up the worldview of the guilty, priviled left, is worth the price of the book alone.

I would rate this book with the works of Eric Hoffer. It's that good.