Customer Reviews

The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The art of vituperation, i.e the practice of ad hominen and vitriolic attacks against contrary philosophical or poliltical persuasions, seems to be very popular, as a persual of the current top-selling books will reveal. This book, written over thirty years ago, has the tone of these best-sellers. The author is unrelenting in her smears against what she has labeled as "The New Left", and this makes the book difficult to get through, if the reader is one who believes that political and philosophical discussion should never include dialog that is so blatantly disrepectful.

The "New Left", the author asserts, began in 1964 with the rise of the Berkeley protests, and she briefly discusses its history in the first section of the book. This "Free Speech" movement of Berkeley is completely "anti-ideological" according to the author, being opposed to "labels" or theories. Their philosophical position could be classified as existentialism, but Immanuel Kant is to blame for their divorcing of reason from reality. In fact Kant is blamed for all of the "irrational" influences in the college curriculum, which she asserts, without any statistical evidence or scholarly analysis, has "seeped into every classroom, subject, and brain" in the universities of that time.

In another section Woodstock is described as a "Dionysian" project, the landing on the moon as "Apollonian". In spite of the Nietzschean overtones of this classification, Kant is again blamed for the Dionysian revelry of the New Left. Kant was the first "hippie" in history, she states. But the author does not seem to acknowledge that the Woodstock festival lasted only a few days; the Apollo project many years of preparation. There was a huge difference between the resources used for Apollo versus those for Woodstock. Certainly Apollo and the light of reason were the predominant philosophies, if one is to judge a culture using only these two.

In a later section, the woman's movement, or "Women's Lib", is described as composed of "sloppy, bedraggled, unfocused women" who are in no danger of being mistaken as "sex objects". Their opinions on sex are described as "hideous" and are in a "sisterhood with lesbians". The author though, ironically, does not want to give a more accurate commentary, since in her view that "would require a kind of language that I do not like to see in print". Apparently the author believes that a woman's phenotype should be taken into account when judging their philosophical and moral positions. Any common interests with homosexuals is also to be viewed with suspicion.

The longest section of the book, and the most troubling from a scientific standpoint is the last one entitled "The Comprachicos". The author makes claims that are totally unsupported scientifically, and no references are given that lend credence to her claims about the nature of the child psyche and the dynamics of child development. The "comprachicos" are a collection of people, not identified explicitly, that have, under the guise of progressive education, robbed the minds of American children. They have taken a normal brain she says, and made it mentally retarded. This is an extreme view if taken literally, and the reading of this section of the book gives one every indication that the author does mean it literally. But mental retardation is something that can be measured, those children who are victims of the comprachicos can be identified, and correlations with the progressive educators can then be found statistically. The author though has done none of this. Mental retardation is not quantified, no case studies are quoted, and therefore no empirical evidence is given that shows a connection between the techniques of progressive educators and mental retardation. Such a connection could perhaps be shown, but it will take painstaking research and data collection in order for this to happen. The section ends with more vituperation: the "Establishment" which is a "rotted structure of mindless hyprocrisy" and consists of big businessmen, conservatives, Washington politicians (who are "eagar dummies"), the communication media, as well as professors, the arch-villians in the author's eyes.

One can only wonder if some of the current practitioners of vitriole and ad hominen attacks perhaps read this book and gained helpful hints on how to carry them out. But such an approach to the debate on issues never serves any useful purpose to anyone. The art of vituperation is a useless expenditure of energy and time, and worthless as an explanatory tool for any type of discussion or inquiry.

If anyone doubts that Rand was a masterful propagandist, he need only read two of the essay included in this book, "Apollo and Dionysus" and "The Comprachicos." These essays, which Rand herself regarded as her best, demonstrate her ability to impose a peculiar vision of things on her readers. "Apollo and Dionysus" compares the launching of Apollo 11 to the Woodstock festival. While I agree with her that Apollo 11 was a great accomplishment and Woodstock a scandal, I find her analysis, as usual, deeply flawed. Of particular note is Rand's hatchet job of Charles Lindbergh, where, like some ambulance chasing lawyer trying to smear an honest witness on the stand, she most shamefully distorts Lindbergh's own words in order to make him look like an idiot. Nonetheless, it is all superb propaganda for her own views deifying "reason" at the expense of emotion and intuition. "The Comprachico" is even more impressive as propaganda. Her comparison of public education with the nomadic association of the 17th century that kidnapped children in order to disfigure them is nothing less than a stroke a genius. Propaganda doesn't get any better than this. It is unfortunate that her analysis again misfires. It is clear from reading the essay that Rand knew considerably less about human nature than a novice in a nunnery. Although she says many things that are true, in the end she feels compelled to squeeze it all into the procrustean bed of her Objectivist philosophy, thereby destroying whatever scientific validity her commentary might otherwise have had. But no one reads Rand for the scientific value of her observations. Her observations rarely have any scientific value. What they read Rand for is her unique vision of things, her vision of a heroic man in a rational universe. Never mind that this vision does not correspond with certain elemental realities. What are realities to a person in search of a vision? What people who are in search of a vision want is not a way into reality, but a way out of it. Reality is an unceasing flux without rhyme or reason. In order to find life bearable, most people need to screen out this horrible, senseless flux with some sort of vision. Rand not only gives them a vision, but she provides propaganda on behalf of this vision that is second to none. If you have ever wondered what all the fuss is about concerning Rand, simply read this book. Propaganda on behalf of a utopian vision of reality does not get any better than this.