The Rhetoric of Reaction: Perversity, Futility, Jeopardy (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Review

Propelled by an ecumenical motive--to explain the 'massive, stubborn, and exasperating otherness of others', in this case conservative thinkers--and guided, as he himself muses, by 'an inbred urge toward symmetry', Albert Hirschman has written an enjoyable and profound book. He argues that a triplet of 'rhetorical' criticisms--perversity, futility, and jeopardy--'has been unfailingly leveled' by 'reactionaries' at each major progressive reform of the past 300 years--those T. H. Marshall identified with the advancement of civil, political and social rights of citizenship...Charmingly written, this book can benefit a diverse readership.
--Diego Gambetta (Times Higher Education Supplement )

Events, and the example of a thinker like Hirschman, make it possible at least to hope that the finer side of the Enlightenment--that is, a skeptical but optimistic engagement with the world as it is, as distinct from blindingly overexcited visions of how it might be, if only progressives would stop interfering with it--could soon have its day.
--Geoffrey Hawthorn (New Republic )

Albert Hirschman's gift to intellectual history is his capacity to subsume complex ideas under simple--indeed smaller than bumper-sticker-size--labels. Mention the word exit at any gathering of social scientists, and everyone will free-associate with the idea that complex organizations and processes renew themselves because people will leave for opportunities elsewhere instead of remaining and fighting for change. Likewise not only with voice and loyalty but also with passions and interests. There is no contemporary social scientist anywhere in the world who has said more (profound) things in fewer (elegant) words than Albert Hirschman. New candidates for inclusion in the Hirschmanian lexicon are perversity, futility, and jeopardy...Hirschman is a master of our art.
--Alan Wolfe (Contemporary Sociology )

A brilliant and beautifully written book. It is breathtakingly simple, yet deep with implications...Hirschman provides a kind of Reader's Guide to Reactionary Culture.
--Stephen Holmes, University of Chicago

It is a marvelously intelligent and original and provocative volume, marked by Hirschman's usual qualities of intellectual playfulness and deep commitment to liberal values...The reader has a sense of being in the presence of a brilliant mind and of a writer at the top of his form.
--Stanley Hoffmann, Harvard University

Review

A brilliant and beautifully written book. It is breathtakingly simple, yet deep with implications...Hirschman provides a kind of Reader's Guide to Reactionary Culture.
--Stephen Holmes, University of Chicago --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 216 pages
• Publisher: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press; 1st Paper, 2nd Printing edition (March 1, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067476868X
• ISBN-13: 978-0674768680
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #437,666 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reasons why we have so much trouble hearing each other., July 21, 1998

By	[e-mail] (Hollywood, California) - See all my reviews

This is one of my favorite books for teaching. Hirschman starts out wondering why those conservatives are so hard to deal with. Notices that no real communication is taking place, just rhetoric, sound bites, as it were.

As he follows the mystery of how liberals are ever to get their ideas and the needs of the nation across through the rhetoric of the conservatives, he discovers, much to his own dismay, that the liberals use rhetoric, too. And in much the same way.

This book describes three basic patterns of argument in which much is said, but little communicated. It's a great help in guiding students to genuine argument and discourse. Not light reading, but well worth the effort. It's also refreshing to see the reflexive method of recognizing that we do ourselves much of what we accuse others of doing.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Helpful historical study of conservative rhetoric, March 28, 2003

By	Steven Reynolds (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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Hirschman is concerned with three types of argument typically deployed by reactionaries, i.e. conservatives vehemently, vocally and automatically opposed to proposed changes in the political, social or economic order. The arguments are: (1) Perversity: "The change will only exacerbate the problem you are trying to solve."(2) Futility: "The change will achieve nothing, because it fails to acknowledge incontrovertible political, social or economic laws." (3) Jeopardy: "The change will threaten or destroy some cherished previous accomplishment, such as freedom or democracy." Hirschman's approach is historical. Drawing examples from three key periods of reactionary thought - the aftermath of the French Revolution, the nineteenth-century push for universal suffrage, and the more recent rejection of the Welfare State - he tracks the development, deployment and intertwining of the arguments. His study raises some unstated questions about the psychology of conservatism, the tendency of the populous to be drawn in by such arguments, and the ease with which they can be deployed in short soundbites making them ideal for a modern mass media. Unfortunately, Hirschman doesn't address these issues, so if you're interested in exploring them you will need to look elsewhere. (Eduardo Giannettiï's rather advanced psycho-philosophical study, "Lies We Tell Ourselves: The Art of Self-Deception", might be a challenging place to start. Giannetti addresses the issue only tangentially, but he does give a full account of the kind of self-delusion that a lot of conservative thinking requires.) While the three arguments Hirschman describes have been used most often by conservatives, he turns in the final chapters to the occasional tendency of "progressives" to deploy similarly intransigent arguments. Such even-handedness is refreshing. This book will be useful to anyone wanting to promote or defend a progressive agenda as it delineates the likely arcs of resistance you will face, and alerts you to the possibility of woolly thinking infecting your own arguments. It's strongly recommended for conservatives, too. You'll learn that the kind of thinking you find "natural" and "morally right" has a long and hysterical history. This book will have both sides of the table thinking - which is always a good thing.