The Tyranny of Cliches: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas [Kindle Edition]

Jonah Goldberg (Author)

Book Description

“An indispensable and enduring field guide to the arguments the left makes—and the ones it tries to avoid.”
—The Claremont Review of Books
 
According to Jonah Goldberg, if the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist, the greatest trick liberals ever pulled was convincing themselves they’re not ideological.
 
Today, “objective” journalists, academics, and “moderate” politicians peddle some of the most radical arguments by hiding them in homespun apho­risms. Barack Obama casts himself as a disciple of reason: He’s a pragmatist, opposed to the ideology and drama of the Right, solely concerned with “what works.” And today’s liberals follow his lead, spouting countless clichés such as: One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter: Sure, if the other man is an idiot. Was Martin Luther King Jr. a terrorist? Was Bin Laden a freedom fighter? Violence never solves anything: Really? It solved our problems with King George III and ended slavery. We need complete separation of church and state: In other words, all expressions of faith should be barred from politics . . . except when they support liberal programs. With humor and passion, Goldberg dismantles these and many other Trojan horses that liberals use to cheat in the war of ideas. He shows that the Pro­gressive tradition of denying an ideological agenda while pursuing it vigorously under the false flag of reasonableness is alive and well. And he reveals how this dangerous game may lead us further down the path of self-destruction.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Jonah Goldberg is the voice of the post-Reagan conservative generation."

(-JOHN PODHORETZ, editor, Commentary magazine )

"Goldberg draws on both the Great Books and popular culture to rip apart the commandments of the modern therapeutic society. Behind all the feel-good, come-together mush, Goldberg finds the age-old driving forces-power, profit, and plain old ignorance. The dissection of these feel-good assumptions is informal and light, but the conclusions are deadly serious-and chilling." 

(-VICTOR DAVIS HANSON, senior fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University )

"What can one say to the self-proclaimed 'independent' who never has nor ever will vote other than Democratic; or to the wise soul suggesting, of any conflict at all, "the truth must lie somewhere in between"? Mr. Goldberg reminds us that one must stand up and demand of the muddled and supine either an absolute declaration of their principles and acknowledgment of the results of actions having flowed therefrom or a straightforward admission of their intransigence in refusing a concise reply."

(-DAVID MAMET, bestselling author of The Secret Knowledge )

"Whether you love or hate what he has to say, you've got to love the way Jonah Goldberg says it."

(-MARCO RUBIO, U.S. Senator, Florida )

"The puncturing of pretensions and disruption of lazy thinking are extra base hits in journalism.  Doing so with humor and originality on every page qualifies Goldberg's work as a grand slam."

(-MITCH DANIELS, Governor of Indiana; author of Keeping the Republic )

"Straw man down! In the PC prison yard of accepted political thought, Jonah Goldberg has just shivved progressivism. Bold, brilliant, and bursting with humor, every page of The Tyranny of Clichés is right on the money. If you thought Liberal Fascism was good, wait till you read The Tyranny of Clichés --it is fantastic!"

(-BRAD THOR, bestselling author of Full Black )

"Everyone says 'think for yourself' but very few people do. In The Tyranny of Clichés, Jonah Goldberg reveals how we've become trapped by ideas we think we understand but don't. A must read."

(-VINCE VAUGHN, actor and producer )

About the Author

Jonah Goldberg’s first book, Liberal Fascism, was a number one New York Times bestseller. He is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the founding editor of National Review Online. He is also a Los Angeles Times columnist, a Fox News contributor, and a member of the board of contributors at USA Today. The Atlantic named him one of America’s fifty most influential commentators. He lives with his family in Washington, DC.

Product Details

• File Size: 688 KB
• Print Length: 320 pages
• Publisher: Sentinel; Reprint edition (May 1, 2012)
• Sold by: Penguin Publishing
• Language: English
• ASIN: B0064VHWK0
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Not Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #28,609 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
  • #44 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > Ideologies & Doctrines
  • #88 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > Ideologies & Doctrines > Conservatism & Liberalism

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

219 of 256 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A necessary cleansing of our language May 2, 2012

By Carlos Aguilar

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I bought the Kindle edition. This book will improve your critical thinking skills. It equips you with a sort of a BS filter that seeks out and neutralizes politically-loaded and intellectually vacuous words and phrases. Conservatives are always handicaped by having to debate in a culture filled with these Trojan horses, thanks to almost a century of conditioning by the media and the architects of popular culture. It's imperative that we sort these out if we want to win the war of ideas.

Take social justice for instance. Who could oppose any kind of justice? Except "social justice" is a term which turns the traditional definition of justice ("to each his own") on its head, transforming it into an indictment of income inequality. Whenever someone decries the lack of social justice, he isn't condemning any individual's rights being trampled, but the lack of a central authority deciding who gets what. Indeed, the ideal outcome for the social justice crowd is the type of society where the value one person creates for others is completely unrelated to the rewards that person receives. Bureaucrats would decide on their own terms in what proportion people should enjoy the fruits of their labor, if at all. How is that justice?

In Goldberg's book you will find a clear, logical, funny and enjoyable slaughter of rhetorical sacred cows. This is indispensable if we are to level the ideological battlefield. Lazy thinking is a friend of the Left. Unfortunately our society has set itself up to produce lazy thinkers. Think public education, Hollywood, the media, etc. It is firstly through the rigorous cleansing of our language that we can hope to get people to use their brains again.

86 of 100 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Thought provoking May 10, 2012

By Laura Scarisbrick

Format:Hardcover

I'm only halfway through reading this (just got it yesterday and I have 3 kids under 7 years old, so I'm doing quite well), but I figure if 18 people who haven't got past the cover can give it cliché-filled one-star reviews as part of their contribution to the culture war, I can be excused for offering my opinion based on a partial read.

I must say that this book is really engaging. Thoughts which I have tried to put into words for years, sometimes successfully, sometimes not, are presented in all their entertaining eloquence here by Jonah. For example, the defense of economic liberty as an inherent good or the indictment of people who shun "ideology" while they are simply bursting with ideas to improve society. He manages to provide depth, succinctness and wit in appropriate balance on these and other topics.

What it comes down to for me is that ideology should be discussed more in politics. I blame us for the fact that it's not. Politics is a market like any other, where a successful business has to sell what people want to buy. If they're peddling clichés instead of intelligent defense of their ideologies, it's because we've been buying it. As a nation, we haven't taught our children to understand freedom's intrinsic value or to think critically about ideas and policies. Our government-run educational system has produced people who don't know how to digest anything meatier than a cliché. It's time to teach them how. Don't accept muddy logic from friends and loved ones. Gently, but firmly, urge them down those mental pathways they have all but forgotten how to tread. Make them defend their principles if they can and be prepared to defend yours.

165 of 196 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Funny, informative, and a fine step forward reviving vigorous political discourse in America! May 1, 2012

By Craig Matteson HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

One of the most frustrating aspects of modern political discourse is the inability to engage with Progressives / Liberals in discussions or debates using well-formed arguments and reasoning. Why is this so? Because you will quickly get a shorthand reply using hackneyed declarations and clichés that are supposed to stand in for an argument. They are supposed to be some kind of self-evident truth, and debase the standing of their opponent to even be discussing the issue. For, example, how could there possibly be anyone for religion in the public square. Everyone knows that Separation of Church and State is in the Constitution, for heaven's sake - er, something's sake. Except that it may not be as clear or as traditional as the Liberals seem to think.

Jonah Goldberg, who wrote one of my favorite political books, "Liberal Fascism": http://www.amazon.com/review/R1E3MQQ04S4IJ5/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm now gives us another treasure. He shows how Liberal discourse is debased by the use of these standard tropes about diversity, religion, ideology, pragmatism, social justice, the Living Constitution, and a lot more.

We get history lessons and cultural analysis on how these standard statements came into being, what they used to be about, and how they have been transformed and recycled into modern politics as a way of stultifying discourse and shutting down any possible opposition or questioning of the Liberal Agenda. The history lessons are vital because any number of thoughtful writers have pointed out how dangerous it is to live our lives based on "facts" that just aren't so. And Goldberg delivers these clarifying lessons with such style and humor that they are downright entertaining. Honestly, you will find yourself chuckling. That is if you aren't too fond of the sacred cow he just slaughtered.

For example, he demonstrates the idea that man was demoted from the center of the solar system by Galileo is a complete misreading of what the center meant to the Renaissance mind. Think bowels and you will be closer to the mark. Center as a place of prestige is of more recent origin. And this changing of values over time leads to these anachronistic deceptions about meaning in our politics.

As the author says [This book] "is about clichés that have a tyrannical hold on our minds and the clichés that serve to advance ideological agendas that would expand and enhance the state's mastery over our lives". There are so many taken to task here that I am sure you will find more than a few you have been waiting for someone to dismantle for a long time. I know I found it cathartic when Goldberg declares, "The Marxists who claimed to be ending the masses' addiction to religion then proceeded to slaughter those same masses at a rate unprecedented in the history of human life." I also loved his unmasking of Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign as being for the "middle class" when the Clinton Campaign KNEW that 90% of Americans considered themselves "middle class". "It was an appeal to classically bourgeois values masquerading as class warfare." Brilliant it was. Honest it was not. But the nation fell for it. The purpose of this book is to help us get up to speed on how this verbal slight of tongue is used on us so we can stop falling for it.

I want you to get a copy and read it a couple of times so you can talk to your liberal friends and hold them accountable for what they say. Then I want you to buy a couple more copies for your tongue-tied friends who fall for these clichés and help them to begin to see through them.

And this is a vital time to do it as the airwaves and discourse between now and November are not going to be full of light and truth. We are going to hear noise, obfuscation, and clichés in quantities like schools of ocean fish darting in unison to the demands of the directions from Campaign Headquarters. Do NOT fall for them, my friends. This is not only an important book, but it is also a fun book. Well, unless you are feeling skewered by it.

Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Saline, MI

More About the Author

JONAH GOLDBERG is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times and contributing editor to National Review. A USA Today contributor and former columnist for the Times of London, he has also written for The New Yorker, Commentary, the Wall Street Journal, and many other publications. He lives in Washington, D.C.