Democracy and Populism: Fear and Hatred (Paperback)

~ (Author) "ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE was a visionary, and a historical, even more than a political, thinker..." (more)
Key Phrases: United States, Second World War, First World War (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A prolific historian and theorist of international relations, Lukacs (The Hitler of History) offers a compact view of political change in Europe and the United States from the Napoleonic Wars to the present, with a particular focus on his area of expertise, WWII and the decades just before and after. For him, Western democracy as we have known it may have already begun to follow a course similar to that of Nazi Germany, where demagogic populists seized power, took control of the media and brainwashed their way through subsequent "elections." Lukacs derides familiar models of modern politics that pit liberals against conservatives; true conservatives, who stress aristocracy and traditional authority, have (he argues) been in decline since at least 1870. Instead, modern history shows a steady increase in popular sovereignty, in the power of public opinion and in the appeal of aggressive nationalism, which tends to control that opinion given a chance—with the aid of mass media. Lukacs decries the "devolution of liberal democracy into populism" and "popular nationalism," especially but not only under George W. Bush. He also decries gay marriage, television, contemporary feminism, "permissiveness" and American "decadence." His hauteur, fast pace and frequently cantankerous asides may impede what is otherwise a thoughtful warning from a very knowledgeable source. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From The Washington Post

The publishers of John Lukacs's new book believe that it is "sure to inspire lively debate about the precarious state of American democracy today." They may be right, but I doubt it. Books that have that effect are almost always ones that advance a big, bold, easily graspable thesis and then proceed to develop it in an uncomplicated way.

Lukacs's latest work -- he has published more than 20 books of history, including such classics as Five Days in London, May 1940 and The Duel: The Eighty-Day Struggle Between Churchill and Hitler -- is not of that kind. It is, rather, a rich and sober meditation by a mind that knows much, including the limits of what it knows, about the nature, relationships and mutations of the forces that have shaped the politics of the Western world over the past century. Its mood -- allowing for occasional waspish deviations, as when he dismisses one widely respected theorist as "a muddled and dishonest thinker" and another as "an idiot savant" -- is discursive and reflective, almost elegiac at times.

Its structure is not simple and linear but convoluted. Lukacs's approach involves circling around and around his key concepts -- democracy and populism, patriotism and nationalism, conservatism and liberalism, socialism and fascism -- viewing them from different angles, making subtly different points about them, showing how they have mutated over time and how their relationships to one another have altered. While it lacks the hurly-burly heat and excitement of the op-ed page, this kind of calm and unhurried analysis has its charm and is more likely to cast light.

If Lukacs does not advance anything as overt and explicit as a thesis, he does develop two very important themes, one implicitly and the other directly. The first, implicit one is a denial of what has become a crucial article of faith for many Americans, including some leading intellectuals: American "exceptionalism." This is a belief of enormous importance in determining how the United States uses its immense power to deal with the rest of the world. The belief manifests itself in many ways: in the assertion of a divinely ordained mission; in an insistence on the U.S. right to apply double standards in its own favor and reject "moral equivalence"; in the claim to the indispensability of U.S. participation in all matters; in the insistence that, while every other country's power needs to be balanced and contained, it is iniquitous and insulting to suggest that America's power needs to be. In short, America's exceptional nature -- as a cause as well as a country -- entitles it to exceptional treatment and rights. This belief, as much as the crude fact of American power, explains what the foreign policy scholar Stephen R. Sestanovich has recently christened "American maximalism" in U.S. dealings with the rest of the world.

Lukacs does not deal with the notion of American exceptionalism directly. But his views on the subject are perfectly evident from the way in which, as he moves freely back and forth between discussing European and American politics, he always assumes that the same forces have been and are at work on both sides of the Atlantic. There have been important differences, of course, but they have been differences of circumstances (particularly the uneven impact of the two world wars) rather than of essences. To Lukacs, the United States and the rest of the political world are part of the same universe of discourse, subject to the same laws of cause and effect and to the same standards of judgment.

The second, and explicit, theme of Lukacs's book (made even more explicit in the concluding chapter he has added to a new edition of an earlier history of the United States, A New Republic) is the decline of the American political culture and society. This has occurred and even gathered momentum as the country's power has grown. Lukacs is not alone, of course, in identifying this decline, which has been a principal theme of conservative lament for many years. In the immediate aftermath of the Cold War, for example, no less a figure than Irving Kristol was writing of "clear signs of rot and decadence germinating within American society."

Kristol blamed it all on liberalism. Lukacs too dilates on the weakness and failure of liberalism, but he also identifies other culprits, among them the displacement of patriotism by an increasingly raucous nationalism, the collapse of democracy into a manipulative populism, the wave of public religiosity and the decline of public education. He writes of an "immense coarsening of civilized life" and observes that "the founders of the Republic may have overestimated the potential intelligence of the people. But two centuries later the opposite has occurred. The symptoms of a cynical, often crude, underestimation of the mental and spiritual capacity of the people are all around us."

It is when one considers Lukacs's two themes together that the nature of what one might term the American problem becomes evident. While the United States asserts the right and duty to lead and transform the world on the basis of its claimed exceptional status, the country's internal condition is deteriorating to a point that alarms good judges and sincere patriots.

All this was evident before Sept. 11, 2001. But the true historical import of what happened on that day may turn out to be that it tipped America's priorities decisively away from the work of healing itself by restoring the integrity and vitality of its own democracy, and toward installing quasi-democracy in unlikely places under the shadow of its military might.

Reviewed by Owen Harries
Copyright 2005, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (June 15, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300116934
• ISBN-13: 978-0300116939
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #829,497 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Degeneration of Democracy into Populist Nationalism, May 6, 2005

By	J. Grattan "book reviewer" (Lawrenceville, GA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Democracy and Populism: Fear and Hatred (Hardcover)

Those expecting a thorough, organized treatment of democracy and populism will be somewhat disappointed by this book. Lukacs, an eminent conservative historian, wanders disjointedly over the political landscape of the last two hundred years making any number of observations, assertions, and rather blunt criticisms of other chroniclers of the era, including historian Richard Hoftstadter and Hannah Arendt, the author of "The Origins of Totalitarianism," described as a "muddled and dishonest writer." A burden is placed on the reader to sift through the fragmented commentary to separate substance from overstatement and inconsistencies and to locate, if not construct, main themes.

The subtitle, "Fear and Hatred," gives some indication of the direction that the author is headed. It is thought processes and psychology that are important in a mass democracy: "our concern must be with how people think, how they choose to think, including how they are influenced or impressed to think and speak." Fear and hatred are central concerns. He rejects the Freudian notion that they operate subconsciously, rather than being purposely chosen.

The author tags 1870 as a time of fundamental rearrangement of political forces. The rise and attraction of socialism and nationalism basically shoved aside the older liberal, conservative debate, though that debate lingers today. Interestingly, and probably correctly, he points out that none of the political parties in the 19th century US were truly conservative. The rise of socialism, or the Welfare state, merely reflected the new Darwinian perspective of constant social "progress." The author's assertion that the entire globe is now socialist is not much of an overreach.

But the emergence of populist nationalism is more relevant to understanding the 20th century. Nationalism is not synonymous with patriotism; it is a mutation of patriotism. It is "aggressive" and based on a vague "myth of the people" that takes on feverish religious overtones. Nationalists are anti liberal. They take offense at liberal open-mindedness and tolerance, especially for foreigners. For the author, 1914 represents the time when the weakness of socialism relative to nationalism finally became clear. "... class consciousness melted away in the heat of nationalist emotions and beliefs."

Populism, at least as it has evolved in the last century, is a mutant form of democracy. Tocqueville already saw mass conformity to public opinion as a problem for democracy. But Lukacs is more concerned with the manipulation of public opinion. The media of 1914 pandered to nationalistic sentiments. In addition, the US government got into the propaganda act by creating departments to promote the War. Ultimately, "nationalist hatred [trumped] class hatred."

Hitler clearly demonstrates where populist nationalism can wind up. He fanned hatreds for the "enemies of German nationalism both within and without." The author explains that the old "Right," at one time, feared popular sovereignty. But that has been reversed in this century as the Right has assumed the populist nationalism mantle, appealing to and creating a fierce nationalism within populations. And that is the basis of the Right's advantage over the Left - a main point of the book. The Left and Democrats have never been sufficiently nationalistic.

It is a conceit within the Right that they support a higher morality. The author, a true conservative, is having none of that. Clearly, the cultural products of the US have smashed social and moral standards worldwide. The author decries the "stunning transformations of personal and sexual and civilizational behavior" within American culture. So-called conservatives have been prime promoters of technology and "progress," and more importantly economic policies of neoliberalism, which give global corporations a free hand in upsetting the social order by such actions as offshoring jobs without the hindrance of environmental or labor regulations. The impacts on families, whom conservatives claim to value much, and communities have been profound, not to mention on the environment.

Surprisingly, the author has a blind eye about other aspects of capitalism. For example, his claim that 20th century nationalists shared with socialists a dislike, even hatred, for international financiers and capitalists. Or his contention that corporate executives do not form a new aristocracy. What is a plutocracy (which surely exists in the US) other than a moneyed aristocracy? There is little evidence that the populist Republican Party favors restrictions on international capital. At one time the Pat Buchanan wing of the Republicans showed some interest in those areas. On the other hand, the minimal social disapproval of white collar crime is noted - surely, a conservative contradiction.

The author is concerned that parliamentary democracy is at risk in the US due to a large deficit in the free flow of useful information. The press no longer performs a role of assimilating and reflecting the political views of the public. As with other media, its focus is on entertainment. He is especially concerned about the potential for the public being manipulated by television, which now dominates news and entertainment, through the subtle distortion of words and speech. There are only limited avenues for unaltered oppositional voices.

As the author suggests, there has been a degeneration of democracy into nationalist populism in the US. There is one slight reference to the original populists in the US, the farmer revolt in the South in the late 19th century, who correctly identified oppression by business and government and attempted to ameliorate their situation through economic and political means - a true democratic effort. The measures taken to suppress that movement were extreme, and not discussed by the author.

The author misses the opportunity to reflect on the difficulties that truly ground-up democratic action faces. It seems that pseudo-democracy, or the kind of populism that the author discusses, is really all that can be "successful." But that is a result of manipulation by elites. It is not deliberative, and is usually fanatical. He does recognize that spectacular sporting events encourage "accumulations of hatred," which can be exercised politically.

Unsurprisingly, the author can only hope for some sort of revival of true conservatism. The chances of the Left successfully combating the forces of the Right are virtually nil.

13 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Good Study for the Future of The World As We Know It., June 28, 2005

By	Betty Burks "Betty Burks" (Knoxville, TN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Democracy and Populism: Fear and Hatred (Hardcover)

This critical analysis of U. S. politics and "democracy" is written by an eminent historian who devoted many years to writng a six-volume history about Churchill and his importance to the outcome of World War II. He wrote FIVE DAYS IN LONDON (in May 1940) pivotal to the success of WWII in favor of the Allies, and THE DUEL between Churchill and Hitler.

He is a man who lives and breathes history. He feels that the current form of American democracy which had its roots in the 18th Century have changed drastically to a dangerous form of populism. History today is written for entertainment or propaganda and depends more on public opinion than on actual facts.

The machinery of publicity (the media) has caused the United States president to rely on nationalism and militarism to hold our society together. The decline of privacy (Big Brother cameras everywhere, even out on the Interstates which traverse this country) and the rise of criminality make for a dark future, full of fear and hatred.

The division between the two major political parties, Democrats and Republicans, make for a bad choice of bedfellows. The very material order (or disorder) of the world is not at all the dundament but the consequence of what many people think. Mayors, public officials, government workers, Governors, Presidents -- all are in power because of their popularity and not their ability. In America, you get where you are by who you are or who you know. It's sad what this world has become since 1945 when our future seemed secure. Nothing is secure today and 9/11 proved it. Those terrorists died in the plane crashes, but there are double that amount in U. S. A. today waiting for their turn to be suicide bombers, whether in planes, trains, or public transit.

3 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars What a disappointment, April 2, 2007

By	John M. Hammond "Cheesehead" (Wisconsin) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Democracy and Populism: Fear and Hatred (Hardcover)

The author seems to have some good ideas and I agree with much of what I think he is trying to say. The problem is the man can't seem to maintain a train of thought long enough to complete a decent sentence. I've never seen so much paraphrasing in a book. It's almost as if he's trying to write in stream of consciousness. I had an easier time reading Ulysses by James Joyce! Where was the editor?

He really lost me when he started bringing Darwin into scene. Darwin was not a social scientist. His writings have been used by social scientists in order to support their thesis or disparage anothers. This is wrong and very unfair to Darwin and evolutionary science in general. Most of these types have never actually read Darwin. They are simply transmuting what others have written about the subject.

Don't bother.