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The Devil's Pleasure Palace: The Cult of Critical Theory and the Subversion of the West Hardcover – August 11, 2015

by Michael Walsh (Author)

4.3 565 ratings

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In the aftermath of World War II, America stood alone as the world’s premier military power. Yet its martial confidence contrasted vividly with its sense of cultural inferiority. Still looking to a defeated and dispirited Europe for intellectual and artistic guidance, the burgeoning transnational elite in New York and Washington embraced not only the war’s refugees, but many of their ideas as well, and nothing has proven more pernicious than those of the Frankfurt School and its reactionary philosophy of critical theory.”

In The Devil's Pleasure Palace, Michael Walsh describes how Critical Theory released a horde of demons into the American psyche. When everything could be questioned, nothing could be real, and the muscular, confident empiricism that had just won the war gave way, in less than a generation, to a central-European nihilism celebrated on college campuses across the United States. Seizing the high ground of academe and the arts, the New Nihilists set about dissolving the bedrock of the country, from patriotism to marriage to the family to military service. They have sown, as Cardinal Bergoglionow Pope Francisonce wrote of the Devil, destruction, division, hatred, and calumny,” and all disguised as the search for truth.

The Devil's Pleasure Palace exposes the overlooked movement that is Critical Theory and explains how it took root in America and, once established and gestated, how it has affected nearly every aspect of American life and society.

Print length

280 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Encounter Books
Publication date

August 11, 2015
Dimensions

6.5 x 0.75 x 9.25 inches
ISBN-10

159403768X
ISBN-13

978-1594037689
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Michael Walsh is a journalist, author, and screenwriter, whose work includes six novels, seven works of nonfiction, and a hit Disney movie. The former classical music critic of Time magazine, he is now a regular contributor of political and cultural commentary to PJ Media and National Review, and an occasional op-ed columnist for the New York Post. Among his awards are the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award for distinguished music criticism, in 1979, and the American Books Awards prize for fiction for his gangster novel, And All the Saints, in 2004.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Encounter Books; American First edition (August 11, 2015)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 280 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 159403768X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1594037689
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.1 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 0.75 x 9.25 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,412,402 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #691 in Philosophy Criticism (Books)
- #4,860 in Popular Culture in Social Sciences
- #49,773 in United States History (Books)

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4.3 565 ratings

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Michael Walsh

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With six critically acclaimed novels, as well as a hit TV movie, journalist, author and screenwriter Michael Walsh has achieved the writer's trifecta: two New York Times best-sellers, a major literary award and, as co-writer, the Disney Channel's then-highest-rated show.

The 1998 publication of As Time Goes By -- his long-awaited and controversial prequel/sequel to everybody's favorite movie, Casablanca -- created a literary sensation; translated into more than twenty languages, including Portuguese, Chinese and Hebrew, the story of Rick and Ilsa landed on best-seller lists around the world.

His first novel, the dark thriller Exchange Alley, was published by Warner Books in July 1997. Hailed by critics for its moody depiction of a crumbling Soviet Union - which Walsh covered first-hand as a correspondent for Time Magazine - and a violent, dangerous New York City during the darkest days of the early 1990s, the novel was picked by the Book-of-the-Month Club as an alternate selection.

Walsh's third novel, the gripping gangster saga, And All the Saints, was named a winner at the 2004 American Book Awards; even before publication, the movie rights to this fictionalized "autobiography" of the legendary Prohibition-era gangster Owney Madden was bought by MGM.

His 2009 novel, Hostile Intent, the first in a series of five thrillers about the National Security Agency to be published by Kensington Books, was an Amazon Kindle #1 bestseller, as well as a New York Times bestseller. The eagerly awaited sequel, Early Warning, will be published in Sept.

In the spring of 2002, the Disney Channel premiered Walsh's original movie (co-written with Gail Parent), Cadet Kelly, starring teen idol Hilary Duff of "Lizzie McGuire" fame. Until High School Music, the two-hour film reigned as the highest-rated original movie in Disney Channel history, as well as the Disney Channel's highest-rated single program ever.

Walsh is also the author of Who's Afraid of Classical Music (1989) and Who's Afraid of Opera (1994) for Fireside Books, and Andrew Lloyd Webber: His Life and Works, a critical biography of the composer for Harry M. Abrams (U.S.) and Viking Penguin (U.K.), published in the fall of 1989; an updated and expanded edition appeared in 1997. With fellow TIME Contributor Richard Schickel, he is the co-author of Carnegie Hall: The First One Hundred Years, a cultural history of the great American concert hall published by Abrams in November 1987. His most recent book about music is So When Does the Fat Lady Sing?, published by Amadeus Press.

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4.3 out of 5

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Sandman

Required Reading for Inquiring Minds

Reviewed in the United States on September 6, 2015

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Required Reading for Inquiring Minds
By Sandy Stringfellow

What in the world has been happening to our America; how – and why – did we become a crippled republic? As usual, the answers may be found in verifiable history. Surprisingly, the most important slice of history necessary to grasp America's state of diminished affairs has been largely unreported.

Until now. The Devil's Pleasure Palace fills the aforementioned historical void. For those of us whom study history with passion, it is a treasure trove of original analysis and insight; not only for its richness of content, but in the manner of presentation as well: It is positively brilliant, and a compelling read.

Michael Walsh is – perhaps, quite uniquely – qualified to explore the origins of a “culture war” being waged against America; a pernicious, insidious, even childish attempt to overthrow our existing civil society from within by assailing the institutions providing our traditional cultural fabric necessary for the continuance of a Constitutional Republic as set forth by the Founders and Framers.

The digital age is a communications boon, but not without drawbacks; even the intellectually flaccid have often become “legends in their own mind,” as publishing platforms grew to pervasiveness.

By contrast, Michael Walsh has lived his life in a scholarly fashion. He was schooled in the classics (both music and literature), is an accomplished musician, fluent in several languages, along with being an award-winning Time Magazine classical music critic and award-winning author. Walsh immersed himself in the creative disciplines from an early age; he is – thankfully – not just a johnny-come-lately writer on the instrumentally important topics of culture, religion, politics, art, and history: precisely why the Devil's Pleasure Palace is not mundane. It is, rather, exceptional in every imaginable respect.

It's sad to find such a seminal work as The Devil's Pleasure Place disparaged by even a single one-star Amazon review, or misrepresented by those without the patience or persistence to contemplate what it has to offer; just as it is sad to see any work of art defiled by those with blinders firmly attached.

Walsh frequently offers more cogent analysis in a single paragraph than other writers of the cultural genre muster in an entire chapter: at times, one must pause from reading and ponder the implications and revelations of Walsh's erudite perceptions. As with most things in life, what we truly find worth having is what we also consider worth working and waiting for: So it is with honest knowledge.

Rather than being a pro-Christian screed, Walsh leaves open theological doors by establishing early on that most religions have plenty in common with the Western ur-Narrative reflected in art and culture. As America is – and always was, from its founding – a Judeo-Christian nation, naturally Walsh would explore that theological aspect in considerable depth. His focus, however, is on ethereal possibilities.

To correct the mistakes of history, we must understand them. That Walsh has tackled a formidable yet critically important task of explaining not only how and why America arrived at our tenuous station upon the post-modern cultural cliff (and how to handle it) with succinctness and an uncanny wit is a testimony to the depth of his scholarly capabilities. It also signals respect for reader's time and effort. The Devil's Pleasure Palace is one of the most important books you'll read. It is, no doubt, a classic.

© Sandy Stringfellow/2015. Used with permission.

14 people found this helpful

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S. Hayward

Best interdisciplinary treatment of the Frankfurt School

Reviewed in the United States on December 13, 2023

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There are lots of good books about the long shadow of the Frankfurt School, but The Devil's Pleasure Palace is the most capacious and interdisciplinary account by far. Going well beyond the influence of the academic and philosophers, Michael Walsh traces with vivid detail how the subtle changes in thought quickly infiltrated the arts and culture, and made nearly everyone into unwitting Frankfurters, even if they aren't tutored in the fine points of jargon-laden "critical theory."

One person found this helpful

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Clay Garner

‘1914–1918 was the time culture broke - the verities that had built a civilization fractured’

Reviewed in the United States on August 25, 2018

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“The sacred verities of Western civilization did not survive the hellish trenches of the First World War. The period 1914–1918 was the time when culture fractured, when the eternal verities that had built a civilization from the Holy Roman Empire to the Edwardian era came apart—” (201)

Modern world, modern culture began in 1914. Walsh writing to identify, explain what basic ideas, beliefs, assumptions changed. He highlights the influence of the ‘Frankfurt school’. These are German writers, thinkers who left Germany and immigrated to America. What was their thought? How did this influence Western culture? Etc., etc..

Nevertheless, Walsh starts from Genesis - not 1914.

“Seduction, subversion, sedition—these are the tools of a creature we once called Satan, the Father of Lies, the loser of the Battle in Heaven. Yet he continues the fight here on earth with the only weapons at his disposal: man’s inherent weaknesses and zeal to be duped if the cause seems appealing enough. Chief among the weaknesses of Western man today are his fundamental lack of cultural self-confidence, his willingness to open his ears to the siren song of nihilism, a juvenile eagerness to believe the worst about himself and his society and to relish, on some level, his own prospective destruction.’’ (5)

‘Siren song of nihilism’ rings in our ears! Will we crash on the rocks?

“Whether one views the combatants in the struggle between God and Satan ontologically, mythically, or literarily, God created man in his own image and likeness but chose to give him free will—a force so powerful that not even God’s infinite love can always overcome it.’’ (5)

Walsh unrepentantly defends/promotes human free will in this work. This work can also be seen as a defense of Milton’s “Paradise Lost to Paradise Regained’’. Milton wrote to explain god’s way to man. Walsh writes to explain modern man to himself.

“This eternal conflict, then, is the essence of my religio-cultural argument, which I will view through the triple prisms of . . .

1 - atheist cultural Marxism that sprang up amid the physical and intellectual detritus of Europe after the calamity of World War I, and its practical, battering-ram application, Critical Theory; and
2 - Book of Genesis, from which our cultural self-understanding flows, and Milton’s great explicative epic poem, in which a God who reigns supreme is also a strangely absent and largely offstage Prime Mover; and
3 - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s emblematic reworking of the man caught in the middle between Heaven and Hell, between God and Mephistopheles: Faust.’’ (7)

Walsh does connect his religio-cultural ideas to current politics. I think that is where his conclusions break down. Since, as he says, this is God’s battle - why don’t we look to him to win it?

(Our father in heaven, hallowed by thy name. Let your kingdom come . . .)

Another odd idea about free will . . .

“As St. Augustine wrote in the Enchiridion, “For God judged it better to bring good out of evil than not to permit any evil to exist.” Paradise may have been lost, but what was gained may have been something far more valuable, something, when you stop to think about it, that more closely comports with God’s stated plan for humanity: creatures endowed with free will and thus potentially superior to the angels.’’

Yes, free will does imply possible evil. Free will brings risk as well as liberty. However, if the devil decided to rebel (as Walsh clearly understands) why assume angels don’t have free will? Puzzling.

Preface: The Argument Introduction: Of the Devil’s Pleasure Palace
Chapter One: Whose Paradise?
Chapter Two: Thesis
Chapter Three: Antithesis
Chapter Four: The Sleep of Pure Reason Produces Monsters
Chapter Five: The Descent into Hell
Chapter Six: The Eternal Feminine
Chapter Seven: Of Light and Darkness
Chapter Eight: Of Words and Music
Chapter Nine: The Venusberg of Death
Chapter Ten: World without God, Amen
Chapter Eleven: Of Eros and Thanatos
Chapter Twelve: The Consolation of Philosophy
Chapter Thirteen: Mephisto at the Ministry of Love
Chapter Fourteen: The Devil Is in the Details
Chapter Fifteen: Oikophobes and Xenophiles
Chapter Sixteen: Good-Bye to All That

“My college French teacher turned to us and said, in a remark I did not fully understand at the time,

“You are all just the children of Rousseau.”

“To this day, given the passions of the moment, I am not sure whether he meant it as criticism or compliment. For the historian Paul Johnson, the Swiss-born Rousseau is “the first of the modern intellectuals, their archetype and in many ways the most influential of them all,” as he writes in his 1988 book, Intellectuals. He continues:

“Rousseau was the first to combine all the salient characteristics of the modern Promethean: the assertion of his right to reject the existing order in its entirety; confidence in his capacity to refashion it from the bottom in accordance with principles of his own devising; belief that this could be achieved by the political process; and, not least, recognition of the huge part instinct, intuition, and impulse play in human conduct. He believed he had a unique love for humanity and had been endowed with unprecedented gifts and insights to increase its felicity. An astonishing number of people, in his own day and since, have taken him at his own valuation.’’ (135)

Many different scholars/historians conclude Rousseau’s Influence underlies modern culture. Walsh attempting to undo Rousseau/Marx and replace them with Milton.

Walsh makes many, varied, even obscure ideas. Many seem more personal than the evidence warrants.

In fact, his style is so blunt, it approaches rudeness. He feels ridicule, sneering, disrespect can serve to make his point. Well . . . it does, but sounds like he is preaching to the converted. Unlikely he will reach the heart of his opponents.

Lots to learn. But needs careful filtering.

Christopher Dawson wrote a critique of the West — “The Crisis of Western Education’’. More analytical, less strident, deeper insight.

Recommended.

12 people found this helpful

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T. S.

A Must Read

Reviewed in Canada on December 29, 2017

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Brilliant. Timely. Necessary. The problem the West faces has now been fully exposed/identified. This is the first step in solving it. A deep analysis that smartly brings spiritualism into full play here too. Each chapter is a jewel. Amazing.

3 people found this helpful

Ricky

Germany's revenge

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 2, 2019

Verified Purchase

America used its military might to help the allies defeat Germany in WW2. However, whilst militarily strong, the USA felt culturally inferior, and ended up giving refuge to a group of Marxist Jews from the Frankfurt school in Germany. Instead of being grateful to their host, this group set about undermining and then destroying American culture. They propagated Critical Theory, infecting American culture like a virus, spreading amongst its universities, Hollywood, sports and politics. It led to the PC movement which attacks American pride and confidence by promoting a belief that America was racist in its inception and bad and corrupt, especially the ‘white’ majority.
Michael Walsh uses his considerable intellect and depth of understanding to tell the story of how the socialist wars in Europe transferred over to America. As a journalist in the old cold war, Walsh visited East Berlin and saw the communist regime at work, prior to the falling of the wall in 1989. He shows just how insidious and devastating the old failed socialist philosophies were and how they found fertile ground in the states. They have led to the new cold war between individualism and collectivism, capitalism and socialism…good and evil.
Using his finely tuned literary skills, his background as a music critic and his expertise in East German and Soviet culture, he delivers a powerful, allegorical analysis of the battle between good and evil. In the end, will Germany finally prevail and get its revenge on the USA…or will the new world rediscover its confidence in 'freedom', and banish the German foe once and for all?

4 people found this helpful

Amazon Kunde

"Konservatisvismus" gegen "Frankfurter Schule" und "political correctness"

Reviewed in Germany on August 7, 2017

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Das Buch über Konservativismus und seine Feinde alias Frankfurter Schule läßt ahnen, warum Trump gewählt wurde und greift die grassierende "Political Correctness" an. Für "Rechte" und "Linke" in den USA und Europa gleichermaßen äußerst lesenswert.

3 people found this helpful

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book worm

Very recommended.

Reviewed in Australia on July 30, 2016

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A challenging read but persevere it is very enlightening. Very recommended.

Jobie

The Devil's Pleasure Palace book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 8, 2021

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The Devil's Pleasure Palace book. Arrived quickly in good condition. Book is well manufactured on good quality paper. Not going to do a book review - you'll have to read it yourself!

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