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A review by studeronomy
Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left by Roger Scruton
3.0
Not nearly as shrill as the title would suggest. At his best, Scruton provides a devastating and knowledgeable critique of mid-century leftist intellectuals, particularly those in the Anglosphere (Hobsbawm, EP Thompson, Galbraith, Ronald Dworkin). And his account of leftist American thinkers (Galbraith, Dworkin), though incisive, only serves to underscore the degree to which the U.S. has never had a strong "revolutionary" or socialist left-wing movement.
So I'd recommend the chapters in which he takes on English-language intellectuals. Despite his internationalist reputation (he was involved in dissident networks in Communist nations during the late Cold War), Scruton is less sure-footed in his critiques of Continental philosophy. He seems to genuinely understand the stuff (a virtue not shared by most critics of Continental philosophy), but he relies a bit too heavily on the "can-you-believe-they-SAID-that?" or "what-the-heck-are-they-TALKING-about?!," hands-in-the-air, "check-out-this-silly-prose" snark, particularly when he dives into Badiou and Zizek. The fact that Continental philosophy is willfully obscurantist is by now general knowledge; pointing out how goofy the prose is doesn't count as an insight anymore. He cloaks this lazy critique by referring to the Continentals' bad writing as "Newspeak," so that by pointing out how intentionally bad their prose is, he seems to be scoring a political point. But Scruton abuses the word “Newspeak,” particularly in his chapters on Lacan and Deleuze and Badiou and Zizek, Scruton conflates "Newspeak" with “nonsensical jargon” when, in Orwell, it served a very different function: language was not rendered incoherent in 1984 but was stripped of its organic redundancies. The result was a hyper-clear, hyper-efficient language that streamlined meaning and eliminated complexity. I suppose you could argue that Lacan and Deleuze were doing something like that. I think that’s a hard argument to sustain.
Scruton's entire critique of Lukács seems to boil down to a) Stalin was bad, b) Lukács supported Stalin, and c) we don't read Heidegger anymore because he was a Nazi, so why do we read Lukács? Which, yeah, a) true, b) true, and c) we still read Heidegger.
A more substantial criticism I have with Scruton's treatment of Continental philosophy: he overrelies on a key insight, namely that 20th-century Europe's obsession with Object/Subject relations descends from an influential misreading of Hegel by Kojève. Because so many influential leftists sat in Kojève's lectures, they all inherited, to one degree or another, a misunderstanding of Hegel, which serves as the golden thread that runs though Continental philosophy.
Perhaps. But Deleuze and Zizek and Badiou all seem to have actually read and absorbed the real Hegel, and although they may share some misimpressions about the great German philosopher, Scruton's narrative about the malign influence of Kojève's lectures is a tad too neat.
Elsewhere, Scruton dismisses other twentieth-century revolutionaries with a tone that implies, “They would've been alright chaps if only they’d been clever enough to be British conservatives!”
On the whole, however, Scruton is an intelligent guide to intelligent conservative objections to left-wing thought. Give this book to your QAnon-espousing, Trump-supporting, MAGA-loving kin and tell them it's by one of the century's most prominent conservative intellectuals. I'm sure they'll love it.
So I'd recommend the chapters in which he takes on English-language intellectuals. Despite his internationalist reputation (he was involved in dissident networks in Communist nations during the late Cold War), Scruton is less sure-footed in his critiques of Continental philosophy. He seems to genuinely understand the stuff (a virtue not shared by most critics of Continental philosophy), but he relies a bit too heavily on the "can-you-believe-they-SAID-that?" or "what-the-heck-are-they-TALKING-about?!," hands-in-the-air, "check-out-this-silly-prose" snark, particularly when he dives into Badiou and Zizek. The fact that Continental philosophy is willfully obscurantist is by now general knowledge; pointing out how goofy the prose is doesn't count as an insight anymore. He cloaks this lazy critique by referring to the Continentals' bad writing as "Newspeak," so that by pointing out how intentionally bad their prose is, he seems to be scoring a political point. But Scruton abuses the word “Newspeak,” particularly in his chapters on Lacan and Deleuze and Badiou and Zizek, Scruton conflates "Newspeak" with “nonsensical jargon” when, in Orwell, it served a very different function: language was not rendered incoherent in 1984 but was stripped of its organic redundancies. The result was a hyper-clear, hyper-efficient language that streamlined meaning and eliminated complexity. I suppose you could argue that Lacan and Deleuze were doing something like that. I think that’s a hard argument to sustain.
Scruton's entire critique of Lukács seems to boil down to a) Stalin was bad, b) Lukács supported Stalin, and c) we don't read Heidegger anymore because he was a Nazi, so why do we read Lukács? Which, yeah, a) true, b) true, and c) we still read Heidegger.
A more substantial criticism I have with Scruton's treatment of Continental philosophy: he overrelies on a key insight, namely that 20th-century Europe's obsession with Object/Subject relations descends from an influential misreading of Hegel by Kojève. Because so many influential leftists sat in Kojève's lectures, they all inherited, to one degree or another, a misunderstanding of Hegel, which serves as the golden thread that runs though Continental philosophy.
Perhaps. But Deleuze and Zizek and Badiou all seem to have actually read and absorbed the real Hegel, and although they may share some misimpressions about the great German philosopher, Scruton's narrative about the malign influence of Kojève's lectures is a tad too neat.
Elsewhere, Scruton dismisses other twentieth-century revolutionaries with a tone that implies, “They would've been alright chaps if only they’d been clever enough to be British conservatives!”
On the whole, however, Scruton is an intelligent guide to intelligent conservative objections to left-wing thought. Give this book to your QAnon-espousing, Trump-supporting, MAGA-loving kin and tell them it's by one of the century's most prominent conservative intellectuals. I'm sure they'll love it.