The Tyranny of Clichés: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas
Read The Tyranny of Clichés: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas Online
Authors: Jonah Goldberg
Tags: #Political Science, #Political Ideologies, #Conservatism & Liberalism
| The Tyranny of Clichés: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas | |
| Jonah Goldberg | |
| Sentinel (2011) | |
| Rating: | *** |
| Tags: | Political Science, Political Ideologies, Conservatism & Liberalism |
The bestselling author of
Liberal Fascism
dismantles the progressive myths that are passed-off as wisdom in our schools, media and politics.
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 that 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 and sticks to one refrain above all others: he’s a pragmatist, opposed to the ideology and dogma 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 the British empire and ended slavery. - Better ten guilty men go free than one innocent man suffer:
So you won’t mind if those ten guilty men move next door to you? - Diversity is strength:
Cool.The NBA should have a quota for midgets and one-legged point guards! - 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 grand 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.
"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 )
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.
The Tyranny of Clichés
How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas
JONAH GOLDBERG
Sentinel
SENTINEL
Published by the Penguin Group
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First published in 2012 by Sentinel, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
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Copyright © Jonah Goldberg, 2012
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Goldberg, Jonah.
The tyranny of clichés : How liberals cheat in the war of ideas / Jonah Goldberg.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN: 978-1-101-57235-1
1. Liberalism—United States. 2. Clichés—United States. I. Title.
JC574.2.U6G64 2012
320.51’30973—dc23
2012000535
Printed in the United States of America
Set in Bell MT Std
Designed by Spring Hoteling
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
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ALWAYS LEARNING
PEARSON
To the memory of my big brother, Josh
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[W]e have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.
—G
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The Cowardice of Clichés
According to legend, when George Will signed up to become a syndicated columnist in the 1970s, he asked his friend William F. Buckley, Jr.—the founder of
National Review
and a columnist himself—“How will I ever write two columns a week?” Buckley responded (I’m paraphrasing), “Oh it will be easy. At least two things a week will annoy you, and you’ll write about them.”
Buckley was right. Annoyance is an inspiration, aggravation a muse. That which gets your blood up, also gets the ink—or these days, pixels—flowing. Show me an author without passion for what he holds to be the truth and I will show you either a boring writer or someone who misses a lot of deadlines, or both. Nothing writes itself, and what gets the writer to push that boulder uphill is more often than not irritation with those saying wrong things righteously.
Which brings me to this book. There’s a kind of argument-that-isn’t-an-argument that vexes me. I first started to notice it on university campuses. I’ve spoken to a lot of college audiences. Often, I will encounter an earnest student, much more serious looking than the typical hippie with open-toed shoes and a closed mind. During the Q&A session after my
speech he will say something like “Mr. Goldberg, I may disagree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
Then he will sit down, and the audience will applaud. Faculty will nod proudly at this wiser-than-his-years hatchling under their wings. What a glorious moment for everybody. Blessed are the bridge builders.
My response? Who gives a rat’s ass?
First of all, my right to speak never was in doubt. Indeed, I’m usually
paid
to speak. Besides, I’ve given my speech already and we’re in Q&A time: Shouldn’t you have told me this beforehand? Second, the kid is almost surely lying. He’ll take a bullet for me?
Really?
Clichés like these are a way to earn bravery on the cheap, defending principles you haven’t thought through or perhaps only vaguely support. Or, heck, maybe he really would leap on a grenade so I could finish talking about how stupid high-speed rail is. But it still doesn’t matter, because mouthing these sorts of clichés is
a
way to avoid arguments, not make them
. Imagine a defendant is on the stand. The prosecutor peppers the accused murderer with questions: “Is this your chain saw?” “Where were you on the night of the fourteenth?” “How can you explain the victim’s foot being in your freezer?”
