The Tyranny of Clichés: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas (48 page)

2
.   Russell Jacoby,
Bloodlust: On the Roots of Violence from Cain and Abel to the Present
(New York: Free Press, 2011).

3
.   Ibid., p. 42.

4
.   Sigmund Freud,
Civilization and its Discontents
(1930), trans., James Strachey (London: W.W. Norton, 1961).

5
.   For example, see Maureen Dowd, “Not O.K. at the O.K. Corral,”
New York Times,
July 26, 2011.

6
.   Masahiro Mori, “The Uncanny Valley,” trans., Karl F. MacDorman and Takashi Minato,
Energy,
7 no. 4 (1970) pp. 33–35.

7
.   Freud,
Civilization and its Discontents.

8
.   Charles Dickens,
Bleak House
(London: Bradbury and Evans, 1853), p. 26.

9
.   Montesquieu, “Book XX: Of Laws in Relation to Commerce, Considered in its Nature and Distinctions,”
The Spirit of the Laws
(Cambridge University Press, 1989).

10
. Daniel Griswold, “Peace on Earth? Try Free Trade among Men,”
Cato Online
(December 28, 2005); accessed May 22, 2010,
www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=5344
.

11
. Erik Gartzke, “Future Depends on Capitalizing on Capitalist Peace,” October 1, 2005;
accessed May 22, 2010,
www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=5133
. See also Donald J. Bordeaux, “Want World Peace? Support Free Trade,”
Christian Science Monitor
, November 20, 2006; accessed May 22, 2010,
www.csmonitor.com/2006/1120/p09s02-coop.html
.

24.: Democracy and Unity

1
.   Thomas Jefferson, “Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 13, 120–21,”
The Founders Constitution
(A web project of the University of Chicago); accessed August 17, 2011, p
ress-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch10s9.html.

2
.   James Madison, “Speech at the Virginia Convention to Ratify the Federal Constitution,” June 6, 1788.

3
.   William Jennings Bryan,
Omaha World-Herald,
September 23, 1892, quoted in Paolo E. Coletta,
William Jennings Bryan: Volume 1
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1964), p. 75; H. Wayne Morgan,
From Hayes to McKinley: National Party Politics, 1877–1896
(Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1969), p. 496.

4
.   Woodrow Wilson,
Leaders of Men,
ed. T. H. Vail Motter (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1952), pp. 20, 25.

5
.   Elias Canetti,
Crowds and Power
(New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1984), p. 18.

6
.   In this they were all Rousseau’s children. It was his idea of the general will that empowered secular despots to find legitimacy in “the people” without paying heed to actual persons: “For the rulers well know that the general will is always on the side which is most favorable to the public interest, that is to say, the most equitable; so that it is needful only to act justly to be certain of following the general will.”
A Discourse on Political Economy
, 1755.

7
.   Bertolt Brecht, “The Decision,” in John Willett,
The Theatre of Bertolt Brecht: A Study from Eight Aspects
(London: Methuen, 1959).

abortion, 29, 72, 80, 81, 232, 258–59

ACLU, 76, 123

Acton, Lord, Axiom of, 84–86, 178

Adams, John, 41

Addams, Jane, 49, 107

Adorno, Theodore, 34, 212–13, 214

affirmative action, 96–98, 187

Affluent Society, The
(Galbraith), 57, 201

Affordable Care Act, 129, 203

AFL-CIO, 133

African Americans, 95–96, 106, 164, 166, 168, 202, 205, 217, 225, 226, 227, 270, 273, 282
n

life expectancy rates of, 29, 30

9/11 commemorating statue and, 91–92

racial quotas and, 96–98

Albom, Mitch, 122–23

All the King’s Men
(Warren), 272

American Atheists, 76

American Civilization,
193

American Communists, 124, 129

American Economic Association, 49, 82, 83

“American exceptionalism,” 126–27

American Indians, 29, 96, 252

American Journal of Sociology,
288
n
–89
n

American Mind, The
(Commager), 108

American Nazi Party, 133

American Political Science Review,
213

American Pragmatism, 44, 45, 46–58

Dewey’s contributions to, 54–56, 69

ideology as supposedly absent in, 14, 22, 24–25, 52, 55–56, 57–58

James’s optimistic approach to, 46–50, 53

“moral equivalent of war” idea in, 48, 49–52

Obama and, 22, 52–53, 69

see also
pragmatism

American Society of Newspaper Editors, 93

Angelou, Maya, 190, 202

Animal House,
90, 234–35

anti-Semitism, 250, 251, 264–65

Architectural Digest,
177

Aristotle, 9, 96, 221

Arizona, 273

Ashcroft, John, 68, 69

Asian Americans, 29, 95, 97

atheists, atheism, 76–77, 204, 211, 214, 244, 252, 254

Atlas, Scott W., 26–27

Audacity of Hope, The
(Obama), 22

Austro-Hungarian Empire, 266

Authoritarian Personality, The
(Adorno), 212–13

Autobiography
(Darwin), 104

Avatar,
259

Bannister, Robert C., 110, 112

Barrett, Scott, 286
n

BBC World Service, 5

Beamer, Todd, 275–76

Beard, Charles, 58, 110, 124, 163, 213

Bentham, Jeremy, 156–57

Better Angels of Our Nature, The
(Pinker), 182

Bill of Rights, 142, 148, 162, 270

bin Laden, Osama, 5, 68–69, 235, 240, 242

Bismarck, Otto Von, 45, 49

“Blackstone ratio,” 153–58

Blazing Saddles,
196

Bleak House
(Dickens), 265

Bloodlust
(Jacoby), 262–63

Bloomberg, Michael, 59, 60, 64, 230, 231

“boiling frog” parable, 115, 118–19

Bollinger, Lee, 95, 96

Bolsheviks, 36, 253–54

bourgeoisie, 192, 195, 196, 198, 199, 200, 201, 203

Boutelle, Paul (Kwame Montsho Ajamu Somburu), 123

Bracton, Henry de, 228, 299
n

Britannica Concise Encyclopedia,
8

British Empire, 33, 187, 188

Brooklyn College School of Education, 136, 137

Brooks, David, 8, 192, 198

Browder, Earl, 63

Buchanan, Pat, 172, 199

Buckley, William F., Jr., 1, 5, 71, 172

Buck v. Bell,
107, 165–66

Buddhism, 239, 256, 257–59

Burke, Edmund, 33, 37, 40, 116, 117, 121

Bush, George W., 26, 34, 81, 120, 121, 122, 168, 183–84, 240, 242, 276

Caddyshack,
131–32

California, 97, 155, 217, 223

California, University of, Berkeley, 204, 205, 214, 217

Calvinists, 77, 237, 238, 301
n

Campus Crusade for Christ, 240

Canada, 28, 73, 161, 231

capitalism, 40, 54, 83, 116, 141, 143, 177, 195, 196, 201–2, 266, 271, 273

Social Darwinism and, 100, 103, 107–9, 110–12

Capital Times,
123

Carnegie,
Andrew, 109, 110, 111, 112

Cartagena, Alonso de, bishop of Burgos, 250

Carter, Jimmy, 51, 260

Castile Inquisition, 251

Castro, Fidel, 84, 214, 215

Catholic Church, 44, 74, 77, 78, 106, 119, 234, 235, 254–55

conversos
of, 250–51

criticisms and hatred of, 252, 253, 254

Crusades and, 240–43

doctrine of infallibility in, 86

Galileo controversy and, 8, 10–11, 78, 247

as hindrance to science and progress, 8–9, 10–11, 254

Inquisitions and,
see
Inquisitions

JFK and, 79–80

Protestant Reformation and, 77, 85, 235, 236–38, 239, 246, 247, 300

“social justice” concept in, 137–41

“tradition of existence” in, 235, 239

witch hunts and, 243–47, 301
n

Catholic Encyclopedia,
302
n

censorship, 37, 50, 120, 135

“center,” false notion of, 6–11, 23

Chait, Jonathan, 25–26, 28, 30

Chappaquiddick scandal, 86–88

Chase, Stuart, 16, 53

Chesterton, G. K., 5, 66, 68, 106, 127

China, 15, 16, 51, 86, 149, 266

“China Syndrome” pragmatism, 58

Christian Coalition, 76

Christianity, 9, 44, 46, 67, 76, 77, 81, 82, 111, 180, 185, 214, 215, 217, 235, 236, 240, 247, 248, 250, 256, 258, 260, 265

businessmen influenced by, 111–12

criticisms and hatred of, 252, 253, 254, 301
n
–2
n

geocentrism myth of, 8–11

heretical movements in, 247–48, 249, 251, 53, 301
n

Islam vs., 238

in Progressive movement, 82–83

see also
Catholic Church; religion

Christianizing the Social Crisis
(Rauschenbusch), 83

“Christian socialism,” 82–83

Chu, Steven, 231–32

Civilization and Its Discontents
(Freud), 264

civil liberties, 253

slippery slope arguments and, 116, 119–21

civil society, 138, 151

Civil War, U.S., 114, 119, 181

and postwar prosperity, 109–10

class systems, 45–46, 195–99, 211

see also
middle class

clichés, 2–17

in advancing of ideological agendas, 14–17

“center” concept and, 6–11

cowardice of, 2–4

misquoted phrases as, 2–3, 4

as political buzzwords, 6, 15

climate change, 72–74, 205, 206

Climate Change,
286
n

Clinton, Bill, 95, 129, 190–91, 200, 230, 264

appeal to “middle class” by, 191, 199–200, 202

Clinton, Hillary, 22, 129–30, 151, 191, 199, 200, 260

Cohn, Jonathan, 13–14

Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell
(Orwell), 1

collectivism, 11, 49, 54

colonial America, 33, 116, 188

religious pluralism in, 78–79

Colorado, University of (Boulder), 137

Colorado, University of Northern, 92

Columbia University, 95, 97, 123, 125

Columbus, Christopher, 10, 70, 124

Communist Manifesto, The
(Marx), 195, 196

Communists, communism, 21, 46, 63, 103, 116, 124, 129, 140, 150, 152, 194, 211, 212, 213, 215, 243, 248, 253, 276

“Competitiveness: A Dangerous Obsession” (Krugman), 15

Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 287
n

Confessions
(Rousseau), 172

Congress, U.S., 30–31, 51, 69, 79, 120, 129, 168, 228

“Conservatism and Personality” study (McClosky), 213

conservatives, conservatism, 40, 63, 64, 69, 84, 86, 92, 93, 95, 103, 127, 149, 211, 215, 235, 252, 259, 271

alleged “antiscience” stance of, 204, 205–7

and amending of Constitution, 168–70

as first opponents of ideology, 31, 32–34

health care and, 26, 117

as “inflexible ideologues,” 23–26, 30, 34–35

institutional biases against, 216–17

“Let-them-eat-cake” indictment of, 171–72, 174, 175

liberal eugenicists vs. eugenicists in, 106–7

living constitution opposed by, 165, 167

pseudoscientific studies on causes of, 34, 46, 207–10, 212–16, 217–19

slippery slope arguments of, 116, 117

Social Darwinism unfairly linked to, 100, 101, 102, 108–9, 112

Conservative Soul, The
(Sullivan), 34–35

Constitution, U.S., 151, 153, 159, 160, 271–72

amending of, 168–70

Article II of, 166–67

call for reinterpretation of, 14, 162–70

liberals on “original intent” of, 168–70

Progressive criticisms of, 162–63

Constitution of Social Justice
(Rosmini-Serbati), 138

conversos,
250–51

Cooper, Alice, 220, 222

Copernicus, Nicolaus, 8, 9, 10

Coughlin, Charles, 55, 139, 140–41

Crawley, Ernest, 263–64

criminals, 153–58, 184, 293
n
–94
n

Croly, Herbert, 57, 82, 106–7, 143–44, 160–61, 292
n

Crowds and Power
(Canetti), 275

Crusades, 240–43

Crutzen, Paul, 286
n

Cuba, 86, 177

Cuomo, Mario, 80, 101

Dalai Lama, 257, 258–59

Danielson, Dennis R., 9, 10

Darwin, Charles, 103–5, 107, 108, 110, 111, 112–13, 160, 162, 289
n

Darwinism, 46, 100, 102, 103–5, 107, 108, 111

Progressives influenced by, 112–13, 161–62, 168

see also
Social Darwinism

“Darwin’s Influence Upon Philosophy” (Dewey), 162

Das Kapital
(Marx), 105, 195, 211

Da Vinci Code, The
(Brown), 244–45

Dawes, Christopher T., 207–8

Dean, Howard, 226–27

“Death
of Conservatism, The” (Tanenhaus), 34

Décade philosophique, littéraire, et politique, La,
40, 41

Defendant, The
(Chesterton), 127

De l’Espirit
(Helvétius), 3

Delisi, Matt, 155–56

democracy, 48, 268–73, 304
n

purest form of, 269–70

tyrannies imposed by, 270–71

voting rights and expansion of, 272–73

Democracy in America
(de Tocqueville), 232, 33, 288
n

Democratic Party, Democrats, 6, 31, 59, 64, 80, 84, 101, 120, 128, 129, 141, 172, 190–91, 199, 207, 217, 227, 272

identity politics of, 190, 191, 199

“interest-group liberalism” of, 191, 202

“middle class” agenda of, 191–92, 199–200, 202–3

National Conventions of, 82, 101, 191, 200

Descartes, René, 66, 220

despotism, 270–71, 304
n

Destutt de Tracy, Comte Claude, 40–41