A “Right Wing” Book

…is what Mein Kampf isn’t:

First, other than the clear warning Hitler was giving the world about his genocidal anti-Semitism, the important takeaway from Mein Kampf isn’t its ideological coherence, but its author’s obsession with revolutionary change. (Depending on your translation) The word “fascist” appears twice in Mein Kampf, and “Fascism” only once, while “revolution,” “rebellion,” “overthrowing,” and the like festoon nearly every page. His chief obsession (other than the Jews) is with the revolutionary “idea,” the notion that the masses can be galvanized and commanded through a radical new way of thinking. “The appearance of a new and great idea was the secret of success in the French Revolution. The Russian Revolution owes its triumph to an idea. And it was only the idea that enabled [Italian] Fascism triumphantly to subject a whole nation to a process of complete renovation.”

Which brings me to the second point. Mein Kampf is not in any serious way the opposite or parallel “right-wing” work to the “left-wing” Communist Manifesto. The two works are very different in style, intent, audience and, yes, ideology etc., but they do share a commitment to revolutionary change. All of these people insisting that it is some grand contradiction to admire both books don’t know much about one or the other. And to the extent Loughner read these books (which, again, I doubt), it is entirely plausible that he would like both of them. This is a kid who thought the entire metaphysical system was a con job in need of being torn down (David Brooks was very good on this point the other day, by the way). On that sort of thing, Hitler and Marx saw eye to eye. What shouldn’t need to be said is that neither Mein Kampf nor the Communist Manifesto are prominent Tea Party tracts.

But the smears and rewriting of history will continue.

26 thoughts on “A “Right Wing” Book”

  1. An interesting link, Wo. The guy clearly had severe deficiencies in executive ability. Clearly belonged in an asylum, medicated up the wazoo or in complete isolation. Ain’t hindsight wonderful?

  2. On topic, though: I think what Mein Kampf and The Communist Manifesto both share is the deeply narcissist nature of their authors. Both felt themselves Messiahs with a uniquely liberating message for which the distant anonymous millions would adore them — which if you have any brains you recognize immediately as self-contradictory, in that a truly revolutionary message would ipso facto not be instantly hailed by the millions, while conversely a message so hailed must be as well-worn and timeless in its visceral appeal as baring beautiful tits to sell cars, elixirs, and political nostrums.

    The only serious distinctions I see are that Marx was indolent and handsome, so his ambitions were satisfied by sponging off his girlfriends and effeminized friends, while Hitler was homely and frightened of women anyway, so that route was unavailable — and that the angry frustrated ambitions of post-World War Germany formed more fertile soil for recruitment to The Cause for Hitler than did smugly successful Victorian England for Marx.

    Otherwise, they’re both works of utter banality, the kind of Mom is SUCH a bitch maudlin drivel 15-year-olds normally confine to diaries they secretly burn when maturity overtakes them.

  3. I don’t think they rise to that level of sophistication, Al. Statism is a respectable (albeit mistaken) philosophy, the kind of thing a grown and reasonable (if uneducated) man can be found to believe. I think you have to have had your maturity stunted or actually be in your teens to not find either book laughable.

  4. “the kind of thing a grown and reasonable (if uneducated) man can be found to believe”

    we have many “educated” people who believe in it.

  5. I am using “educated” in its quaint old-fashioned meaning of “having acquired wisdom through study and experience,” new.

  6. Does anyone actually have a good definition of left verse right?

    I used to think that left and right were roughly collectivism verse individualism. However religions, families, communities and governments are all forms of collectivism and while the mix might vary from left to right the sum does not seem to vary that much.

    Nor would I associate the right with conservatism or the left with progressiveness, most would classify Neo Ludditism (a return to the past), as very left wing.

    I would classify myself as a libertarian (as opposed to authoritarian?), though libertarians tend to come in left (hippie) and right (survivalist) flavors. I can not even say that I am against collectivism – so long as people can choose or unchoose it freely. I have no objection to people choosing to live either in a commune or by themselves.

    Perhaps what left and right practically means in the modern era is government authoritarianism verse family/community/religious authoritarianism. I do not want either and find it rather annoying that politics is being forced into that false choice by those with a vested interest in those two extremes.

  7. I think that, in general, “liberals” or “progressives” have a certain idea about human nature and the way that society ought to be and they try to fit everything into it. “Conservatives” tend to go more by experience and history. Conservatives tend to want to preserve existing institutions and prefer change by gradual reform, knowing that things are more likely to get worse. Liberals tend to want to replace existing institutions with something that, according to whatever ideology, will be superior.

  8. The original definition, Pete, was that the left wanted to move forward, experiment, re-order society to better suit large goals, while the right wanted to preserve the status quo, leave change to the net result of individual action. This definition was formulated by the left, naturally.

    There are more humorous versions, e.g. it’s the job of progressives to keep making new mistakes and the job of conservatives to preserve the mistakes of the past. Or Winston Churchill: Anyone who is not liberal when young has no heart, and anyone who is not conservative when old has no brain.

    The idea of a “scientific,” in particular deliberate ordering of society to achieve general aims became very broadly popular in the late 19th and early 20th century, but the general movement split down the middle in the 30s on the issue of nationalism and ethnocentrism generally, id est if you are a socialist can you still be more concerned with your society (nation, tribe) and compete against other societies? Those national socialists of course went down in flames, and the survivors took the opportunity of their lurid notoriety — and to distract from the notable failure of their own attempts in Western nations, e.g. the New Deal, to achieve economic well-being with socialist schemes — to lump in with them their old enemies, those who did not want to re-order things on a large scale. Hence the modern left’s rather ludicrous notion that libertarians are bedfellows with fascists, and anyone who opposes Social Security is one step away from a Nazi (who originated social security schemes in Germany, ironically).

    Those who love individual liberty have fought back by trying to stake out an entirely different axis of belief, but I would say it hasn’t really caught on.

  9. Thankfully, because Hitler was remarkably consistent in his beliefs from his teens to his death, I feel no need to read Mein Kampf. I was not so lucky with the Commie Manifesto.

    Carl, I agree that these writings are the thought processes of a child. Hitler at least had Clausewitz and the first world war to mold his thinking. Marx just made crap up.

  10. Oh no, ken. I believe Marx did an admirable job of putting into adult words and catchy phrases the age-old thinking of the adolescent. His “ideas” aren’t even really his at all — they are as timeless (and contradictory to reality) as the yearning of young children for a make it didn’t happen button.

  11. “I am using “educated” in its quaint old-fashioned meaning of “having acquired wisdom through study and experience,” new.”

    you should maybe say “propagandized” instead

  12. Presley, I wouldn’t say that either.

    Liberal firepower is collected into entities with police powers. (I think I heard 147 different federal ID-types have ‘police powers’) No, I couldn’t identify all of them. The big ones are understandable, but it is well beyond the point of unreasonable to assume someone standing in their own doorway is going to have the foggiest clue about a large number of the less encountered agencies’ IDs.

    Conservative firepower is individuals that happen to have weapons, and (perhaps) the military.

  13. I think the proliferation of “police powers” is connected with the Utopian Vision. The left wants to reprogram humanity. That requires lots of different programmers, and the programmers also have to be cops.

  14. The left believes the “communist new man” is possible. The right tries to take human nature as it exists, selfishness, and produce a working society. If only we had a mechanism like the free market to turn self interest to the production of societal good 😉

  15. “The only serious distinctions I see are that Marx was indolent and handsome, so his ambitions were satisfied by sponging off his girlfriends ”

    I woonnnderrr where we have seen that mode of behavior from a public figure recently . . .

    The thing about Hitler was not that he was a conservative or right-winger, but the conservative or right-wing factions looked to him as being someone they could work with, perhaps even control. I woonnnderr where we have seen a political figure outside the conservative sphere engender so much support from purported conservatives as being in some way “good for the problems we are having ” . . .

  16. Just thinking, freedom of money is not it either – the left likes the government to control the purse strings while the right has a tendency to authoritarian big business monopolies (as does the left mind you but it likes to nationalize them).

    It seems to be up to financial libertarians to break up too big to fail companies (that have established monopolies) and try and ensure open competition and a functioning economy.

  17. What confuses this, I think, is that Progressivism doesn’t seem to be exactly collectivist. I just finished a great book on the history of investment banking (http://www.amazon.com/Investment-Banking-Institutions-Politics-ebook/dp/B000SBL7HQ/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1294983338&sr=8-3) (Rand, you should change this link to work with your Amazon widget) and the chapter on the rise of Progressivism is fascinating. I also just finished Amity Shlaes’s The Forgotten Man, too, and combining that with some articles from Libertarian Nassim Taleb of The Black Swan (one of my favorite books), I’ve queued up Keynes (who Taleb admires) and Louis Brandeis’s Other People’s Money for after The Road to Serfdom (which I’ve never actually read).

    It looks like early Progressivism rose as Adam Smith-ian anti-monopolists as the economy went through a period where many industry’s optimum size from economies of scale exceeded the size of the economy and became essentially monopolies. This broke down naturally (I believe) but gave credence to the idea of regulation that opposed market forces and it broke down the idea that monopolies won’t form naturally without government support.

    Maybe the collectivism of the New Deal isn’t real Progressivism, even though today it’s all lumped together, like Taleb’s writing suggests that the same logic of uncertainty that leads to a greater faith in distributed expertise over central planning also makes people more comfortable with traditions that have survived millennia of once-in-a-century unforeseen events.

    I don’t know. I was thinking of writing a “Progressivism for Conservatives” primer; it could be funny. The last couple of months are literally the only time Progressivism has made any sense to me at all. I’ve never met a modern Progressive that could explain what they believe.

  18. I believe Marx did an admirable job of putting into adult words and catchy phrases the age-old thinking of the adolescent.

    You’re just trying to get me to read it again so I can fisk it, aren’t ya. Well, you’re devious plan will not work. We’re saying the same thing… he made crap up. So successfully that even today we use his catchy adolescent phrases without even thinking about it… like intrinsic value or capitalism instead of free markets.

    You made me think we disagreed (the horror) but after reflection, I think we are completely in the groove. And other terms we don’t use much these days but have infected our language.

  19. the left likes the government to control the purse strings while the right has a tendency to authoritarian big business monopolies

    Pete, the left likes to control others, the right not so much. Money is just a tool of control. Authoritarian big business is just more of the leftist control of others, proven by how well politics and big business works together to further each other. So called republicans whose actions can’t be distinguished between those on the left are part of the left (RINOs) in all but name.

    It is not right that likes to be authoritarian. Just those that think they are on the right. That’s why we have a revolt today and republicans are no safer than democrats.

    All because the left (by any name) likes to play with the meaning of things to suit themselves. Liberty can not be spun.

  20. Yes I think I am just an anti monopolist. I am against fiscal, social, business, government, religious, etc., monopolies.

    I am not necessarily against collectivism – so long as there is a practical free choice between different collectives.

  21. To be fair, ken, I think it’s only relatively recently in history that we can identify a “right” that is made up of common-born freeholders, entrepreneurs, proprietors, and journeymen. For much of human history “the right” was the aristocracy of the blood concerned with preserving its jus primae noctis tand “the left” was the aristocracy of the church (whichever church was in fashion) concerned with preserving its mortgage on souls, and the myriad small voices of free-thinking individuals was not heard on high at all.

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