Fools, Frauds and Firebrands

August 3, 2015
Eminent British philosopher and polymath Scruton gives a sharp-edged, provocative critique of leading leftist thinkers since the mid-20th century. In this revision of his earlier polemic Thinkers of the New Left (1985), he examines John Kenneth Galbraith on consumerism, Richard Rorty on pragmatism, Antonio Gramsci on hegemony, Edward Said on colonialism, and Slavoj Žižek on the Other. He also looks at influential French intellectuals such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Lacan. For the left, according to Scruton, the source of injustice lies not in human nature but in established power and dominant classes. He notes that leftists exalt principles of equality, emancipation, and social justice but claims that they rarely describe actual or corrective models of social order. Through a “relentless campaign of intimidation,” he writes, the left tries to make the right unacceptable, yet gives no coherent definition of what constitutes it. If any critics deviate from its premises, “you are not an opponent to be argued with, but a disease to be shunned.” Scruton finds relief from contemporary anomie in the rule of law and promotion of liberty. This complex and erudite study is neither an easy read nor a reactionary screed. The overly zippy, alliterative new title does not indicate the depth or seriousness of the analysis.