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17. Klein and Pinos, ed., Burke (30 July 2024)

by kurto

A compilation of passages focused on the French Revolution, statesmanship, and neo-political thought. Burke estimated contemporary Britain (circa 1795) had 400,000 informed citizens, from among a population of 10 million, of whom 80,000 favored the French Revolution. The editors contend radical is natural to man, to be countered by training and education. Burke’s writings tend to confirm O’Brien’s view that he most of all opposed tyranny, that he changed his stance but never his ground. Of note:

• Revolution is the last thought (‘resource’) of the thoughtful
• Prejudice (learned inclination) is trusted and ready in an emergency
• England would never ‘call in an enemy to the substance of any systems to remove its corruptions, to supply its defects, or to perfect its constitution’ (p. 45)
• The press naturally become demagogues against wealth and merit
• ‘Corporate bodies are immortal for the good of members but not for their punishment’ (p. 61)
• Plans benefit from observations of those whose understand is inferior, as a sanity check (p. 75)
• Revolutionary persecution unifies the opposite evils of intolerance and indifference – against all conscience. Moral sentiments, connected with ‘early prejudice’, cannot live long under nihilist regimes
• The foundation of government is not in theoretical rights of man (‘a confusion of judicial with civil principles’) but in convenience and nature – that is, either universal or local modification
• Men often mistakenly feel courage produces danger, rather than the obvious opposite
• When reason of state prohibits disclosure, silence is manly
• The possession of power discloses the true character of a man

11. McMillan, Modern France 1880 – 2002 (28 April 2024)

by kurto

A disappointing collection of thematic overviews that fails to get at France’s approach to the great sociopolitical questions. The authors neither ground core problems nor suggest departures, but frequently trend toward sociology as well as left-liberal consensus circa 2000; the essays ignore Maastricht, fairly enough for a history but illogical in light of attacks on right-wing ‘identitarianism’.
• The long-term goal of the Third Republic was to build the state for plutocrats as well as bourgeois, never mind the Dreyfus affair’s ruptures. But radical democrats and emergent socialists found no common ground: democratic (i.e., liberal) socialism was ‘impossible’
• Fin-de-siecle governmental persecution of Catholics, led by Rousseau-Waldeck over 1899-1902, parallels Bismarck’s earlier efforts: the separation of 1904, undoing Napoleonic concordat, exposed the church’s dependency on the state. Despite the hostility, many clergy fought for France in World War I, earning some respite; in the early Fifth Republic, de Gaulle and other ministers again brought Catholics to the fore; there is no discussion of Muslim immigration
• France’s descent over 1815-1945 stems from demographic decline – there is no linkage to the Catholic plight – especially after Germany’s 1870 unification. By 1910, France was the world’s leading immigrant country, attracting Belgians, Italians, Spaniards, Greeks, and French colonials to work at large, industrial firms. Traditionally rural France, which contacted the outside world via the bicycle (presaging the Tour de France), finally succumbed in the postwar era to economic modernization – though small farms persisted, protected by the EEC’s Common Agricultural Policy, and the state remains the country’s largest employer
• Only after 1936 did France subordinate her foreign policy to Britain, and in the postwar era much her impulse has been to restore independence and grandeur
• In addressing the French Communist party as well as ‘committed’ intellectuals (said to ‘think in German’), the authors allude to obvious dead-ends but adduce no evidence of remorse. However, the Fourth Republic collapsed because it was designed to counter the extinct Communist threat; Algeria mattered mainly to the political classes; the Fifth Republic minimized the influence of the Fourth’s ‘notables’, for example by referenda. Mitterrand’s Parti Socialiste, succeeding the SFIO (Section francaise de l’Internationale ouvriere), wisely limit doctrinaire politics, mimicking the more flexible right, and so succeeding in 1981
NB: Barres: intellectuals are those who believe society is founded on logic

4. Lewis, Crisis of Islam (22 Oct 2011)

by kurto

Surveys the historical events and cultural trends which have produced Islamist terrorism. After reviewing Muslim theology pertaining to war and the West (particularly Christendom), the author assesses the Crusades, Renaissance and Reformation Europe, and the post-revolutionary era leading to the founding of Israel. America came to be the enemy both because it supplanted Britain as paragon of the imperialist West and also as it represents libertinism (i.e., separation of church and state, permissive public sexuality, commercialism). The failure of Islam to adopt to the market economy and democratic government have mired the peoples of the Muslim world’s Arabian heartland in destitution. Ironically, the one success story, Saudi oil production, has been so tightly restricted to elites that the country has become the wellspring of radical Wahabism, which often disregards traditional theology. A succinct and useful contribution to understanding the distinction between holy war and Muslim terrorism, but what can the West do to remedy matters?

Against populism in American conservatism

by kurto

It seems the Republican party, that is the official (officious?) arbiter of American conservatism, is obliged to fight a two-front war:

What began in the twentieth century as an elite-driven defense of the classical liberal principles enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution ended up, in the first quarter of the twenty-first century, as a furious reaction against elites of all stripes. Many on the right embrace a cult of personality and illiberal tropes. The danger was that the alienation from an antagonism toward American culture and society expressed by many on the right could turn into a general opposition to the constitutional order. That temptation had been present in the writings of the Agrarians, in the demagogy of Tom Watson, Hue Long, and Father Charles Coughlin, in the conspiracies of Joseph McCarthy, in the racism of George Wallace, in the radicalism of

    Triumph

, in the sour moments of the paleo-conservatives, in the cultural despair of the religious right and in the rancid antisemitism of the alt-right. But it was cabined off off. It was contained. That would not be the case forever – as Trump and January 6, 2021 had shown.

16. Oates, With Malice toward None (30 Sep 2018)

by kurto

A learned but popular biography of Abraham Lincoln emphasizing the consistency of his vision of the American nation. As an Illinois Whig, Lincoln favored state-sponsored improvement (e.g., roads and technology improvement). He was an eloquent speaker when prepared but not a draftsman of note. Lincoln then served one term in Congress before returning to private pursuits, in which he was known as a railroad lawyer. His rivalry with Stephen Douglas commenced in the late 1830s, rising to its apex in opposing the Democrat’s notion of popular sovereignty, the fudge for extending slavery into the territories. Lincoln ran for the Senate in 1854 but conceded to a compromise candidate in order to keep a Democrat out, consistent with his view of cooperation for the common good. During this time, he appeared in New England and New York in support of fellow Whigs; in the wake of the Kansas-Nebraska Act and Scott decision, his decision to jump to the Republicans was a substantial boost for the new party. The famous 1858 debates with Dough elucidated his commitment to the federal union: Lincoln would respect slavery as established by law to preserve the union, but would not countenance expansion. 1860s’s split of the Democratic Party ushered Lincoln to the presidency, which occupies half of Oates’ work. Among the more interesting aspects are the decision to go to war, strong-armed tactics to keep Baltimore as well as the border states in the union, setting aside the fugitive slave law in the occupied south, and the struggle to find an offensive-minded general. Gradually, by 1862, he came to regard emancipation as a war aim, although he was conscious of running ahead of his cabinet, which insisted on a victory (Antietam) before the announcement, and more so popular opinion. Lincoln is presented as quirky, a hard worker and good decision maker, but not necessarily a first-grade Periclean leader. Does he deserve to be considered the redeemer of the Founding Fathers?

22. Duggan, A Concise History of Italy (27 Dec 2018)

by kurto

Narrates Italian history since unification in 1861, when Piedmont-led monarchists annexed republican southerners. Through the 1990s, government alternated between idealism and materialism, but generally operated as a one-party state compromised by the burden of southern economic development. Italy traditionally lacked the agriculture of Europe’s northern plain, has no navigable north-south rivers to facilitate trade and communications, was for many years plagued by malarial swamps that forced people into the hills, and until 1850s, silk was its only major industry. Italy’s ruling class was small, with comparatively fewer commercial interests and more landowners. Roman cities persisted into the medieval ages, presaging a tradition of communal autonomy. Venice, Milan, Genoa, and Florence (along with Paris) were the five great cities of the early 14th century, the Florentines and Venetians being strongly republican, with imperial (Ghibelline) vs papal (Guelf) rivalries also prominent. Charles V’s 1530 conquest brought the Catholic Church patronage: the Counterreformation revitalized 16th-century Rome; the opening of Atlantic trade marginalized the great trading cities. The Napoleonic era resurfaced the national question. 1848’s failed uprising against ruling Austria showed lack of unity among federalist moderates and democrats. Over the next decade, Piedmont king Victor Emmanuel accepted the principle of the executive answering to parliament, not the crown. Prime minister Cavour, seeing the need for an ally, struck a secret treaty with France and then provoked Austria in 1859, drawing in the French, who won a minor engagement at Solferino and then concluded an armistice; Savoy and Nice were traded in exchange for Piedmont’s annexing Lombardy; the central states were to revert to Austrian-supported rulers but instead asked join Piedmont. Separately, Garibaldi’s volunteers swept the south and then conceded at Teano. Unification was completed by Prussia’s 1866 defeat of Austria, which gifted Italy the Veneto, and 1870 victory over France, which brought Rome. Northerners dominated government; with the latifundi frustrating reform and excluding southern peasants from voting, legitimacy was a problem. One-quarter of manufacturing jobs were in textiles; emigration was widespread; an economic surge in the first decade of the 1900s depended on remittance. Giolotti, the predominant figure prior to Mussolini, failed to ‘transform’ the socialists into a parliament party, to build intellectual support of the liberal state. Followers of Croce’s neo-idealist, anti-socialist La Voce and the Futurists paved the way for corporatist fascism. Italy entered World War I by result of secret diplomacy; the effect of the war was to increase fragmentation; Italy overreached at the Paris peace conference and so didn’t get Dalmatia or Fiume. D’Nunzio’s 1924 occupation of the Adriatic city forced the one-time socialist Mussoilini to move rightward. Mussolini wasn’t part of the March 1922 march on Rome – his appointment was constitutional – and until 1927 he was forced to alternate between conciliating the establishment and movement faithful. The Acerbo bill legally provided the fascists 2/3ds parliament. Fascism was never an ideology, never strong enough to do more than temporize. By the 1930s, the Romantic, rank-and-file angry young men (or junior WWI officers) had become a church-going family man. But as they were unqualified to run the state, the liberal machinery was never abolished, the bureaucracy never aggrandized, the police independent (until 1940). Italians believed they gained security in exchange for loss of freedom. Mussolini’s economic policy was hodge-podge, despite controlling 20 percent of industry (second-highest in Europe, behind the USSR), and there were no gains in the south. Consequently, although jealous of Hitler, Mussolini was ill-prepared for war and performed poorly in Greece. The slowness of 1943’s Allied counterattack mean partisan resistance formed in the north (unlike southern liberation). After the war, the monarchy was narrowly abolished but general amnesty granted, so fundamental disagreement remained. The Christian Democrats ruled an essentially one-party state via Church support (against the PCI) and southern clientelism; the lightly planned economy favored northern industrialization (i.e., rising employment and materialism) as well as EEC membership. Notwithstanding legislation to break up the estates, the price was continued southern subordination. Regional autonomy (from 1970) introduced a degree of leftist influence (in the red zone of Tuscany, Umbria, and Emilia-Romagna, while post-1968 industrial unrest was channeled into constitutional forms, marginalizing the Communists. The postwar system collapsed in the 1980s; the northern separatists Forza Italia (and Berlusconi) rose in 1994, via the latter’s domination of mass media. The country just squeaked into the Euro, potentially exacerbating an internally conflicted nation.