Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left

As an undergraduate, I wondered why the curriculum in the humanities was so narrowly focused, and why some of these alleged-brilliant minds were not only convoluted in their theories, but sometimes deliberately obtuse/obscurantist in their writing. As I progressed to graduate school, things got even worse. The "mathemes" struck me as the Leftist's attempt to give their non-theories a kind of mathematical/scientific patina. The gibberish of "the sign and the signifiier," the incessant invocation of "the other," all of this stuff eventually became a bit wearing.Scrutton does a good job in this short work of separating the wheat from the chaff, in addressing the dominant intellectual schools of thought, and the thinkers who made their "institutional march," first through Europe, who are now well-entrenched in American universities. This book is not the paranoid hit piece that either the title nor the cover art would lead one to believe. Scruton gives credit where it is due, especially to Foucault and Sartre, whose conclusions and solutions may be off-base, but whose keenness of mind and command of history is pretty staggering.The ultimate picture that Scruton paints, however, is one that would be absurdly funny if so many people weren't hurt (literally and psychologically) by the unrelievedly nihilistic philosophies and theories perpetuated by the Frankfurt School, existentialists, Marxists, etc. All of the thinkers whose works and beliefs Scruton details have several features in common: they believe in the sanctity of some abstract "worker" or proletariat, despite having little or no daily interaction with their subjects, and they believe that the Left can never be held accountable for the catastrophic gulf between theory and praxis (especially regarding Marxism and Communism), and above all, they believe that people who don't believe what they believe are not merely viewing things from a different perspective, but are wrong, and either need to be ignored or somehow eliminated from the discourse.The works that Scruton engages are many times pretentious, and, once parsed for content, revealed to be empty shell games. Naturally then, when Scruton critiques the works, he himself has to "wade in the mud" so to speak, so sometimes the reading is itself a chore. But it was a necessary public service Scruton performed in this book, and his sense of humor helps leaven what would otherwise be a punishing wade through the mire. And if you're going to college and you're going to accrue debt and a plethora of nihilistic, useless gibberish as well, you owe it to yourself to read this book and inoculate yourself. Or, if you've already been through the ringer, his book will reassure you that no, you are not alone, and that yes, Bertrand Russell was right: "Man is born ignorant, not stupid. He is made stupid through education." Recommended.

The title is misleading, because it is the most ad hominem part of the book. Scruton calls no one here a 'fool,' in fact here he is paying Foucault a compliment:It is as difficult to do justice to the achievements of Foucault as it is to those of Sartre. His imagination and intellectual fluency have generated theories, concepts and insights by the score, and the synthesizing poetry of his style rises above the murky sludge of left-wing writing like an eagle over mud-flats. Moreover, this flamboyant adoption of the higher vision is a large part of Foucault’s appeal. He is unable to encounter opposition without at once rising, under the impulse of his intellectual energy, to the superior ‘theoretical’ perspective, from which opposition is seen in terms of the interests that are advanced by it. Opposition relativized is also opposition discounted. It is not what you say, but that you say it, that awakens Foucault’s interest. ‘D’où parles-tu?’ is his question, and his stance remains beyond the reach of every answer.Considering how much ground is covered, I think it is a compliment to say the book seemed much shorter than 300 pp. It also seemed up-to-date, although part of it (I'm not sure how much in all) was written in the 1980s. In part, this book is a lament that every faddish new philosophy coming out of Paris is the same old story. The 'critique' is always of capitalism, and the failure of socialism never means abandoning 'leftist values.'Quote:... But the attempt to achieve a social order without domination inevitably leads to a new kind of domination, more sinister by far than the one deposed. The seeds of the new structure of power are present in the organization necessary for the violent overthrow of the old, for, as Andrew Marvell said of Cromwell: . . . those arts that did gain A power must it maintain.A study of the logic of ‘revolutionary praxis’ confirms the celebrated observation of Roberto Michels, that an ‘iron law of oligarchy’ constrains all revolutionary parties towards the opposite of their emancipatory goal. It is a century since Michels – himself a radical socialist – expressed those thoughts, and no socialist has ever bothered to answer him, even though history has confirmed his conclusion at every point.If the book gets off to a slow start, and devotes too much space to some 'thinkers' and less to others, it is nonetheless a trenchant, if depressing look at how the academic left insulates itself from reality and logic. I honestly got a chill toward the end, because I feel the winds of Deleuze et al blowing stronger in the USA today.

It is disheartening that so few philosophers have dared to challenge the ideas of the New Left head on, calling bullsh** when they see it. Scruton is one of them, and he dares to laugh, and invite others to do so, at the incomprehensible scrabble of words and incoherence of sentences that dominate the writings of thinkers ranging from Lacan and Deleuze to Slavoj Zizek. Scruton shows, not only their logical fallacies and intentional obscurity but more importantly, he shows how these writings can function as magical texts, that can compel their readers to directed action even when they are not understood.

I've found Scruton's other work on Kant very useful and so I thought I would see this updated version of 'Fools...' in order to get a different perspective on authors such as Zizek. I bought the audio version to listen to and it was quite hard going. A recently deceased family friend, God rest her soul, used to cut out pieces from the Daily Wail and distribute them on her visits so that the unbelievers might be saved from various Sorts-Of-Things. Playing this audio book on long car journeys was a form of resurrection: The Soviets were very bad, the academics of the West who acted as the 'useful idiots' for the regime had much to answer for and, shocker, French intellectuals can be arrogant and obtuse. The Soviets-Were-Bad section of the book is the metaphorical equivalent of the front armour of a Soviet T-34 fashioned from sheets of The Bleedin' Obvious several inches thick: it's solid and placed at a shallow angle so that everything coming to it bounces off because it limits the argument to saying that Bad Things Really Are Jolly Bad. When the topics moved onto figures such as Lacan, I was expecting something more sophisticated but instead we have arguments such as 'the theory of the mirror stage must be rubbish because, after all, what happened before mirrors were invented?' Crumbs - you can just Google that one. So that I don't turn this into a lengthy, shouty piece, I will just make two quick points. Point One: I found better criticism of The New Left from within their own community. They constantly disagree with each other and their arguments are easy to find, such as the Chomsky v Zizek spat, or Zizek's own differences with regard to Lacan. It can be like the academic version of East Enders in there sometimes. Point Two: I don't think that this book is going to convert anyone. For those who hate the likes of Chomsky, Lacan, Zizek etc, this will be another book amongst many. For the New Left readers: they will probably avoid it anyway. If, like me, you've read some Scruton as well as some of those he targets, you will probably be better off leaving this one alone and looking elsewhere for some killer blows.

Entertaining and lucid, this must be one of the best books on socialism ever written. Anyone who imagines Jeremy Corbyn has all the answers, or, indeed, any of them, MUST read this!

Very interesting and well written. Clarifies a lot of things about aspects of what has become part of our mainstream culture. Universities and many of the intelligentsia they spawn have a lot to answer for. This helps to explain why.

For the most part I found this book to be very enjoyable, the combination of Scrutons intellect and wit being aimed at the various darlings of left-wing academia is a valuable contribution especially in a time where the left is so dominant in the humanities. I enjoy Scruton when watching him lecture and think that in general he makes a good counterpoint to many of the ideologically destitute figures who he presents through the book.That said, the reason that I have given three stars is that I am a psychotherapist and am well acquainted with Lacan, Deleuze, Guattari and Zizek who Scruton dismisses summarily in the book. I found these to be incredibly weak sections with a minimal understanding shown of the conceptual edifices that he was proposing to criticise. I can understand why someone could not be bothered to go through the difficult process of gaining a working knowledge of Lacan or Deleuze but if you are unable to devote the time to understand it, do not try and excuse your failure as a inherent fault of the theorist. There are plenty of writers now who make these works accessible, such as Bruce Fink etc. and these show that Scruton's dismissals are largely the result of his own lack of comprehension.I get the feeling that he is much better acquainted with the more traditionally Marxist theorists and the book flounders when trying to deal with the more psychoanalytic targets. I also find it disingenuous when Scruton takes a paragraph of text and prints it out of context as a means of showing how unintelligible the theorist is - surely someone could do similar with Kant, Hegel etc.Overall though I did enjoy this offering and the writing style is very readable.

Whilst in the middle of reading this book, I learned that Roger Scruton has passed away. Who will take up the mighty pen that he has now laid down? Writing in a stimulating manner but not always with the clarity sought by the layman, he was one of a very few right wing academics fearless enough to offer a more traditional political view but one, he would argue, that has stood the test of time like no other. As such, his writings warrant attention and application. His philosophy derives as much from common sense as from academic discipline.He found himself shunned by the mainstream left wing academia in the West whilst welcomed by academia in Eastern Europe where the ideals of the New Left were actually put into practice. If for no other reason, whatever side of the political spectrum, readers ought to take up the challenge that Scruton sets forth in this challenging book. In effect, respect those with genuine views even though you may disagree. Having said that, academics have a long tradition of sharpening the mighty pen to reveal the flaw in another’s arguments. Long may that continue.

Writing against the cultural grain Scruton is readable and is right most of the time.

Great

Intellectually stimulating.

A wonderfully gentle and humorous debunking of the intellectual pretensions of the 'philosophers' of the Left.

Bought this from my fiancé's wish list for Christmas so I cannot really give it a review but he liked it so does that count?

An interesting read.

Excellent informative work.

Gives the left a much needed poke in the eye.

If you are concerned by the state of the humanities and social sciences today, you must read this essay. Sir Roger Scruton, one of the most clear-headed and sensible thinkers of our times, has updated his 1985 essay Thinkers of the New Left. In this fascinating news version, he covers most of the modern-day intellectual impostors who have dreamed of and engineered the weakening of our culture, mores, and institutions. Scruton exposes fairly the basic theses of these authors, but wastes no time pointing out to the contradictions, non sequiturs, and plain absurdities found in critical theory, post-rationalism, post-colonial studies, etc. At several places, he uses spirited humour to complement his thorough analysis, without resorting to ad hominem attacks, name-calling, or facile parodies.Despite his disapproval -- and often his contempt -- for the authors he studies, he is gracious at times, acknowledging the elegant style of Hobsbawn, the wide culture of Perry Anderson, and conceding that Foucault could have become a major historian if he had lived longer. However, he does not find anything positive to say about some of the figures covered in his essay, and he is often quite harsh in his pronouncements. For instance, he debunks well the pretensions of Habermas, but does not concede that his softening on many questions and his emphasis on communication have been an improvement as compared to the harsh Marxism of the 1960s.While the scope of the book is wide, it does not cover all the radical sects that have emerged since WWII. For instance, Scruton does not discuss dependency analysis and liberation theology, approaches that are still very important in the developing world and that have been revived with the election of Pope Francis. Also absent are some orthodox Marxists of importance like Ralph Miliband, and influential post-Marxist reformers such as Anthony Giddens. He does not cover any of the myriad environmentalists who have decided from the 1980s on to pursue the fight against capitalism through ecological arguments. The main absents of the book are the promoters of sexual identity politics, especially radical feminism, eco-feminism, and other incarnations of gender theory. I do not know why Scruton have not scrutinized those schools of thought. Maybe third world ideology, sociological essays, environmentalist alarmism and gender advocacy are not philosophical enough for him. It is too bad that he could not guide us there as well. However, Scruton has set the tone and offered a courageous example of rigorous intellectual resistance that should inspire his readers to confront the new left avatars in all fields and disciplines. Jean-François RiouxOttawa, Canada