Paul Edward Gottfried

A conservative take on the antifascist movementAntifascism argues that current self-described antifascists are not struggling against a reappearance of interwar fascism, and that the Left that claims to be opposing fascism has little in common with any earlier Left, except for some overlap with critical theorists of the Frankfurt School. Paul Gottfried looks at antifascism from its roots in early twentieth-century Europe to its American manifestation in the present. The pivotal development for defining the present political spectrum, he suggests, has been the replacement of a recognizably Marxist Left by an intersectional one. Political and ideological struggles have been configured around this new Left, which has become a dominant force throughout the Western world.Gottfried discusses the major changes undergone by antifascist ideology since the 1960s, fascist and antifascist models of the state and assumptions about human nature, nationalism versus globalism, the antifascism of the American conservative establishment, and Antifa in the United States. Also included is an excursus on the theory of knowledge presented by Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan.In Antifascism Gottfried concludes that promoting a fear of fascism today serves the interests of the powerful—in particular, those in positions of political, journalistic, and educational power who want to bully and isolate political opponents. He points out the generous support given to the intersectional Left by multinational capitalists and examines the movement of the white working class in Europe—including former members of Communist parties—toward the populist Right, suggesting this shows a political dynamic that is different from the older dialectic between Marxists and anti-Marxists.

"For historians, [ Fascism ] offers clear and provocative insights and arguments, and the very detailed notes are especially helpful.... Recommended." ― Choice What does it mean to label someone a fascist? Today, it is equated with denouncing him or her as a Nazi. But as intellectual historian Paul E. Gottfried writes in this provocative yet even-handed study, the term's meaning has evolved over the years. Gottfried examines the semantic twists and turns the term has endured since the 1930s and traces the word's polemical function within the context of present ideological struggles. Like "conservatism," "liberalism," and other words whose meanings have changed with time, "fascism" has been used arbitrarily over the years and now stands for a host of iniquities that progressives, multiculturalists, and libertarians oppose, even if they offer no single, coherent account of the historic evil they condemn. Certain factors have contributed to the term's imprecise usage, Gottfried writes, including the equation of all fascisms with Nazism and Hitler, as well as the rise of a post-Marxist left that expresses predominantly cultural opposition to bourgeois society and its Christian and/or national components. Those who stand in the way of social change are dismissed as "fascist," he contends, an epithet that is no longer associated with state corporatism and other features of fascism that were once essential but are now widely ignored. Gottfried outlines the specific historical meaning of the term and argues that it should not be used indiscriminately to describe those who hold unpopular opinions. His important study will appeal to political scientists, intellectual historians, and general readers interested in politics and history.

"It is a small, conservative, philosophical gem, and I love it."-Amos Perlmutter Multiculturalism and the Politics of Guilt extends Paul Gottfried's examination of Western managerial government's growth in the last third of the twentieth century. Linking multiculturalism to a distinctive political and religious context, the book argues that welfare-state democracy, unlike bourgeois liberalism, has rejected the once conventional distinction between government and civil society.

In this trenchant challenge to social engineering, Paul Gottfried analyzes a the slaying of nineteenth-century liberalism by the managerial state. Many people, of course, realize that liberalism no longer connotes distributed powers and bourgeois moral standards, the need to protect civil society from an encroaching state, or the virtues of vigorous self-government. Many also know that today's "liberals" have far different goals from those of their predecessors, aiming as they do largely to combat prejudice, to provide social services and welfare benefits, and to defend expressive and "lifestyle" freedoms. Paul Gottfried does more than analyze these historical facts, however. He builds on them to show why it matters that the managerial state has replaced traditional the new regimes of social engineers, he maintains, are elitists, and their rule is consensual only in the sense that it is unopposed by any widespread organized opposition.Throughout the western world, increasingly uprooted populations unthinkingly accept centralized controls in exchange for a variety of entitlements. In their frightening passivity, Gottfried locates the quandary for traditionalist and populist adversaries of the welfare state. How can opponents of administrative elites show the public that those who provide, however ineptly, for their material needs are the enemies of democratic self-rule and of independent decision making in family life? If we do not wake up, Gottfried warns, the political debate may soon be over, despite sporadic and ideologically confused populist rumblings in both Europe and the United States.

The Strange Death of Marxism seeks to refute certain misconceptions about the current European Left and its relation to Marxist and Marxist-Leninist parties that existed in the recent past. Among the misconceptions that the book treats critically and in detail is that the Post-Marxist Left (a term the book uses to describe this phenomenon) springs from a distinctly Marxist tradition of thought and that it represents an unqualified rejection of American capitalist values and practices. Three distinctive features of the book are the attempts to dissociate the present European Left from Marxism, the presentation of this Left as something that developed independently of the fall of the Soviet empire, and the emphasis on the specifically American roots of the European Left. Gottfried examines the multicultural orientation of this Left and concludes that it has little or nothing to do with Marxism as an economic-historical theory. It does, however, owe a great deal to American social engineering and pluralist ideology and to the spread of American thought and political culture to Europe. American culture and American political reform have foreshadowed related developments in Europe by years or even whole decades. Contrary to the impression that the United States has taken antibourgeois attitudes from Europeans, the author argues exactly the opposite. Since the end of World War II, Europe has lived in the shadow of an American empire that has affected the Old World, including its self-described anti-Americans. Gottfried believes that this influence goes back to who reads or watches whom more than to economic and military disparities. It is the awareness of American cultural as well as material dominance that fuels the anti-Americanism that is particularly strong on the European Left. That part of the European spectrum has, however, reproduced in a more extreme form what began as an American leap into multiculturalism. Hostility toward America, however, can be transformed quickly into extreme affection for the United States, which occurred during the Clinton administration and during the international efforts to bring a multicultural society to the Balkans. Clearly written and well conceived, The Strange Death of Marxism will be of special interest to political scientists, historians of contemporary Europe, and those critical of multicultural trends, particularly among Euro-American conservatives.

This book argues that the American conservative movement, as it now exists, does not have deep roots. It began in the 1950s as the invention of journalists and men of letters reacting to the early Cold War and trying to construct a rallying point for likeminded opponents of international Communism. The resulting movement has exaggerated the permanence of its values; while its militant anti-Communism, instilled in its followers, and periodic suppression of dissent have weakened its capacity for internal debate. Their movement came to power at least partly by burying an older anti-welfare state Right, one that in fact had enjoyed a social following that was concentrated in a small-town America. The newcomers played down the merits of those they had replaced; and in the 1980's the neoconservatives, who took over the postwar conservative movement from an earlier generation, belittled their predecessors in a similar way. Among the movement's major accomplishments has been to recreate its own past. The success of this revised history lies in the fact that even the movement's critics are now inclined to accept it.

This book offers an original interpretation of the achievement of Leo Strauss, stressing how his ideas and followers reshaped the American conservative movement. According to this study, Strauss and his disciples came to influence the establishment Right almost by accident. The conservative movement that reached out to Strauss and his legacy was extremely fluid and lacked a self-confident leadership. Conservative activists and journalists felt a desperate need for academic acceptability, which they thought Strauss and his disciples would furnish. They also became deeply concerned with the problem of “value relativism,” which self-described conservatives thought Strauss had effectively addressed. But until recently, neither Strauss nor his disciples have considered themselves to be “conservatives.” Strauss's followers continue to view themselves as stalwart Truman-Kennedy Democrats and liberal internationalists. Contrary to another misconception, Straussians have never wished to convert Americans to ancient political ideals and practices, except in a very selective rhetorical fashion. Strauss and his disciples have been avid champions of American modernity, and “timeless” values as interpreted by Strauss and his followers often look starkly contemporary.

Book by Gottfried, Paul

Paul Gottfried has spent a lifetime asking politically incorrect questions, untimely questions that have made him more unpopular among some timid "movement" conservatives than among critical theorists, Central European Marxists, and assorted other debating and dining partners. But in My Life with Nixon, Marcuse, and Other Friends and Teachers, Gottfried puts past political battles aside in order to recount his varied associations and friendships with a host of fascinating figures, including his father, Herbert Marcuse, Paul Piccone, Christopher Lasch, Richard Nixon, and Patrick J. Buchanan.Gottfried's memoir emphasizes the Forrest Gump-like quality of his often accidental relationships with these celebrities and stimulating personalities, the benefits of which were not social or professional but personal. He insists that his life would be of little general interest were it not for the fortuitous encounters that have raised it out of the ordinary. The result is a unique, enthralling narrative that makes a signal contribution to American intellectual history.

War and Democracy presents a selection of essays and reviews by Paul Gottfried written from 1975 to the present. They cover a variety of topics, both historical and contemporary, ranging from Oswald Spengler and the Frankfurt School to the destruction of classical liberalism, the dumbing down of higher education and the increasing dominance of administration in democratic governments. Most crucially, Gottfried sees Western governments as engaged in a messianic fantasy of bringing democracy to the world, an imperialist endeavor that has only brought disaster to all nations concerned, while liberties at home are being gradually curtailed. A recurring theme is the transformation of the modern West, and how the meanings behind the ideas and concepts which helped to build our civilization have been altered to create a new type of society that bears a connection with that of our forefathers in name only. He points out that the history we are taught and the "Right" that we know today have become signifiers for a very different reality that is in many ways opposed to what they stood for previously. Gottfried remains tenacious in his defense of the original meaning and purpose behind the conservative movement, which favors organic social growth as opposed to imposition through force and an expanding bureaucracy. "The notion that all countries must be brought - willingly or kicking and screaming - into the democratic fold is an invitation to belligerence. The notion that only democracies such as ours can be peaceful is what Edmund Burke called an 'armed doctrine.' ... It is simply ridiculous to treat the pursuit of peace based on world democratic conversion as a peaceful enterprise. This is a barely disguised adaptation of the Communist goal of bringing about world harmony through worldwide socialist revolution." Paul Gottfried (b. 1941) has been one of America's leading intellectual historians and paleoconservative thinkers for over 40 years, and is the author of many books, including the landmark Conservatism in America (2007). A critic of the neoconservative movement, he has warned against the growing lack of distinctions between the Democratic and Republican parties and the rise of the managerial state. He has been acquainted with many of the leading American political figures of recent decades, including Richard Nixon and Patrick Buchanan. He is Professor Emeritus of Humanities at Elizabethtown College and a Guggenheim recipient.

Praised by President Richard Nixon as his favorite read for 1987, The Search for Historical Meaning presents the postwar American conservative movement against a background of ideas with which it has only rarely been identified. This important book―updated with a new preface―examines the influence of Hegelian concepts on the historical attitudes and cultural judgments of prominent postwar conservatives who, because of their concern with personal freedom as a political and ontological value, denounced Hegel while ascribing their own Hegelian ideas to less offensive sources. Gottfried argues that the lack of a true historical perspective was a serious defect in the postwar American conservative movement, and it grew worse in the years that followed. Essential reading for conservative thinkers, political philosophers, and American political historians, The Search for Historical Meaning concludes with an incisive examination of the American conservative movement that has implications for today.

Paul Gottfried's critical engagement with political correctness is well known. The essays in Revisions and Dissents focus on a range of topics in European intellectual and political history, social theory, and the history of modern political movements. With subjects as varied as Robert Nisbet, Whig history, the European Union election of 2014, and Donald Trump, the essays are tied together by their strenuous confrontation with historians and journalists whose claims about the past no longer receive critical scrutiny. According to Gottfried, successful writers on historical topics take advantage of political orthodoxy and/or widespread ignorance to present questionable platitudes as self-evident historical judgments. New research ceases to be of importance in determining accepted interpretations. What remains decisive, Gottfried maintains, is whether the favored view fits the political and emotional needs of what he calls "verbalizing elites." In this highly politicized age, Gottfried argues, it is necessary to re-examine these prevalent interpretations of the past. He does so in this engaging volume, which will appeal to general readers interested in political and intellectual history.

Gottfried looks at Carl Schmitt as a critic of modern liberalism and as a defender of the national state who examined carefully Western historical and political traditions. Challenging the view that Schmitt was a mere polemicist who set out to subvert German democracy, Gottfried's work argues instead, that Schmitt criticized liberalism and democracy from a highly reflective position that combined analytical depth with staggering erudition. The book shows that almost all of Schmitt's critics try to deflect the thrust of his observations by stressing his unpleasant political associations and allegedly hidden motives. This new source also provides a useful bibliography on secondary literature dealing with Carl Schmitt's work.Gottfried's book is the most comprehensive study to date that addresses the major criticisms raised against Schmitt's understanding of politics. The book also underscores a point made by George Schwab and other recent that Schmitt made some of his strongest criticisms of liberal democracy while still a defender of the Weimar Republic. An excellent bibliographic resource, this book should appeal to anyone interested in German politics and to specialists in political theory and international relations.

Paul Gottfried explains how, during the Protestant Reformation, church reformers attempted to create stronger ties between the Bible and Christianity, which loosened during the Medieval period. Gottfried provides background information on the Reformation itself and describes the missions of John Calvin and Martin Luther in great detail. This article is part of a series, "Millennial Moments," also available as a collection from The World & I Online.

Conservative The Romantic Experience in Bavaria by Paul Gottfried is an account of the various individuals in early nineteenth century Bavaria whose thinking may be described as conservative, romantic, and utopian. These individuals were often part of a revival in Catholicism and expressed admiration for the Middle Ages and Christian mysticism. They were utopian, yet reactionary, seeking to restore a lost past from which the modern age was believed to have fallen. They may be described as counter-revolutionaries, opposing the French Revolution, defined by the Catholic traditionalist and reactionary Joseph de Maistre as "not a contrary revolution, but the contrary of revolution". Gottfried begins his book by discussing the Catholic revival, the rise of millenarianism and romanticism. Prime among the figures involved in the Catholic romantic revival include Novalis (pen name of Friedrich von Hardenberg, poet, scientist, and philosopher), Adam Muller (Protestant convert to Catholicism and romantic economic theorist advocating a corporativist state, based on medieval society), Friedrich Schlegel (expositor of romanticism, originally a radical individualist and admirer of the ancient Greeks, Indians, and other pagans who became a convert to Catholicism), Joseph von Gorres (early proponent of the revolution who grew disenchanted and became a defender of Catholicism), and Franz von Baader (romantic and social philosopher, a Catholic who was influenced by mysticism particularly the thought of the Lutheran apostate Jakob Boehme). While these Catholic revolutionaries shared political ideals with such thinkers as Burke (the father of conservativism and opponent of revolution), Joseph de Maistre (reactionary traditionalist Catholic), and de Toqueville (Catholic writer on the "ancien regime" and opponent of democracy), they also were influenced heavily by mysticism and German idealism, including such mystics as Jakob Boehme, Jung-Stilling, Saint-Martin, and the Pietists. Gottfried next turns his attention to the age of Montgelas, in which various laws were enacted which resulted in oppression for the church and clergy. Here, Gottfried notes the influence of various rationalists, including the Bavarian Illuminati of Adam Weishaupt and the Rosicrucians, who plotted against throne and altar. Weishaupt, a professor of canon law, created the Illuminati modeling his society after the Jesuits in 1776, actively conspiring to murder the king and adhering to rationalist beliefs. Weishaupt along with Adolf von Knigge (a fellow Illuminatus) actively opposed other mystical doctrines such as those of the Swedenborgians and the Rosicrucians. The Rosicrucians were another initiatory society, whose presence was revealed in the various manifestos which appeared at the time. Believed to have been founded by Christian Rosenkreuz, the Rosicrucians were an invisible society of elite scientists and philosophers who would create a utopia. The chief Rosicrucian manifesto to appear is believed to have been authored by the Lutheran minister Johann Valentin Andreae, who actively opposed the papacy and Catholic reaction. Other individuals actively influenced by Rosicrucian mysticism, along with the writings of Paracelsus, include Karl von Eckarthausen and Gotthilf Heinrich von Schubert whose book _The Symbolism of Dreams_ was to play an important role in the romantic movement. Indeed, many romantics were especially influenced by Rosicrucianism as well as Martinism (the mysticism of Saint-Martin) and the Jewish Cabbala, though they often denied this influence. The thought of Schelling, who although a Protestant was much admired by Catholics, also played a prominent part in the development of the romantic movement. Throughout this discussion, Gottfried demonstrates the various conflicts which arose particularly between Catholics and Protestants as well as conflicts involving the Jews. Another important component of the romantic movement was that of "the Awakening", a movement started by many Catholic parish priests who sought to imitate Protestant pietism within Catholicism but were also repulsed by Enlightenment rationalism. Individuals involved in this movement included Johann Michael Sailer and Johann Ringseis, Catholic priests who sought an Awakening. In the era of Ludwig I, Catholicism witnessed a revival and romantics led the way in propagating the faith. In such journals as the Athenaeum, romantics actively sought the origins of human existence, often dabbling in non-Western religions, including the Vedas, as well as ancient Greek myth (arguing that the ancient Greeks were precursors of Christianity). Romantics also exposited an eschatology in which a coming conflict with modernism would bring about the reign of Antichrist. Romantics actively made war with both liberalism and modernism, advocating a corporativist medieval state as an alternative to class conflict. For thinkers such as Muller and von Baader, the role of the worker played an...

Making Sense of Modernity

Les élections américaines arrivent et personne ne semble capable de cerner les enjeux de ces élections. La haine anti-trump fut médiatiquement unanime au point de cacher qu'une partie non négligeable des américains soutiennent encore le Président sortant. Comment comprendre l'émergence de cet homme ? Est-il un accident de l'histoire américaine ou bien l'expression d'une tendance lourde, longtemps enfouie et aujourd'hui réveillée voire structurante de la vie politique américaine. Pour le comprendre il faut revenir aux clivages qui structurent la droite américaine depuis bientôt 70 ans à travers cette étude, inédite en français. Celle-ci nous apprend comment un courant de pensée à progressivement dominé l'Etat américain tant chez les démocrates clintoniens que chez les républicains liés au clan Bush. Ce courant de pensée néoconservateur ici présenté sous l'oeil de la longue histoire de la pensée américaine prend ici toute sa dimension et toutes ses responsabilités dans une dérive économique et stratégique de l'Amérique. C'est cette dérive qui explique l'arrivée au pouvoir d'un homme hors-série, excentrique et critiquable mais qui est le symptôme plus que la cause de l'état de notre grand voisin dont la compréhension nous est nécessaire si nous voulons agir au XXI siècle. Ni l'élection, ni la possible réélection de Donald Trump ne sont compréhensibles pour les Français.Et si Donald Trump n'était pas un accident mais le fruit de l'histoire américaine ?

This volume in Religion and Public Life , a series on religion and public affairs, provides a wide-ranging forum for differing views on religious and ethical considerations. The contributions address the decline of social capital-those patterns of behavior which are conducive to self-governance and the spirit of self-reliance-and its relation to the demise of the civic-humanist tradition in American education. The unifying theme, is that classical studies do not merely result in individual mastery over a particular technique or body of knowledge, but also link the individual to the polity and even to the whole of the cosmic order. At the same time, American republicanism, in its exaltation of the common man from the Jeffersonian agrarian soldier to the apotheosis of Lincoln tempers the classical ideal into something less exalted, if more democratic. The effects on the contemporary state of the liberal arts curriculum are demonstrated in articles critical of the market-model university. Two essays explore the historical and philosophical significance of the discipline of rhetoric, that has suffered under the hegemony of rationalistic philosophy. A concluding contribution, invokes Giambattista Vico as an eloquent defender of the humanities. Humanities and Civic Life "Rome, Florence, and Using the History of the Humanities to Renew Our Civic Life" by Robert E. Proctor; "The Dark Fields of the The Persistence of Republican Thought in American History" by David Brown; "Unleashing the Humanities" by Robert Weisbuch; "Liberal Listening to Faculty" by Dennis O'Brien; "Historical Consciousness in Antiquity" by Paul Gottfried; "Taking the Measure of Relativism and the Civic Virtue of Rhetoric" by Gabriel R. Ricci; "The A Vichian Dialogue on Humanistic Education" by Randall E. Auxier.

This volume in Religion and Public Life, a series on religion and public affairs, provides a wide-ranging forum for differing views on religious and ethical considerations. The contributions address the decline of social capital-those patterns of behavior which are conducive to self-governance and the spirit of self-reliance-and its relation to the demise of the civic-humanist tradition in American education. The unifying theme, is that classical studies do not merely result in individual mastery over a particular technique or body of knowledge, but also link the individual to the polity and even to the whole of the cosmic order. At the same time, American republicanism, in its exaltation of the common man from the Jeffersonian agrarian soldier to the apotheosis of Lincoln tempers the classical ideal into something less exalted, if more democratic. The effects on the contemporary state of the liberal arts curriculum are demonstrated in articles critical of the market-model university. Two essays explore the historical and philosophical significance of the discipline of rhetoric, that has suffered under the hegemony of rationalistic philosophy. A concluding contribution, invokes Giambattista Vico as an eloquent defender of the humanities. Humanities and Civic Life includes: Rome, Florence, and Philadelphia: Using the History of the Humanities to Renew Our Civic Life by Robert E. Proctor; The Dark Fields of the Republic: The Persistence of Republican Thought in American History by David Brown; Unleashing the Humanities by Robert Weisbuch; Liberal Arts: Listening to Faculty by Dennis O'Brien; Historical Consciousness in Antiquity by Paul Gottfried; Taking the Measure of Relativism and the Civic Virtue of Rhetoric by Gabriel R. Ricci; The River: A Vichian Dialogue on Humanistic Education by Randall E. Auxier.