Joel Schlosberg tells me I’m cited in Jonah Goldberg’s one-sided screed Liberal Fascism (a book that, I gather, quite correctly points out the fascist aspects of the statist left but studiously ignores those of the statist right). Apparently Goldberg has some kind words for Herbert Spencer on pp. 257-8:
Herbert Spencer, the supposed founder of social Darwinism, was singled out as the poster boy for all that was wrong with classical liberalism. Spencer was indeed a Darwinist – he coined the phrase “survival of the fittest” – but his interpretation of evolutionary theory reinforced his view that people should be left alone. In almost every sense, Spencer was a good – albeit classical – liberal: he championed charity, women’s suffrage, and civil liberties. But he was the incarnation of all that was backward, reactionary, and wrong according to the progressive worldview, not because he supported Hitlerian schemes of forced race hygiene but because he adamantly opposed them. To this day it is de rigeur among liberal intellectuals and historians to take potshots at Spencer as the philosophical wellspring of racism, right-wing “greed,” and even the Holocaust.
And then there’s a footnote to my LRC article “Herbert Spencer: The Defamation Continues.”
I’m glad Goldberg likes Spencer, I guess; but I’m not sure why he does. As a cheerleader for war, censorship, colonialism, torture, and dictatorship, and an inveterate foe of libertarianism (incidentally, the libertarian he refers to in that last article was my student), Goldberg ought to hate everything Spencer stood for.
In that linked tirade against libertarianism, Goldberg makes an interesting hypothetical: If your friend is ‘hysterical, drunk, and suffering from depression’ and wants to commit suicide, would it be moral to restrain him/her for a few hours until the next morning? If the answer is ‘yes’ this would seem to legitimize state power in Goldberg’s view.
One of the funny things about the hypothetical is that there’s an unstated assumption: That the friend in question will actually thank you the next morning for restraining them. However, what if, instead, the friend rebukes you and rationally explains that they really, in fact, want to commit suicide? Further, suppose that for whatever reason, this same sequence of events is being repeated in thousands of places for centuries at a time. Then what would you call somebody who said “I have to restrain you – and you’ll thank me later” in such a situation? If you answered “a damned liar”, that’s right.
Of course the hypothetical has some other amusing elements – notice the restraint only happens “until the next morning” – it’s a good thing it always works that way in real life. And of course the person in question is “depressed” and “hysterical” – a word choice that reveals, ironically, that Goldberg is as blinded by his own fervent ideology the same way in which he accuses others.
For some reason, every time I watch the blowjob scene in Pink Flamingos it makes me think of Jonah and Lucianne.
The best he ever wrote:
“if you are open to the idea that sometimes government has no role (in the market)”
then
“sometimes it has a crucial role…(and, yes, issuing currency)”
in the next to last paragraph here:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZDhlYTZhYWYwNGE5OTI1MDUwNTQ0NTAxM2ZlZDNlY2E=
“Pinochet’s abuses helped create a civil society.” Murder and torture helped create a civil society? That statement alone should disqualify Goldberg from being taken seriously as someone who values liberty. But, of course, he made so many other statements just as stupid in the few articles Roderick linked to.
Steven, I agree that Pinochet deserves nothing but contempt from anyone who values liberty. But do you think it is possible that Allende might have instituted a police state and killed numerous innocent people had he stayed in power? I realize that counter-factual speculation is almost always a road better left untraveled, but I only ask because I rarely see criticism of Pinochet accompanied with criticism of Allende, who was trying to gain dictatorial powers himself. For the record, I am in no way shape or form justifying anything done by Pinochet, nor even declaring that he was the lesser of two evils. I am merely pointing out that Allende sucked too.
Roderick, do you think that Darwin should be referred to as a “biological Spencerist?”
Roderick, do you think that Darwin should be referred to as a “biological Spencerist?”
Not really, because Darwin developed in detail the mechanism of natural selection that Spencer didn’t really think of. (The idea glimmers at the edge of one of Spencer’s early essays, but — to his later chagrin — he didn’t fully focus on or develop it at that time; he was a relatively pure Lamarckian then, as opposed to the Lamarckian-Darwinian hybrid he became later.)
“Steven, I agree that Pinochet deserves nothing but contempt from anyone who values liberty. But do you think it is possible that Allende might have instituted a police state and killed numerous innocent people had he stayed in power?”
I sometimes criticize police violence without pointing out that (freelance) armed robbery sucks, too.
“I sometimes criticize police violence without pointing out that (freelance) armed robbery sucks, too.”
touche