What Liberal Thought Has in Common with Fascism

Byline: Larry Thornberry, SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Jonah Goldberg's book is a major contribution to understanding the history of political ideas and attitudes over the last two centuries and change. It's also elucidates the present intense culture clash between traditionalists and folks calling themselves liberals, leftists, progressives, etc. The current favorite with the latter lot is "progressive" because it sounds benign.

Mr. Goldberg's case is that American liberalism has much more in common intellectually and attitudinally with fascism than conservatism does. The American variety of fascism, liberal fascism, is a mild business compared to what's taken place in Europe. It's fascism with a smile. A mommy fascism.

Fascism is one of those words used by many who have no clue what it means or what its pedigree is. This is partly because the concept is vague. Political scientists don't even agree what fascism is. We could say of fascism what philosopher George Santayana said of snobbery, another difficult concept to define, that to be called a fascist, like being called a snob, "is a vague description but a very …

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Publication information: Article title: What Liberal Thought Has in Common with Fascism. Contributors: Not available. Newspaper title: The Washington Times (Washington, DC). Publication date: February 17, 2008. Page number: B06. © 2009 The Washington Times LLC. COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale Group.

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