[lbo-talk] 'The Reactionary Mind': An Exchange

// ravi ravi at platosbeard.org
Thu Feb 2 20:40:10 PST 2012


An exchange of letters between Corey Robin and Mark Lilla in the NYRB: http://l.ravi.be/zl30uN. I have no read Robin’s book. But from the sections quoted critically by Lilla and in Robin's defence by Gourevitch, as well as from Robin’s own defence (see URL above), I have the inkling that Lilla has this one right.


>From Robin’s own words in his letter to the NYRB, it is difficult not to find that he is in fact of the opinion that there is such a thing as a conservative mind and that he is able to peer into it and find its inner working … as Lilla puts it w.r.t Robin’s words about the conservatism of the “lower orders": "Robin believes in false consciousness and in intellectuals’ ability to see through it”.

Or as Robin himself puts it:

"I show that the lower orders often join, and have good reason to join, the conservative cause: in fending off a democratic movement from below, conservatism gives them a taste of lordly power they otherwise would not enjoy.”

How “a taste of lordly power” is a *good* reason, is a mystery to me.

—ravi (wishing I had time/energy for a coherent response to Gourevitch)



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