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The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin

Corey Robin

3.97 · Rating details · 1,990 ratings · 247 reviews

Late in life, William F. Buckley made a confession to Corey Robin. Capitalism is "boring," said the founding father of the American right. "Devoting your life to it," as conservatives do, "is horrifying if only because it's so repetitious. It's like sex." With this unlikely conversation began Robin's decade-long foray into the conservative mind. What is conservatism, and w ...more

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Hardcover, 290 pages

Published September 29th 2011 by Oxford University Press (first published August 9th 2011)

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Sep 22, 2012 Bill Kerwin rated it really liked it

Shelves: politics

Corey Robin's take on conservatism has helped me understand not only the Tea Party and pro-Trump movements, but also the triumphalist EWTN element of the American Roman Catholic Church.

People who call themselves "conservatives," Robin argues, are not conservatives at all, but rather reactionaries. (In my opinion, real conservatives--who usually do not call themselves "conservatives"--conserve; they are part of a living tradition, doing their best to preserve and adapt it, helping their traditio
Corey Robin's take on conservatism has helped me understand not only the Tea Party and pro-Trump movements, but also the triumphalist EWTN element of the American Roman Catholic Church.

People who call themselves "conservatives," Robin argues, are not conservatives at all, but rather reactionaries. (In my opinion, real conservatives--who usually do not call themselves "conservatives"--conserve; they are part of a living tradition, doing their best to preserve and adapt it, helping their tradition adjust to an ever-changing environment so that it remains meaningful and viable. In United States' politics, I believe, such people are called "Democrats.")

The reactionary, on the other hand, is quite different in his concerns and methods. Although he professes to be interested in "liberty," particularly for himself and for people who closely resemble him, what moves him to action is the alarming possibility that some suppressed group--peasants, minorities, laity, women, etc.--may not only have the temerity to exercise power, but also to do so in their own names, as if that power belonged to them as a right. The reactionary may proclaim himself the defender of a tradition, but he usually comes upon the scene after the revolution has already transformed or shattered it. He harbors in his heart a contempt for real traditionalists, seeing their softness as the reason why traditions collapse, and he admires the harsh revolutionary methods that destroy the very thing he claims to love. The reactionary fabricates a fantasy image of his moribund tradition, unleashes an appropriated version of his enemy's revolutionary tactics, and attempts to "restore" this faux tradition by imposing it upon a culture that has already evolved and moved on.

You should be aware that this book is not nearly as unified as it seems at first, consisting of articles that originally appeared over more than a ten year period--some written even before 9/11. There is much penetrating analysis of conservative thought here, but you will also find entertaining biographical "hit" pieces on Ayn Rand and Antonin Scalia, as well as a series of articles whose central theme is how conservatives have thrived for years by proclaiming the virtues of the national security state. All of it, even the earlier pieces, are well written and keep the reader entertained.

There was one thing about the book that bothered me. Robin wishes to prove that his interpretation of conservatism harks back its very first days, and so of course he wishes to include Edmond Burke in his thesis. He succeeds in doing so only by using a quote from "On the Sublime and Beautiful'--a work of aesthetics written when Burke was not quite eighteen--to interpret a political passage from "Reflections on the Revolution in France" written some thirty-five years later. (Sort of like exploiting a stray lyric from Joyce's "Poems Penyeach" to launch a definitive interpretation of "Finnegan's Wake".) This is a real stretcher, and the fact that he felt compelled to force his thesis in this fashion lessened my opinion of what is otherwise a persuasive and informative book. ...more

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Feb 04, 2018 BlackOxford rated it it was amazing

Shelves: criticism, sociology

Cultural Criticism Is a Tricky Business

Corey Robin’s essay on contemporary conservatism was published in 2011, five years before Pankaj Mishra’s The Age of Anger (See: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) and Mark Lilla’s The Shipwrecked Mind (See: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...). The Reactionary Mind covers much of the same ground at a time when the contours of that ground were less clear than they have become. And, unlike the later books, it was written more for academic consump ...more

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May 28, 2020 Michael rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: recs, 2020

Thinks through the history of modern conservatism, from the wake of the French Revolution to the present, in an impressionistic sort of way. In the lengthy first part Robin builds a convincing case for seeing conservatism as a politics of privilege for the democratic age: populist, prone to violence, laden with a sense of victimhood, and holding a tense relation to established authority. From there he surveys and critiques a wide range of disparate thinkers and politicians, including Burke, Haye ...more

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Dec 28, 2012 Avi rated it it was ok

I'm tempted to one star it, but I've read worse. The theory felt like Foucalt-lite. And the second half of the book didn't even feel like it was an attempt to write about the mind, just "reactionaries." I really wanted a psychological study of conservatism (or types of conservatism). This wasn't it. It was so crude that it even attempted to lump all "Conservatism" under a single word for hundreds of years. It's sort of laughable in a philosophically naive way. But also somewhat intellectually re ...more

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Apr 02, 2017 Sebastien rated it really liked it

I enjoyed Corey Robin's collection of essays on conservatism and I do like his approach and analysis. But one must be aware and understand he approaches things from the left. That is where he stands and it's a good idea to be aware of that, I think. Also this is far from comprehensive, it is a slight collection of essays that represents more of an outline or sketch than anything.

I don't know enough about the history of conservatism, so I'm a bit leery to accept all the arguments in here where so I enjoyed Corey Robin's collection of essays on conservatism and I do like his approach and analysis. But one must be aware and understand he approaches things from the left. That is where he stands and it's a good idea to be aware of that, I think. Also this is far from comprehensive, it is a slight collection of essays that represents more of an outline or sketch than anything.

I don't know enough about the history of conservatism, so I'm a bit leery to accept all the arguments in here where sometimes it seems like he is making it out to be more monolithic than it really is, simplifying things to fulfill some of his arguments. He does try and distill things to common threads, like conservatism at its core is about protecting (or regaining) privileges and maintaining established power hierarchies in the society. Maybe it is true in general but I don't think it is always true, like I said, I don't have a lot of depth of knowledge on the issue. So I am hesitant to agree, certainly can't agree with confidence and without massive qualifiers.

I have to say my favorite essay was the one on Ayn Rand. Absolutely scathing, Robin really takes the
knives to Rand and her philosophy (?), and I enjoyed every word of it. Here are a few lines from the Rand essay (not all are informative, some are just mean, but from my perspective they are spot on!):

* "Saint Petersburg in revolt gave us Vladimir Nabokov, Isaiah Berlin, and Ayn Rand. The first was a novelist, the second a philosopher. The third was neither but thought she was both."

* "The chief conflict in Rand's novels, then, is not between the individual and the masses. It is between the demigod-creator and all those unproductive elements of society - the intellectuals, bureaucrats, and middlemen - that stand between him and the masses. Aesthetically, this makes for kitsch; politically, it bends toward fascism." (Robin explores interesting linkages between Randian philosophy and fascism. She hated fascism, namely its collectivism, but she shared certain corollaries with it in her thinking, at least this is what Robin argues. Personally I find Rand's view that large subsets of human society are worthless parasites while others are demigods held back by these parasites to be the most dangerous part of her philosophy. It reduces the worth of human beings to their economic productivity which I find insane and anti-humanistic. I also think Rand has a fundamental misunderstanding of human nature, yes, we are selfish, to some degree, but it is not our only driving force)

* "If Kant is an athlete of the moral life, Aristotle is its virtuoso. Rand, by contrast, is a melodramatist of the moral life."

* "Rand was a lifelong atheist with a special animus for Christianity, which she called the 'best kindergarten for communism possible.'" (Robin connects Rand's animus towards Christianity to Nietszche, who Robin says viewed the religion as one for the meek, the servile, the slave, as opposed to attributes Nietszche respected in people which was power, greatness, will, the person willing to take things and make things happen. I haven't read Nietszche, at least not since I was in school, so I can't really comment on that with anything interesting, but Rand seems to have been very influenced by Nietszche)

* "We're still left with a puzzle about Rand: How could such a mediocrity, not just a second-hander but a second-rater, exert such a continuing influence on the culture at large?" (Robin explores Rand's time in Hollywood and says this is where she learned to manufacture and produce consumable Manichean dreams for the public)

* "Rand worked in that quintessential American proving ground - alongside the likes of Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and Glenn Beck - where garbage achieves gravitas and bullshit gets blessed." (just makes me laugh)

It would be interesting to read a book (by someone on the right) that examines the "Progressive Mind." At some point I'd like to read Rick Perlstein's book on conservatism, but once again this is a person on the left writing about the right so it will likely feature similar analysis to Robin's. I would like to get some balance in reading about these movements, so if you have a suggestion for what you consider a good analysis of conservatism by someone on the right (or center) please let me know! ...more

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Sep 17, 2018 W.D. Clarke rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Loved it. It's great for academics and the general reader both. Even if you are in the field there's a lot you'll get out of it. His reading of Edmund Burke is superbly and subtly argued. I wrote a much longer review on my blog here. If/when I have time, I'll try to scale it down here, but here are the first few paragraphs:

In the new edition of 2011’s The Reactionary Mind, Cory Robin updates what is sure to become a classic in the history of political thought.

As I write this the populist, Trum Loved it. It's great for academics and the general reader both. Even if you are in the field there's a lot you'll get out of it. His reading of Edmund Burke is superbly and subtly argued. I wrote a much longer review on my blog here. If/when I have time, I'll try to scale it down here, but here are the first few paragraphs:

In the new edition of 2011’s The Reactionary Mind, Cory Robin updates what is sure to become a classic in the history of political thought.

As I write this the populist, Trump-lite and thuggish, Boss-Hogg lookalike Premier of Ontario has invoked what is called the “Notwithstanding Clause” to overturn a judge’s overturning of a bit of legislation that sought to reduce the number of elected representatives on the Toronto city council—a bit of parochial political dirty tricks that make Doug Ford (brother to Rob Ford, the infamous late Mayor of Toronto) seem the most small-minded conservative ever. Yet he has great support from his base for attacking the courts, those “unelected” challengers to the power of (cough cough) the supposed will of the People. Ford is in fact just playing from the conservative (that is, the “reactionary’s”) playbook, which is analysed in great depth and to superb effect in Cory Robin’s 2017 re-issue and revision of his 2011 book, The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Donald Trump (which originally stopped at Sarah Palin, who is absent from this edition (alas?)).

The perennial aim of conservatism, Cory Robin claims, is to “build a broad-based movement of elites and masses against the emancipation of the lower orders”(xi)—to build a movement of the masses in support of the aims of the elite, in other words, to get the have-nots to campaign in favour of the haves. To do this, conservatives deliberately appeal to our worst natures, to “racism, populism, violence, and a pervasive contempt for custom, convention, law, [and] institutions”. And the first part of the book, “A Primer on Reaction”, brilliantly analyses the anatomy of this perennially self-reanimating corpse. What is the political “right” reacting against? In a word, “emancipatory movements of the left”(xvi), movements that yearn for ever-increasing freedom for the oppressed. What does the right desire to protect? What Robin calls “the private life of power”. Conservatism above all loves submission to hierarchy, and maintains its status by giving almost everyone in that hierarchy a sense that they are superior to at least someone else. Movements of the left threaten, with their appeal to “equality”, the stability of hierarchies everywhere—not only in the political arena, but between employer and employee, between men and women, and between races and nationalities. Robin spends a lot of time on Edmund Burke here—and to great effect, as that 18C pamphleteer and philosopher embodies much of the contradictory spirit of that family which has Burke as its patriarch. ...more

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Oct 13, 2018 Kevin rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: econ-market, 1-how-the-world-works, critique-conservatism

//2020 Update: still impressed with the insights from an otherwise mainstream liberal; hats off for the time spent inside the reactionary mind!

The Good:
--This book’s 1st edition later became hyped in corporate media as “the book that predicted Trump”. Make sure to read the 2nd edition (2017), which has updates such as replacing Palin with Trump, and focusing more on reactionary economics.
--I was worried this would be another mainstream centrist Liberal fluff-piece. While we roll our eyes at cor ...more

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Jun 16, 2012 C. Varn rated it really liked it

So much for the Utopianism of the left, we have to understand the inverse utopianism of the right? Indeed, The Reactionary Mind is a braid of linked essays divided into two related sections. The first section is the popular manifestation of conservative intellectual tradition, and the second is on the profound relationship between conservatism and violence.

First, a few caveats: there are a few points in which I have somewhat profound disagreements with Robins, and second I found some of the essa So much for the Utopianism of the left, we have to understand the inverse utopianism of the right? Indeed, The Reactionary Mind is a braid of linked essays divided into two related sections. The first section is the popular manifestation of conservative intellectual tradition, and the second is on the profound relationship between conservatism and violence.

First, a few caveats: there are a few points in which I have somewhat profound disagreements with Robins, and second I found some of the essays slightly repetitive because they were written to be read individually so many themes and points are hit upon blatantly by restatement because it would have been necessary in the original printing of these reviews and essays. While Robin's style is punchy, often funny, and yet intellectually serious, the nature of the essays themselves sometimes grated on me when reading the book as a whole in a few sittings. When I read the book as a collection of essays and ignored that Robin's essentially laid out his thesis in the introduction, I enjoyed these much more as reading qua reading.

Robin's thesis is highly illuminating: conservatism is not traditionalism of either capitalism or the ancient regime, although it is tied to both. Conservatism is the reactionary impulse to preserve real privileges and ways of life. Furthermore, conservatism maintains itself in the popular mode by mimicking left tactics to expand the circle of contempt: every man and every woman becomes lord of someone who they can take part in the oppression writ small. It's enough to make you wonder if perhaps David Brooks isn't really Calhoun with a friendly face.

Robin's does show, quite convincingly, there is a consistency to the Euro-American right since it emerged after the French revolution. It was fundamentally different from the soft traditionalism that supported the ancient regime before the French Revolution. Oddly, however, my favorite essay on the topic was the departure from that theme: the essay on Edward Luttwark and John Gray which Robin's partially disowns. Indeed, in this essay, Robins seem to hint that some of the values of pre-capitalist world are antithetical to the world conservatives have actually created and the abandonment of people like Luttwark and Gray betray that vision. Yet in opposition to modernity in entirety, their may support the welfare state and accept the cultural contradictions of capitalism, as even Daniel Bell acknowledged, they cannot come up with a coherent politics to support it.

Another theme touched upon by Robins, but only touched upon, primarily in his essays on the Anton Scalia and Ayn Rand, is that liberalism particularly has not been up to the job of actually opposing the right. Indeed, Scalia is allowed a rhetoric wit and scathing barbs in the court, but no liberal or moderate on the court returns the favor. In fact, when barbed Scalia is often thrown off his game. Furthermore, in the Ayn Rand section, "Garbage and Gravitas," Robins points out that often liberal and left readers of Ayn Rand have tried to give her more credit that she earns out of a want to show that large portion of the American public is enamored with someone as contemptuous as Rand. Yet as even a conservative friend of mine once said, "Rand is popular because she is elitism for the masses. It's that simple."

Another thing the second half of Robin's book is good for is an antidote to Andrew Sullivan and Sam Tanenhaus (as well as lesser known and more radical conservatives like Thomas Woods) that conservatism has traditionally been anti-war. While there is a conservative tradition that Robin's ignores that does live up to this standard-Jay Alfred Nock and the America First tradition is explicitly anti-war-the practice of the majority of conservatives since Burke has to glorify in violence as an expression of sublimity even if that violence actually leads to a more mechanized view of power, which is essentially what the conservatives wanted to avoid.

This, however, brings me to my critique of the book: to maintain a consistent view of conservatism in both sections, Robins did have to ignore parts of the conservative tradition and include other thinkers who reactionary credentials are questionable. As I have already noted, Robins does not comment on the traditional anti-war conservatives in America nor does he mention the anti-war conservatives who opposed George W. Bush and their libertarian allies. Indeed, one of the largest anti-war sites was run by primarily be paleo-conservatives and libertarians such as Justin Riamondo. Ron Paul got his street-cred, however questionable you find it, by opposing the warfare state. Furthermore, following Paxton, Robin's sees fascism as essentially conservative and enlists George Sorel's as part of his argument on the decadence cycle and the relationship to violence. I find this misleading, even in his so-called proto-fascist stage, Sorel's was essentially advocating anarchistic syndicalism and his relationship to both Marxism and anarchism is important. Fascism, while I think was a means of maintaining a form of capitalism which functioned like mercantilism, has much more than just a tactical similarity to left-wing thought. While idiots like Jonah Goldberg like to equate liberalism and fascism for incredibly facile reasons, fascism was not merely a defense of the ancient regime. It was an attempt to be both progressive and conservative at once: to ape socialism and keep a ruling class, but also to fundamentally produce a new society not rooted in old privileges. Also, Robins ignores the admittedly hyper-majority of the new far right such as radical traditionalism because these thinkers are not merely defending past privilege like Burke or even Reagan. They truly are inverse utopians.

These flaws aside, Robin's book is still entirely worth engaging with and the overall thrust of his thesis is, in my opinion, correct. Conservatism may be on its death throw because it has nothing really to oppose: leftism has been thrown out of the sphere and is only reemerging from its own ashes, New Labor and Democratic Leadership committee has become the current traditionalism of the liberal establishment unable to do anything new but ape the right and empower the business class, and so the right has become decadent and overreaching. Robin's end note is one of hope rooted in conservative fears of the decline of their own movement in a lack of real opposition. Indeed the view idea of conservatism implies it: one must be on the defense to be interested in conserving something. This is obviously no longer the case in for most conservatives. ...more

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Jul 22, 2019 Murtaza rated it liked it

This is a somewhat disjointed collection of essays that is rescued in the end by the author's uncharacteristically elegant (for an academic) prose. The argument of the book is summed up in the first and last essays: conservatism is at heart a movement based around resistance to the emancipation of society's lower orders. The essays in between riff on different themes from Nietzsche to Ayn Rand to Antonin Scalia and are of varying quality. I don’t think that anyone who is already generally famili This is a somewhat disjointed collection of essays that is rescued in the end by the author's uncharacteristically elegant (for an academic) prose. The argument of the book is summed up in the first and last essays: conservatism is at heart a movement based around resistance to the emancipation of society's lower orders. The essays in between riff on different themes from Nietzsche to Ayn Rand to Antonin Scalia and are of varying quality. I don’t think that anyone who is already generally familiar with conservative and reactionary thought will find much that is novel here. Regarding the core argument though, I think there is some truth to it.

The idea of conservatism as a political ideology was borne out of the French Revolution as the vengeful twin of its revolutionary enemy. It was a counteroffensive against the revolution and its radically equalizing tendencies. In many cases, we see that there remains a reflex of defensiveness on the part of conservatives in response to social change which seems to threaten hierarchy. It is a flexible and supple tendency as opposed to being a rigid one, and often takes on the energetic, bombastic style of the radicals that it imagines itself fighting against. Surely the Donald Trump movement is partly related to this.

But there is also a separate issue, which is the belief in absolute truths with a capital T. These would be some type of ontological beliefs about the true nature of the world and how it should be organized, be they religious or philosophical or even biological. In this sense there are conservatives who are not merely reactionaries trying to hold onto their familiar powers in the hierarchy, but people who sincerely believe that there are certain things that are true and therefore must be upheld. It is a distinction that a purely material analysis like this does not get at. I do think that he is right about the vast majority of conservative movements however, including those that like to cloak themselves in higher ideals. It’s why the Evangelical movement so shamelessly prostrates itself to Trump. They believe in power and hierarchy. Anything else is secondary, at best.

I am biased against books of essays as a rule. This one however is more readable and enjoyable than a lot of them. It avoids the pitfalls of too much navel-gazing that many other academics get into when doing intellectual histories. Believe it or not this guy is genuinely a good writer. ...more

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Feb 12, 2013 Sagar Jethani rated it did not like it

Shelves: political-theory

Rather than serving up a historical overview of conservatism "From Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin", as the subtitle promises, author Corey Robin has produced a familiar, if unoriginal, polemic against the destructive impact of today's Republican party. The briefest of historical narratives is offered early on, providing the reader with a basic understanding of Burke and the French Revolution as a defining moment for conservatism as a political idea. But these topics are quickly dispensed with so th ...more

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May 12, 2018 Mehrsa rated it it was amazing

NOTE: I read the 2018 version of this and that's the one I highly recommend because he talks about Trump a lot.

This is the book that I've been waiting for to help fully explain this past election. I've read every post-election memoir and doomsday book and they've all left me cold (if not enraged). But in this brilliant book, Robin links Trump to Hobbs and Burke and Hayek and Bush and every other conservative counter-revolution. Granted, this book is not super flattering to conservatives, but I ...more

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Sep 16, 2014 Charles David Edinger rated it did not like it

Robin's extremely simplistic pamphlet adds nothing to anyone's understanding of the great Classical Anglo American Liberal Edmund Burke's thinking or philosophy. Like most empty-headed Progressive sheep, the author demonstrates his pathetic ignorance of Burke's historical context by referring to Mr. Burke as a "Reactionary" which is a wildly inappropriate label for one of the the leading thinkers behind the American Revolution's dramatic break with the authoritarian Collectivism that had held sw ...more

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Apr 23, 2012 Micah rated it it was amazing

I'm doing an interview with the author for Guernica magazine, probably within the month. Given the book's subtitle--"Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin"--I was expecting this to be a massive, meticulous, and painstaking excavation and rethinking of conservative thought, in chronological order from the French Revolution to the 21st century. It's actually a collection of essays, mostly book reviews. But I'll be damned if this isn't one of the best, most fascinating collections of book r ...more

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Oct 13, 2012 Laura Brahm rated it it was amazing

The beauty of Robin's book is that he doesn't get sidetracked by typical liberal-conservative debates over things like gun control, taxes, or whether "conservatives are just stupid." Instead he takes conservatism seriously at its theory and practice, traces its roots and, in so doing, ultimately reveals the bankruptcy and nihilism at its core. What conservatism is really about, he argues, is the belief in fundamental, "natural" inequality: between the rich and poor, CEO and worker, husband and w ...more

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Dec 12, 2011 Karol rated it it was amazing

The Republican primaries were the perfect time to read about this. I love political theory, but it's rare to see a scholar really dig deeply into conservative intellectual thought, especially as far back as the French Revolution. This might be the first time I felt the subject was adequately explored. It reads as a series of essays that fall into one of two parts - the first emphasizing the role of the conservative as a counterrevolutionary, the second about the importance of violence in the ide ...more

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Apr 04, 2018 Dale rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: politics, history, economics, social-history

One of my all-time favs. This most recent edition draws the lineage of thought in ever starker relief. The new Trump bits are great, but nothing will ever match Robin’s savage evisceration of Ayn Rand. I purchased the audiobook, so I could listen to it each morning, and let the brutal owns wash over me like an enlivening allegro vivace.

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Nov 08, 2017 Jim Coughenour rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: politicalinsight

A philosophically entertaining examination of the reactionary roots of contemporary conservatism, from Burke and Hobbes to the impresario antics of Donald Trump. I liked Corey Robin's short definition:

Conservatism is an elitist movement of the masses, an effort to create a new-old regime that, in one way or another, makes privilege popular.

A couple months ago I read Arlie Russell Hochschild's Strangers in Their Own Land, which aimed to explain why a community of white southerners supported an ec ...more

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Jan 12, 2018 C. Scott rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This is a fairly uneven book - but the good parts are truly excellent. Reading the first two chapters, newly added for this edition, I was blown away. I found Robin's critique of conservatism absolutely devastating - it was soooooo friggin great! The early section of the new edition makes this book worth the price of entry. If Robin had been able to maintain that level of incisiveness and deadliness this would have been not a five star book but a six or seven star book. We would have to add grad ...more

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Jan 04, 2012 Kate Woods Walker rated it it was amazing

At the close of The Deepening Darkness: Patriarchy, Resistance, and Democracy's Future by Carol Gilligan and David A.J. Richards, another five-star book, the authors ask why patriarchal men are so fearful of meeting females on equal footing. Corey Robin, in The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin, has the answer.

Without hierarchy, they would not exist. Without some external measure of their supposed superiority, they are nothing. Without someone to stand upon, they ha At the close of The Deepening Darkness: Patriarchy, Resistance, and Democracy's Future by Carol Gilligan and David A.J. Richards, another five-star book, the authors ask why patriarchal men are so fearful of meeting females on equal footing. Corey Robin, in The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin, has the answer.

Without hierarchy, they would not exist. Without some external measure of their supposed superiority, they are nothing. Without someone to stand upon, they haven't the ability to stand upright.

In a masterful introduction that lays out his case, Robin cuts through the many logical inconsistencies of modern conservatism (small government boosters who want to legislate each centimeter of intrusion into women's bodies, etc., into infinity) to get to the heart of the matter. Conservatives must have, above all else, a hierarchy. A contest, with winners and losers. Some way to measure and prove that they are better, stronger, smarter, more than The Other. Than you.

Where liberals look at human existence and see community--a family of man--conservatives look at humanity and see a contest. There are no internal measures of self-esteem in the conservative mindset, only externals. Money. Body counts. Notches on the bedpost. Numbers of people fired.

This is also the same sort of divide between empaths and sociopaths. And if the score can be increased by ruthless brutality and violence for its own sake, more's the better.

In a series of essays and articles written over a decade, Robin considers everything from Edmund Burke's railings against the French Revolution to the selfish hypocrisy of Ayn Rand. And with a conclusion that (much like Thomas Franks' recent Pity the Billionaire) freely acknowledges the crushing victories of the modern conservative, the only mystery remaining is what these control freaks will do once they've brought the country to inevitable ruin.

If you have ever wondered what makes these people tick, herein lies the most logical answer I have found. ...more

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Mar 11, 2012 Andy rated it really liked it

The ambitious premise is to try to define/understand conservatism through time and space. The author logically explores various popular assumptions about conservatism (it's about following rules, traditions, etc.) and explains why they are false. He makes a good case for his use of the word "reactionary" as a frame.

This is a collection of essays but they are connected enough that the whole thing works as a book. Robin is not a conservative but his points are based on quoting famous conservative ...more

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Nov 07, 2011 Phil rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history, politics, nonfiction

A fascinating journey into the mind of darkness. The author ties together conservative strains of thought that, on the surface, may appear dissonent, but when you unpack the history and logic, make perfect "sense." If you want to get a better understanding of how the modern American conservative "thinks," this is a must-read book. ...more

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Feb 21, 2012 Colleen Clark rated it really liked it

Recommended to Colleen by: Chris Hayes/Up with Chris

Shelves: politics-terror

I bought this book on the recommendation of Chris Hayes from his MSNBC show Up With Chris when he invited Corey Robin and introduced him as someone who had written one of Chris' favorite books of the year.

Before I started to read it there was an article in the NYTimes (1/19/12) "Online Fracas For a Critic of the Right" with links to two book reviews - NY Times Book Review and NYRB. So I had conflicting opinions about the book before I opened it.

Well, I agree with Hayes and think the 2 reviewers I bought this book on the recommendation of Chris Hayes from his MSNBC show Up With Chris when he invited Corey Robin and introduced him as someone who had written one of Chris' favorite books of the year.

Before I started to read it there was an article in the NYTimes (1/19/12) "Online Fracas For a Critic of the Right" with links to two book reviews - NY Times Book Review and NYRB. So I had conflicting opinions about the book before I opened it.

Well, I agree with Hayes and think the 2 reviewers were sorry that Robin hadn't written a book they way they would have. Sheri Berman (NY Times 10/7/11). A book documenting the wreckage (sorry state of contemporary American politics) and carefully tracking the links between right-wing ideas, policies and outcomes.... Unfortunately [this] is not that book." So?

The NYRB review more reasonably takes issue with the arguments of the book. But in the end I didn't agree.

For one thing, the book is mostly a collection of reviews Robin has written in The Nation, the London Review of Books, et al from about 2001 to 2010. So it is relevant to but decidedly not about the 2011-2012 election cycle.

Overall, the arguments are complex and bear following closely.

First sentence of the Introduction, p3, "Since the modern era began, men and women in subordinate positions have marched against their superiors in the state, church, workplace, and other hierarchical institutions."

From the Conclusion, pp 246-48, "Conservatism has dominated American politics for the past forty years. Just as the Republican administrations of Eisenhower and Nixon demonstrated the resilience of the New Deal, so have the administrations of Clinton and Obama demonstrated the resilience of Reaganism....The success of the right is not an unmixed blessing....Several recent books of conservative introspection suggest that many on the right are indeed concerned about the state of conservative ideas. But most of these attempts at self-criticism seem motivated by a simple fear of defeat at the polls...[But] Conservatism requires defeat; failure is its most potent source of inspiration."

That sums it up. ...more

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Jul 23, 2012 tom bomp rated it liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, politics, history

Interesting, but falls down in that it's a collection of disconnected essays with only a somewhat loose theme connecting them - contrary to what the book's description would lead you to believe. The book is most interesting as a brief survey of conservative thought historically. When it talks about the past decade it doesn't really connect the ideas about conservative thought that he's developed with modern movements. The introduction is really a pretty good summary of the whole book and probabl ...more

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Nov 22, 2016 Adam rated it it was amazing

Shelves: essays, politics, favourites, history, my-favourite-non-fiction, the-left

Connor Kilpatrick's review for the eXiled says it better than I can:

Robin’s thesis is simple: ignore the Right-wing taxonomy. Conservatism–despite the seemingly incompatible respective ideologies of free-marketeers, slavers, neocons, neofascists, Buckleys, Federalists, Bloombergians, traditionalists, Tea Baggers, Randians, McCarthyists, libertarians, Birchers, Goldbugs, Jesus Freaks, J .Edgars, pro-lifers—has been, in reality, firmly united behind a single mission since the French Revolution: t ...more

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Oct 19, 2017 Julia Deng rated it liked it

Rubin is at his best when he's gleefully shitting on other people. The chapter on Ayn Rand, titled "Garbage and Gravitas," is particularly fun. The Scalia chapter is a good read too. Other than that, I don't feel like I got a whole lot out of this book.

I wonder if this book is trying to do too much. It's cultural criticism and biography and intellectual history all at once. I don't feel like it's especially innovative in any of these areas. Maybe I'm just misunderstanding its essential project? ...more

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Sep 15, 2012 Nicolas Brannon rated it it was amazing

A brilliant, indispensable book about the core motivations of conservatism that defines and explains the essential philosophical differences between Left and Right. This is a must-read for anyone on the Left who wishes to understand the Right in depth. This is not a book about scoring political points. It is about understanding in great detail the political cycle of the challenge to hierarchies and inequalities and the reaction, focusing on the reaction, the counter-revolution. Robin's depth of ...more

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Jan 15, 2016 Christopher McQuain rated it it was amazing

Lucid, sobering, impressively learned and, rarest of all, EARNS and rigorously supports every last shred of its counter-intuitiveness (it's not merely contrarian in the manner of op-ed poseurs; there are real stakes Robin takes seriously enough to patiently and forbearingly develop and account for his ideas and arguments, rather than merely declaim or opine). Offers all the pleasurable discomfort of fresh, new, expansive thoughts. ...more

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Sep 21, 2014 Horza added it · review of another edition

A striking and incisive analysis of conservatism that could do with more elaboration than a decade-spanning collection of essays.

UPDATE:

The Second Edition improves on the first, expanding on conservatism’s relationship with capitalism via essays on Burke as von Mises avant la lettre, the Neitszchean dimensions of Hayek and Ayn Rand’s metaphysical kitsch.

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Jan 04, 2012 Foppe rated it really liked it

Short summary: Very interesting thesis, but not worked out well enough to be an instant classic.

"From life's school of war. -- What doesn't kill me makes me stronger." (Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, Maxim 8)

As the title suggests, Robin's aim is to explain what drives the reactionary conservative, as well as reactionary political movements. His argument, in a nutshell, is that they are not concerned primarily with 'conserving' any particular status quo, or with keeping the rate of societal change as low as possible. Rather, their primary goal is to make sure that society is organized in such a way that it is for people to be hierarchically ranked, and for the (value) differences between unequal people to (once again) be recognized; in their opinion, society should make room for, if not maximize, the amount of room it leaves for such contests to occur. As such, reactionaries differ fairly markedly from regular conservatives, who are perfectly happy to rest on their laurels, and simply assume their superiority. (Which is not to say that reactionaries aren't perfectly happy to stack the deck in their own favor, by favoring an unfair division of the available resources; but I guess that shouldn't surprise anyone.) The actual inequality, poverty, etc., that results from their efforts to make society more 'competitive' again matters little to them, as it is simply the (proper) consequence of the 'existential fact' that life is struggle and necessarily contains winners and losers, combined with the fact that people should be able (and want) to constantly test themselves. In other words (although Robin doesn't put it this way), they want society to be as Dionysian as possible.

Yet although I found the premise intriguing, and parts of the book quite illuminating as well as compelling as a first attempt to understand the way the reactionary mind works, I have to say that it fell rather short of my expectations about the book after reading about it online. This is mainly because of the fact that Robin's approach strikes me as somewhat lacking in rigor. The book consists of an introduction, which was written especially for the book, followed by eleven essays all previously published elsewhere. In the introduction, Robin makes a number of what seem to me to be valid observations and good suggestions as to how to understand the later essays. Yet the later essays appear not to have been edited at all, so that they contain next to no links to the discussions in the other chapters, or even back to the introductory remarks. Furthermore, it seems to me that rather too little little is said about the question how the various strands of conservatism relate to each other. To the extent he does compare, the purpose is to clarify how or why someone or some attempt should be considered reactionary. Now, although this is justifiable given the premise of the book, it left me feeling somewhat unconvinced, while I cannot shake the feeling that if he had paid more attention to these questions -- either by including more original work, or by revising the essays more when preparing them for publication as part of this book -- I suspect that his case would've been rather more compelling than it is now.
Having said that, the question Robin poses seems to me an important one, and what he has to say certainly provides food for thought -- especially the analysis of Burke, and the essays about Ayn Rand and the one about the relationship between the Neoconservatives and the Neoliberals.
(Edit: For another review that gets at these issues, while focusing more strongly on the question what this means for politics, see this.) ...more

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Jul 23, 2017 Krista Danis rated it it was amazing

Shelves: political-theory, non-fiction

Corey Robin's analysis of modern American conservatism in The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin was assembled in 2011, long before the catastrophe and chaos that has taken over/decimated our government today. There is, however, an eerily predictive quality about his essays, and the continuity of criticism that is illuminated by this collection. In his conclusion, Robin quotes Edmund Burke in the following appropriately placed statement on conservatism, "'It is our i Corey Robin's analysis of modern American conservatism in The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin was assembled in 2011, long before the catastrophe and chaos that has taken over/decimated our government today. There is, however, an eerily predictive quality about his essays, and the continuity of criticism that is illuminated by this collection. In his conclusion, Robin quotes Edmund Burke in the following appropriately placed statement on conservatism, "'It is our ignorance of things that causes all our admiration, and chiefly excites our passions. Knowledge and acquaintance make the most striking causes affect but little'" (244).

In general, his arguments center around three main failures of modern criticism of American conservatism. First, current criticisms ignore the deep-rootedness of European conservatism in American politics as it disconnects from capitalism and aligns with fascism. Second, and similarly, modern theory fails to examine this connection far enough back historically. Finally, Robin argues, conservatism is reactionary and counterrevolutionary.

Robin illustrates the ways in which those on the right perceive themselves as outsiders forced to protect the American values that preserve and protect patriarchal, hierarchical power. He states, "The conservative, to be sure, speaks for a special type of victim: one who has lost something of value, as opposed to the wretched of the earth, whose chief complaint is that they never had anything to lose" (58). In this, the conservative is a privileged reactionary whose dispossession is the center of impassioned struggle, indeed definitive of it. From here, Robin extends nuanced threads of analysis to address the undercurrents (or floods) of violence that have mysteriously captivated western conservatives, expertly deconstructing Hobbes and Rand while remembering to integrate Goldwater and Schlafly. Ultimately, he returns to Burke and his explanation of the sublime as the inspiration for right-wing violence and the faux ambivalence the conservative presentation of self has mastered.

This book is sophisticated in its analysis but accessible to anyone willing to set aside their personal revulsion or adoration for a stab at a cohesive explanation. Robin offers a compelling viewpoint, singularly complex, that can inform a much broader consideration of the current desperation that has paralyzed American society on all fronts. ...more

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About Corey Robin

Corey Robin

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Corey Robin is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College.

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“Saint Petersburg in revolt gave us Vladimir Nabokov, Isaiah Berlin, and Ayn Rand. The first was a novelist, the second a philosopher. The third was neither but thought she was both.” — 42 likes

“Every once in a while, however, the subordinates of this world contest their fates. They protest their conditions, write letters and petitions, join movements, and make demands. Their goals may be minimal and discrete — better safety guards on factory machines, an end to marital rape—but in voicing them, they raise the specter of a more fundamental change in power. They cease to be servants or supplicants and become agents, speaking and acting on their own behalf. More than the reforms themselves, it is this assertion of agency by the subject class—the appearance of an insistent and independent voice of demand — that vexes their superiors. Guatemala’s Agrarian Reform of 1952 redistributed a million and a half acres of land to 100,000 peasant families. That was nothing, in the minds of the country’s ruling classes, compared to the riot of political talk the bill seemed to unleash. Progressive reformers, Guatemala’s arch-bishop complained, sent local peasants “gifted with facility with words” to the capital, where they were given opportunities “to speak in public.” That was the great evil of the Agrarian Reform.” — 9 likes

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