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A Brighter Shade of Paleo
Encounters: My Life with Nixon, Marcuse, and Other Friends
and Teachers
By Paul E.
Gottfried
(ISI Books, 275 pages, $28)
It was an October 1992 dinner at Richard Nixon's home in Saddle River, New Jersey, and the room was spinning. The conservative writer and academic Paul Gottfried was over a half hour late to the gathering, due to heavy traffic on the Jersey Turnpike and his own perennial tardiness. The 37th president of the United States was unperturbed and graciously mixed his guest a cocktail he said was a favorite of world leaders.
After swallowing nearly half the drink "in one great gulp," Gottfried recalls, "[u]ntil the time we were called to dinner about twenty minutes later, I could barely rise from my chair." Only hours later, he continues, "did I feel sufficiently confident to handle my car." Richard Nixon had gotten Paul Gottfried drunk.
Paul Gottfried has been at the center of some of the most bitter and contentious battles within the conservative movement, often on the losing side. Not that he considers those who have beaten him winners in any meaningful sense -- in his caustic assessments of modern American conservatism, he has questioned whether the mainstream movement has ever accomplished, much less conserved, anything at all.
Yet for all his literary pugilism, Gottfried is a pleasant and charming dinner companion very much at odds with the dour stereotype of a "paleoconservative," a term he coined himself. While most of the standard paleocon versus neocon grudge matches -- Mel Bradford being passed over for a job at the National Endowment of the Humanities, the Beltway right's lack of enthusiasm for Pat Buchanan's presidential campaigns, Sam Francis' firing from the Washington Times -- make an appearance, this is the Paul Gottfried on display in his latest book.
Encounters is partly a memoir, affectionately recalling Gottfried's upbringing and early life, and partly a remembrance of the major intellectual and political figures with whom the author was acquainted. Thus we read of Gottfried's father, an assimilated German-speaking Jewish furrier who was born in Budapest and immigrated to the United States to escape the Nazis in the 1930s. An FDR Democrat who "would have given his shirt away in a fit of generosity," the elder Gottfried "had nothing in common with today's feminized and media-acceptable males."
"Needless to say," Gottfried writes of his father, "he suffered in no way from the politics of guilt. He refused to work with the Fire Commission when he learned that it had established lower standards for black applicants." The father may have voted for Roosevelt while the son preferred Robert Taft, but in this regard the apple did not fall far from the tree.
Gottfried also profiles a remarkably diverse set of intellectuals he has known: the social critic Christopher Lasch, the historian John Lukacs, the radical libertarian economist Murray Rothbard, and the conservative godfather Russell Kirk. Some of them are not just friends but, despite disagreements, ideological comrades-in-arms: Lukacs, Rothbard, and Kirk fit into this category. Others were friends across a vast political and philosophical divide: Herbert Marcuse of the infamous Frankfurt School and Eugene Genovese, the self-described Marxist-turned-Catholic neoconservative.
Marcuse was a professor of Gottfried's at Yale and the author acknowledges, with caveats, certain intellectual debts. "In provocative reviews of my last two books the analytic philosopher David Gordon has portrayed me as a right-wing exponent of the Frankfurt School," Gottfried writes. "I am what Adorno or Marcuse would have been if they had been bourgeois conservatives, applying their critical method to leftist targets."
But Gottfried has practically nothing in common with the Marcuse's politics. Of left-wing academics he writes, "I found their denials or whitewashing of the most gruesome tyranny in modern history, equaled only by the crimes of the Third Reich, to be inexplicably repulsive."
In the chapter "Two Pugnacious Republicans," we meet Gottfried's two most famous subjects: Nixon and his former speechwriter Patrick Buchanan. He recalls his correspondence with the former president and his aides:
At Nixon's home, a lovely young lady then studying at Columbia, Monica Crowley, and a writing assistant, John Taylor, were usually on hand. Both corresponded with me, and Monica was particularly kind in indicating how much she had learned from my books and articles. Fortunately for her future career as a Fox News commentator, Monica seems to have been unaffected by anything I sent her boss.
Was Crowley's boss a conservative? Gottfried answers yes and no: "It was Nixon who started the ball rolling for affirmative action... the size and reach of the American welfare state grew more than it would under any of his presidential successors... Nixon opened the door to relations with Maoist China, a monstrous tyranny led by a mass murderer."
Gottfried nevertheless detected in Nixon a conservative understanding of human nature. In Gottfried's telling, Nixon "belonged to a tradition of pessimistic realism" that made him "more conservative than the global democratic crusaders, whom the anticommunist wing of his party happily embraced and often misunderstood." But in due course Nixon's pupil Buchanan would understand the liberalism of those crusaders, becoming a serious "presidential candidate of the Old Right."
Despite his obvious admiration for the wordsmith-turned-candidate, Gottfried takes polite exception to Buchanan's position on Israel and some of his chosen controversies. Gottfried gently describes "Pat's tendency to move from boldness into rashness, a quality of character that is one of Aristotle's vices." And while an admirer of paleo fellow travelers Kirk, Rothbard, and even Francis, he acknowledges they may not have been an ideal set of advisers for Buchanan. What was instead required, Gottfried writes, "was advice from someone who would be able to get Pat lots of votes on Election Day."
None of this is to say that Paul Gottfried is mellowing out. His political advice isn't likely to win lots of votes on Election Day either. But Encounters is a valuable introduction to the first self-described paleoconservative even for readers with little interest in paleoconservatism.
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S.L. Toddard| 10.9.09 @ 8:11AM
Thank god for Mr. Antle.
Mr. Antle writes that "Encounters is a valuable introduction to the first self-described paleoconservative even for readers with little interest in paleoconservatism.” Though this is indubitably true, it may turn many AmSpec readers off, as “paleoconservatism” has for Bush supporters profoundly negative connotations, and is a term many misunderstand. Professor Gottfried’s conservatism – paleoconservatism - is of the sort that dominated the right before the movement perched itself precariously atop the twin leftist pillars of "totalitarian bureaucracy" (in the words of William F. Buckley) and "global democratic revolution" to oppose the Soviet threat. In other words, it is a consistent conservatism, one that reveres the practices, institutions and traditions that keep men firmly grounded and anchored to the past, and one that recognizes that a small, fiscally responsible government cannot by definition rule over and police the world. Cold War “conservatism” was an aberration, and embraced totalitarian bureaucracy in the face of the existentialist threat posed by the Soviet Union and their massive arsenal of nuclear weapons. Now that this threat has been neutralized, paleos urge the right to re-embrace the older, more consistent conservatism – to return to small, fiscally responsible government defined by the Constitution, and to abandon our imperialistic pretentions and embrace once again the republican virtues of the Founders.
Any conservatives who grow weary of the contrast between their own small government inclinations and the government-expanding policies of the party that commands their loyalty would do well to introduce themselves to Professor Gottfried – a great man, a gentleman and a conservative scholar – and his writings.
Alan Brooks| 10.11.09 @ 4:40AM
Something HAS been conserved: we eat more than black bread; and everyone under the age of 40 is not infected with herpes:
"in his caustic assessments of modern American conservatism, he has questioned whether the mainstream movement has ever accomplished, much less conserved, anything at all."
Ken (Old Texican)| 10.9.09 @ 10:28AM
The key phrase in Mr. Antle's article above is:
"will never win many votes"
So-called paleos are just as utopian about "fortress America" as the luny toons on the left are utopian on world government and wonderful facism here at home.
I could have been a semi-paleo until 9-11 except for Israel and other small allies.
Most paleos will never learn anything. They are in their fantasy fringe right alongside the communists and facists.
Silly!
S.L. Toddard| 10.9.09 @ 10:32AM
"The key phrase in Mr. Antle's article above is:
"will never win many votes"
And it's true - because people like yourself will continue to vote in favor of Big Government, massive social programs and open borders. Conservatives are hopelessly outnumbered by people like you. You'll get no argument from me on that score - you win. And what a wonderful world you people have wrought - a multicultural America, soon to be Mexico, bankrupt and mired in nation-building crusades.
Nice work.
victor| 10.10.09 @ 12:22AM
Dear Slo Todd,
We conservatives voted for no such thing as Multi-Culti, which, by the way is incorrect.
America is a Multi-Ethnic country with ONE culture: American. No Bi-Lingualism here, pal!
http://13695.spreadshirt.com/u.....le/1816369
Sorry, Pal, but you're the one who's out-numbered and you don't get to define Conservativism.
Fantasy Fringe is correct, not Right.
Back to the Ivory Tower with the rest of the Rockwell-Raimondo Tribe.
S.L. Toddard| 10.10.09 @ 11:02AM
"We conservatives voted for no such thing as Multi-Culti"
Of course you did. You people voted the GOP into power in the 90s and Bush twice in the 00s. During the decade plus the GOP had power, they maintained an open border with Mexico - and YOU supported that by continuing to vote for them - and by extension for those policies.
"America is a Multi-Ethnic country with ONE culture: American. No Bi-Lingualism here, pal!"
You're simply wrong. America could be one country with one culture if we shut down the borders, restricted immigration and favored Anglophone countries in the process. But instead of doing that, the GOP kept the borders wide open and continued to flood America with cultural aliens from south of the border who as a result make up an increasingly significant percentage of our population. Stick your head in the sand all you want - it doesn't change the fact that you support an open-borders party that refuses to protect Americas cultural integrity.
victor| 10.10.09 @ 9:49PM
Interesting if that were true, but you don't believe a word of it.
Who exactly votes against the wall and increased border guards when they have the chance, eh?
Libs, dems, rinos and some other scalawags.
Who votes for ILLEGAL ALIEN protection, eh?
Alan Brooks| 10.11.09 @ 4:42AM
LBJ really started the ball rolling with his Immigration Act of '65.
victor| 10.12.09 @ 12:10AM
That was Dead Kennedy.
Alan Brooks| 10.11.09 @ 10:34PM
Again.
if Todd went to AmCon or any number of other blogs, he could find his own kind. but he must come here to use us as sounding boards at best.
'Foils' is more accurate.
victor| 10.12.09 @ 12:14AM
Slo Todd is a masochist as he really enjoys being flagellated for his opinions and non-factual postings.
Margie| 10.9.09 @ 9:47PM
"Paleoconservatism"~ The digging up of old Communists bones for use in present politicking.
S.L. Toddard| 10.10.09 @ 11:03AM
Poor Margie. A disloyal, unpatriotic American and an un-Christian woman. You shame both Washington and Christ.
victor| 10.10.09 @ 9:28PM
Wow! Slo Todd is a triple threat as he is now judging treason, judging citizenship and now judging Christians.
You need to worry about what God will have to say about you when you stand before Him in Judgement.
Margie| 10.10.09 @ 1:34PM
I think we'll let God be the judge of that, Toddard.
In the meantime, I'd suggest you look out for your own salvation.
Alan Brooks| 10.11.09 @ 4:44AM
Todd believes:
"every man to the Devil his own way."
Jeremiah Whitmoore| 10.11.09 @ 9:07PM
Victor,
The Republicans maintained control of Congress and the Presidency for nearly six years and yet the government grew larger and more intrusive. They did nothing on social issues and we still have open borders even after 9/11. The Republican Party and its phony "conservative" rhetoric (not liberals and RINO'S) is the problem.
victor| 10.12.09 @ 12:22AM
More mush from the wimp.
An analysis of the legislation would be nice as well as increase of Fedral Emplyees during the last 2 years, the preceeding 6 years and the 8 years of Clin'ton.
The president cannot spend one dime as it is uop to the House.
Interesting that you conveniently excuse the Libs, dems, rinos, liberaltarians and other assorted scalawags.
Look to who voted against the border guards and the wall, if you please, sir.
And who is holding it up to this day.
Dems have had control of the purse strings since Jan 2007.
Back to the fringers you go sir.
Jeremiah Whitmoore | 10.12.09 @ 3:21AM
I will retreat to the fringes of reality while you wallow in your delirium Victor...Have fun there. Of course the Republican House passed all the spending before Bush approved it.President Bush was the one pushing immigration reform not a Democrat. And of Course the Republicans supported a border wall, it would be political suicide not too. Yet, the fact remains - during the Bush administration federal spending rose 55%.
Margie| 10.12.09 @ 2:53PM
LOL! Well what do you know! Another Libertarian! You want to talk fringe?! Wow people~~ Here is what Libertarians believe~ NO GOING TO WAR! Let your beloved country die, don't fight for it, right, Jeremiah? Wonderful! Here is also what they are for: NO LAWS ON HUMAN BEHAVIOR! So everything's legal then. Drugs, prostitution, etc.
Yeah that's what we all want, right America?
Your fringe party will never work. Correction: It will work as the Democrat party works.. only by fooling the people. Make it look good but inside it is dead man's bones!
Jeremiah Whitmoore| 10.12.09 @ 8:43PM
Margie -
I am not a Libertarian. I have written extensively about the flaws of its tendency to drift into "Marxism of the Right." Also, I have criticized Ayn Rand and the Objectivist movement. Maybe you should be admonishing the many mainstream conservatives who claim Ayn Rand as an inspiration and a hero.
The caricature of libertarianism you describe is preposterous. Ron Paul, the only libertarian in congress, actually served in Vietnam Margie. Which is more then the neocons who lied us into the Iraq war (and soon Iran) can say.
Brian H| 10.14.09 @ 9:56PM
You'd think a real intellekshool would see that "inexplicably repulsive" does not equate to "repulsively inexplicable", which was the intended meaning.