Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left
Written by Roger Scruton
Narrated by Rory Barnett
4/5
()
About this audiobook
In Fools, Frauds and Firebrands Scruton asks, What does the Left look like today, and how has it evolved? He charts the transfer of grievances, from the working class to women, gays, and immigrants, asks what we can put in the place of radical egalitarianism, and what explains the continued dominance of antinomian attitudes in the intellectual world. Can there be any foundation for resistance to the leftist agenda without religious faith?
Writing with great clarity, Scruton delivers a devastating critique of modern left-wing thinking.
Roger Scruton
Sir ROGER SCRUTON is a writer and philosopher who has published more than forty books in philosophy and politics, including Kant and An Intelligent Person's Guide to Philosophy. He is widely translated. He is a fellow of the British Academy and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He teaches in both England and America and is a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, Washington D.C. He is currently teaching an MA in Philosophy for the University of Buckingham.
More audiobooks from Roger Scruton
Beauty: A Very Short Introduction Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Kant: A Very Short Introduction Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On Human Nature Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Short History of Modern Philosophy: From Descartes to Wittgenstein Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related to Fools, Frauds and Firebrands
Related audiobooks
Conservatism: An Invitation to the Great Tradition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Return of the Strong Gods: Nationalism, Populism, and the Future of the West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Shipwrecked Mind: On Political Reaction Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Devil's Pleasure Palace: The Cult of Critical Theory and the Subversion of the West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Exit Right: The People Who Left the Left and Reshaped the American Century Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Edmund Burke: The First Conservative Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The New Right: A Journey to the Fringe of American Politics Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Lost History of Liberalism: From Ancient Rome to the Twenty-First Century Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Retreat of Western Liberalism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Save the West: Ancient Wisdom for 5 Modern Crises Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Last Call for Liberty: How America's Genius for Freedom Has Become Its Greatest Threat Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5America's Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Radicalism of the American Revolution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Open Society and Its Enemies: New One-Volume Edition Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Post Christian: A Guide To Contemporary Thought and Culture Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Communism: A History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The New Leviathans: Thoughts After Liberalism Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Anti-Intellectualism in American Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Russell Kirk's Concise Guide to Conservatism Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Reflections on the Revolution in France Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Smallest Minority: Independent Thinking in the Age of Mob Politics Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Facing Reality: Two Truths about Race in America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A World after Liberalism: Philosophers of the Radical Right Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Political Ideologies For You
The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Communist Manifesto (Unabridged) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5America's Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Stand Up to a Dictator: The Fight for Our Future Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Deception: The Great Covid Cover-Up Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Vision of the Anointed: Self-congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Terror, Love and Brainwashing: Attachment in Cults and Totalitarian Systems Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5You Will Own Nothing: Your War with a New Financial World Order and How to Fight Back Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Democrat Party Hates America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unwoke: How to Defeat Cultural Marxism in America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Get It Together: Troubling Tales from the Liberal Fringe Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Ship of Fools: How a Selfish Ruling Class Is Bringing America to the Brink of Revolution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5American Marxism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Why We're Polarized Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bullies: How the Left's Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences Americans Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hate Inc.: Why Today's Media Makes Us Despise One Another Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jewish Space Lasers: The Rothschilds and 200 Years of Conspiracy Theories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Emergent Strategy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fascism: A Warning Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Trust the Plan: The Rise of QAnon and the Conspiracy That Unhinged America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Recessional: The Death of Free Speech and the Cost of a Free Lunch Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Anti-Communist Manifesto Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Fools, Frauds and Firebrands
60 ratings4 reviews
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5A dumb book of petty arguments with mostly dead philosophers. Camus would have whooped the author.
2 people found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Astute combination of reasoned critique and polemic, amplified by quotations from major shrill and barely literate new left writers.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An excellent book by Roger Scruton. He sweeps the tradition of 20th century leftist intellectuals, their goals.
As you read, the book, you will quickly realize how most of the institutions, economy and even language is labeled as bourgeois capitalist. Scruton points out, all thinkers in the left fail to explain, an alternative, make the reader to live in an abstract concept distanced from reality. He argues that, most of the thinkers fail to see the bloodshed as a result. Revolution, is their anthem.
Here's an excerpt,
"Over-determination designates the following essential quality of contradiction: the reflection in contradiction itself of its conditions of existence, that is, of its situation in the structure in dominance of the complex whole. The is not an univocal situation. It is not just its situation 'in principle' (nor) just its situation 'in fact'"
Did you understand? No, you are not supposed to, because, it is immersed in extra-immense prose, while crying out 'let this not be doubted.'
They use newspeak, do not want anyone to challenge them, in a way, their writings are filled with incoherent thoughts. Whoever disagrees is labeled bourgeois. Even to use reason is bourgeois, thus one has to abandon it. In Postmodern culture, everything is permitted, it is vital to forbid, the forbidden.
No wonder, how Scruton managed to read them all. Kudos to him
A great read to understand, all the New Left.
Deus Vult
--Gottfried - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Cranky. Scruton settles scores with the New Left with a re-release of a 1980's book, rewritten with a poisoned pen, wielded elegantly. I wonder why he wasted the time trashing eccentric ideological non-entinties like Lacan and Zizek. (He dropped the section on R.D. Laing, so he has dropped his attack on the more marginal and less intellectual members of the set).