t Article of The Year: Dead Last at The Bulwark // Steven Hayward

The end of the calendar is a time for “best” and “worst” lists. However, most “best” lists are simply a collection of one’s favorite moments and preferences.

But it’s another case with “worst of the year” lists, and by far the worst article of the year appearing in a supposedly conservative media outlet is Jonathan Last’s October article in The Bulwark, “Roger Scruton and the Fascists Who Love Him.” I had this article on my read-to-comment-later pile when it came out, but then I went away on my long European excursion and fell behind on the pile.

I’ve tried to keep in touch with my Weekly Standard old friends, especially The Bulwark. I have even written a few articles there. While I acknowledge the reasonable case that Donald Trump and his wider populist current have had an impact on the Republican Party’s outlook, my own balance sheet shows that Trump was more sinful than he sinned. I believe the populist turn among conservatives has been long overdue and is largely healthy. (By the by, someone who believed this a long while ago was. . . Irving Kristol. See below. *)

It was clear that Trump’s “Never Trump” mentality has turned into a fanatical one. Bulwarkers and others in the same group have gone crazy, abandoning every conservative principle just because Trump accepted them. Last, who tried to call him “the Last Man”, was really unable to make ends meet with his sloppy treatment of Scruton. Last’s article is a classic example of “ventriloquist journalism” and cites in a faux-questioning manner an article by Alan Elrod in Arc Digital.most of this article doesn’t merit the dignity of a reply.

Last fully agrees with Elrod’s condemnation regarding the existence of, among others, two Scruton Cafes in Budapest (both of them I have visited). Some last excerpts with commentary

All of this would make Scruton scream. An aspiring authoritarian had his name attached to a coffeeshop that was self-consciously revanchist. To have fifth-ranking, self-described “anti-liberal intellectuals” acting as if they are the champions for his legacy?

As I mentioned, Scruton was the real deal when it came to intellectual horsepower. He was also a great egg. It’s nice to believe so.

First, Last shouldn’t be describing intellectuals as “fifth-rank”. Last isn’t smart enough to wear Scruton’s jock belt. End of story.

Second, would Scruton be “horrified” at these tributes of his thought and influence. Let’s look at it: Sophie Scruton, Sir Roger’s widow has generously supported the Scruton project. She made substantial donations of Roger’s most prized memorabilia, as well as a portion of Roger’s personal library, to the two cafes, and to Matthew Corvinus College. It’s possible that Last, a “reporter”, might have tried to reach Sophie Scruton to inquire about her. She is more likely to know what would “horrify Roger” than Last.

Last implicitly admits that he is not familiar with Scruton’s extensive body of work – more than 60 books, countless articles, and even a BBC documentary about aesthetics – but he feels that he can make a summary judgment.

. . . Scruton’s critique on liberalism is best viewed from 1995, when communism has been defeated, liberalism has risen, and Europe has begun to heal from an 80 year-old wound.

You can stop right now–with the phrase “from 1995 with communism defeated” . “The “safety of 1995” is a ridiculously crass and clueless statement, considering that in the mid-to late-1980s, few Western intellectuals were more active behind the Iron Curtain than Scruton, who championed the liberal tradition. Scruton was not only responsible for smuggling books into Eastern Europe but also helped to run an samizdat-style underground university. He was arrested multiple times. He was also a member of a Czechoslovakia-based rock band as a cover. Scruton is a popular Eastern European musician today. We should be so fortunate to have someone who can inspire such deep interest in young conservatives. Elrod claims that Scruton Cafes are places “for ex-pats to congregate”. This was not my perception as I spent many hours working on my computer, drinking coffee or beer. They were a hotbed for Hungarians all descriptions.

For the Last Man:

It is quite another to read Scruton’s critique today of liberalism, with right-wing Illiberalism on the march both home and abroad.

In many of his essays and books, Scruton made a deep critique about liberalism’s assumptions about people, society, and politics. This critique was especially valuable when it could serve as a friendly correction to liberalism’s mistakes, excesses and contradictions. It now seems more like an indictment against liberalism, a critique that has been taken up by fascists as a foundational text.

With such a long passage, where do I begin? I will only mention the irony of Scruton’s last decade confessing to being too harsh on Market Thatcher’s market-liberalism back in 1980s. His revised judgment was that she was more intelligent than he thought. Scruton’s attachment and understanding of was correct. I have never heard or read him think that Hungary or any other eastern European country was in danger of falling into ill-liberalism. Roger and I had a long, but very pleasant, argument about Leo Strauss once over dinner. He didn’t like Strauss. He was not hostile or dismissive but explained his disagreement with Strauss’s critique of liberalism and some of Strauss’s esoteric methods. If you allow it to sink in for a moment, the irony is abundant.

Second, when did the Bulwarkians become such lazy historians? Last also added the following: ” We are all products of our time and place. It seemed to Scruton that liberalism was in ascendance at Scruton’s time and place. Conservative correction is needed. Good grief.

The most disturbing thing about this is the way Trump Derangement Syndrome has become an attachment parasite in the decayed Neoconservative mind. This is why Orban and Hungary must be demonized. Let me make one final observation. Last published an excellent book about demographics ten years ago, What to Expect When No One’s Looking: America’s Coming Demographic Disaster. Here’s the epigraph to Last’s book’s final chapter: Who? WHO?

I will treat Orban Derangement Syndrome later. I plan to continue the lengthy, but insufficient, critique of Claire Berlinski who I adore. It is, however, the epitome if a lack self-awareness and hypocrisy for Joe Biden voters to discuss Orban’s corruption or Orban direct influence on Hungarian media (the FBI, Twitter anyone?). Or his support for Matthew Corvinus Collegium. This is in a country where the mass media and colleges are partisan adjuncts to one political party. This is insulting to intelligence. Ray Bradbury’s old saying “Every simile that would make a sub-moron’s mouth twitch–gone!” This pretty much describes The Bulwark in those days when the term “fascism” was all they used to start their Pavlovian reflexes twitching.

Chaser:

* P.S. – This passage is why I believe that if Irving Kristol was still with us he would have approved of Trump. As does Norman Podhoretz, his great friend still happily living with us.

This is a new and unusual phenomenon that has no precedent. Simply put, the unprecedented behavior of American elected and appointed officials has caused a crisis in the American people’s common sense. It is a conscious effort to awaken our governing elites. This is why many people, including myself, who would ordinarily be concerned about a populist upsurge, find themselves so sympathetic towards this new populism.

Irving Kristol, “The New Populism is Not to Worry,” The public Interest 1985