(8:21 PM) | Adam Kotsko:

So You'd Like To... Hate America

I have found the full text of my deleted Amazon guide with the above title. It was contained in the same comment thread that included the comment that I am an America-hating historian. I include it here for the sake of the historical record, because I cannot bear for any word written by me to be lost to posterity:

The time is now.

As a leftist, I am well acquainted with hating America. Often, my America-hating activities begin over my morning coffee. I realize that America is one of the main bulwarks of morality in a world of relativistic Frenchmen, but as a liberal, I am so completely depraved that I actively long for the destruction of all that is good and holy.

There is a rich collection of literary and theoretical resources for those who wish to hate America. In a testament to our national sickness, many of them are likely prominently displayed in your local Barnes and Noble. I have assembled a brief list here, in the hopes that true patriots everywhere will learn to know their enemy through an unbiased look at the very worst leftist demagogues who are currently placing our armed forces at risk. I will attempt to use rhetoric that will make my conservative brethren feel comfortable in what is probably uncharted territory for them.

'9-11' by Noam Chomsky is essential to all America-haters. To follow the usual conservative practice of criticizing a charicature of a book I've never read, in this partisan screed, Chomsky argues that the victims of 9-11 each personally had it coming and regrets that he was not there to drink their blood. He confesses that he molests children and that he prays to a statue of Lenin. Finally, he tells an interviewer that he plans to assassinate George W. Bush with a sawed-off shotgun. In the middle is a valuable discussion of his theory of generative grammar, for which he is rightly famous.

'Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace' by Gore Vidal is also essential to all America-haters. Punning off the title of the neoconservative philosopher Immanuel Kant's essay "Perpetual Peace," Gore Vidal (a distant relative of Al Gore and a high-culture "novelist") instructs us in the many evils of American imperialism. His simplistic polemical "arguments" remind one of the question-begging of "gay rights" activists and those who favor legalized discrimination (i.e., affirmative action). In short, Gore Vidal is a classic Clintonian hack writing an uninformed, semi-Pelagian piece of yellow journalism.

'The Spirit of Terrorism: And Requiem for the Twin Towers' by Jean Baudrillard is a touching apologia for the insane murders who attacked our nation in the most cowardly possible way -- by using only the most primitive weapons in hand-to-hand combat with a huge crowd of people that vastly outnumbered them and then sacrificing their own lives. In classical French fashion, he rambles obscurely about Heidegger while neglecting to point out that so-called "capitalism" is the only thing standing between Africa and mass starvation on a catastrophic scale. A truly scandalous piece of trendy, poseurish "postmodern" garbage, perpetrated by a closeted homosexual.

'The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century' by Paul Krugman is a textbook example of the intractable leftism of the American academy. His Royal Shrillness indulges in his trademark "criticism" of the Bush administration, which those of us who grow tired of politically correct euphemisms would prefer to term "hate-mongering" and "outright treason." How do I know he does this when the book wasn't even yet published at the time I wrote this list? I don't "know" that, of course, since only lesbian-loving liberals claim to "know" things -- I prefer to use overblown rhetoric as a mask for my a priori emotional convictions.

'Reading Capital' by Louis Althusser and Etienne Balibar might seem like an unusual choice, given that no one in the Soviet Union is likely to have read it. I chose this book, however, because Althusser and Balibar are French, and posting anything critical of Marx would likely seem anti-Semetic. Unlike 100% of all liberals, right-wing demagogues are extremely careful to avoid even the appearance of anti-Semitism, and indeed any playing of the "race card" whatsoever. If we are dealt a "race card" in the card game that is politics, we immediately lay it face down on the tableand attempt to make the best possible hand out of the remaining cards. Oh, also, Althusser strangled his own wife! Did you hear that: he strangled his own wife! It's all too common in France, where The Family has been dealt a critical blow.

'The Politics of Jesus: Vicit Agnus Noster' by John Howard Yoder is a shameless attempt to hijack Jesus and the Bible for the left-wing/communist cause. Claiming that Jesus supposedly advocated an obscure principle called "non-violence," Yoder's pernicious screed reads like an apologia for a romantic tryst between Hitler, Stalin, and Ho Chi Min. To be avoided at all costs, unless you want to be infected with romantic ideas about the supposed "injustice" of capitalism and war.

And finally, if you really want to hate America, I suggest you pick up a copy of 'A People's History of the United States : 1492-Present' by Howard Zinn. A textbook, classic example of the historical blindness of bleeding-heart liberals, Zinn will stop at nothing to destroy America's resolve and sense of purpose by appealling to irrelevant ideas such as discrimination and injustice. A terrifying look into the heart of darkness that is the hatred that liberals bear toward America.

So there you have it. If you wish to hate America, these books will help you along the way. If you wish to defend America, you can read these books and recognize their pernicious and fallacious arguments, or failing that, you can watch for people who have read them and just assume that they hate America.

Thank you for your time.

| permalink | Main Page