the revolt against the masses by fred siegel

'Critical of mass democracy and middle-class capitalism, liberals despised the individual businessman's pursuit of profit as well as the conventional individual's self-interested pursuit of success,' he writes. Far from being the protector of the masses, he says, the progressive actually despises the 'boobs' who populate flyover country. Siegel flips this self-understanding on its head.

They see themselves as the vanguard of the American experiment in self-government. Since the beginning of the movement, progressives have presented themselves as disinterested, scientific experts who can solve virtually every ailment that plagues the country. Progressives claim they stand for the common man against the great malefactors of wealth on the one hand and political hacks on the other. Siegel, on the other hand, is here to tell you that these emperors have no clothes. Mainstream (read: liberal) historiography takes the likes of Stevenson, Hiss, and Croly as Very Important People who preached the truth. Snarky asides about Croly and Stevenson deflate the historical remains of the massive egos who have dominated the left since its beginnings. Rather, his goal is to rip apart the ideology's self-understanding, so he can present it as he sees it. Siegel is not at all interested in dealing with liberalism on its own terms. This is, at its core, a subversive work of deconstruction. Such asides may give Revolt Against the Masses a seemingly shambolic quality, but as one moves along through the book, one begins to appreciate the centrality of the digressions to the project at hand. Adlai Stevenson, he correctly says without elaboration, was a 'patrician' and 'a Southerner in his racial sentiments.' Alger Hiss was 'guilty as charged.' Herbert Croly acted as though he was 'Crolier than thou.' He approaches his subjects with a well-attuned sense of irony, and fills the pages with plenty of asides meant to tweak the liberal sensibility. This is a canon with which he obviously and deeply disagrees, yet he never gets bogged down by anger or resentment (though at times his visceral frustration is quite apparent). Siegel clearly has spent a lot of time reading the intellectual heavyweights of the American left. This is a fast-paced tour through 150 or so years of history, and Siegel simply has no time to indulge in notes, nor does he have any interest in distracting your attention. This is strange, considering he is writing an intellectual history.

Right off the bat, one notices with Siegel that he does not have footnotes (save a humorous aside about 'foodies' toward the end of the book).

The revolt against the masses by fred siegel