The appropriate metaphor for what Goldberg performed in his piece is this: imagine a lengthy pole with a bucket attached to each end. Goldberg went down to the Holy River Enlightenment to draw from the freely-flowing ordure there, thinking to spin maniacally and fling the ordure up aginst the wall too see just what would adhere thereto. Except that most of it merely splashed about him as he thrashed.

His accusations may be interpreted as follows, for greater intelligibility: CCs are fascist because they believe that religious convictions should acutally inform one’s conduct, even where those convictions, concerning community and stability are subversive of the values of the unfettered market. They are Marxist because they reject the notion that the values of that market are either sufficient unto themselves, overriding, or entitled to universal deference. They are narcissistic because they are actually self-conscious and self-reflective in their daily decisionmaking. They slander other conservatives because they demonstrate that other conservatives are not substantively conservative. They are heretics or apostates because they abstain from the veneration of Ayn Rand’s economics. They take Adam Smith at his word. And, most terrifyingly, they actually believe, and manifest in their lifestyle choices, that the satisfaction of desire ought not - and indeed cannot - be the organizing principle of society.

Distill Goldberg’s complaints down to their essence, and the resultant product amounts to an amalgam of stark terror and resentment arising from the recognition that some who abjure the claims of globalized, mass-market, laissez-faire capitalism, even upon the soul, have the temerity to arrogate the mantle of conservatism. Why, for them to do so would be to interrogate the legitimacy of the regnant social order, to deny the primacy of the individual, autonomous, passional self, and their reactionary refusal to yield with the submission of faith must result in their anathematization: “To the Left, GO!”

That’s what this little ruction is all about. The irony, of course, is that there already exists a word for what Goldberg evidently espouses: liberalism. And liberals who accuse conservatives of having embraced the phantasmagoria of the left can only charitably be described as delusional.

If his recent comments are any indication, then he really does an excellent job — at misinterpreting and getting it wrong. I don’t know about you, but it seems to me that Goldberg has a jones for de Maistre. I believe, though he may not be the only misinterpreter, that Goldberg links de Maistre somehow as a precursor to fascism. If such is the case, it illustrates the complete a-historical sensibility affecting Goldberg. He, in essence, rips de Maistre out of historical context and makes a him into caricature.

Honestly, I’d take Mark Henrie’s intellectual prowess over this hack any day. Henrie points out quite cogently that: “Fascism, on this score, would not be continuous with Maistre and Bonald, because in various ways it was enamored of modern technology and actively endeavored to mobilize mass will, or the mass consent on the part of the people.”

In any event, when speaking or referencing the work of Eric Voegelin — however extremely thought provocating and erudite it may be — it is important to acknowledge the older or newer Voegelin.

One may argue that his scholarship became progressively esoteric and mystical. As a result, his work has run the risk of being appropriated by all indiscriminately — becoming everything to everybody and nothing to nobody.

Not this is not necessarily a problem for Prof. Voegelin per se, he gains disciples (despite the fact that he’s on record abhoring such a development). Under such a condition, his insights become obfuscated and the residue of ideology he so despised begins to encrust much of his original thought.