[Peter Watson is the author of A Terrible Beauty: The People and Ideas that Shaped the Modern Mind, and Ideas: A History from Fire to Freud.]

If Gillian Gibbons, the British schoolteacher, was not incarcerated somewhere in Sudan, the whole Teddy Bear called Mohamed incident would be comical. But it serves to remind us once again that fundamentalist religion and Western values do not sit together. And it rubs in that we should spend more time promoting secularism around the world and worry less about spreading democracy.

Consider some dates. Native Americans got the vote in the United States in 1924. Spanish women were given the same privilege in 1931, French women in 1944. Lords of the Realm in the United Kingdom could not vote in parliamentary elections until 1999. Although democracy began in Athens two and a half thousand years ago, it was for centuries a fragile flower and has blossomed only recently.

Democracy, we tell ourselves, is a hallmark of “the West”, the treasure that the rest of the World envies and that accounts for the pre-eminence of Europe and North America in economic progress, intellectual dominance and moral freedoms.

But it's not the case when you examine the chronology. The rise of the West had much less to do with democracy than with the rise of secularism. The West's advance was chiefly related to the decline in the influence of religion that sought the truth by “looking in” to see what God had to say, and its replacement by looking out, deriving authority from observation, experimentation and exploration.

The original figures to draw attention to this were Bishop Robert Grosseteste, early in the 13th century, the first person to imagine the experiment, and his contemporary, St Thomas Aquinas, the first man to imagine a secular world, a world without God directing everything. Secularism is not the same as atheism, of cours, both Grosseteste and Aquinas were priests. But they helped us to escape from the overbearing medieval view that the world has meaning and pattern only in relation to God....

In China, at the moment, every member of the Standing Committee of the Politburo, the central bastion of power, is a trained engineer -- every one. There is not a religious figure in sight, the country is going from strength to strength, former Maoists have seen the light, recognising rationally the prosperity that technology can bring; and elections are simply not the issue there that they are in Pakistan. Prosperity comes from secularism, and where you have prosperity you have political and social stability. Only once you have stability can you start thinking sensibly about elections.

Paige Quintel - 1/28/2008

New book "Liberal Fascism"
prove my point.

Paige Quintel - 1/28/2008

Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning (Hardcover)


“Fascists,” “Brownshirts,” “jackbooted stormtroopers”—such are the insults typically hurled at conservatives by their liberal opponents. Calling someone a fascist is the fastest way to shut them up, defining their views as beyond the political pale. But who are the real fascists in our midst?

Liberal Fascism offers a startling new perspective on the theories and practices that define fascist politics. Replacing conveniently manufactured myths with surprising and enlightening research, Jonah Goldberg reminds us that the original fascists were really on the left, and that liberals from Woodrow Wilson to FDR to Hillary Clinton have advocated policies and principles remarkably similar to those of Hitler's National Socialism and Mussolini's Fascism.

Contrary to what most people think, the Nazis were ardent socialists (hence the term “National socialism”). They believed in free health care and guaranteed jobs. They confiscated inherited wealth and spent vast sums on public education. They purged the church from public policy, promoted a new form of pagan spirituality, and inserted the authority of the state into every nook and cranny of daily life. The Nazis declared war on smoking, supported abortion, euthanasia, and gun control. They loathed the free market, provided generous pensions for the elderly, and maintained a strict racial quota system in their universities—where campus speech codes were all the rage. The Nazis led the world in organic farming and alternative medicine. Hitler was a strict vegetarian, and Himmler was an animal rights activist.

Do these striking parallels mean that today’s liberals are genocidal maniacs, intent on conquering the world and imposing a new racial order? Not at all. Yet it is hard to deny that modern progressivism and classical fascism shared the same intellectual roots. We often forget, for example, that Mussolini and Hitler had many admirers in the United States. W.E.B. Du Bois was inspired by Hitler's Germany, and Irving Berlin praised Mussolini in song. Many fascist tenets were espoused by American progressives like John Dewey and Woodrow Wilson, and FDR incorporated fascist policies in the New Deal.

Fascism was an international movement that appeared in different forms in different countries, depending on the vagaries of national culture and temperament. In Germany, fascism appeared as genocidal racist nationalism. In America, it took a “friendlier,” more liberal form. The modern heirs of this “friendly fascist” tradition include the New York Times, the Democratic Party, the Ivy League professoriate, and the liberals of Hollywood. The quintessential Liberal Fascist isn't an SS storm trooper; it is a female grade school teacher with an education degree from Brown or Swarthmore.

These assertions may sound strange to modern ears, but that is because we have forgotten what fascism is. In this angry, funny, smart, contentious book, Jonah Goldberg turns our preconceptions inside out and shows us the true meaning of Liberal Fascism.



About the Author

JONAH GOLDBERG is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times and contributing editor to National Review. A USA Today contributor and former columnist for the Times of London, he has also written for The New Yorker, Commentary, the Wall Street Journal, and many other publications. He lives in Washington, D.C.
Great minds think alike I have been saying this for years moron

Arnold Shcherban - 12/13/2007

<I am a Socialist, and a very different kind of Socialist from your rich friend, Count Reventlow. . . . What you understand by Socialism is nothing more than Marxism.>

Your own quote defeats all the rest
of your philosophizing on the issue in question, don't you really see it?

I emphasize once more: <a very different kind of Socialist... What
you understand by Socialism is nothing more than Marxism.>
Which was exactly one of the major points of my previous comments: as history and today clearly show, folks with very disparate ideological ideas and practices call(ed) themselves socialists, but whether the "socialism" they adhere(d) to is the Marxist socialism or National socialism (Nazism) or wellfare capitalism (as it is christened in the US) is totally separate and different issue and that is the one that actually defines
the kind of socialism they preach:
from totalitarian Stalin/Mao-like to liberal capitalist Sweden/Norwegian-like one. If you don't see any significant difference among all these kinds of socialism, our conversation is to screech to a haul, since I don't debate colors with blind folks.

Paige Quintel - 12/13/2007

Nazism or National Socialism ,German: Nationalsozialismus) refers primarily to the ideology and practices of the Nazi Party under Hitler and the policies adopted by the government of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945, a period also known as the Third Reich.National Socialism differs from Marxism in its nationalism, emphasis on folk history and culture, idolization of the leader, and its racism. But the Nazi and Marxist-Leninists shared a faith in government, an absolute ruler, totalitarian control over all significant economic and social matters for the good of the working man, concentration camps, and genocide/democide as an effective government policy only in his last years did Stalin plan for his own Holocaust of the Jews.

I've read Hitler's Mein Kampf and can quote the following from Volume 2:

Chapter VII:
In 1919-20 and also in 1921 I attended some of the bourgeois [capitalist] meetings. Invariably I had the same feeling towards these as towards the compulsory dose of castor oil in my boyhood days. . . . And so it is not surprising that the sane and unspoiled masses shun these 'bourgeois mass meetings' as the devil shuns holy water.
Chapter 4:
The folkish philosophy is fundamentally distinguished from the Marxist by reason of the fact that the former recognizes the significance of race and therefore also personal worth and has made these the pillars of its structure. These are the most important factors of its view of life. &#8232;

If the National Socialist Movement should fail to understand the fundamental importance of this essential principle, if it should merely varnish the external appearance of the present State and adopt the majority principle, it would really do nothing more than compete with Marxism on its own ground. For that reason it would not have the right to call itself a philosophy of life. If the social programme of the movement consisted in eliminating personality and putting the multitude in its place, then National Socialism would be corrupted with the poison of Marxism, just as our national-bourgeois parties are.
Chapter XII:
The National Socialist Movement, which aims at establishing the National Socialist People's State, must always bear steadfastly in mind the principle that every future institution under that State must be rooted in the movement itself.

Some other quotes:

Hitler, spoken to Otto Strasser, Berlin, May 21, 1930:
I am a Socialist, and a very different kind of Socialist from your rich friend, Count Reventlow. . . . What you understand by Socialism is nothing more than Marxism.

The connection between socialism and nationalism in Germany was close from the beginning. It is significant that the most important ancestors of National Socialism—Fichte, Rodbertus, and Lassalle—are at the same time acknowledged fathers of socialism. .... From 1914 onward there arose from the ranks of Marxist socialism one teacher after another who led, not the conservatives and reactionaries, but the hard-working laborer and idealist youth into the National Socialist fold. It was only thereafter that the tide of nationalist socialism attained major importance and rapidly grew into the Hitlerian doctrine.
The official name of the Nazi party was the National Socialist German Workers' Party, (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP). Nazism was the main form of National Socialism that emerged after World War 1, and is generally considered by scholars to be a form of fascism,Nazism was not a monolithic movement, but rather a (mainly German) combination of various ideologies and groups, sparked by anger at the Treaty of Versailles and what was considered to have been a Jewish/Communist conspiracy to humiliate Germany at the end of the First World War. The National Socialist party described itself as socialist, and at the time, conservative opponents such as the Industrial Employers Association described it as "totalitarian, terrorist, conspiratorial, and socialist."
Among the key elements of Nazism were anti parlimentarian, nationalism, racism, collectivism, eugenics, antisemitism, opposition to economic liberalism and political liberalism, a racially-defined and conspiratorial view of finance capitalism,anti-communism, and totalitarianism.
The term Nazi is derived from the first two syllables of Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, the official German

language name of the National Socialist German Workers Party (commonly known in English as the Nazi Party. Party members rarely referred to themselves as Nazis, and instead used the official term, Nationalsozialisten (National Socialists). Nazi was a pejorative term used by opponents of the movement, especially in southern Germany. The word mirrors the term Sozi, a common and slightly derogatory term for the Social Democratic Party of Germany (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands).When Adolf Hitler took power, the use of the term Nazi almost disappeared from Germany, although it was still used by opponents in Austria.

There are three major divisions of socialism, all antagonistic to each other. One is democratic socialism, that places the emphasis on democratic means, but then government is a tool for improving welfare and equality. A second division is Marxist-Leninism, which based on a "scientific theory" of dialectical materialism, sees the necessity of a dictatorship ("of the proletariat") to create a classless society and universal equality. Then, there is the third division, or state socialism. This is non or anti-Marxist dictatorship that aims at near absolute economic control for the purpose of economic development and national power, all construed to benefit the people.
Mussolini's fascism was a state socialism that was explicitly anti-Marx and aggressively nationalistic. Hitler's National Socialism was state socialism at its worse. It not only shared the socialism of fascism, but was explicitly racist.
Hitler not only called himself a socialist but that he WAS in fact a socialist by the standards of his day. Ideas that are now condemned as Rightist were in Hitler's day perfectly normal ideas among Leftists. And if Friedrich Engels was not a Leftist, I do not know who would be.

Arnold Shcherban - 12/12/2007

Nazi's ideology has been and remains directly OPPOSITE to socialist/communist ideology
of Marxism, which is a FACT confirmed by the very Nazi ideologues
and leaders, and anyone with even cursory knowledge of the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Plechanov, Trotsky. etc.
It is directly opposite to the socio-economic system based on private capital and class divisions, the system which had been in place under
Hitler in Germany, Mussolini in Italy, and in militaristic Japan.
Thus, to state that either Germany, or Italy, or Japan were socialist countries (along the Marxist definition of "socialist") over the historical period
they committed crimes against humanity and killed millions is the raving of folks with one particular syndrom: zoological anti-communism - the fanaticism akin to a religious one.

The socialist system is also directly opposite to the
countries where socio-economic system is the indivisible mixture of predominant religion and private capital.
Notice: practically all countries of fanatical Islam are countries of private capital, not socialist ones aren't they?
And to the contrary: no socialist country without private capital, or socialist countries with private capital are permeated by either religious traditions and practices or religious fanaticism; they are very secular.

Now about university education.
You assert that the most of University professors are ideological socialists and all they teach is Left propaganda.
If you can present hard statistical proof of "socialization" of higher education in this country taken from governmental/official sources, not
from such Right/former Left ideologues, as Horowitz, we can talk further.
Judging by the percentage of folks - all University graduates and supposedly brainwashed by the Left professorship - I know personally and debated with on these boards who hold socialist ideas close to their hearts, I would evaluate the relative number of those professors, as very low.

Even if it is true that many of the professors recommend the works of communist authors, can we "suspect" for just a second that perhaps they have another goal in mind: to make their students knowlegable not of just one-two predominant in this society socio-economic and philosophical theories, but of wider variety of those, and then only form their own opinions?
Aren't we live in a free society with
free circulation and competition of ideas?
And may be, just may be, if the most of the most educated and intellectual folks among us tend to the Left (as you define this side of ideological and political spectrum)
their tendency constitutes something which is called Scientific Conclusion based on facts and logic of facts, as they know it...

Paige Quintel - 12/12/2007

Japan and China are not really very religious countries.They were socialist/communist. Japan had Shintoism in the 1930's and they added Emperor worship to it.The 'Emperor System', also known as State Shinto united the Japanese people behind the emperor in the country's drive towards modernization and acquisition of an overseas empire. From 1868 to 1945 the idea that emperor-worshipping Shinto was the unique - and ancient - religion of Japan was successfully promoted through the national education system. This19th-century image of Shinto as an ancient national religion is, as a result, widespread even today. By the time the military took control of government in the 1930's Shinto-based nationalism permeated every aspect of Japanese life and was influencing the teachings and practices of all other religions in Japan.Shintoism is similar to Animism,or New Age Germany.
The Japanese still LOVE Germans.(lived there 7 years.)They are still in love with being a pure-blooded race..and not a mixed blood race.

It is also where they invented Meth and gave it to Komakasi pilots so the would complete their missions.The other countries you mentioned ...MUSLIMS countries and the neighbors they chose to fight with.The goal... instituting a new world wide Caliphate... one world under Islam.

Paige Quintel - 12/11/2007

Thanks for making my point.

1930 and 1940 Italy and Germany were socialist and secular countries.They were NEW AGERS exactly like the US movement now.

Germany was at that time was a bastion of NEW AGE thought with Gai parades and women dressed as Mother Earth,in fact everything you see in the New age movement in the US is exactly the same as in Germany. Every new ager knows Madam Blavatsky, Hitler was big on the Occult. Google it.He was creating a post Christian Neo pagan world.
"Creation is not finished. Man is clearly approaching a phase of metamorphosis. The earlier human species has already reached the stage of dying out.... All of the force of creation will be concentrated in a new species... [which] will surpass infinitely modern man.... Do you understand now the profound meaning of our National Socialist movement?" (Adolf Hitler, quoted by Hermann Rauschning, _Hitler ma'a dit [Hitler Speaks]_ p.147, translated in _The Occult and the Third Reich_, Jean & Michel Angebert, p.178.)

Italy was doing the same thing all New Age.Exactly like they are doing in the US.

I don't expect anyone to know about this they don't bring it up at the Univ.
They want everyone to think it's all new!

And if you look closely at the profs in most Universities,they are socialist...no one else gets tenure unless they think alike.And they aren't going to out themselves.

Check out Indoctrinate U

David Horowitz runs an excellent site fighting many Universities because the have turned into propaganda factories.
Prove it to yourself.
I should know I work at a Univ.I see it everyday.
Check the authors they require you to read.Why are there so many communist authors that are required reading?
you figure it out.

Arnold Shcherban - 12/11/2007

Your examples are obsolete, irrelevant, and have been rebutted on mumerous occasions by numerous scholars. Their conclusion is clear
and unambigious:
the mass repressions under communist regimes had absolutely nothing to do
with the atheism of communist ideology, but everything to do with:
1) their relative backwardness;
2) brutal wars those countries have been involved in;
3) dictatorships instead of democratic ruling (as it should have happened according to the theory of socialism);
4) adversarial surroundings.
On the other token your "theory"/arguments don't explain what happened in such Christian countries as Germany and Italy in 1930-1940s with totalitarian nationalist regimes who killed millions, though primarily, foreign citizens?
They don't explain why religion did not "help" Japan to avoid its genocidal militaristic
advances in South-Eastern Asia and beyond?
I'm not already going to India, Pakistan, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, etc. with millions killed over primarily religious differences. And even less
back to history where the most of the people were killed out of religious intolerance and hatred.

China, now? Perhaps...
But name one large deeply religious and poor country where the
dictatorships and genocides have not been taken place and where in the course of the 20th century millions of people have not been killed, and you'll be entitled for an honest debate.

Paige Quintel - 12/11/2007

There is no consensus among historians about the number of repression victims in the Communist countries. Joseph Stalin's regime in the Soviet Union range between 20 and 60 million and those for Mao Zedong's China range between 19.5 and 75 million.The Soviet Union (20 million) and Eastern Europe.death tolls than the Black Book for China and Russia respectively.
On April 17th, 1975 the Khmer Rouge, a communist guerrilla group led by Pol Pot, took power in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. They forced all city dwellers into the countryside and to labor camps. During their rule, it is estimated that 2 million Cambodians died by starvation, torture or execution. 2 million Cambodians represented approximately 30% of the Cambodian population during that time.
All totaled worldwide socialism/communist has cost 200 million lives
ALL SECULARIST AND PEACEFUL!

I lived China for 5 years. They would do it again in a heartbeat.If you get out of the city it becomes apparent it isn't a stable country.I love these people who make pronouncements link they are an expat of 25 years.

Arnold Shcherban - 12/9/2007

All religious fanatics Muslims, Christians, and all others have to be placed on the isolated island and
left to die there. That would be the noblest humanitarian action ever taken.

Vernon Clayson - 12/8/2007

Thanks to the very stars that we now understand the Koran speaks to right and wrong, i.e., the Muslims are always right and the rest of mankind is wrong.

Musarrat ali khan - 12/8/2007

Yes, Bishop Robert Grosseteste and St Thomas Aquinas helped us to escape from the overbearing medieval view that the world has meaning and pattern only in relation to God.
In this respect God has also spoken through Quran in:
Surah Al Kafirun ----109

Say: O ye that reject Faith!
I worship not that which ye worship,
Nor will ye worship that which I worship.
And I will not worship that which ye have been wont to worship,
Nor will ye worship that which I worship.
To you be your Way, and to me mine.

God created man in his own image. God has also created man with intellect and wisdom which helps us to choose between right and wrong. This should also apply to our choice of the school of thought we want to belong to, secularism, democracy or any other discipline.

Musarrat Ali Khan

Lorraine Paul - 12/7/2007

What absolute ignorance and arrogance it is to set oneself up as the moral, ethical and spiritual arbiter.

I couldn't agree more with the writer.

As we all know it was the Industrial Revolution which led to the pre-eminence of the 'west'. Nothing to do with how one worships! Except, of course, that to enter Oxford or Cambridge in those days one had to be of the Church of England. We will never know how much more beneficial the times would be now if in those days they had made the universities and further education establishments open to all creeds and colours.

It is time to do away with the exclusivity, bigotry and other evils which grow out of religion.