Rating: 
Summary: Bork rules! A man who can, with accuracy, point his finger.
Review: Almost never will one come across a book in which the author is has thought through the issues SO completely, to the point where conservatives would almost praise him as a god and liberals, upon hearing or reading Bork, would either plug their ears or close the book and quickly exit the room for they would have no ability to counter what they would perceive! Bork's work is what you, as a conservative/libertarian minded individual, ill with social trends of the 60's, 70's and 80's need, so desperately to hear/ read. It is nothing but fact, and the author will clear up any discrepencies within the disciplined reader's mind. I wont say it is an easy read. To the contrary, this is a book requiring in depth, complex thought on the part of the reader, and it is SO rewarding. If you are looking for a book with the concrete certainty of a math text, to direct your logic when you are torn between what you perceive in the reality of today and your emotions which tell you that what you see just isn't correct, then this is the one for you. In this respect, it is as good as Charles Murray's "the Bell Curve" a more psychological study of society and it's problems. I recommend this book very much to the adult reader, including intelligent, disciplined teens. More books, written by authors of Bork's intellectual caliber, on issues of social concern would be of a great benifit to our society. Thank you Robert Bork.
Rating: 
Summary: whining from the right wing fringe
Review: Bork is still smarting after losing an appointment to the Court. He does a wonderful job in letting us lefty types know what the fringe of the Republican Party are talking about at parties. His take on things is a bit warped. He tries hard to not understand or even hear the positions of those with whom he disagrees. Instead he creates straw men. They are always much easier to attack. But now, since the media in America have all been purchased by major conservative corporations, Westinghouse, GE, and Disney, his positions get a lot more play than they would have 25 years ago. He is a good writer. I enjoyed reading his book for CLASS, at an a famously Liberal Law School. We had fun with it. And you will too.
Rating: 
Summary: Powerful arguments across a wide social scope
Review: In my few years since attending a liberal university (Bork might note a possible redundancy in that description), I had rarely reflected upon the indoctrination that occurs on our campuses. Bork addresses, among other issues, what he considers to be the dramatic decline in American scholarship; and, despite the occasional indulgent leap of logic, he presents a convincing argument.The trouble with our culture, according to Bork, stems from the pervasiveness of two contradictory ideas: radical individualism (which Bork equates to moral relativism), and radical egalitarianism (which Bork defines as the expectation of the equality of outcomes). The light Bork sheds on these two ideas is sufficient to dissuade a thoughtful person from holding either view separately, not to mention concurrently. The holes in Bork's logic arise only when he extends his arguments past the point at which they would have otherwise been complete. On several occasions, he stabs at overgeneralizations, such as when he states that no music being produced today compares favorably to that of Gershwin. Perhaps he thought this technique would better illustrate his points, but it opens the door to the kind of criticism shown in a few of these reviews, namely that Bork is out of touch and ranting. On the contrary...Bork sees our "social fabric" with a perspective and wisdom that is sorely lacking among our intellectual and political leaders. This book would be an excellent choice for a university course on sociology. The fact that it may never be only serves to strengthen Bork's point.
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Summary: A must for anyone who still wonders how we got here!
Review: This is the first book of this genre I have read, but I was unable to put it down. This work was an affirmation of almost everything I hold true, usually just by reason and common sense. I saw the destruction of my University system (California) in the '60s, and wondered then, "WHY?". This is the explanation for that destruction, abortion on demand, euthanasia, and Bill and Hillary in the White House. I hope that Judge Bork will write a sequel to "Slouching" that takes us through the impeachment and up to the tragic assault at Littleton.
Rating:
Summary: Sadly, it rings true
Review: Whenever very intelligent, upstanding conservatives like Robert Bork write books or say things along the lines of what Bork has written, they always get shot down with the assertion that they are old codgers that are "out of touch with reality." On the contrary, they see reality all too clearly, and they don't like it. If being out of touch with reality is equivalent to not subscribing to the decadence of today's morally eroding society, then I, for one, would be willing to wear the "out of touch with reality" tag like a badge of honor.
Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece.
Review: Robert Bork's Slouching Towards Gomorrah is undoubtedly one of the most eloquent and well articulated arguments on the maladies and destructiveness of liberalism on our nation's moral fabric.
Rating:
Summary: Bork's book will only sound more prophetic as time passes
Review: Judge Bork offers an insightful if scathing analysis of the subtle acts of commission and ommission that we so frequently engage which are helping to destroy the moral fabric of our nation. Slouching Towards Gomorrah makes it clear that if good men do nothing, evil will most certainly succeed.
Rating:
Summary: A Must Read!
Review: Slouching Towards Gommorah by Robert H. Bork provides the reader with a clear and brilliant analysis of America's current socio/political condition. Like a Doctor who's diagnosis informs the patient of the real nature of his disease, Bork proceeds to inform his patient of a syndrome with two driving forces: radical egalitarianism and radical individulism. He shows how these two ideals in the extream threaten our freedoms in America. If you grew up in the 60's and 70's and still think sentimentally of political philosopher's such as Jerry Rubin and the utopian dreams of Woodstock, read this book. You will never be the same.
Rating: 
Summary: A wolf in a sheep's coat
Review: The central fault to Robert Bork's Slouching Toward Gomorrah has its epicentre in his attempt to defend luxury while claiming Christian tradition as one of his sources of authority. It is evident in his assertion of his own authorship, that Bork is skilled in obfuscation and disguising the weakness of his stance with deceit; while he decries historical revisionism as an evil act of leftist intellectuals, he spends much of his efforts practicing the very same techniques as his perceived enemies. Pointing the finger of accusation, Bork finds someone to blame for all the ills of American society and instead of proposing explicit methods of correction, he implies the existence of his ideology. Bork's strategy is to divide and conquer at the intellectual and informational levels and his treatise is mined with many affronts to a critical reading. It is, perhaps, a Christian point of view that would sustain the best and most efficient method of unravelling Bork's dissemblings. If he implies valediction from biblical tradition, let him step out of Caesar's court and deal with the scriptures. Therein he will find that luxury is not only without scriptural rationalization, Jesus Christ himself condemns explicitly its pursuit. The path to the source of Bork's reactionary outlook is fraught with the booby traps of faulty conclusions, anecdotal red herrings and blatant misrepresentation of simple fact. The author has apparently learned well from Hermann Goering in that there are so many outrages against the truth in his preface and early chapters that a discriminating reader has a multitude of objections by the time the book's most grievous deception arises. One would have to publish a book in order to contend with the task of unravelling Bork's syllogistically impaired arguments and to set straight his warped logic. Further, his logical paradigm represents an inability to reconcile positive, constructive discovery with the necessity of following through with a method of sustaining it. His overall position is analogous to one taking pride in having invented the recyclable aluminum can and then rejecting and reviling the recycling programs that make the invention worthwhile. Bork is too eager to divide issues into a politic that is limited, severely, to two sets: the right, which he characterizes as the middle, and the left, which he denotes "liberal". In his zeal to render the word, liberal, a pejorative, he doesn't appear willing to deal with the complexities that are a constant of social organization. An observer of the American political process is struck by its polarities and their characterization: the drive of the right to simplify and of the left to complicate. By design, these two polarities appear to be engaged in a perpetual exertion of checks and balances, a process reminiscent of Huckleberry Finn's tendency to reflect himself into a state of confusion with hard questions and then, when the right time to act decisively has passed him by, choose an option that can provide only diminished returns. Samuel Clemens was a humorist who recognized that even the simplest people were complicated creatures - Robert Bork refuses to acknowledge there are no easy answers. Bork perpetuates the folly of assigning the diverse interests of American politics into one of two camps: right/left, or conservative/ liberal, or black/white; he repudiates any shade of grey and shuns from his fundamentalist core anyone who percieves those middle tones and considers them a worthy addition to public dialogue. In real life, at least the life of those blessed with intellectual liberty, one may be against welfare but for universal medical care, against ebonics but for affirmative action, against abortion but for equal rights of women, against nuclear power but for conservation of natural resources. Bork plays constantly on his simplistic scapegoat theme, knowing full well that the term liberal is vague, indirect and impossible to trace directly to any one social group. He will not be censured for his rants assailing the politics of his liberal enemies because he and his ilk have yet to turn the word "liberal" into one as feared and loathed as the racist epithets from which "liberal" now sets them free. Afro, Chinese, Latino and Jewish Americans are, when assembled, by definition multi-cultural and likely candidates for the "liberal" label - now with the utterance of a new pejorative, a political stereotype, Bork can silence the voices of those of us who are willing to face the realities of a culturally diverse world whose populations are big enough to overlap. Bork's world is the surface of a black and white chessboard and his approach to the game is as unyeildingly rigid as someone who refuses to occupy a square of colour opposite his. It is no wonder he expresses frustration with the tactics of his party's opponents; every time he mounts a strategy, it is picked apart by those who are free to occupy squares of either colour and who try to see more moves ahead of the game. He labels as "revisionist" alternative interpretations of history, but he practices his own brand of revisionism and it is transparently the product of the of a bigot's mental inertia. Bork has deliberately adopted a short-ranged and selective view of history: biblical, classical and contemporary. His pidgin demographics barely account for the trends and their causes which appear to be accompanying or delivering us into the future. Exhibited in the world around us are symptoms of a serious problem, but Bork doesn't acknowledge its root cause. One feels compelled to ask whether his myopia is real or feigned for the sake of simplification. Uncomprehendingly, he casts about the Old Testament (just its surface, mind you) and the lore of ancient Rome. The title of this book alludes strongly to the biblical Gomorrah and the author attemps to apply this tenuous allusion to modern American morality while overlooking the condition that God set upon the destruction of that city: that ten moral men be found living there. Further, he makes no mention of Gomorrah's most obvious American counterpart: Las Vegas. Not content with retextualizing religion and literature, Bork goes on to teach us that the Roman Empire collapsed from the pressure of Germanic tribes at its borders . He omits Rome's overextended imperialism, increasingly unfair system of taxation, and debilitating corruption among its ruling families. One must challenge Bork's avoidance of such associated facts and adjacent conditions. One would think that his examination of trends in American politics of this century would include some consideration of WWII and its effects on the structure of American society, politics and foreign policy. However, there is not one mention of the military-industrial complex, an American institution that outlived the war and has evolved into the military-industrial-entertainment/information complex that rules America today. The writer has the credentials of a learned man, so what are his motives and why does he not make a stronger argument or formulate complete thoughts for his case against "liberals"? The answer may well be that historical accuracy does not suit his purposes (contrary to what he says, France was involved in the Vietnam conflict) and apparently neither do syntax, syllogism and common sense. His paragraphs are arbitrarily cast, without cohesion and very often self-contradictory: "The absence of economic pressure and the assumption that there would never be want in their futures led the young to boredom. Life stretched before them as a wasteland of suburbia and consumerism. One young idiot later said that "hell is growing up in Scarsdale." Boredom is a much underrated emotion. The young, especially the very intelligent and vigorous, who have not yet found a path in life, are particularly susceptible to boredom's relentless ache. It is an emotion that is dangerous for individuals and for society because a lot of the cures are anti-social:alcohol, narcotics, cruelty, pornography,violence, zealotry in a political cause. Many of the Sixties generation shopped that list. The rhetoric of revolution, which was to be heard on campuses continuously, was, as Peter Berger said, "not so much motivated by sympathy with black people in slums and yellow people in rice paddies as by boredom with Connecticut." Cited anonymously here is, then, a "very intelligent and vigorous" "idiot" who must have overstated his "underrated emotion". Meanwhile, at the inner city daycare in Pittsburgh, we Pennsylvanians were helping underpriveleged children in slums because we were bored with Connecticut. This paragraph is particularly interesting; the list of "cures" (does he use this word in its true meaning or is he confused with "diversion"?) avoids inclusion of the real panacea. The cure, as provided by the instance of the present-day education field, is to provide structured activities - all of which are presently being excoriated by conservative-propelled spending cutbacks. Bork bewails the existence of the disease, claims triumph for having someone to
Rating:
Summary: A good read for liberals -- what conservatives really think
Review: As a liberal, I found this to be a very good read; Judge Bork sets forth the conservative viewpoint well without mincing words. I highly recommend this book for a candid look at where the conservative moralists among us want to take the nation. Some of the prescriptions he offers, such as censorship, are rather shocking.
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