Rating: 
Summary: Revelations on the Pathology of the Left
Review: Robert Bork, who had his character assassinated by Joe Biden during his nomination hearing for the Supreme Court, has written this sweeping epic against Liberalism and its various manifestations in American society. Bork is systematic in his attacks, and his arguments demolish the mythos of Leftism.Bork believes that modern Liberalism has two manifestations: radical egalitarianism and radical individualism. Sometimes these two features act independently, other times they act in concert. The result, however, is the same: the undermining of American values and morals. Liberalism exists to constantly break down constraints. Eventually, there won't be any constraints still in existence to hold it back. The results of this breaking down process will be anarchy or a totalitarian form of government. Bork looks at John Stuart Mill and the history of Liberalism to see how it has changed and why. He believes that the American strain, which is a particularly virulent pathogen, reached an acme in the 1960's, when several factors came together that greatly accelerated the process that has brought us to where we are today. Bork believes that the huge baby boom population greatly outstripped social mechanisms that would have assimilated them into traditional American values. In other words, there were too many people and not enough schools, churches and other institutions that act as delivery devices for our culture. The Vietnam War also acted as a catalyst that allowed these spoiled brats to express their anti-institutional views, and also acted as a unifying force that helped to coalesce the various forces that were to constitute the New Left. Today, these people now run government, universities and other social institutions. They also control the media systems, which gives them a wide audience in which to disseminate their propaganda. Bork also examines Feminism, which he reveals as an academic and social fraud that is not only unhealthy, but also dangerous to the country at large. Bork pretty much leaves no stone unturned, and of several books that I've read on the Culture Wars, this is one of the best. What I like best about this book is that Bork is a realist. On many occasions he states that things may have gone too far, and fixing the problems may well be impossible. He also states that a democratic society may not have the legal means to fix some of these problems. This is what happens when so many people are on handout programs from the Government. I like this clear-headed analysis, and it gives the book a different cast from other similar texts. I highly recommend this book to anyone concerned about our future.
Rating:
Summary: An Unflinching Indictment of the Liberal Legacy
Review: Robert Bork is a man singularly unimpressed by the society wrought by modern liberalism. In this book he explains how liberalism took control of contemporary culture and institutions, and describes the ensuing destruction. Bork is primarily concerned with how societies can be civil and decent. To him, freedom exists not just to benefit the individual, but society as a whole, and so he is prepared to limit freedom when such freedom can be shown to be destructive, even when that freedom is of speech. Thus, his attitudes fly in the face of conventional wisdom that says all freedom of speech must be protected and any attempt to limit is is by definition abhorrent. Bork make a convincing case for censoring speech which has no redeeming value. One must give him his point, unless one believes that it is an egregious society that condemns and controls rap songs which encourage busting women's vaginas and then breaking their backs. Bork's book shocks not simply because it describes the world in such gloomy terms, but because it prescribes solutions that so offend contempory attitudes of "tolerance." But, if things are really a bad as Bork argues, then his prescriptions, though they may offend modern "enlightened" sensibilities, are mild indeed
Rating: 
Summary: Bork always borks himself
Review: Bork borks himself by including outrageous statements that fly in the face of reason and humanity. Bork borks himself by his absurd prudishness, which makes him seem more woman than man. Bork borks himself by his anti-intellectual approach, reading detective novels instead of the classics of Western thought.
Rating: 
Summary: Gomorrah or an Imaginative House of Horrors?
Review: This is a very provocative book by Judge Bork. He laments the decline of popular culture and of morality. The two are apparently intimately connected. While there were bad signs going far back in history, the real deterioration started in the Sixties, when students and intellectuals came out to protest, indeed to reject, the fundamental religious and moral values that underpinned America. These spoiled intellectuals and starry-eyed, misguided students began to wreak havoc upon the land of the free with their radical egalitarian ideas and the ethic of unlimited personal hedonism. Our family, government, schools, and religion have all been viciously assailed by these counter culture liberals who, according to Judge Bork, simply hate America and want to bring it down. I think that Judge Bork overstates the viciousness and the Machiavellian intelligence of his ideological enemies. He paints them as anti-American, anti-Western, envious, power-hungry and, at the same time, guilt-ridden. Indeed, Judge Bork built such a House of Horrors that, if you believe all he says, the coming of Gomorrah, the destruction, seems like relief, because it would mean an escape from our present deplorable condition. I dare say that Judge Bork is too pessimistic and too eager to vilify his ideological enemies. Like him, I oppose the excesses of political correctness and sensitivity training, and like him, I deplore indiscriminate historical revisionism that tries to minimize the value of Western culture. But I think one should be careful to distinguish between overzealous pc people and bad historians on the one hand, and attempts to remedy discrimination and create a more harmonious society on the other. I believe that hate speech and hate crimes are legitimate legal categories, and that speech codes are not always terrible. I have to say that personal experiences may have influenced my opinion, but the same is most likely true of Bork's opinions--opinions that are certainly not entirely objective. Judge Bork also seems to think that it is easy to reconcile scientific knowledge with traditional religions. Why? Because science deals with material things, but science has not proven to us that material things are all there is. Therefore, religion rules in that non-material, metaphysical, spiritual realm. OK, there is something to this argument. But since we cannot know scientifically about this intangible, non-material realm, we are dependent on inspiration and revelation to comprehend and interpret it. We cannot rely on scientific rationality or even logic when assuming that such a realm exists. For this realm is scientifically unknowable, and we do not know whether our rules of logic apply to it. This is not an objection to spirituality and to innate, revealed, imaginative way of knowing. But Judge Bork would only concede that much when it comes to Christianity and Judaism. For when he talks about Witchcraft, astrology, and psychics, he attacks them severely because they have no scientific foundation and cannot withstand the careful scrutiny of reason. Judge Bork dreams of the robust culture of the Fifties without the racial discrimination. Alas, this is a strange vision that, at least as far as I am concerned, inspires little hope. One of the hallmarks of American society has been its constant and rapid change. Whatever is meant by "tradition" in America has never been frozen and unaltered, but always evolving. Even such hallmarks of American life as racism and political violence, which Bork would rather forget, have never had a static expression, but evolved. Jim Crow laws replaced slavery, and they were in turn replaced by unofficial, by de facto segregation and discrimination. The book is not without its insights, and its easy to read. But it offers no real solutions. Judge Bork pins his hopes on the revival of religious conservatives who, along with other conservatives, will recapture American institutions of education and government one by one, by one.... This seems unrealistic to me. Also, I think that Judge Bork resents not just popular culture (I like that culture quite a bit), but television per se. He suggests that television performed an intellectual lobotomy on the people. Apparently this does not include the religious conservatives who are inspired by televangelists and who are supposed to lead this country into a moral promise land. Thus, the book is provocative and it raises important questions. However, the author went so far in his impulse to criticize those who think differently and so overdramatized the situation that many readers will be turned off or fail to take him seriously.
Rating: 
Summary: something rare here: a true conservative
Review: As a pure display of intellectual respect, I give Bork four stars even though I disagree with both his premises and his conclusions. We should all admire well-written works that are at least valid arguments even if they fall short of being sound ones. The whole term "conservative" in American culture and politics is misleading because there is very little true conservative thought in the American tradition. The American Revolution was a revolt against the prevailing, conservative world order. This was a world where the coercive power of the state actively promoted national identity (mercantilism) and morality (through state religion). Thomas Jefferson, a true revolutionary, picked up John Locke's liberal ball and ran with it, directly incorporating liberalism as the reason for the revolution in the declaration of independence. Liberalism is the idea that the state should protect each individual's life, liberty, and property from external coercion and do nothing more. Bork has the analytical clarity and the intellectual honesty, as a true conservative, to go beyond the 60s and blame America's woes on its very founding fathers. Sometimes we try to bridge the terminology gap between political philosophy and popular American language by calling Lockean liberalism "classical liberalism". Most conservatives are really classical liberals. This book should challenge the minds of conservative thinkers, because, Bork argues that classical liberalism necessarily leads to "modern liberalism" (socialism) and thus Thomas Jefferson has as much to do with our decline as the Warren court. His argument is a stretch, but it is an important one to understand.
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Summary: Intellectual Grist for your mental mill
Review: I won't belabor this. If you are liberal you probably dislike this man full stop and nothing I say will change that. If you are conservative then you may already have a poster of him in your bedroom, and I am not trying to preach to the choir. In any case, what I do want to say is that he is extremely intelligent and wrote this book with the same kind of of "20,000 feet view" that Robert Caro has in his books. You may think that for someone as conservative as him it is not possible to stretch a "I hate liberals" mindframe into a book this long, or of any length, but not a paragraph goes by that does not add constructively to his viewpoint. Let me give you a few examples. His strongest argument is how liberals have perverted America's goal of equality of *opportunities* to equality of *outcomes*. This is a huge change. No longer is it acceptable for everyone to have the same *chances* to succeed, everyone must have the same actual success rate. If you've read "Atlas Shrugged", you know where this ends up. Since individual people have individual innate talents and abilities the only way to guarantee the same outcome is to force the "better" people of society to be brought down to the lowest common denominator. It is just not possible to raise everybody UP but it is possible to bring everyone DOWN. Another point is that liberals mention the Declaration of Independence and how it mentions the "Pursuit of Happiness" as one of its core goals. Liberals use this to justify their mindset that government should have no ability whatsoever to limit our independence. But the Constitution then explicitly spell out just how the government is going to limit our freedoms. Liberals tend to overlook this. Bork also mentions during this part how the founding fathers clearly viewed their statements about "pursuit of happiness" to be relevant to societies built upon moral foundations. As it is today, we have decoupled from morals when it comes to our pursuits and so we no longer have any moorings that our unbridled pursuit of happiness rests on. A final thing that I'll mention (but far from the final thing he does) is how the modern liberal's pursuit of infinite freedom actually brings about the reverse, limitations and restrictions. Take the crusade of not offending or prejudicing any one group. This openess to letting others succeed has turned into Political Correctness whereby people's ability to have independent, critical, thinking has been severely restricted. God forbid you offend anybody and you will be drummed out of your job/career posthaste! This is not more freedom, this is less. If you enjoy intelligent books, books that make you think, then it is worth reading this to see how your views line up against his. Personally I agree with some of the things he writes and disagree with others. If you disagree with him, well then, what kind of firepower do you bring to the discussion? He brings a lot. Why don't you see what you've got?
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Summary: Praise for Robert Bork from a conservative college student
Review: I am a college student at a public university in Ohio, and I loved this book. Thank goodness I read Slouching before coming here. The college I attend is one of the more conservative around, but I continue to be stunned at how the once American flag burning, Vietnam War protesting, free love hippie generation, now college professors, try to brainwash students into buying into the modern liberalism now so pervasive on college campuses these days.
I was especially impressed with Mr. Bork's stances on abortion, affirmative action policies on college campuses, anti-Western cilvilization policies on campuses, and radical feminism. Bork is the most intelligent conservative scholar in the world, and anyone who is concerned with the moral direction of America should read this as well. Keep a dictonary handy. This vocabulary is a little high-flown.
I say that because if you look around, it is easy to see many of the ills Bork points out in this book. We already knew this country was headed to Hell in a handbasket before we read the book. Nothing in here is particularly shocking. I personally find it refreshing that we can look to Mr. Bork as an intelligent, eloquent spokesman for our cause. Call it preaching to the converted, but I personally thank Mr. Bork for this gift to conservative America. We aren't elitest, racist, sexist pigs after all! THANK YOU ROBERT BORK!
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Summary: A "must read" for anyone concerned about America's future!
Review: Modern liberals will hate this book, because Judge Bork lays out in ironclad logic the agendas, falacies, and calamatous results of their 30+ year campaign to transform American society. The current success of the New Left in accomplishing their goals has placed western civilization on a slippery slope to destruction. Mr. Bork not only identifies the source of our current decline and the logical conclusion of these trends, but also offers helpful, albeit un-confident, suggestions for changing course. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who may be dissatisfied with the decline in American values, education, civility, and society, but who doesn't quite understand how it happened or what he/she can do about it. Best book I've read in years--it infuriated me!
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Diagnosis of a Culture's Decline
Review: Quoting Irving Kristol, Bork writes near the end of the third chapter, "Sector after sector of American life has been ruthlessly corrupted by the liberal ethos. It is an ethos that aims simultaneously at political and social collectivism on the one hand, and moral anarchy on the other." The purpose of Slouching Towards Gomorrah is to outline the causes behind this type of liberalism, the effects of its implementation, and what remedies, if any, are available. Bork proposes that this dual trend toward both radical individualism and radical egalitarianism is causing serious damage to American culture. While they appear to have contradictory ends, they bring about the same effect of eroding the institutions that have been a check against authoritarian government: family, the church, the rule of law, and public standards of morality. With "liberty" being defined in the Declaration of Independence free of external restraints (something Bork laments as reflecting a flawed assumption of human nature that goes all the way back to 18th century Enlightenment philosophy) and "equality" being defined closer and closer to the utopianism in the SDS document The Port Huron Statement, Bork gives the reader a grand tour of the effects in most elements of society: entertainment, law, politics, intellectual quality, public decency, etc. As far as these types of books go, this is the gold standard, and as the 2003 afterword highlights, the trend has only continued to continue from what Bork wrote seven years earlier.
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Summary: People should be aware of what is happening in the world
Review: This book is written by a wonderful intelligent man who speaks the truth and people don't want to beleive it. One of your reviewers called him an atheist who loved Jesus. He is hardly an atheist. He is a recent convert to Catholicism and a great example of the Christian faith for all. Pay attention, America!
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