The Pity Party

September 8, 2014
Claremont Review senior editor Voegeli (Never Enough: America’s Limitless Welfare State) reviews today’s politics of compassion and the ways liberals use its rhetoric. Arguing that it is central to modern American liberalism, he sets out to define the “proper scope of compassion’s ambit.” Voegeli persuasively asserts that denunciations of conservative heartlessness are calculated purely for political appeal, not policy effect. He also eviscerates as phony the “politics of kindness.” Readers otherwise interested in Voegeli’s points about the nature of progressive dreams and promise-making may find that his use of “bullshit” as a leitmotif coarsens this book-length essay. In particular, he is interested in what he calls “sincere bullshit,” the unexamined ideas that people hold in an age when “we can be anything we want to be.” Some of the examples inspected here include dogmatic thinking about gun control, the environment, and diversity. The smattering of vulgar language notwithstanding, Voegeli’s book is scholarly and lucid. Whether it can find an audience is another question. Though the title misleadingly suggests a narrowly focused attack on the Democratic Party, the book’s complexity will not appeal to Tea Party partisans looking for simple solutions and snarkier reads. And Progressives, for their part, will surely not be intrigued by a book that trenchantly critiques their movement as an ideology powered by cant and self-love. Agent: Carol Mann, Carol Mann Agency