The Not-So-Enigmatic Clarence Thomas

Reviewing a Corey Robin book in these pages is an interesting task, for these pages have been a frequent subject of inquiry for the professor of political science at Brooklyn College. Robin’s previous book, The Reactionary Mind, argued that the conservative political tendency has since Burke been used to justify the advantage of the stronger. Many arguments made in National Review and later adopted by conservative political figures, including arguments about personal liberty, skepticism toward change, and the preservation of virtue, are in Robin’s telling camouflage for a reactionary project whose major motivation is the rejection of an “emancipatory” politics that advocates the interest of the downtrodden.