Bland Fanatics: Liberals, Race and Empire

Thoughtful and critical of so called Right wing. Great reading experience. Kudos to the author for adding more references. Jai hind

Waxed eloquent. Incredibly informative. The thematic arguments in the book will make you pensive about the global mood regarding topics that are important in this age, that include fetishes of imperialism, free market, liberalism, and West's desire for political and social elitism. There is a certain beauty in his writing: it's also analytical and unvarnished prose. Mishra is at the height of his intellectual powers. One of the greatest Indian non fiction writers of our time.

Honesty and assertion of truth are two fundamental requirements for an intellectual. Pankaj Mishra certainly possesses both these qualities which are glaringly visible in almost all of his writings from "Butter Chicken in Ludhiana" to "Bland Fanatics". The book under review is a collection of more than a dozen essays written by Pankaj Mishra during last ten years and published mainly in leading newspapers and journals in United Kingdom & United States. This book covers a wide range of ideas from politics to culture, imperialism to Neo-imperialism and liberalism to the end of liberalism in a very forceful manner. The most important essays are- Watch this man, the culture of fear, Bland Fanatics, Free markets and social darwinism in Mumbai, Bumbling Chumocrats, The Economist and Liberalism and England's Last Roar. The book opens with an essay where the author has entered into a forceful debate with a renowned Scottish historian Niall Ferguson in whom he finds an intellectual representative of Neo-imperialism. The author has also beautifully reflected on the hypocrisy of liberals when it comes to race, empire, political establishments and disadvantaged sections both in west and the east including India. This acclaimed author and a leading intellectual seems to spare none when he uses a term 'intellectual quacks' to highlight those who have appeared in public space during the second half of the 20th century with certain sparkling ideas presented in the public space and a huge gullible number got swayed by the empty bowl of so called wisdom. He has wonderfully coined and used touching phrases such as 'intellectual entrepreneurs', 'vendors of spirituality', 'stalls in the new marketplace of ideas', 'healers of modern man's soul' and 'mass market musings'. He has deeply touched the foundation stones on which these intellectual cheer leaders came to acquire immense following and fanatically loyal fan clubs. In short, the nuances of modern fascination with myth and the clever attempts to push the reality aside, have been explored and explained fantastically by the author of this heart-touching piece of intellectual feast. Since these essays were originally written for the public in the west which is very well informed, the level of analysis is of a higher standard and hence slightly difficult to understand as it is very rich both in contentual & contextual zones. However, the book doesn't generate that level of interest which his earlier books particularly " From the Ruins of Empire" and "Age of Anger" did perhaps because it is a collection of essays and not a thematic work. But each page of this book is a remarkable indicator of the astute intellectualism of this leading essayist and cultural critic of our times. If you wish to go for an intellectual ride, you have a good option available in "Bland Fanatics".

As always, Pankaj Mishra provokes, makes you conscious of your latent prejudices with his sweeping erudition. Now someone has to analyse the cracks in his arguments in the same way he brings down others. There are quite a few. But that is how intellectual discourse and progress is made.

Good book but useless and non professional non serious seller, First delay in delivery , then the book was sent without jacket. Do not rely on this seller.

You might want to know lot of background history to wade through this one.

He writes with such pretentious language that lacks a sense of lucid originality, almost equivalent to his second-hand analysis. Almost every point is made as reference of some other thinkers or writers. He’s essentially collecting all the quotes and analysis he read over the time, and put it all together in some wannabe language and present as some high bred intellectual discourse. Nobody knows what he’s trying to prove.

Pankaj Mishra is a public intellectual. According to a few, he is “one of the great thinkers.” As reads his introduction on the cover jacket of his latest book: Bland Fanatics: Liberals, Race and Empire (2020, Juggernaut Books).The book borrows its title from Reinhold Niebuhr, a theologian. In 1957, he wrote: ‘Among the lesser culprits of history are the bland fanatics of western civilization who regard the highly contingent achievements of our culture as the final form and norm of human existence.’This book is a collection of sixteen repurposed essays written over the decade. They cover neo-imperialism, liberalism, intellectual Islamophobia, colonialism, and Brexit. Also, critical commentary on Salman Rushdie’s memoir Joseph Anton. Why White people like Ta-Nehisi Coates. On Jordan Peterson and Niall Ferguson and his love for The Economist.The book and the promises it keepsIn one of the New Yorker essays, along with exhibiting deep affection for The Economist, Mishra writes: ‘The right accuses liberals of promoting selfish individualism and crass materialism at the expense of social cohesion and cultural identity.’He goes on to acknowledging that ‘attacks on liberalism are nothing new,’ but fails to ‘know right away what precisely is being criticized.’ Mishra is looking for easy answers to complex problems. It is unbecoming of one of the great thinkers.Answer to his why is in the favorable review of his book by Mark Rappolt: ‘the language of imperialism remains the language that is deployed by both left and right today.’ In his critique, Mishra uses similar language, which renders this book boring and makes it an ungainly read.It shines through in some aspects though. For example, Mishra’s explanation of ‘the halo of virtue around India’ because its governments have ‘embraced free markets’ while the ‘communist-run China abruptly emerged as a challenger to the West.’He rightly accuses Salman Rushdie—who said mean things about Shashi Deshpande because she, as a judge, chose Disgrace over Ground Beneath Her Feet. (Though this and Rushdie’s other sexist remarks don’t find space in this book.) In his review of Joseph Anton, Mishra writes, ‘Oddly, Anton seems to require no such moral balancing for the Sri Lankan strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa, who is commended for resisting Iranian pressure and greenlighting the filming of Midnight’s Children; the responsibility of this authoritarian president and his brother in the massacre of tens of thousands of Tamil Hindus is passed over in silence.’Yet Mishra falls short of extending the similar treatment to the wife-beater and Muslim-hater, late Nobel laureate, V. S. Naipaul. (Though I admire both the novelists’ works.)He calls Jordan Peterson out, too—who wants men to “toughen up”—for his obnoxious and simplistic explanation of the world where men represent “order” and femininity “chaos.” Peterson’s books are bestsellers still.There is an explanation to it.‘Masses’ are not a monolith as the Left has understood it them to be from time immemorial. It has its choices and disagreements from the major discourse facilitators: elites, liberals, by default. Mishra belongs to this cadre. He contributes to the myth that nourishes the hope in the Left to cure the world from populism and rise of rightwing fanatics by magic.White people like you, too!In an essay about Ta-Nehisi Coates, and a passing critique of Obama’s presidential tenure, Mishra supplies a series of weak arguments. His aim is to understand why White people love Coates’ writings.Coates, unlike the image of an intellectual that Mishra is carrying—a license he has got from the West—was first lauded by Toni Morrison. She praised him for filling the “intellectual void” that “plagued” her after Baldwin. But Mishra says that ‘Coates has been accused of mystifying race and of “essentializing” whiteness.’ By whom, I ask.He says that Rushdie ‘had suffered the ambiguous fate of being hastily appointed as a representative and spokesperson of India, South Asia, the “Third World,” multiculturalism, the immigrant condition—whatever seemed alien and incomprehensible to the white majority.’Isn’t the same applicable to him? He is the Rushdie he is criticizing. And isn’t he sharing the same spot for which he is accusing Coates?Mishra, in this book, mentions being attacked “back home” for his “critical” articles on Kashmir in the Hindu. He calls his attackers “self-styled custodians of India’s ‘liberal democracy’,” and signals toward something by adding that they weren’t “Hindu nationalists.” Then who liked his critical essays? White people.Readers, sometimes, expect solution-driven writingSample these reviews on the digital portals for which Mishra writes:Kenan Malik, reviewing for The Guardian, writes about Mishra’s book: ‘There is much that is valuable in Mishra’s writings, opening up as they do new perspectives in the debate about liberalism and about the relationship between the west and the global south. It’s a pity that there is also much that obscures even as it illuminates.’Damon Linker, for The New York Times, writes: ‘Mishra detests liberalism and capitalism. That much is obvious from his unremittingly polemical prose. What is much less clear is what, specifically, he thinks would be preferable. But when it comes to a positive program, he has little to offer beyond airy talk.’Reading is an investment, and a much deeper at that when one essays issues that Mishra does in this book. They need sensitivity and conviction to avoid making it a mockery of someone else. What I’d have, much like Malik and Linker, preferred is for Mishra to write something that illuminates his readers on the issues the world is faced with. This expectation also comes from a position of an admirer, too, and I believe we need better from Mishra.

As an investment advisor, I found the author to be fascinatingly honest about his historical analysis of Anglo-American 20th century neoliberal capitalism. I also found his perceptions about Niall Ferguson and Jordan Peterson to be spot on - as shameless quasi-intellectual hustlers making a name for themselves by overwhelming brainwashed white nationalists with their self-aggrandizing analyses of the “white vs all others” historical superiority. Yet the author also exposes the “spiritual” political con of Barack Obama and other revered historical American icons - who certainly don’t deserve the adulation that has stuck to their reputation.In summary, if you want to read a nonfiction book that will enlighten you in a disconcerting way about the propaganda behind UK-US political economic superiority in a “hard to deny” manner, buy this book and plow through the exemplary writing and the time it takes to finish it. I won’t read it twice, but I probably should!

Very impressive and cogent discussion of our crisis.

This 2020 book is republished articles from 2008 to 2019 in the Guardian, London Review of Books, NY Times, NY Review of Books and the New Yorker. Many are available online, but it's convenient to have them collected here. The theme is a historical connection between current free market liberalism and past colonialism. Pankaj Mishra is a novelist and essayist with an English literature degree from New Delhi living in London. His writing and concepts are challenging, with references to many historical and contemporary authors.The articles were mostly published as book reviews. Liberalism, as described in 'Bland Fanatics', was an outgrowth of imperialism. Free markets once enforced by gunboat diplomacy and armed occupation are now upheld in sacred precepts of lax labor laws, low regulation and less taxation. This may seem akin to conservatism in the US, but in global market capital speak it is known as liberalism. Other guises of liberalism used to spread the late 20th century creed are said to include democracy, human rights, secularism and free speech.On Remembrance Day Mishra recalls forgotten millions of Asians and Africans who fought in the trenches of the western front and frozen eastern forests during WWI. As imperial powers at Woodrow Wilson's 1919 Paris Peace Conference denied colonies self rule they became more likely to prefer communism. After WWII former colonies knew that development was needed to compete, but chose central organization over individual liberties. Europe's faith in liberalism was shaken, but US power and the rhetoric of freedom and democracy grew.Niall Ferguson is excoriated as neo-imperialist and racist, earning Mishra threats of a libel lawsuit. A culture of Islamophobia is revisited in the writings of Aayan Hirsi Ali, Bat Ye'or and others seen from the perspective of Muslim guest workers invited to Europe after WWII. Salman Rushdie's memoir of life on the run after a death decree by Ayatollah Khomeini seem delusions of a celebrity western spokesman. British withdrawal from the EU is compared to the 1947 retreat from India, in terms of a reckless rush towards an unknown outcome.An American author writes about life inside a Mumbai slum, situated between a new airport and luxury apartments built by the slum dwellers. Canadian pop shrink and YouTube guru Jordan Peters turns fascism and mysticism against gender identity politics, and freaks out at Mishra on Twitter. Ta-Nehisi Coates and Barack Obama become liberal bait, as social redress is switched for drone strikes, corporate bailouts and immigrant deportations. Trump's rise was presaged by a catastrophic loss of jobs, pensions, and homes by the lower middle class.Mishra uses these reviews as launch pads for political exposition. It is a difficult book to read, partly for it's take on liberalism, but also for it's fleeting literary references. While nothing appears positive in this analysis of the west, it's an intriguing door to peer behind. Democracy, human rights and free trade may well be hollow words of a cynical elitist narrative. On another hand, what are the alternatives: autocracy, arbitrary justice and planned economies? Democratic socialism might be one answer, but Mishra doesn't quite come out and say so.

Bland Fanatics is indeed a fascinating book- a series of essays about the hypocrisy of the Western liberal bourgeoisie and its host of paid intellectuals. These "Bland Fanatics" underwrote imperialism, the spread of inequality, and ecological destruction while donning the garb of liberalism, values, and decency.

While the essays were well written the ideas presented were repeated and after providing some interesting historical insights the themes presented have been thoroughly aired elsewhere