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the matter in even cruder terms, he would not have exposed
the matter in even cruder terms, he would not have exposed
himself to our ridicule for offering us a God who is a fascist.
himself to our ridicule for offering us a God who is a fascist.
{{sfn|Trilling|1987|p=127}}
{{sfn|Trilling|1971|p=127}}
</blockquote>
</blockquote>


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{{pg|342|343}}
{{pg|342|343}}
of an unconscious, natural process that is somehow undermined by social
peace and compromise is a very interesting one indeed. So for Sorel any adulteration
of the implacable antagonism between the middle and working
classes acts as a disruption of an unconscious development:
<blockquote>
If . . . the middle class, led astray by the ''chatter'' of the preachers of ethics and sociology . . . seek to correct the abuses of economics, and wish to break with the barbarism of their predecessors,
then one part of the forces which were to further the development
of capitalismis employed in hindering it, an arbitrary and
irrational element is introduced, and the future of the world becomes
completely indeterminate.{{sfn|Sorel|1941|p=87}} 
</blockquote>
Sorel refers to the state resulting fromsuch "irrationality" as "decadent" and
"degenerate," and thus we have another clear parallel with Mailer’s idea of "the plague," as in both cases we observe an attenuation of fundamental and
essential conflicts.
My own extrapolation from Sorel's idea is as follows. Someone acting in
such a context and with such an understanding of how things work, he offers:
would they not possibly come to believe that (please remember our second paradox) the best strategy of attaining their goals might be propping up the enemy? And is exactly this not an important part of Mailer’s strategy in the whole Goldwater affair and beyond? I am referring to all those ideas running through his 1960s work, about restoring a true Conservatism to its
lost potency, so that a vital and drastic confrontation with the Left can be ensured.
What is, perhaps, the best example of the paradoxical positions resulting
from such an equally paradoxical attitude can be found in Mailer’s
speech at the debate with William Buckley, Jr. There, what we might call a "freedom-loving" brand of Conservatism is pitted against a “Totalitarian”
one and the Cold War itself is denounced as a sort of senseless distraction
from another war that would be "welcome": "the war which has meaning,
that great and mortal debate between rebel and conservative where each
would argue the other is an agent of the Devil."
{{sfn|Mailer|1976|p=187-8}}
Sorel's own solution for reinforcing the essential antagonism between the
middle and working classes is the employment of proletarian violence. The
social peacemakers' advances, we are told, must be met with "black ingratitude"
and blows. The paradox here is that such violence will prevent more
{{pg|343|344}}
virulent and abhorrent violence on a grander scale. For a revolution erupting in the midst of capitalist decadence would, according to Sorel, lead either to a regression to barbarism and/or anarchy, or to "the dictatorship of the
proletariat." The latter represents Sorel's worst nightmare, since by this term he understands a revolution led by his unconscionable opponents, the "parliamentary"
Socialists, and that revolution would be destined to repeat the
worst excesses of the French Revolution.
Thus we are brought to the final resemblance between Mailer and Sorel, the idea that a form of limited violence can work to prevent what may be
properly called "totalitarian" violence, which is organized violence on a massive
scale employing the resources of the State. In fact, Sorel goes so far as to propose that, to avoid misunderstandings, we call all violence of this second type "force" and retain the term "violence" for all oppositional (notably, of
course, proletarian) violent acts:
<blockquote>
Sometimes the terms ''force'' and ''violence'' are used in speaking of
acts of authority, sometimes in speaking of acts of revolt . . . I
think it would be better to adopt a terminology which would
give rise to no ambiguity, and that the term violence should be employed only for acts of revolt; we should say, therefore, that the object of force is to impose a certain social order in which the
minority governs, while violence tends to the destruction of that
order. The middle class have used force since the beginning of modern times, while the proletariat now reacts against the middle
class and against the State by violence.{{sfn|Sorel|1941|p=195}} 
</blockquote>
This distinction between "force" and "violence" is one Mailer essentially
shared with Sorel.
Let us, briefly, recapitulate our main points. Totalitarianism can be approached
not only as "a system" but also as a discourse whose logic confuses political sides. A thinker operating within the framework of this discourse is bound, by dint of its logic, to get entangled within a certain political paradoxology,
which is conducive to the formulation of highly idiosyncratic positions
such as Mailer’s "Left Conservatism." Indeed our central preoccupation throughout has been with the question, “How is a Left Conservative
produced?” In response to this question we proposed a principle and highlighted what might initially appear as a certain conceptual "mech-
{{pg|344|345}}
anism." The principle is that opposition to totalitarianism will often turn out to be itself, ''de facto'', totalitarian or potentially totalitarian. Between the
two opposed "totalitarianisms," then, the distinction between Left and Right
will tend to be attenuated if not erased. The "mechanism" we termed, with the help of Jean Radford’s old but still very interesting study on Mailer, the
''politique du pire''.
The ''politique du pire'', being a policy (and hence a mechanism), could be
initially approached in tactical or strategic terms as the idea that the tactical aggravation of oppression, exploitation, conflict (but therefore also the preservation in good shape of one’s opponent) will bring a strategic goal of
revolution even closer. However, on closer inspection it turns out that, in the case of both Mailer and Sorel, whatever tactical or strategic deliberations
might there be, the "mechanism" also actually conceals a principle. In
Mailer’s characteristic terms, acute, inflammatory diseases are healthier than lingering, silent ones. The metaphor points to a rather complex economy of
violence. We dealt with one of its facets, the opposition of subjective to objective violence. Placated once, subjective, visible, symptomatic violence feeds, through accumulation, into objective or better still, in our case, totalitarian"
violence. However, the two principles here interlock. The bearer of liberated subjective violence, the hipster, is himself potentially amenable
to the call of a "magnetic leader" with visions of "mass murder." We are still in the cycle of "totalitarianism."


=== Notes ===
=== Notes ===
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