The Devil's Pleasure Palace: The Cult of Critical Theory and the Subversion of the West

“The sacred verities of Western civilization did not survive the hellish trenches of the First World War. The period 1914–1918 was the time when culture fractured, when the eternal verities that had built a civilization from the Holy Roman Empire to the Edwardian era came apart—” (201)Modern world, modern culture began in 1914. Walsh writing to identify, explain what basic ideas, beliefs, assumptions changed. He highlights the influence of the ‘Frankfurt school’. These are German writers, thinkers who left Germany and immigrated to America. What was their thought? How did this influence Western culture? Etc., etc..Nevertheless, Walsh starts from Genesis - not 1914.“Seduction, subversion, sedition—these are the tools of a creature we once called Satan, the Father of Lies, the loser of the Battle in Heaven. Yet he continues the fight here on earth with the only weapons at his disposal: man’s inherent weaknesses and zeal to be duped if the cause seems appealing enough. Chief among the weaknesses of Western man today are his fundamental lack of cultural self-confidence, his willingness to open his ears to the siren song of nihilism, a juvenile eagerness to believe the worst about himself and his society and to relish, on some level, his own prospective destruction.’’ (5)‘Siren song of nihilism’ rings in our ears! Will we crash on the rocks?“Whether one views the combatants in the struggle between God and Satan ontologically, mythically, or literarily, God created man in his own image and likeness but chose to give him free will—a force so powerful that not even God’s infinite love can always overcome it.’’ (5)Walsh unrepentantly defends/promotes human free will in this work. This work can also be seen as a defense of Milton’s “Paradise Lost to Paradise Regained’’. Milton wrote to explain god’s way to man. Walsh writes to explain modern man to himself.“This eternal conflict, then, is the essence of my religio-cultural argument, which I will view through the triple prisms of . . .1 - atheist cultural Marxism that sprang up amid the physical and intellectual detritus of Europe after the calamity of World War I, and its practical, battering-ram application, Critical Theory; and2 - Book of Genesis, from which our cultural self-understanding flows, and Milton’s great explicative epic poem, in which a God who reigns supreme is also a strangely absent and largely offstage Prime Mover; and3 - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s emblematic reworking of the man caught in the middle between Heaven and Hell, between God and Mephistopheles: Faust.’’ (7)Walsh does connect his religio-cultural ideas to current politics. I think that is where his conclusions break down. Since, as he says, this is God’s battle - why don’t we look to him to win it?(Our father in heaven, hallowed by thy name. Let your kingdom come . . .)Another odd idea about free will . . .“As St. Augustine wrote in the Enchiridion, “For God judged it better to bring good out of evil than not to permit any evil to exist.” Paradise may have been lost, but what was gained may have been something far more valuable, something, when you stop to think about it, that more closely comports with God’s stated plan for humanity: creatures endowed with free will and thus potentially superior to the angels.’’Yes, free will does imply possible evil. Free will brings risk as well as liberty. However, if the devil decided to rebel (as Walsh clearly understands) why assume angels don’t have free will? Puzzling.Preface: The Argument Introduction: Of the Devil’s Pleasure PalaceChapter One: Whose Paradise?Chapter Two: ThesisChapter Three: AntithesisChapter Four: The Sleep of Pure Reason Produces MonstersChapter Five: The Descent into HellChapter Six: The Eternal FeminineChapter Seven: Of Light and DarknessChapter Eight: Of Words and MusicChapter Nine: The Venusberg of DeathChapter Ten: World without God, AmenChapter Eleven: Of Eros and ThanatosChapter Twelve: The Consolation of PhilosophyChapter Thirteen: Mephisto at the Ministry of LoveChapter Fourteen: The Devil Is in the DetailsChapter Fifteen: Oikophobes and XenophilesChapter Sixteen: Good-Bye to All That“My college French teacher turned to us and said, in a remark I did not fully understand at the time,“You are all just the children of Rousseau.”“To this day, given the passions of the moment, I am not sure whether he meant it as criticism or compliment. For the historian Paul Johnson, the Swiss-born Rousseau is “the first of the modern intellectuals, their archetype and in many ways the most influential of them all,” as he writes in his 1988 book, Intellectuals. He continues:“Rousseau was the first to combine all the salient characteristics of the modern Promethean: the assertion of his right to reject the existing order in its entirety; confidence in his capacity to refashion it from the bottom in accordance with principles of his own devising; belief that this could be achieved by the political process; and, not least, recognition of the huge part instinct, intuition, and impulse play in human conduct. He believed he had a unique love for humanity and had been endowed with unprecedented gifts and insights to increase its felicity. An astonishing number of people, in his own day and since, have taken him at his own valuation.’’ (135)Many different scholars/historians conclude Rousseau’s Influence underlies modern culture. Walsh attempting to undo Rousseau/Marx and replace them with Milton.Walsh makes many, varied, even obscure ideas. Many seem more personal than the evidence warrants.In fact, his style is so blunt, it approaches rudeness. He feels ridicule, sneering, disrespect can serve to make his point. Well . . . it does, but sounds like he is preaching to the converted. Unlikely he will reach the heart of his opponents.Lots to learn. But needs careful filtering.Christopher Dawson wrote a critique of the West — “The Crisis of Western Education’’. More analytical, less strident, deeper insight.Recommended.

Scholarly, erudite study of CRT and our current condition in light of the enduring themes of artBut surprisingly blind to the JFK assassination because he wrote on it in the pastAuthor needs to take a fresh honest look

The Devil’s Pleasure Palace, by M. Walsh, discusses the fall of the USA’s western value system to an external and central European philosophic viewpoint which is at odds with all of western history and ultimately destructive to the values that are at the foundation of the most successful civilization in history. Mr. Walsh identifies the Frankfurt School and its ideology of “critical theory” as the culprit of cultural and rational destruction. It springs from Marxism and is founded in nihilism that denies the import of family, marriage, and God. In its wake it leaves annihilation. Thus, America and the western world have been set adrift to diminish and die in this new cognitive orientation where a godless society is without vision or purpose.I totally agree with his argument and his conclusions. Of course, books seldom convince anyone to adopt a new outlook, and in my case the book sustained and fortified conclusions I had already reached. The book is well thought out and presented. The writing, while sometimes tedious in its constant reference to classical works, is nonetheless engaging and thought provoking. Mr. Walsh gives the reader a few new ways to view the ruinous thinking of liberals (now re-named progressives).The Devil’s Pleasure Palace avoids a deep history of the critical theory movement. Rousseau is mentioned in passing but not truly examined and the jump to the post-modern era of thought is swift. A bit more background might have been useful.The largest failing swings around the lack of a discussion on “how” it happened. That is, how did the current outrageous liberalism take over our institutions? Were the leaders of our universities so weak or stupid they hired people that thought in ways destructive to their entire world view? How did this ugly and stupid ideology seep down to our high schools and even grade schools? By what process did the nihilist infiltrate the communication centers of our civilization grabbing total control of the newspapers and television stations around our nation? Once in control of the media and educational institutions the conquest of their ideology seems a forgone conclusion.Walsh is correct in saying we are immersed in an dogma where God is a joke, marriage and family a Victorian morass, and life is a meaningless absurdity in a vast universe. The average American and their heritage is massively impacted by these opinions. How did the American institutional thought fall to these vipers and why did the average American decide to support this sputum ideology? The book leaves these critical questions of how unanswered.AD2

America used its military might to help the allies defeat Germany in WW2. However, whilst militarily strong, the USA felt culturally inferior, and ended up giving refuge to a group of Marxist Jews from the Frankfurt school in Germany. Instead of being grateful to their host, this group set about undermining and then destroying American culture. They propagated Critical Theory, infecting American culture like a virus, spreading amongst its universities, Hollywood, sports and politics. It led to the PC movement which attacks American pride and confidence by promoting a belief that America was racist in its inception and bad and corrupt, especially the ‘white’ majority.Michael Walsh uses his considerable intellect and depth of understanding to tell the story of how the socialist wars in Europe transferred over to America. As a journalist in the old cold war, Walsh visited East Berlin and saw the communist regime at work, prior to the falling of the wall in 1989. He shows just how insidious and devastating the old failed socialist philosophies were and how they found fertile ground in the states. They have led to the new cold war between individualism and collectivism, capitalism and socialism…good and evil.Using his finely tuned literary skills, his background as a music critic and his expertise in East German and Soviet culture, he delivers a powerful, allegorical analysis of the battle between good and evil. In the end, will Germany finally prevail and get its revenge on the USA…or will the new world rediscover its confidence in 'freedom', and banish the German foe once and for all?

The Devil's Pleasure Palace book. Arrived quickly in good condition. Book is well manufactured on good quality paper. Not going to do a book review - you'll have to read it yourself!

Great read

I am not quite sure what the point of this diatribe was. He rambles on about the destructive effects of The Frankfurt School yet many of their theories were developed in response to national-socialism which he also despises. A lot of our problems are caused by both and then neither really - maybe we are all just exhausted and spent? Why don’t any of these writers attack the financiers and industrialists who sponsor all this instead of the masses who give up on them and the embittered writings of equally war-battered theorists?

Brilliant. Timely. Necessary. The problem the West faces has now been fully exposed/identified. This is the first step in solving it. A deep analysis that smartly brings spiritualism into full play here too. Each chapter is a jewel. Amazing.