EDITORnThomas FlemingnMANAGING EDITORnKatherine DaltonnSENIOR EDITOR, BOOKSnChilton Williamson, Jr.nASSISTANT EDITORnTheodore PappasnART DIRECTORnAnna Mycek-WodeckinCONTRIBUTING EDITORSnJohn W. Aldridge, Harold O.J.nBrown, Samuel Francis, GeorgenGarrett, Russell Kirk, E. ChristiannKopff, Clyde WilsonnCORRESPONDING EDITORSnJanet Scott Barlow, Odie Faulk,nJane Greer, John Shelton Reed,nGary VasilashnEDITORIAL SECRETARYnLeann DobbsnPUBLISHERnAllan C. CarlsonnASSOCIATE PUBLISHERnMichael WardernPUBLICATION DIRECTORnGuy C. ReffettnCOMPOSITION MANAGERnAnita FedoranCIRCULATION MANAGERnRochelle FranknA Publication ofnThe Rockford InstitutenEditorial and Advertising Offices: 934 NorthnMain Street, Rockford, IL 61103.nEditorial Phone: (815) 964-5054.nAdvertising Phone; (815) 964-5811.nSubscription Department: P.O. Box 800, MountnMorris, IL 61054. Call 1-800-435-0715, innIllinois 1-800-892-0753.nFor information on advertising in Chronicles,nPlease call Cathy Corson at (815) 964-5811.nU.S.A. Newsstand Distribution by EasternnNews Distributors, Inc., 1130 Cleveland Road,nSandusky, OH 44870.nCopyright © 1990 by The Rockford Institute.nAll rights reserved.nCHRONICLES (ISSN 0887-5731) is publishednmonthly for $21 per year by The RockfordnInstitute, 934 North Main Street, Rockford, ILn61103-7061.nSecond-class postage paid at Rockford, IL andnadditional mailing offices.nPOSTMASTER: Send address changes tonCHRONICLES, P.O. Box 800, Mount Morris,nIL 61054.nThe views expressed in Chronicles are thenauthors’ alone and do not necessarily reflect thenviews of The Rockford Institute or of itsndirectors. Unsolicited manuscripts cannot benreturned unless accompanied by a self-addressednstamped envelope.nChroniclesnA MAGAZINE OF AMERICAN (ULIJREnVol. 14, No. 6 June 1990n4/CHRONICLESnPOLEMICS & EXCHANGESnOn The Other GodnThat Failed’nI am writing to avert any possible confusionnbetween a book recently reviewednin your magazine (January 1990) and anwork of my own. To be sure, no onenwho actually read my book, TJie OthernGod That Failed: Hans Freyer and thenDeradicalization of German Conservatism,nwould be likely to confuse itnwith the one reviewed in Chronicles.nYour reviewer, Lee Congdon, says In”cleariy” identify with Peter Colliernand David Horowitz, and that I amntransfixed by American neoconservatism.nMy book mentions neither ofnthese writers and barely touches uponnthe radicalization or deradicalization ofnAmericans in the 1960’s, though itndoes deal more broadly with patterns ofnpolitical radicalization and deradicalizationnamong intellectuals on the leftnand right since the French Revolution.nLater in the review, a purported flaw innthe book’s characterization of its subject’snpolitical role during the ThirdnReich is accounted for via a long andnloose deductive chain, somehow runningnfrom a murky attack by RussellnKirk against those who are too fond ofndemocracy through a rhetorically exaggeratednself-characterization by NormannPodhoretz, on to drugs in contemporarynAmerica, and finallynreaching the purported relationship ofncontemporary American neoconservativesnto the Enlightenment. The readernis told that I am among those whonmaintain that a historicist critique ofnthe Enlightenment “must be fatal” andn”despise the Counter-Enlightenmentnand the historical thinking that questionsnthe universality of reason’s dictatesnand insists upon the relativity ofnpolitical and social arrangements.”nMy book, by contrast, asserts thatn”the correlation between the Enlightenmentnand Counter-Enlightenmentntraditions and subsequent political ideologiesnis by no means tidy. If liberalism,ncosmopolitanism, socialism andncommunism owed more to the Enlightenment,nand conservatism, nationalism,nand fascism more to thennnCounter-Enlightenment, it was alsonpossible to deploy arguments basednupon the universalist rationalism of thenEnlightenment tradition to coerce thenrecalcitrant at home and abroad, just asnit was possible to draw upon the intellectualnarsenal of the Counter-nEnlightenment to promote tolerancenbased upon a respect for diversity. . . .nBoth traditions were susceptible to totalitariannreformulations by theirntwentieth-century legatees.”nThis is only one example of thenmany divergences between the claimsnof my book and the one reviewed.nShould the historical problem of thenrelationship of intellectuals to the stabilizationnand destabilization of liberaldemocraticngovernments interest theneditors of Chronicles, they may want tonassign my book for review to the LeenCongdon whose careful scholarly worknon Georg Lukacs is treated as such innThe Other God That Failed, rathernthan to the hatchet-man who apparentlynread my book in search of some hooknon which to hang an attack on contemporarynAmerican neoconservatives.n—Jerry Z. MullernDepartment of HistorynCatholic University of AmericanWashington, D.C.nLee Congdon RepHes:nProfessor Muller’s angry letter puzzlesnme. In my review I commended hisn”exhaustive research,” “honest account,”nand “fair description.” But Inargued that, consciously or not, he hadnread the American neoconservative experiencenback into the history ofnGerman conservatism. Like manynderadicalized (“second thoughts”) NewnLeftists, Hans Freyer, we were told,n”emerged as a spokesman for a brand ofnconservatism reconciled with liberal democracy.”n(p. 317) In the UnitednStates, we call that brand “neoconservatism,”nbecause it maintains that a totalitariannlogic informs the older — historicalnand anti-democratic — conservatism.nAccording to Professor Muller,nwho frequently contributes to Commentary,nAmerica’s leading neocon-n