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  • The Devil’s Pleasure Palace

  • The Cult of Critical Theory and the Subversion of the West
  • By: Michael Walsh
  • Narrated by: Michael Walsh
  • Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
  • 4.0 out of 5 stars (9 ratings)

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The Devil’s Pleasure Palace cover art

The Devil’s Pleasure Palace

By: Michael Walsh
Narrated by: Michael Walsh
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Publisher's Summary

In the aftermath of World War II, America stood alone as the world's premier military power. Yet its martial confidence contrasted vividly with its sense of cultural inferiority. Still looking to a defeated and dispirited Europe for intellectual and artistic guidance, burgeoning transnational elite in New York and Washington embraced not only the war's refugees but many of their ideas as well, and nothing has proven more pernicious than those of the Frankfurt School and its reactionary philosophy of "critical theory". At once overly intellectualized and emotionally juvenile, critical theory - like Pandora's box - released a horde of demons into the American psyche. When everything could be questioned, nothing could be real, and the muscular, confident empiricism that had just won the war gave way, in less than a generation, to a Central European nihilism celebrated on college campuses across the United States. In The Devil's Pleasure Palace, Michael Walsh looks at how critical theory took root in America and came to affect nearly every aspect of American life and society - and what can be done to stop it.

©2015 Michael Walsh (P)2015 Tantor

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Frightening and relevant

Valuable information about the Frankfurt school, the powerful and dangerous thought leaders that no-one outside of academia seems to know about. Bit too heavy on the Christianity for me, but still a fascinating read

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This book changed my life

This book challenged a great deal of my thinking. It made me understand my liberal leanings and misunderstandings. It clarified much that was confusing to me, without realising. I immediately read it reread it and will do so again.

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  • Ken
  • 17-09-2023

Painful

I have very little tolerance for what many people would call 'left wing insanity'. There is a great deal to be concerned about that is happening on the side of people who would rightfully once have been called 'progressive'.
The problem with this book is that Michael Walsh is asking us to take a tremendous step backward, and embrace the very ideology that drove the left to insanity in the first place. The literal hatred, the intolerance and the absolute refusal to even consider the possibility that their own ideology could possibly be wrong is what caused such a tremendous amount of hardening and lack of interest in conversation from their ideological opponents. You can only argue with a wall for so long before you decide to just knock it down instead.
There are no answers here, except for those who, like Michael wish to return to an earlier time. Albeit one that never existed. There is no doubt that Christianity has come a long way since the 'bad old days' but that has very little to do with the inherent goodness of the bible, and its teachings, and a LOT more to do with people realizing that it must be reinterpreted, reimagined and hammered into a new shape to fit modern sensibilities, and modern understandings of reality. Never forget the bad old days of Christianity, and the true reason why it is no longer as it was. Michael most certainly has. His 'Christianity' is a pseudoscientific fantasy.

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