(What’s so funny ’bout) peace, love and compassion?

Today is the official publication date of Bill Voegeli’s new book: The Pity Party: A Mean-Spirited Diatribe Against Liberal Compassion. We’ll hear from the author himself about the book tomorrow. Inviting me to submit a blurb, the publisher sent me a galley copy of the book this summer. I read it and seriously loved it. This is the complete unexpurgated blurb I submitted:

In this brilliant book William Voegeli demonstrates beyond a reasonable doubt that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in the liberals’ “philosophy” of kindness and compassion. Voegeli deeply illuminates the desiccated state of contemporary liberalism, bringing wit and learning lightly worn to a thoroughgoing demolition of liberal doctrine. He treats liberal doctrine seriously but mercilessly, puncturing liberal pretensions and self-regard along the way. Although Voegeli holds the book out as a diatribe, I believe this to be the best short book on politics since Machiavelli’s Prince, and a helluva lot funnier. I am most grateful for it, and for the laughs.

Nick Lowe wrote the song in which Elvis Costello plaintively posed the question: “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding?” After all these years someone has finally gotten around to providing an answer. Hillsdale College’s Imprimis publishes Bill’s short course in “The case against liberal compassion.” Please check out the book at the Amazon link as we await the returns today.

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