Neiman, the director of an international public think tank called the Einstein Forum, continues the probing cultural critique begun in her Learning From the Germans (2019) and Left Is Not Woke (2023). Appalled by President Trump’s “ideas that are destructive enough to warrant the word evil,” she proposes a return to “universalism.” In the wake of Hannah Arendt’s conception of fascist evil as a “failure to think,” she argues that “not malice but vacancy marks the worst form of evil.” In seven ruminative chapters, she pinpoints some of the causes for the current state of affairs in the United States: market fundamentalism and its focus on the accumulation of wealth as well as the elevation of power over law. At the same time, Neiman also excoriates the adherents of “identitarian” politics or wokeness: “We must face the consequences of the liberal/left hesitation to use moral language.” The author effectively challenges American self-boosterism (“every survey of wealthy countries shows the U.S. behind on any measure of well-being”) and convincingly defends Enlightenment thought. Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” was, she points out, that of a benevolent God, not that of the capitalist market regulating itself. But her attack on wokeness mirrors all too familiar right-wing talking points, neglecting the fact that competence—which she claims should be “the first criterion for appointments”—is more difficult to attain for disadvantaged members of society. Similarly, support for transgender rights might be less the product of niche tribalism than the desire to allow the pursuit of happiness for everyone. Neiman movingly evokes Albert Einstein’s democratic socialism as a model for moral renewal today but does not reveal how her readers, numbed by daily government spin, might go about implementing it.
