I've heard young would-be scholars dismiss Harold Bloom as an old, conservative dinosaur (they call him Brontosaurus in the title of this interview), but that could hardly be the case. Not the conservative part anyway.

Resolve this:

I have many enemies in the English-speaking world, in and out of universities and the media, because I was politically on the extreme left. Culturally, I totally reject this horrible political correctnes, this hideous notion that people should read and study any work of literature, of the imagination on the basis of the ethnic origin, the agenda, the sexual orientation or skin pigmentation of the writer. That strikes me as real fascism. And I fought against it bitterly from about 1967 till the present – it's a battle I've waged for thirty-seven years and of course I have acquired many enemies in the proces.

With this:

Of course, the United States is in a terrible condition, we have a kind of fascist regime here – I think it's the real truth about it and you can quote me on that. A few years ago, when I was in Barcelona receiving the national prize of Catalonia, I remarked when somebody asked me a question about president George Bush: "He is semiliterate at best, to call him a Fascist would be to flatter him." He has now sufficiently grown in depth that you are no longer flattering him by calling him a Fascist – it is simply a descriptive remark.

And this:

This regime really hates Europe. It doesn't ask for allies. This regime is acting as if the United States is the new Roman Empire. And it's trying to force another Pax Romana upon the world, which is no peace at all, like Nazis, like Fascists, like Stalinists...

Is it political correctness or neo-conservativism that's 'real fascism?'

I invite comments on, and I invite you all to read the piece to hunt out other gems, like how the Asian Americans are the new Jews:

I teach my clases at Yale and what cheers me up are my Asian American students – about half of the students who take my clases are Asian Americans. What in my generation the Jews were – the intelligentsia – these people are becoming. The Jews in this country are now so asimilated that looking at their score cards I could not tell the difference between my Gentile and my Jewish students. The Asian Americans are the new Jews – they are the ones who study hard, they have a real pasion, a real drive to understand. If this country has a future, it will be because of the new immigrants, the Asians, the Africans, the Hispanics. Our regime is fascistic, but our constitution is good.

Or the truth of Kabbalah. Discuss.