Personally I find Bernard-Henri Lévy rather insufferable--a fine journalist of the Atlantic Monthly mold who has convinced and been convinced that he's a philosopher, but in reading a recent review of Left in Dark Times, in The Chronicle of Higher Education, I came across this odd sentence:
For Lévy "nothing good can come for the Left" without breaking with much of its history, especially softness on totalitarianism.I suppose it has more meaning within the context of the French leftist intelligentsia, which was for Stalin before it was against him, or sort of for Stalin before it was against him, or had a couple of notably pro-Soviet members who eclipsed in the reactionary imagination the very fraught and difficult relationship between European leftists and the Soviet Union. As a general diagnosis, however, it engages the old, callow smear: that the "left," whatever and wherever that might be, was soft on Communism, the most monstrous of all ideologies.
The truth is that the adherents to and proponents of all political ideologies are the heirs of and aspirants to totalitarianism--the left was soft on socialist tyrannies and the right on fascist ones. At the root of political ideologies is the desire to rule, and the desire to rule obliterates ideological distinctions ever more quickly as it begins to achieve its desired ends. The idea that one or other politics is most prone to tolerating authoritarian government is mere chauvinism. No corner of the political spectrum is inherently more limited in its aims than any other.
22 comments:
Certainly it is true that adherents from both ends of the traditional political spectrum aspire to authoritarian control, and as such are ethically or theoretically indistinguishable. The question of which politics is "most prone", or more prone, to "tolerate" authoritarianism, however, is best addressed after exiting the ivory tower, and after discarding the intellectual's anxiety-of-influence disdain for Common Labels, in deference to what those Labels have actually wrought on the ground.
First off, it's somewhat of a nonstarter for practical purposes to discuss a people's "tolerance" of totalitarian regimes, unless it's defined as "declining (or failing) to rise up in massive rebellion". There are more than a few variables at play there. Secondly, might Levy not be excused for focusing on the Left's baggage, in that the twentieth century scorecard from Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot alone puts right-wing totalitarianism behind by a few score million victims or so? By addressing the biggest offender, one does not necessarily contend there are no other offenders....
'The idea that one or other politics is most prone to tolerating authoritarian government is mere chauvinism. No corner of the political spectrum is inherently more limited in its aims than any other.'
Is it so self-evident that one does not need to give any supporting argument?
It doesn't help matters that the statistics are consistently politicized, the data thoroughly debatable. All sides move the goal posts to suit their purposes.
Thus, the Cambodian genocide gets pinned (not unjustly, however) on Maoism, while we killed like, what, just as many people in Vietnam, more if you count our not-so-secret secret wars next-door? Yet they're never mentioned in the same breath.
The thing is, to bring us back to what we were discussing a week ago, that it's not so much that ideologies kill people. People kill people. So what do you do? Do you pin Cambodia on what people were reading in the jungles, or do you look at the broader context, at the US bombing that disrupted the government, that allowed the Khmer Rouge to take root?
And do we forget so easily that, as that time, democracy (a part which, tonight, will be played by the United States) was cozying up to monolithic ultra-evil communism--wait, I mean anti-Soviet awesome Sinocommunism, which was itself allied with--you guessed it--Cambodia. This shit is easy folks. And lest we forget who ended the genocide we cry so much about?
Communist Vietnam.
So democracy aided a communist genocide that was ended by a communist regime? Uh, let's not get so wrapped up in labels.
And I'm not even going to get into all the various massacres that, for the sake of ease, were funded by "peaceful" democracy. Look, people do what they do. Ideology plays a part. But when it doesn't let us do what we want (fuck, kill, lie, what-have-you), we fucking change it. That's why democracy can afford to be undemocratic in order to "defend itself" and why Chinese communism is "harnessing" the engines of the market.
I think that's inaccurate, inkberrow, in that it discounts Hirohito's Japan, which was as much to the "right" as any European fascist state, such as the left-right spectrum has any meaning, and which fostered the deaths of at leats 15 million in occupied China alone. Add to that Chaing Kai-shek's Nationalists' brutality and suddenly rightist/fascist/nationalist movements seem less deficient in the body-count score than you imply. It's also worth noting that the examples of Stalin and especially Mao include millions of people killed by failed collectivization, modernization, and agricultural revolutions which resulted in famine, while the Nazis and Japanese killed millions directly via pogroms. That isn't to suggest one is morally preferable, but rather that the question of "the biggest offender" isn't a simple matter of tallying deaths.
Where, by the way, do you see me talking about populations "tolerating" totalitarianism. Putting words in my mouth, I'd say. It's clear that this post is about committed partisans.
the left was soft on socialist tyrannies and the right on fascist ones
I think the side chosen is ultimately a matter of fashion and unrelated to supposed political ideologies. The furthest Left president we've had (FDR) had the biggest hard-on for what some contend is the only government that ever truly fit the definition of Fascist (WW II Italy).
are not the person who wants to be told they are attractive, and the person who wants to be told they are loved, equally tolerant of the old in-out-in-out?
Even if Mao/Stalin/Pol Pot/Mitterand racked up more victims on the "scorecard" (stay classy, inkberrow)... was it because they were more authoritarian or more bloodthirsty? I mean, it just seems like conflating two things for the sake of getting to making the point you want to make. Which is fine if that's when gets you through a Wednesday afternoon, but... are we gonna split hairs here?
The argument seems to be "[a]t the root of political ideologies is the desire to rule." That's a much more interesting debate to be having, IMO, than whether nominally Left dictators were super ultra bad genociders or merely ultra bad.
If we go back to the colonial era, it's not clear that the left has a higher bodycount anyway. The Brits caused the deaths of tens of millions in India in the same way that Mao did in China. Then there's Leopold in Belgium, and I gather he wasn't really any worse than the French in one of the neighboring colonies.
Now if you go by percentages, the US can also play with the big boys. The Trail of Tears only killed thousands, but that was a pretty big chunk of the Cherokee population.
Donald
The old death count "scorecard" argument for the greater evilism of "the left", apart from being empirically questionable (as others have nicely explained above), also misses the point: it is simply false to assert that "The Left" endorsed, acquiesced in, turned a blind eye to, or otherwise tolerated the undoubted atrocities of Stalin/Mao/Pol Pot/whoever. Some people and groups on the left did so with respect to some of those atrocities (though only a very few did so with respect to all of them -- sing it with me now: "Oh the Stalinists hate the Maoists, and the Maoists hate the Titoists, and the Titoists hate the Castroites, and everyone hates the Trots.") Others did not, and were among the most vocal and active opponents of those atrocities and the regimes that committed them.
Of course, it's also true that some right-wingers were among the vocal and active opponents of Hitler/Mussolini/Nixon/whoever. In the end, as IOZ suggests, "Who is Softer on Tyranny" is a chump's game, largely because it misses the significance, source and nature of tyranny.
No corner of the political spectrum is inherently more limited in its aims than any other.
And don't get me started on the anti-authoritarian anarchists! Or the fucking nihilists!
Speaking of BHL : have you ever seen this ?
This was filmed after he was "entarté". That would look like "en-pie-d", if pie was a verb.
And the commentator afterwards is a famous French comic, Pierre Desproges. Basically, he says it's good to see the true face of such arrogant fucks as BHL.
"Le nouveau philosophe de mes deux"
Well, TGGP, we surely shouldn't judge a thing until we've tried it, and yet one cannot assume benevolence on the part of a political group or movement simply because they've never been in a position of state power. That fallacy was well-addressed by Nietzsche, who found in Western thought a great tendency to confuse weakness for goodness.
So when a Libertarian tells me that, essentially, candy will fall from the sky once the Two-Party system is diverted, I have to chuckle. Some things don't change, I'm sorry to say, and the kernel of monstrosity exists in man, not in bad ideas. Oh, ick, that makes me sound so conservative.
But IOZ's well-picked example strikes me, and even though I hesitate to associate the Imperial Japanese with fascism, at least idealistically (they certainly associated in fact), as they had several cultural hallmarks that distinguish them, the fact is that they were pretty clearly rightist, with the alliance of the aristocrats with their military ties and the new industrialism of the capitalist elite, their manipulation of ancient faith and nationalism... And yeah, they sure did like killing the Chinese. Just like everyone else.
Hell, do we forget so soon that MacArthur wanted to expand the Korean War into China, nuking the place into cinders? Of course, were we to do that, it wouldn't be genocide, of course. It would have been war. And even if it was wrong, that would have been MacArthur's fault. His crimes would say nothing about democracy, right? To borrow a phrase coined recently to describe a very old mindset, democracy can't fail. It can only be failed, right?
I'll concede that the empirical data is a wash, once I assume arguendo that European/American colonial excesses are properly analagous to fascism or totalitarianism for purposes of the inquiry as initially framed. Sorry, IOZ, but the Japanese are, and always have been, sui generis. At least no one belched up the smallpox-laden blanket canard.
But Eric, spare me the twaddle about the American and Euro-Left not being active-service apologists for the atrocities of e.g., Stalin. Doubtless you've forgotten that one of the NYT's many Pulitzer recipients, one Walter Duranty, earned his accolade denouncing slanderous suggestions that things Soviet were not altogether as reported by Party press mouthpieces---people weren't starving en masse, Duranty dis-covered, and the late-thirties show trials were among the Fairest He'd Ever Seen Or Heard Of. And Eric, American public-school products are STILL fed the "witch-hunt" pabulum about seduced true believers like Alger Hiss, the Rosenbergs, and Kim Philby, and about their dilettante fellow-travelers in Hollywood and New York, who'd have taken the time during the cocktail-party circuit to rationalize eating babies if it occurred in the name of the People, or a Balance of Power, or whatever catchphrase made them feel superior or temporarily assauged their carzy-money guilt. Gosh, my heart goes out to those Woody Allen heroes who were subjected to invasive questions which interfered with shooting schedules, about the content of their convictions during a time of unprecedented danger to America and the world.
Inkberrow evidently has as much trouble with reading comprehension as he does with history. I specifically agreed that some segments of the left did indeed endorse, apologize for, or fail sufficiently to oppose Stalin etc. Duranty would be one good example. He was also one person. There were too many like him. And there were a great many who were not.
Everyone remembers Nazis rather than Commies because 1. we won a shooting war against the former and 2. they looked cool.
I also think Japan is rather sui generis. It's also often forgotten how close Chaing Kai-Shek was to the Soviets.
Here's your chance to disabuse me on history, Eric---please let me know my errors, so that I may prevent their repetition.
The other problem may be your writing, not my comprehension. Perhaps you now wish you'd said it differently. You stated, above, "It is simply false to assert that 'The Left' endorsed, acquiesced in, turned a blind eye to, or otherwise tolerated...." the atrocities of Stalin etc. I read that rather unequivocally, Eric, and as only negligibly qualified by your mealy-mouthed follow-up concerning "some people" re "some" atrocities, though "very few". In fact, chief, to supplement my first refutation of your asinine claim, until VENONA and other post-Cold War realities finally set in, apology for Communism and Communist sympathizers was the dominant meme of the intellectual Left for the better part of a century, so much so that American schoolkids are still breathing in their self-pitying effluvia today. "Stalin" brings a question or a yawn; "Communist" means alternately "fictitious boogeyman" and "witch-hunt victim"; while "McCarthy" and HUAC stand second only to Hitler and maybe the KKK in villainy.
Inkberrow's selective quotations and tendentious characterizations only further demonstrate his lack of reading comprehension -- a deficiency for which his trite invective is no compensation.
My point was simple and clear: "The Left" is an illusory construct. There are, and have been, multiple "lefts", and they have never marched in lock step with each other. Indeed, the fighting -- ideological and physical -- among them is well known to anyone who has even the most passing familiarity with the subject.
By insisting on lumping them together and painting them all with the same red brush, Inkberrow and his ilk display complete ignorance of the subject and lack of interest in honest debate.
What a putz.
so much so that American schoolkids are still breathing in their self-pitying effluvia today. "Stalin" brings a question or a yawn; "Communist" means alternately "fictitious boogeyman" and "witch-hunt victim"; while "McCarthy" and HUAC stand second only to Hitler and maybe the KKK in villainy.
Yea, I wonder exactly how that's been made so. From your comment, it looks like some kind of conspiracy of the Intellectual Left who holds sway over the minds of all young people even today. Or something.
Or maybe, I don't know, some guy named McCarthy conducted said witch-hunt, which was a thousand times realer and closer to home than the stuff happening on the other side of the planet in Russia, and therefore was carved a lot deeper in the American psyche than anything Stalin did.
Which, I'll remind you, happened on the other side of the planet. Other side of the planet that Americans don't know/care much about.
Yea I think I'll go with that explanation. It's a lot better than the Intellectual Left telling everyone what to think.
Eric---you raised the subject of "honest debate". Referring to those who disagree with you as if you are looking down from above, as you intone to some imagined audience of supporters, is not conducive thereto. I too would go with, "Eric apparently believes X and Y", or "I must take issue with what Eric said", but it's just too silly. Do you use the royal "we" on occasion as well?
Meanwhile, your response---sorry, "comment" or "announcement"---is again woefully short on detail, despite your own rather tendentious certitude. I suppose I'll accept your objective assessment, along with your Imaginary Audience, that your tapdancing is "simple and clear".
Littlehorn---a conspiracy is an agreement to do something illicit. Those with common cause, those in a movement, may have aspects in common with "conspirators", but we don't really learn much one way or the other about good-faith movements by positing the strawman pejorative "conspiracy" in an effort to quell substantive analysis. Re "movements", you may have heard of an influential fellow named Herbert Marcuse, who among others outlined the appropriate course of action once it became clear that Winston Smith and O'Brien were correct, and Marx was mistaken, at least where the West was concerned---that while any hope for change did lie with the proles, they were just too lazy and sheeplike (and well-fed) to get a political revolution in gear. The rest, as they say, is history, even though Marcuse's intellectual and socio-political heirs often disdain to credit his legacy, for the same reasons Joyce tilted with Shakespeare. Shoot, maybe for the same reason Eric talks in the third person.
Quick point on "witch hunts"---they were crazy and unjust not just because many people suffered, but because as it happened there really weren't any such things as witches turning people into newts after all. As I alluded to previously, unless you're one of those dead-ender romantics who still believes that Hiss and the Rosenbergs were innocent, we actually had us plenty of real live and active Commies, plus plenty of dilettante but dangerous Commie Sympathizers ("useful idiots", someone called them), whether or not one buys into the popular hagiography of their pious suffering and ersatz matrydom. You progressives can think of McCarthy as a sort of Jeremiah Wright. Plus there's that pesky word "marxism" in "cultural marxism"......
It seems we were mistaken when we referred to Inkberrow as a putz. It is now clear he's just a meshuganah. We apologize.
McCarthy went after people in government. He crashed and burned in the Army-McCarthy hearings. HUAC was created under Roosevelt (to go after isolationists and Trotskyites) and as the H implies was in the House. McCarthy was a senator.
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