Walter In Denver

Anti-Totalitarianism

Gary Farber approvingly points out this interview of leftist author Paul Berman. Leaving aside the now decades-old linguistic error equating leftism with liberalism, there is much discuss ...

You could begin with this point of view that, morally speaking, it’s incumbent upon us to resist absolute oppression, but having made that decision, it might not help you at all in analyzing politically who are the true oppressors, what is the real oppression, what is the best way to resist it. What you see in the book is a picture of the left from the 1950s and 1960s, when serious people—and I take everybody in the book seriously—were floundering in their efforts to answer these questions, and coming up with answers that are really wrong unto insanity.

Some of them, in their effort to be resistors, end up the allies of oppression, even anti-Semitic murderers. In trying to oppose the kind of Nazism that existed in the past—because something like Nazism is an eternal possibility—some of them end up being Nazi-like, and there is a shocked realization on the part of other people that this is happening, that this can easily happen, that a left-wing resistance movement can turn into its opposite.

If you define opposition to totalitarianism as opposition to the Nazis you are left with an incomplete definition. As much as some on the left are committed primarily to opposition to the right they are not opposed to totalitarianism in any real sense. A quick tally of left-wing totalitarians of the last century leaves one wondering how the left could define themselves as anti-totalitarian in any sense. That isn't to say individual leftists aren't anti-totalitarian, but that idea only exists by coincidence, not via leftist ideology.

There’s a way today in which there’s nobody more conservative than a standard leftist. My argument is that a standard leftist is someone to be avoided at all costs. I’m in favor of unstandard leftism, or anti-standard leftism. That ought to mean asking oneself these very fundamental questions, which the people I write about in Power and the Idealists are asking themselves, that have to do with this question of resistance—“What is the real oppression of our time?” Not what some ism tells us is the oppression of our time, but what is actually happening, who are the people that are actually suffering, and can something actually be done to help them?

I'll agree, and add that the mainstream left is the most conservative bunch in American politics in nearly every way.

Berman and the left are doomed to flail about, trading one oppression for another, until they begin to work in favor of individual liberty instead of pitting one oppressed group against another. For more thoughts along this line here's Arnold Kling, discussing 'Folk Marxism:'

Folk Marxism looks at political economy as a struggle pitting the oppressors against the oppressed. Of course, for Marx, the oppressors were the owners of capital and the oppressed were the workers. But folk Marxism is not limited by this economic classification scheme. All sorts of other issues are viewed through the lens of oppressors and oppressed. Folk Marxists see Israelis as oppressors and Palestinians as oppressed. They see white males as oppressors and minorities and females as oppressed. They see corporations as oppressors and individuals as oppressed. They see America as on oppressor and other countries as oppressed.

And Berman thinks that leftism can really work if we can just identify the proper oppressed classes. More from his interview:

I think some people have arrived at a lucid view, and above all they’ve done this by trying to strip away the delusions of ideology, the blindnesses that come from having an all-encompassing worldview. Some of it was conducted by philosophers like Glucksman, some by activists like Kouchner and some by politicians like Joschka Fischer. In the end, I think that the people I’m discussing all arrive at intelligent and admirable views, even though they’re not in agreement with each other. I can respect their differences; they all seem to be responsible, admirable people. Certainly a lesson of the book is that you can’t just take some ism for yourself and think that your problems are at an end. You can be pretty much guaranteed that if you’re following the dictates of an ism, sooner or later you are going to be disastrously wrong.

To which Gary Farber adds:

Somehow or other I figured this last out at some formatively young age -- like, age ten or so -- and never, ever, fell into making such a mistake. It's one of the various principles I've always since lived my life by.

So says the world's foremost proponent of Gary Farberism. We're all guided by a collection of ideas we believe to be true, and that collection is an ideology. It's unavoidable, save for refusing to think altogether. If it hasn't been formally named and given an -ism ending it makes no difference. At least we can recognize our ideologies and try to refine our personal ism and shed incorrect or harmful ideas.

The reason the Berman interview interested me is that he seems to be willing to consider that his ideas may be incorrect or at least harmful. That's rare enough that he's worth engaging in debate.

Posted by Walter at January 31, 2006 01:30 PM