Sunday, September 14, 2003
(12:18 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
Can there be a decent left?
I just found this article from the last anniversary of 9/11 in Dissent. In it, Michael Walzer, the co-editor of the magazine, makes some very serious accusations against "the left" in this nation, but a crucial factor is missing in this analysis: pointing out who the hell he's talking about. The closest I can get to a direct citation is "last fall's antiwar demonstrators" or "a few left academics." He's eager to cite the names of patriotic leftists from days of yore (George Orwell) or of French leftists who became alienated from their nation's policies (Jean-Paul Sartre), but he can't so much as bring himself to drop the name of one contemporary American leftist. Should it just be obvious to his readers? Are the names of Chomsky and Sontag too loathsome to type out?
Identifying himself as a leftist, he admits:
[L]eftists have no power in the United States, and most of us don't expect to exercise power, ever. Many left intellectuals live in America like internal aliens, refusing to identify with their fellow citizens, regarding any hint of patriotic feeling as a surrender to jingoism.
Is it really strange or inexcusable for a (relatively small) group of intellectuals to feel deeply alienated from a nation that clearly has no use for their fervent beliefs, arrived at after thousands of hours of research and study? And given the fact that these leftists have very little power and influence, is it really that good a use of time to criticize them for their "irrelevant" views?
I suppose that one can defend his general argument, despite the utter lack of citations, on the basis of the idea that a significant group of gifted intellectuals are expending their intellectual energy on useless theorizing that doesn't help anyone. But isn't it something of an indictment of our nation's intellectual life that those who advocate an economic system that is not exploitative of either laborers or nature, that makes a direct effort to meet everyone's basic needs, that does not ostracize people on the basis of race, gender, or consensual sexual practices are considered irrelevant? That people who advocate overturning a system that ruins countless lives every day are considered to be wasting their efforts and to be little more than snobs?
