I have just finished reading Nick Cohen’s excellent book and I just wish that more of my critics and in particular all of those well intentioned people who describe themselves as “of the Left” would take the time to read it and consider Cohen’s argument.
As Cohen says in the piece I quote above there are some aspects of the leftist view of life that still have some virtue but they have all but been over whelmed by the foolish support of totalitarian regimes.
The left are really like the man who has sold his soul to the devil and who has forgotten that he has done so. Thinking that he still has a soul the leftist continues to rant and rail against the societies that allow them what is a luxury in this world, personal freedom, while offering implicit support to those forces of darkness who would not hesitate to line then up against a wall. Cohen is one of the Authors of the Euston Manifesto and as laudable as that document is in its intention, I have my doubts that many on the left can now ever be redeemed.
Sigh 
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“they have all but been over whelmed by the foolish support of totalitarian regimes.”
Complete rubbish. We do not support totalitarian regimes. None of the lefties I know support totalitarian regimes. And I certainly don’t support totalitarian regimes.
And, look, there goes Cohen’s entire argument. And yours. QED.
Jeremy,
As you have decided to post a comment here, and I have allowed it will you be willing to return the favour should I choose to comment at your Blog?
In any case in my closing paragraph I make the point that much of the support for totalitarian regimes is Implicit rather than explicit. You do know the difference don’t you?
I suspect that the closest that you have come to actually reading the book is an extract published in the paper is this correct?
As a whole Cohen makes a very cogent argument about leftist politics that you should actually read before dismissing it.
QED
“much of the support for totalitarian regimes is Implicit rather than explicit.”
It’s not imPLICIT, it’s imAGINARY.
Your claim appears to be based on the idea that, for example, any criticism of a western government is somehow “implicit support” for the other regimes in the world. Unfortunately, the argument doesn’t follow at all.
Sure, you’ll be able to find some people who call themselves lefties who’ll idiotically try defending some tyrannical “socialist” government just because it’s opposed to the US; but likewise you’ll find some people who call themselves righties who’ll idiotically call for the slaughter of anyone who disagrees with them (I know you’re familiar with A Western Heart, for example).
The rest of us – when we criticise, say, the US for doing something contrary to the rule of law or basic democratic principles, that’s because we expect better of it. We could criticise, say, the Zimbabwean government for the same thing, but there’s hardly a debate there – who’s seriously arguing the other side? It goes without saying that Zimbabwe is ruled by a vicious despot.
We also concentrate critical attention on the Australian government because it’s the government that represents us. Clearly if it’s not representing us very well, then our duty as citizens of a democracy is to make our views known in an effort to encourage it to change such policies.
I’m not sure how you can conclude that I’ve ever “implicitly” supported a totalitarian regime – unless you’re demanding that any criticism of someone or something also include a criticism of everyone else in the world who shares the same characteristic, failing which it’s somehow an endorsement of anyone not explicitly condemned.
You could make that demand, of course, but it’d make discussion of politics unwieldy and unworkable. And I don’t imagine your “side” would enjoy adhering to it, either.
In any case, I expect that you’ll wilfully misunderstand the point I’m making so I’ll stop wasting my time trying to explain it to you.
As for commenting on my blog… I doubt it. You may be unable to cause me any personal damage any more, but that’s because thanks partly to your efforts the damage is done. My ability to comment on politics anonymously was destroyed by you for no reason other than spite, and from what I see here I don’t really think you’ve changed all that much.
Too be honest, if this is the best quote you can find to reprint out of Cohens book, I don’t think I’ll be wasting any money on it.
Mr Lefty is right – anytime a right-winger starts making absurd unilateral attacks on the left (and vice-versa to be fair) then I know that the political blinkers are on, and political subjectivity is in play – in a twist on the old saying it’s a case of ‘the grass is always greener on MY side of the political fence’.
And thats exactly what you are doing with your ‘look the left are soulless people who deal with the devil’ claim. Utterly absurd and utterly driven by the political idealism of the right that you hold to Iain.
Jeremy
You really haven’t read the book have you? (As I thought) It is so sad that you rely on second hand sources for your criticism of Cohen’s argument. I take all of your points about how you make your own personal judgements about the various issues you mention but the piece here and Cohen’s book are not about you personally. His focus is of necessity on the country where he lives, Europe and America. Now how about you doing what is unusual (for you) and actually considering what he has said rather than what you THINK he has said?
As for commenting I hardly think that you can attribute all of the credit for you being “outed” on my lap. Our stoush was part of the story but really you outed yourself when you wrote your first blog. Strangely you let both Tim Blair and Andrew Landeryou post comments and they have been far crueler to you than I ever was. Where is the fairness in that? I am by no means the demon that you try to paint me.
PKD
If you don’t want to spend your cash on the book there is a wonderful institution in most cities and towns called the public library, which is where I sourced a copy of the book myself. Please read it before making further statements that will only make you look very silly. I do not apologise for using a religious metaphor on this occasion because frankly it is a most apt one
Iain, that fact that you have never read Marx has apparently not prevented you from making a range of generalisations about his work.
Cohen’s book has been receiving a lot of press lately, so I think many media-watchers would be familiar with some of its arguments.
I would suggest that it is your side of politics that tends to be more vicious and nasty than the ‘Left’.
In politics, you will note that there is nothing ‘implicit’ in the (conservative) American’s unqualified support of totalitarian regimes, from the Wahabist Saudis, to Pinochet, to the dictatorship in Uzbekistan, to the terrorist Contras of Nicaragua. Right wing US regimes have all provided actual military and financial support to these people, not just the ‘implicit’ support you accuse the left of giving to dictatorships.
On the blogosphere, you will also note that the right has a disturbing tendency to attack individuals, rather than arguments. For isntance, Bolt attempts to refute Leunig by citing Leunig’s ‘black sheep’ status in his family. Slanderyou does nothing but attack individuals, and both you and Tim Bleh attack Mr Lefty on personal grounds, rather than argue with his points. It is you and your reprehensible side of politics that need to do some conscience-examining, not Cohen’s phantom lefties who are supposedly propping up dictatorships.
Iain,
What’s the point of putting a post up if no-one is allowed to comment on the conclusions you have drawn or even on the excerpt you have provided unless they have read the whole book? You’re just being ridiculous. (I note you dont feel the need to have read say, the whole of the IPCC report in order to comment on it yourself…)
Out of interest what is the implicit support you think is being provided by the left for totalitarian regimes? I’m kinda curious.
Oh, and thanks for linking back to the punching the air piece – you’ve reminded me that you believe in ‘equal justice for all’…unless you happen to be accused of a terrorism offence. Would you like to finally elaborate on how this apparent double standard is meant to work?
PKD I am not saying that you can’t make comment but lets be fair this is a post about what I thought about a particular book so If you say some thing about it without having read it you can’t be arguing from a position of strength can you?
Hap
What I have said to PKD applies equally to your comment. And while I am happy to admit that I could not get through Das Kapital I did study enough of Marxist theory to get the gist of the argument.
Your comment also sadly demonstrates the sort or retreat to moral relativism that Cohen claims has so blighted the left and leftist thinking. I am not saying here that the right has a monopoly on the truth or on virtue in fact I am making no comparison at all. I am saying that I agree with Cohen’s assessment about the left though; it has seriously lost its way and go into bed with some rather nasty forces as a result.
If anything, the rightards have a pathological hatred of democracy. It is the left that is standing up to the erosion of democratic standards in Australia and the US (i.e. monopolisation of the press, the so-called ‘Patriot’ act and other draconian ‘anti-terror’ laws, changes to the system of voting enrolment, etc).
Also, it is the right that undermines democracy whenever democracy produces an outcome that doesn’t suit the right-wing agenda. For evidence of this, see the histrionic responses from right-wing commentators vis-a-vis the election victories of Hamas, Chavez, and Morales. See also the recent fear-mongering in the Hun and the Australian at the prospect of (gasp!) a socialist French president, or the relentless smear campaigns (in our press) against Alkatiri.
Oh yeah? What do you call the tirades against me by your leftist pals over at Grods or at “random Brainwave?
What ‘nasty forces’ has ‘the Left’ gone to bed with? I can point you to several nasty forces supported by the right. I think you are well out of your depth here.
As for ‘moral relativism’ – there is a strong argument to suggest that the protection of absolute values is now the domain of the left. The right has gone po-mo, and uses almost any means to justify its ends.
Your charge of moral relativism in a pathetic caricature – the greatest ‘Leftist’ thinkers of our age all strongly oppose ‘moral’ and epistemological relativism. These thinkers are of all stripes – Zizek, Badiou, Chomsky, and, FFS, even Derrida! Please, look them, and you may find that the intellectual left in no way resembles the cartoonish version of it that you keep in your head.
‘Oh yeah? what do you call the tirades against me by your leftist pals over at Grods or at “random Brainwave?’
What do I call it? Hubris, let me introduce you to nemesis…
Aaah – fixed the bad tag – please feel free to delete the old one!!!
If you some thing about it without having read it you can’t be arguing from a position of strength can you?
My comment was simply on the excerpt and your summary – and in that I relied on you to provide an excerpt indicative of the quality of the book. So as I said before, if that excerpt is the best one you can provide, then I am not impressed enough by Cohens arguments in it to want to read more. That all seems perfectly fair enough to me!
Iain,
to remind you of the previous position you made on Cohens work – you stated your belief of equal justice for all…
That the precepts of justice are important and that they should not be varied according to who they pertain too
Yet you also said…
I do agree that some special provisions in law are necessary to deal with The Jihadis
You have been very coy in answering how you can have the equal justice you aspire to in your first quote above, but still have an exception for those accused of terrorism offences!!!
Do you finally feel like explaining this one to us???
Rgrds,
PKD
.
Hap
Care to provide a definition to the word Hubris? Because you comment demonstrates that you need to look it up mate.
I can see that you are an ends justify the means Neo-Com though.
PKD
Special provisions like longer periods of detention before charges have to be laid are in no sense incompatible with equal Justice before the law. Now how about you try listening to that pod cast that I linked to in an earlier piece so at the very least you can hear some of Cohen’s arguments before you run off at the mouth again and make your self look even sillier than you are at present.
http://iainhall.wordpress.com/2007/03/28/pod-cast-from-the-times/
try here
‘I can see that you are an ends justify the means Neo-Com though.’
Actually, I’m not, and citing the clever words you picked up from some right-wing website doth not a refutation make.
I’ll be glad to give you a definition of hubris. It derives directly from the Greek term ‘υβρίζ, and indicates arrogance, presumption, and misplaced pride. In Greek tragedy, the downfall of the ‘hero’ is often a consequence of hubris.
Whilst you are indeed full of arraogance and presumption, and are most assuredly a tragic figure, it is most definitely not of the Classical Greek sort.
Iain,
Don’t be disingenious – you have also supported the special provisions laid out my the US military tribuanl, which go waaaaaay beyond how long you can wait until you have to lay charges. In doing so, you are being openly hypocritical with your stated aim of equal justice for all.
Will listen to Cohen tonight – but after reading the dreadful excerpt above, and your religious take on it, I’m not promising anything!
Hap
Now that you have found a definition of hubris I ask you to explain how that has anything to do with your claim
Which is so clearly refuted by my citing the personal attacks on yours truly by leftists of your acquaintance? They are of the left attcking the person and not the argument.
Lets be Bipartisen here; both sides do as you claim only the right does and it is bad who ever does it.
You misuse the term hubris in this context because you clearly don’t understand it. Even though you have found a definition. (from Wiki I bet)
PKD
As I have said many times the detention of captured combatants during a time of war, no matter what the duration of that war is , in no way violates any concept of equal Justice for all.
I am glad to hear that you are at least willing to listen to the pod cast, hear the argument and then respond is all I ask.
I do not generally support ad hominem attacks of any sort, but it is entirely disingenuous of you to forget that these ‘attacks’ have occurred in the context of you engaging in sustained bout of persecution against a certain anonymous lefty.
Bolt, Blair, and yourself rely largely on personal attaks against opponents to sustain your arguments. Have you forgotten your recent attempts to exonerate Heffernan’s imbecility? A number of commenters took you to taks, and your only retort was a personalised one – ‘I have kids, I presume you don’t, therefore I am right’. This sort of argument is nonsense, and yes, it should be rejected in a bipartisan fashion.
I’m not sure what to add to my comment about hubris – I provided you with the the term in Acnient Greek, I can tell you the term (and variations thereof) feature prominently in Aeschylus’ ‘Agamemnon’, and I gave you a clear-cut definition. Actually, in a past life, I wrote an essay on the term. For now, let me merely suggest that some of your rather dubious cyber-behaviour may have invited some of the less friendly responses you encounter on blogs.
Perhaps you are correct in saying that hubris should not be used in this context, as ‘hubris’ lends such behaviour a dignity it does not have.
As I have said many times the detention of captured combatants during a time of war, no matter what the duration of that war is , in no way violates any concept of equal Justice for all.
*sighs* Iain, I wasn’t questioning that I was questioning your support for the trial system implemented by the US at Guantanamo. This completly invalidates your claim to support equal justice for all regardless of who they pertain to.
But by all means, keep pretending your only exception its for detention without trial – you’re only fooling you.
Hap
My stoush with Jeremy Sear was almost two years ago now it has long been over as far as I am concerned and yet his admirers such as you keep revisiting it. He was as much a sinner as one sinned against so as some one who had no actual stake in the argument may I suggest that you leave that conflict to those who do?
This is what amazes me about you minions of the left you are so keen to take up other people’s arguments with out ever having all of the facts.
I think you’re going off topic on your own thread. You have still not responded to the initial points that I made with respect to your offensive generalisations about the left. Why don’t you try to defend the right’s pathological hatred of democracy?
The topic of your ’stoush’ is relevant here, because you began playing the victim, and you seemed to forget the ad hominem card that features so often in your own discussions.
See also this article by Dr Sanity. She is a great dissector of leftism, in particular.
What Cohen says about all religions being potentially intolerant applies mainly (if not exclusively) to mono-theistic ones. Polytheist religions tend to be quite tolerant.
If I say there is only one God and if you worship a differrent one than I do, then clearly I must believe that you are either misguided or evil. (Some people fudge it by saying everyone really worships the same God, just with different names, but that is a crock that only the diletante would accept).
However if I worship a panoply of Gods and you come along worshipping one I’ve never heard of, then, meh, that’s no skin off my nose.
“He was as much a sinner as one sinned against”
That’s right – Iain started a blog whilst commenting at BoltWatch. On that blog a commenter started trying to identify me. I asked Iain to delete the attempts to name me, and Iain got all offended and refused. So I banned him from BoltWatch, because his entries on BoltWatch linked to his blog. And in retaliation he promptly started his “being nice” blog dedicated to publicising my name far and wide.
See, equal faults on both sides. I asked him not to allow his blog to publicise my name; and he peacefully spread my name across the internet out of spite.
Further, you are yet to recant your ridiculous charge of ‘moral relativism’, which, as I demonstrated above, is not a feature of the contemporary intellectual left.
Such relativistic tendencies are, however, symptomatic of the right, who re-write history on a regular basis. The pre-emptive strike against Iraq, for instance, necessary to protect us against WMD and ‘terror’, turns out instead to have been a war of liberation. It is rather odd for a program of peace and freedom to commence with a ’shock and awe’ campaign, but these contortions of the facts do not seem to bother the postmodern rightwad. Similar po-mo relativistic games can be found throughout the work of Fukuyama, or Windschuttle. I suggest that before you diagnose the left as being moral relativists, you should consider healing thyself.
I thought about weighing into this discussion earlier this afternoon, but it’s just so bereft of anything insightful. In fact the entire book appears to be some bloke’s tirade against the side of politics opposite himself. How difficult is that? If accurate representation of the other side’s position is no requisite, then anyone can claim whatever they want about anyone else. And this is going to sound nothing but tautological, but if the reader agrees, then they’re only going to agree, if they disagree, well, they’re not exactly going to change their mind.
This is bipartisan politics for no sake other than bipartisan politics itself. Cohen should grow up and write something worthwhile.
Jeremy
You do love to retell the story of our conflict so that you appear like a paragon of virtue doesn’t you? You forget your own arrogance in not just asking for my compliance to your request but demanding it don’t you?
By saying that there was fault on both sides I am being very magnanimous when I could go on about how you published my home address, how you cheered on various trolling attacks upon me. I actually know your address mate and I have for quite some time but you will never see it published by my hand. So don’t rave on about spite I could have done you such harm on so many occasions but I had the personal morals not to do.
I am however willing to let bygones be bygones here so why can’t you?
Any way our old battles are not the topic here so I’ll ask again have you actually read the book? try the pod cast http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/ it will give you something more than rabid , defensive hearsay to work from.
Cheers
Jangari
If you do a little research you will find out that Cohen is a lefty from a family of lefties Try the pod cast I link to in an earlier post ( http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/ )
Hap
You are digging a very deep hole for yourself here mate are you sure that You know what you are talking about?
One of the central ideas of the book is how the left has gone from being an ideology that was opposed to fascism to one, which at the very least makes excuses for it. But as You have not actually read it how would you know anyway?
I am reading Cohen’s book and I find it to be excellent. I do not read him as saying that “the Left” is a bad thing. In fact, on my understanding, he is a left-winger himself, who believes that many of the fundamental tenets of the Left are good. (As do I).
I see him as a nuanced lefty who doesn’t take the simple position that America = Bad, Anyone Who Opposes America = Good.
If you read his book, you will see that unfortunately there are those who proclaim themselves “left-wing” who apologise for holocaust deniers, President Mugabe, suicide bombers, Osama Bin Laden etc. I don’t actually regard people who do this as truly left-wing – they are allying themselves with the forces of totalitarianism – they are actually coming full circle and becoming fascist.
I see Cohen as pointing out some of the moral inconsistencies in various political positions: from John Major’s Conservative Party, pre-WWII Conservatives in Britain (Neville Chamberlain et al), various British radical socialist, Marxist, Leninist and Trotskyite groups… He criticises everyone.
Anyway, I recommend having a read, because it is a thought-provoking book. The history of pre-WWII Britain is particularly interesting, as is the history of the fight of left wing Iraqi activists to get people to help them.
Is your comment addressed to Hap by any chance LE?Because you seem to have come to a similar conclussion to me here LE.
Cheers
Jus’ sayin’ is all. As far as I’m concerned, no political movement has the moral high ground all the time. I can easily cite hypocrisies of the neo-conservatives and of the left of all stripes. I’m sure I have my own inconsistencies.
I studied postcolonialism and postmodernism (amongst other things) and thus I had already come across a number of the examples Cohen cites of theorists who are so “left wing” that they become right wing.
For example, Narayan, the Indian postcolonial theorist who said that Western feminists had no right to comment on the practice of “suttee” or wife-burning, which continues to be an issue in the Indian sub-continent to this day. Cohen asked the same question as I asked in tutes over 10 years ago – the analysis is all very interesting, but what should our response be? Should we just shut up and refuse to support Indian women who want to fight this practice? Is Narayan saying it’s okay for husbands to burn their wives if their dowries aren’t big enough? What is our moral obligation in this circumstance? It may be patronising to put our Western ideals onto Indian society, but is it not equally patronising to assume that Indian women just have to put up with suttee when we wouldn’t put up with it ourselves in the West? All food for thought.
[...] has a superb piece on Nick Cohen’s What’s Left? (A book meme that appears to have been started by Iain Hall. Last week it was Adrien, who’s also provided us with a new piece of philosophical musing). [...]