[A-List] ‘theoretical’ aspects to the cruise missile left’s programme.

[James Daly]

----- Original Message ----- From: "Louis Proyect" <lnp3 at panix.com> 
To: <marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu> Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2006 
7:25 PM Subject: [Marxism] Crooked Timber on Kenan Makiya


Check: http://crookedtimber.org/2006/01/11/the-left-part-12214332/

.... "Brendan" writes (slightly edited, J.D.):


There are two main ‘theoretical’ aspects to the cruise missile left’s 
programme.

1: First, they view the history of post-war American geopolitics as 
follows. After WW2, the US did not become an Empire (as some 
historians have argued). Instead, American foreign policy was seized 
by a group of people called ‘Realists’. These people were moral 
relativists and objectivists at the same time. They were relativists 
in that they believed that there was ‘no such thing’ as morality, but 
objectivists in that they believed that all issues of foreign policy 
should be considered by asking: ‘does this benefit the United States?’.

It was these ‘realists’ (so the story goes) who ran all American 
foreign policy until George Bush Junior, who began as a realist but 
then (after September 11) became a ‘neo-conservative’. 
Neo-conservatives are, we are told, the complete opposite of ‘realists’
(of whom the prime example, apparently, is Henry Kissinger). They are 
moralists, they are idealists, they believe in the spread of 
democracy, and they want to ‘remake’ the Middle East by bringing 
democracy to it. Only by doing exactly what the neo-conservatives say 
can a genuinely left wing foreign policy be created.

So that’s it. Note: the Keyboard Kommandos rarely state this 
explicitly but this is one of the key animating aspects of their 
philosophy.

....... what’s wrong with this theory?

For a start it omits the strain of idealism that has always animated 
American foreign policy, and omits the fact that the more ‘idealist’ 
the President, the worst tend to be the crimes. Many of the worst 
atrocities of the post-war era occurred under Kennedy who was no 
Realist and no cynic. Or what about Carter? He was a ‘left wing’ 
Christian, who believed in universal values, democracy and civil 
rights, all of which were strangely forgotten when the issue of East 
Timor arrived.

The human rights records of the neo-conservatives itself hardly gives 
cause for faith in this belief: Paul Wolfowitz (as should be well 
known) did his best to suppress democracy in Indonesia in an earlier 
part of his career. And other neo-conservative ‘fellow travellers’
(like Rumsfeld and Cheney) are simply extremist paleo-conservatives: 
hard to explain if neo-conservatism is radically opposed to old style 
Conservativism.

That’s why the canard that Kissinger opposed the war is such an item 
of faith for the KKers. They simply cannot accept that one of the key 
architects of ‘realism’ supported their neo-conservative viewpoint, 
because they know that would question (to put it mildly) they theory 
on which they have staked their political careers.

2: The second part of their worldview is even more ambitious, and 
amounts to a rewriting of intellectual history. In the 18th century, 
we are told, there was something called ‘The Enlightenment Project’. 
Karl Marx, and socialism, it is claimed, were part of this project. 
Then in the early 20th century, certain philosophers like Martin 
Heidegger revolted against this ‘project’. This ‘revolt’ however was 
quickly put down until it reappeared in the 70s as ‘postmodernism’. 
These ‘anti-enlightenment figures’ (such as Derrida, Foucault and 
others) are (as the Marxists used to say) ‘objectively’ right wing, 
even though they might ‘think’ they are not. Moreover they are 
‘relativists’ whereas the Enlightenment Project (allegedly) was 
‘objectivist’.

According to this view, it is the neoconservatives who stand behind 
the Enlightenment Project and the Islamists and postmodernists who 
oppose it.

Again the KKers seem to be unaware that they have not produced a 
serious intellectual argument in sketching this history of our times, 
but a cartoon. For a start there WAS no ‘Enlightenment Project’ and 
neither did Socialism descend (directly from it). Socialism (in its 
modern form, i.e. Marxism) as a quick look at your history books will 
show, was a product of the Romantic age: the great ‘enemy’ of the 
Enlightenment. Moreover many of these Romantics (Shelley, Blake, the 
early Wordsworth) were extremely left wing, and supported the French 
Revolution. Ipso facto (assuming these terms have any meaning in this 
context) many of the ‘enlightenment figures’ were ‘reactionary’
(Hume etc.).

Nor is the issue of ‘objectivism’ versus ‘relativism’ as clear as you 
might think. Of course, as Chris points out, Marx was often accused of 
being a relativist, and Marxism was often attacked because it was 
perceived as being an attack on the Enlightenment Project (so was 
Freud, for the same reason). On the other hand, some enlightenment or 
proto-enlightenment figures like Montaigne really were cultural 
relativists but drew anti-imperialist conclusions from this (i.e. that 
the British and French had no right to impose our socio-cultural 
system on others, because it was meaningless to say one system was 
‘better’ than any other). Equally, in the 20th century, some thinkers 
were objectivist and aggressively in favour of the Enlightenment 
Project, but decided that they therefore ought to support Fascism (as 
this supported ‘western values’ as against the relativism of 
communism): Wyndham Lewis was one of these.

In short the pro-invasion left’s worldview is based on theories about 
intellectual history that are simply wrong, and very easily 
demonstrable as wrong too.

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