March 30, 2010
The Chomsky Left and the Krugman Left
Earlier this year I had a lively email exchange with an exceptionally bright young Chomsky admirer who was deeply annoyed by my book, The Left At War. Part of the exchange was frustrating, insofar as he seemed to believe that if you give up ye olde “false consciousness” explanation for people’s behavior you have no effective way of saying that they are just flat-out wrong. But after a week or so of back-and-forth, we hit upon something that (for me, anyway) shed a nice bright light on what was at stake in the discussion.
He adduced this 2009 essay, “The Torture Memos and Historical Amnesia,” as an example of why he regards Chomsky as so valuable (his word) to a critical understanding of U.S. policy...
My interlocutor explained that whenever he lapses into a merely-liberal Krugman-like faith in American ideals, he finds Chomsky to be a bracing reminder that those ideals have routinely been traduced, and that the justification of torture by American officials is nothing new. And that’s why he’s vexed by left criticism of Chomsky, which he thinks is really “liberal” rather than properly “left.”
It cannot be denied that we have often traduced our ideals. And Chomsky’s essay is in many respects quite good, especially with regard to the history of how “in ordinary American practice, torture was largely farmed out to subsidiaries.” (Though I can do without the ritual repetition of “The 9/11 attack was doubtless unique in many respects. One is where the guns were pointing: typically it is in the opposite direction.” I still find it impossible to read those words without hearing, “and it was about time.” And his attempt to construe the extermination of Native Americans as a “humanitarian intervention” is yet another form of doubling down on his hands-off-the-Balkans position.) But I had two other responses to this young man.
Posted by Robin Varghese at 01:51 PM | Permalink
Comments
Well, I don't think Chomsky is opposed to putting Bush & Co. on trial, is he?
I read him as saying that freedom is a constant struggle, and that even if we should manage to prosecute this generation's war criminals, we'll still have some imperialism to kick around, and other debts we owe.
But then Berube posits that there 'may be historical amnesiacs' etc.? Seriously, in The Land of Historic Proportions Of Historic Amnesia?
Most Americans never paid attention to the bombing of Cambodia, and certainly never even knew of lots of other history. However, this is why it's good that Krugman said what he said in a venue that more people will encounter than will probably hear Chomsky anyway.
But let's divide into two Lefts and continue on like that.
Posted by: Alice de Tocqueville | Mar 30, 2010 1:32:55 PM
Amnesia is an interesting word in the context of this post.
Amnesia is an involuntary mental debilitation, so the reality is probably more serious.
Denial is more likely than amnesia as the relevant dementia.
Some of it comes from exceptionalism and some from real mean people.
The press is the enabler all too often.
Posted by: Dredd | Mar 30, 2010 2:42:00 PM
But let's divide into two Lefts and continue on like that.
Or let's acknowledge that the person who opposed Chomsky's left to Krugman's version wasn't me -- it was Chomsky himself. And I'm writing about that opposition (which is quite real).
And yes, when you're dealing with historical amnesiacs who believe that the US "lost its innocence" (again) on 9/11, I recommend Chomsky's essay over Krugman's -- while agreeing with you that it's good to see someone among the Sensible Liberals of the New York Times calling for the investigation of the Bush/Cheney regime.
Posted by: Michael Bérubé | Mar 30, 2010 3:09:41 PM
Yes, Alice, you are right about the position on the Chomskyite left. To say that Bush's torture is mostly business as usual for the USA is NOT to say that the perpetrators should walk free. Normally I would have expected Bérubé to grasp that fairly simple point, but he seems addled here by his own false dichotomy.
More disturbing is his near flirtation with American Exceptionalism.... or what I perceive to be his near flirtation with it.
Posted by: giotto | Mar 30, 2010 3:12:24 PM
But Giotto, isn't Bérubé's point about the best way to win support for such a prosecution, not that Chomsky opposes it?
For my part, I would like the "Sensible Left" to pay less attention to our deep past and more to the immediate present. So far there has been no good response from that quarter to Obama's work to entrench Bush-era indefinite detention policies as documented by Glenn Greenwald.
Posted by: Scott | Mar 30, 2010 4:06:24 PM
One reason to be skeptical of Krugman's position, of course, is that his calls for prosecution of the Bush gang don't seem to extend to Obama, despite the continuity (and even extension) of all the relevant policies (i.e., "the theory of the unitary executive, the practice of indefinite detention, and the justifications of torture mounted after 9/11") after January 2009. Obama's position on each of these policies (especially indefinite detention and executive secrecy) is demonstrably more monstrous than anything the Bush regime ever put forward. One thus gets a distinct whiff of cynicism and hypocrisy from Krugman's writings in this vein, as he calls for purely political prosecution of the past regime for crimes the current regime is busy building upon.
Chomsky, I imagine, is well aware that the only times these sorts of things get investigated and prosecuted in the US is when one political faction needs and excuse to beat up on another. Which isn't necessarily to say that they shouldn't happen anyway, but I think he can be forgiven for his fatalism and pessimism -- "business as usual", indeed -- on this score.
Posted by: Picador | Mar 30, 2010 4:43:00 PM
“The 9/11 attack was doubtless unique in many respects. One is where the guns were pointing: typically it is in the opposite direction.” I still find it impossible to read those words without hearing, “and it was about time.”
I think this is all you need to know about Berube.
Or let's acknowledge that the person who opposed Chomsky's left to Krugman's version wasn't me -- it was Chomsky himself. And I'm writing about that opposition (which is quite real).
I still find it impossible to read those words without hearing, "and I, Michael Berube, support the Ku Klux Klan with all my heart".
Wasn't that fun? What a scum bag.
Posted by: msw | Mar 30, 2010 4:50:19 PM
Michael, I didn't mean to say that you are the instigator of hairsplitting divisions on the left, just that your phrasing -'some' amnesiacs - was an understatement. I realize that it sounded that way; sorry, I got rushed.
What you were doing was the opposite, I think, and I do appreciate that you were attempting a clarification, an opening up, which is needed. At least we should have the attitude that we all need to work together if we're going anywhere.
Giotto, while I share the view that 'liberals' are not the left, it's a point I most want to make with the opposition, like the media, because, well, I can't stand to be lumped in with Nancy Pelosi or the Clintons (ew). But here again, being snarky, or jumping to the worst possible conclusion is divisive, corrosive, and well, we have the fascists for that.
Posted by: Alice de Tocqueville | Mar 30, 2010 4:57:02 PM
From the linked article:
"[I]t’s crucial to know when you’re dealing with a radical break and crucial not to normalize it by saying, in effect, move on, move on, nothing new to see here."
But Chomsky doesn't really say "move on, move on, nothing new to see here", does he?. To me, Chomsky's leftism always seemed to emphasize the importance of tackling what is in fact not an ephemeral or generational problem. It may be a hopeless endeavor because no one is listening, but it's only misguided if it's actually wrong. Perhaps the Krugman style of liberalism -- fool people into fighting for a *return* to a morality that never was -- has a better chance of success than the Chomsky one -- inspire people to fight for a morality that may never be. So we're left with a brutally honest way that will fail because no one's listening and a deceptive way that will fail once people realize they've been manipulated.
Berubé again:
"No one on the American left believes that the United States was a happy land of benevolence and ponies prior to 9/11."
This is pretty much a straw-man reformulation of what Chomsky is actually saying. Chomsky addresses the popular myths of American culture, which subconsciously inform many Americans' attitudes toward important issues. When pressed, many on the left will admit that the U.S. has seldom been a force for good in the past. That does not prevent them from -- at the very same time -- believing that the U.S. is a force for good and letting that belief steer their opinion. Cognitive dissonance is a national pastime.
Berubé again:
"Perhaps there are some historical amnesiacs out there somewhere who need to be reminded of the bombing of Cambodia, the overthrow of Allende, and the funding of death squads in Central America lest they lapse into the belief that the United States “lost its innocence” (yet again!) when the towers fell."
This strikes me as an almost deliberately ivory-tower attitude. The problem is not that leftist intellectuals don't know about the history of the U.S. but that *most Americans* don't know about it. It honestly doesn't matter if Berubé and his clever young friend are smugly historically aware if the rest of America isn't. It is exactly those Krugman-like appeals to imagined ideals that allow Americans to be deluded into helping out the world by waging humanitarian war and "spreading democracy". Not only that, but leftist appeals to those myths will lose to more right-leaning ones (at least for the foreseeable future) because the right has proven themselves better at manipulation than Krugman and Co. The left can't lie as well. It is only when a majority knows that American morality is essentially a myth that it will have an influence on public policy. An attempt to use these misplaced beliefs to "do good" (à la Krugman) are almost bound to backfire.
Posted by: Marco | Mar 30, 2010 4:58:59 PM
“The 9/11 attack was doubtless unique in many respects. One is where the guns were pointing: typically it is in the opposite direction.” I still find it impossible to read those words without hearing, “and it was about time.”
Michael, I think that sort of thing really should be beneath you.
Whatever Left we might identify with, we should find it possible to read something without inserting an imagined interpretation that we all understand perfectly well is not the author's intent.
Posted by: Alex Higgins | Mar 30, 2010 6:03:23 PM
Gosh but it is tough being a so-called liberal. I am glad i am not one of those beings.
Posted by: fred lapides | Mar 30, 2010 6:14:52 PM
Marco: Yes, that is what I had hoped to go on to say. Bérubé IS flirting with Exceptionalism by suggesting that the proper way to go about this is to argue that the U.S. (as a nation) is better than Bush's torture regime, and that justice is best pursued by appealing to Americans' sense of their better selves, etc. It is that self-delusion that has always been use to justify American horrors, from the Philippines to Haiti to Iraq.
Scott, that is why many of us hold that the past does matter. It tells us what we are capable of (everything from mere brutality to genocide) and how we justify it to ourselves and to the world. That is, there is a history of American malfeasance, and there is a history of self-serving justifications for that malfeasance, and in my experience it is those who best know those histories who most want the malfeasance to end, and most want to see the perpetrators tried and convicted.
But that will never happen as long as a plurality of Americans believe either that 1) America doesn't torture or commit mass murder or invade countries for largely economic reasons or overthrow legitimate democratic governments, etc..; or that 2) if America does do these things, such actions are carried out only rarely and then only by Jack Bauers: decent men who have been reluctantly forced into taking harsh measures, forced by the enormity of the existential threat posed by our foes. It is a very powerful, and very dangerous myth, and I don't see how we can eliminate it by pandering to it, as Bérubé seems to suggest.
Oh, and a big YES to those above who took issue with "I still find it impossible to read those words without hearing, 'and it was about time.'” I have enormous respect for MB--for me he is a model of the engaged intellectual--which perhaps is why I, too, tripped over those words, which are indeed completely unfounded and gratuitous.
Posted by: giotto | Mar 30, 2010 6:51:48 PM
Those will be 5 minutes of my life I'm never getting back.
But then I knew it was Bérubé, so it's absolutely my fault for clicking on the link and reading it.
Posted by: Pepito | Mar 30, 2010 7:13:33 PM
A lot of this is about American ideals that have often been spoken, but never realized, with the exception of the Marshall Plan. What is this American penchant for thinking we're good people?
It would've been refreshingly un-American if Bush et al were prosecuted for torture, but them not being prosecuted -- i.e. America never taking responsibility for its sins -- is also very American.
We will never change. Our left is no larger than the 180,000 Americans who read The Nation -- the rest of us are, and always will be, yahoos, which is true for the rest of the world as well. American exceptionalism is us THINKING we're exceptional. We never were and never will be in any moral sense. Our economic power -- now THAT has been exceptional. Pity it has not been used for much good.
Posted by: Evert Cilliers | Mar 30, 2010 7:25:57 PM
"What is this American penchant for thinking we're good people?"
"America never taking responsibility for its sins -- is also very American."
What makes you think this is a specifically American penchant?
Posted by: Sagredo | Mar 30, 2010 7:38:06 PM
You're right. It's also a Nordic, British, Chinese, Japanese, French and German penchant -- the rest of the world is not that smug about themselves.
The Germans though, unlike us and the Japanese and the French and the Brits, have taken responsibility for their sins.
Posted by: Evert Cilliers | Mar 30, 2010 7:44:30 PM
I'll be really sad the day Chomsky is gone. Who are we gonna replace him with, Michael Bérubé?
Yuck.
Posted by: Pepito | Mar 30, 2010 7:45:43 PM
the rest of the world is not that smug about themselves.
Could you give an example of a people or nation who don't think they're good people?
Or another example of people sinning and taking responsibility? Are the Germans are unique in the world for this?
Posted by: Sagredo | Mar 30, 2010 8:19:13 PM
I'm with that reader who says, "but then I knew it was Berube." It's not just that he's the Stasi, he's our own Stasi, with his industrious little pencil keeping track of any deviation in the ranks. What he can do without is pretty much what Homeland Security can do without. He's seriously creepy: "I can do without the ritual repetition," he chides us in case we're inclined to marvel at the 9-11 attack having its threat atypically reversed. His incapacity for reading anything but menace in any serious criticism of America is a border guard's basic instinct. "I still find it impossible to read those words without hearing, 'and it was about time.'" Berube's collaborationist instincts are to ferret out any resistance to American triumphalism. These are the kinds of people on the public payroll that keep the system working so well. On to the next war! People ask me why I left the country, you could do worse than point to this guy.
Posted by: David Ker Thomson | Mar 30, 2010 8:40:03 PM
I was listing the nations who bang on about being good people to a hysterical extent. They're usually the ones who had an Empire.
As far as I know, no one but the Germans have sinned as greatly and taken responsibility for it -- albeit after their noses were rubbed in the mud about it. Their sins were so grave and evident, I guess they could not escape taking responsibility for it. But I don't expect us ever to take responsibility for killing millions of people in our post-WW2 foreign adventures. Chomsky is a voice crying in the wilderness, a prophet honored everywhere else but in his own land. He is perhaps our only conscience.
Posted by: Evert Cilliers | Mar 30, 2010 8:45:43 PM
which he thinks is really “liberal” rather than properly “left.”
Jesus, what's that kid's problem? Does he own a dictionary or something?
Posted by: weaver | Mar 30, 2010 9:35:39 PM
Gosh but it is tough being a so-called liberal. I am glad i am not one of those beings.
Fred,
It is always tough to learn, to understand, to remember, and to do the right thing. Shouting "America! Fuck Yeah!" and posting pictures of tits on your website is easy.
Posted by: Ray Butlers | Mar 31, 2010 9:17:51 PM
"The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do.”
Samuel P. Huntington
Posted by: BobbyV | Apr 1, 2010 6:17:49 AM
The west may have won the world, but it is slipping fast to the East. And China never fired a shot. Call it payback for the opium wars.
Posted by: J. Hawkins | Apr 1, 2010 9:32:39 AM
Let's not forget that China also has an amazingly long history of empire building... They fought many bloody wars doing it over thousands of years. War is not only a western invention.. The "Warring States" period in Chinese history was brutal even by modern standards...
Are we seeing the rebirth of a new prosperous Chinese Empire? The Chinese seem to think so...and will tell you as much!
Posted by: Bill | Apr 1, 2010 10:17:18 AM
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