[BLOG-LIKE POSTING] On the moral corruption of the modern left

[rfmcdonald]

charlemagne77 is quite right to point out that the note on which Emma Brockes concludes her interview with Noam Chomsky in The Guardian ("The greatest intellectual?") is unworthy of the author and of the paper. Even in a perfect social-democratic society, one would be entirely justified to try to provide for one's family. The right-wing's sneering criticism of the financially well-off is so contemptible as to be passé.

A far more critical, important, and real criticism of Chomsky lies in the fact of his multiple genocide denials, his arguments "that in the overall context of Cambodian history, the Khmer Rouge weren't as bad as everyone makes out[,] that during the Bosnian war the "massacre" at Srebrenica was probably overstated. (Chomsky uses quotations marks to undermine things he disagrees with and, in print at least, it can come across less as academic than as witheringly teenage; like, Srebrenica was so not a massacre.)" Chomsky's ongoing defense of the Khmer Rouge against the reality of its horrendous multiple genocides is, it turns out in the course of the article, predicated on his desire to promote the "left" as he thinks it.

[I]t goes on, Chomsky fairly vibrating with anger at Vulliamy and co's "tantrums" over his questioning of their account of the war. I suggest that if they are having tantrums it's because they have contact with the survivors of Srebrenica and witness the impact of the downplaying of their experiences. He fairly explodes. "That's such a western European position. We are used to having our jackboot on people's necks, so we don't see our victims. I've seen them: go to Laos, go to Haiti, go to El Salvador. You'll see people who are really suffering brutally. This does not give us the right to lie about that suffering." Which is, I imagine, why ITN went to court in the first place.

I consider myself, with some equivocations, a man of the left. Why? I value tradition when it works, but I'm very aware that tradition clearly does fail and must be cleared away. Too often, people on the right cling obsessively to their traditions and brandish the past as weapons against the present. Tradition would, in my personal case, be generous to allow me a claustrophobically circumscribed personal life; had tradition lasted any longer than it did on Prince Edward Island, I suspect that the story of my winter night dive into Charlottetown harbour would have faded by now. The fresh air brought by the left is the only thing that saved me.

This, the moral bankruptcy of Chomsky, isn't part of the left that I like, or shouldn't be. Yes, the Laotians killed by the Americans have a right to have their victimization communicated; so do the Laotians killed by their own Communist regime. Life is life, life matters, not only life killed by your political enemies.

Why does Chomsky, a man no less morally depraved than those Cold Warriors in the West who condemned Communist atrocities in the Soviet Union and China and elsewhere while applauding totalitarian regimes of the right, have any standing? Sylvia Plath may have been wrong to conclude in "Daddy" that every woman loves a fascist, but I suspect that every political ideologue loves someone who's ready to kill in the defense of their shared ideology. Better if the killing was necessary, still better if the killing could be justifiable, even better if there was--surprise!--no killing at all. I don't doubt that the delicious thrill of insulting genocide victims and their defenders enters into it.

People on the right do plenty of this, of course, but that's no excuse. What claim do those on the left who praise Chomsky have to be able to criticize anyone? What moral standing can these people claim? Surely we are not so desperate, so without just cause, so wrong, as to be forced to turn to the equivalents of Holocaust deniers for the truth never mind eagerly praise him.

The left is critical by its very nature. It's time for it to be critical of itself.