Wednesday, December 26, 2012
In answer to Farhad: Why I consider myself a "right winger" and not a "progressive"
I identify myself as a "right winger" I prefer that term to conservative because the latter term is far too closely linked to specifically American issues that have no parallel anywhere else in the world and I have lived outside the US for many years now. The reason I claim to be a man of the "right" and not the "left" is the fact that I support traditional societies in opposition to revolutionary violence. The use of political violence to enforce "progressive" change was a hallmark of the international left during the 20th century. It was the main motivator behind Stalinism, the ethnic cleansing of Germans from Central and Eastern Europe, and Zionism. The traditional societies of the Crimean Tatars, Sudeten Germans, and Palestinians just to name a few politically incorrect peoples were all considered to be reactionary obstacles to "progress" and hence subjected to violent dispersion aimed at destroying them as viable national entities. With very few exceptions the people who opposed these atrocities in the 1940s and 50s and even beyond were all identified as being on the "extreme right." The international "left" for the most part enthusiastically endorsed the brutal ethnic cleansing of these peoples as a just collective punishment for the crimes of collaborating with the Nazis and opposing the "progressive" Soviet and Israeli states. I do not believe that revolutionary violence against traditional societies is justified in the name of "progress" or punishing "Nazi collaborators." I reject the ideas of collective punishment and forcibly destroying ethnic communities that continue to hold on to "reactionary" beliefs and practices. It does not matter to me that in some cases these groups really did posses odious opinions. Obviously the traditional anti-semitism of many ethnic Germans in East Central Europe and the USSR was totally unacceptable in US "liberal" society. But, I find the support of "liberals" for ethnically cleansing these people because of this prejudice to be a far worse form of racism. I continue to see this type of support for collective punishment among a number of "progressives" regarding the Palestinians. The constant reference to the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem's collaboration with the Nazis, the consistent pointing to Israeli support of gay rights versus the opinions of Hamas on this issue, and the branding of the Palestinians as "anti-semites", as justifications for Israeli crimes all follow a similar pattern to that already established regarding ethnic Germans, Crimean Tatars, and other "enemies of progress" in the mid 1940s. I can not identify myself with the "progressives" endorsing collective punishment and ethnic cleansing. Instead I find myself on the same side as the "extreme right" during the 1950s in opposing these crimes.
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4 comments:
It's not allowing me to put more than about 4000 characters, so I'll post in parts.
Thanks, Dr. Pohl! It’s interesting that I have almost same reasons to reject the US right. But I have my own “straw man” perception of the American right given the loud mouths of Bill O’Reilly and Glen Beck shamelessly pushing forward Tea Party agenda. If that isn’t academic enough, there is David Horowitz whose presence in the right will always be a deterrent to me.
Your attack on “progressivism” as the main motivator of Stalinist persecutions and deportations still does not convince me to point at “progressives” as checking with their ideology to take a position on anything. For one, I look at “progressivism” as something that is used to justify the horrors – itself a leftist or even very Marxist critique, I should say. I understand why the utopian vision propagated by the communist agenda presents itself to you as the main motivator behind deportations and ethnic cleansings. Following that, I hope that I also understand clearly why you reject the left, point at “progressivism” rather than any other factor and pick the right. If you are picking the 1950’s right-wingers, that would also mean that you are subscribing to the binary and extremely polarized mindset – also evident in your posts - which picks out ideological convictions of individuals and thinks that the only motivator behind all actions has been isolated. While it may be true of the time and you may have a very conservative approach in dealing with the XX century with a XX century mindset, I encourage you to also take into consideration the leftist arguments against your position. International Socialists stood on the side of indigenous movements, not all of them, but their ideology in its purest core thoughts called for a critical edge in dealing with all political and social issues. Leszek Kolakowski contrasted theory and ideology and gave a very critical illumination of Marxism as serving as yet another ideology to cover up exactly what Marx himself wanted to uncover – you can’t be more leftist when you criticize the left, just like Foucault seems to be the culmination of the Enlightenment in his rejection of Enlightenment as reintroduction of the same condition of dominanation - while widely accepted by the left. Solzhenitsyn, Nabokov… they all were read and supported by the left. Why are you picking at Nancy Fraser and a couple other people whose progressivism is only in reference to domestic policy? You separate the right into divisions and periods and indentify yourself with one. You will not join the corps of Tea Party, Bill O’Reilly, Glen Beck – of that I am sure. So why not apply the same standard to the other side?
Gorbachev can be considered progressive. I understand progressives today to have a stance on domestic policy, not international. I only hear progressives in US talk about gay rights, abortion, evolution, gun rights, drug decriminalization. When it comes to international relations, I don’t know an ideological branch that can be pinpointed as the only motivator behind foreign policy.
“The reason I claim to be a man of the "right" and not the "left" is the fact that I support traditional societies in opposition to revolutionary violence” – are you not conflating two different things? I’ll take the term “revolutionary violence” from you as it is and as the reason you are against the left. You are burdening this term with a heavy load of national identity, whereas the left traditionally would want to remove national division and accord the revolution to the workers. So what the left tells as class struggle you are hearing and as battle of the nations (I must point out here my own weakness, I am looking at this purely conceptually, so in light of Stalinism I also see clearly how my understanding of the Left in its purest form is very counterfactual to what it was actually turned into in the USSR – but again, USSR was not Marxist). Your claim is the reason for me to reject Leninism, Stalinism but it has no grounds to make a claim on the “left” or “right”. For the same reason I do not reject continental philosophy because Heidegger joined the NAZI party.
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