Jim F.
On Sun, 17 Mar 2002 17:44:26 -0800 "Luke Weiger" <lweiger at umich.edu>
writes:
> In Search of Michael Walzer
>
> by James B. Rule
>
> Michael Walzer's "Can There be a Decent Left?" sends a disturbing
> message, both about his state of his mind, and the course he seems
> to chart for Dissent. Despite elements of agreement--for example, on
> the need for a military response against the perpetrators of 9/11--I
> find the attitudes, assumptions and directions underlying his
> statement profoundly disappointing. I can't respond at length here.
> But let me register a few points in brief.
>
> The statement consists largely of sweeping and bitter disparagement
> of a vaguely defined category identified only as "the left". Members
> of this "left" are said to consider "any hint of patriotic feeling
> as politically incorrect". They had "difficulty in responding
> emotionally to the attacks of September 11", or they even
> experienced "barely concealed glee" at those hard blows. One would
> think that the author had special powers to see into the hearts and
> minds of his political antagonists. In fact, such extremely serious
> charges should never be made without attribution to specific
> persons, and without evidence to substantiate such
> attributions--quotations or observations of specific deeds at
> specific moments. No doubt some specific advocates of the policies
> Michael Walzer faults experienced such moral failings. Let him
> identify them by name. The insinuation that criticism of America's
> military activities necessarily stems from lack of concern for
> American suffering or failed patriotism places Michael Walzer in the
> worst of company. That idea is unworthy of Dissent.
>
> In 1995 Timothy McVeigh, with many fewer resources and far less wit
> than the terrorists of September 11, killed 168 of his fellow
> Americans. We will never know all the grievances underlying that
> barbarous act, but they apparently included resentment against some
> grave abuses of American power within this country--notably,
> needless killings of unarmed citizens by federal forces. As far as I
> can recall, no one has held that continued objections to those
> abuses imply sympathy for McVeigh or his actions. Perhaps there is a
> lesson here for all of us.
>
> And who are "the left" that Michael Walzer disparages? I thought
> that we of Dissent, too, help constitute the left. Most Dissent
> editors and writers, as far as I am aware, feel that a military
> response to Sept. 11 was essential. Those horrific events have
> certainly brought to light bad thinking and bad politics in some
> circles on the left--apt targets for critical comment. The same
> events have also focused attention on many another unseemly reality
> in all sorts of geo-poloitical quarters--equally worthy targets for
> our critical faculties, if only we don't relinquish the latter to
> Michael Walzer's righteous obsessions.
>
> You can see that Michael Walzer is losing just those critical
> faculties when you read his musings as to whether there can be "a
> decent left in ....the only superpower?". As usual in this sort of
> overheated special pleading, you lose the argument, if you accept
> the premises of the question. The questions we ought to be asking
> include: Do we want to live in a world dominated by a 'superpower'?
> By any superpower? By the kind superpower being created under our
> political noses by Bush and company? Doesn't the world deserve
> better than the sort of high-handed Pax Americana emerging around
> us? Doesn't Dissent have anything so say about alternatives to
> never-ending world domination by this sort of power?
>
> Particularly disturbing in this lapse of critical instinct is the
> drift toward support of American unilateralism. In fact, America's
> ascendancy as the world's Big Enchilada is not the only historic
> recent development in international affairs. Of perhaps even greater
> potential significance is the hesitant but unmistakable rise of
> multilateral, supra-national institutions for resolving grave world
> issues. We see new forums and organizations beginning to play
> positive roles in prosecuting human rights violators, fighting
> climate change and global pollution, mediating and peace-keeping in
> regional conflicts, and other settings. These efforts, inevitably
> far from fully satisfactory at the outset, deserve our deep interest
> and critical support. The Bush administration consistently seeks to
> undermine or bypass them. So, apparently, does Michael Walzer.
>
> I can't believe that "Can There Be a Decent Left?" is written by the
> same Michael Walzer whose work I've so much appreciated in Dissent
> and elsewhere--the Walzer of subtle distinctions and humane
> judgment. I hope that we get the good Michael Walzer back.
> Otherwise, despite his words to the contrary, I fear that Dissent is
> becoming a one-note magazine. And if I discern that note correctly,
> we'll have to change its name.
>
> James B. Rule
> Port Jefferson, N.Y.
> 6 March 2002
>
>
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