The open society and its enemies

Norman McGreevy

This wonderful idea is from James Allan the Garrick professor of law at the University of Queensland. His proposal is paraphrased as follows: I'd like to propose another way to divide up politicians. It cuts across our regular Left-Right spectrum, but that's part of its charm. Try dividing politicians in terms of Roundheads and Cavaliers, terms taken from the English Civil War in the 17th century.

The former are your self-made puritans, part of the new model army, as it were. They're very politically correct, doing God's work (even if that be in a secular sense), and not people you would immediately describe as having a sparkling sense of humour.

The Cavaliers are more your fun-loving individualists who metaphorically wear their hair long. They are not politically correct, even if they put up a perfunctory effort once in a while.

Winston Churchill, in my view the greatest politician of the 20th century, was your archetypal Cavalier. No one called him a killjoy, and we know today's PC brigade would jump all over him were he a politician today. Boris Johnson, the Tory candidate for London's mayoralty, is another obvious Cavalier. So is Clinton.

On the other hand, New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark is an immediately identifiable Roundhead. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown looks to be one, too. The same probably goes for failed US Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and British shadow home secretary David Davis.

Eliot Spitzer, the disgraced former New York governor, made his career by advertising and playing on his sanctimonious Roundhead credentials. When it became public that he enjoyed $4000-an-hour hookers (and can anyone tell me just what sort of extras that money buys?), he was finished. A non-judgmental Cavalier might have been able to ride out (sorry) the storm. The hypocrisy was too great for a Roundhead. It too vividly brought to mind Rabbie Burns's poem Holy Willie's Prayer.

So here's the task for readers. Try dividing politicians in terms of Roundheads and Cavaliers. These categories cut across the traditional Left-Right divide. The great pity throughout the Western democratic world is that there are far too many Roundheads these days and not enough Cavaliers. You can thank the self-righteous and self-satisfied PC brigade for that.

Andrew

Bravo Melanie Bravo!

There's hope for Britain yet!

Joshua

A beautifully written and really quite brilliant post (easily the best I've ever read at this or any other site). Somewhere I'm sure Heinrich Heine is looking down and smiling with great pleasure. Heine's 'Du bist begeistert; du hast Mut': "You are inspired to hardihood- Ah that is good! Yet inspiration's not sufficient; Remember, evil is omniscient. The foe, I grant you, does not fight For light or right. But he is armed whatever happens; His always are the heavier weapons. So arm yourself, steady your hand, And take your stand. Aim well; and if the shot should carry, Rejoice and let your heart make merry." -- Translated by Louis Untermeyer

rudolph camillo

re this article,i have just read an article in the spectator, by what i take to be a philosopher, and the phrase came up "trahison des clercs"...i think that this could apply to most left wing intellectuals, including noam chomsky.

Tom

Why I read this blog.

Fantastic.

M Clyde

You know, we torment ourselves with how young, and apparently pleasant, conscientious and well-educated Asian Britons, with decent families, jobs and a secure future, can be tempted into the nihilism of Islamist madness and wind up as suicide bombers, or sponsors and apologists for them, when all along the real problem has been much closer to home: the fundamental irrationalism of the traditional white British left.

It is increasingly apparent that these people are mad. They do not think; they are brainwashed automatons with programmed responses, for whom evidence is nothing and MYTH and tribe are everything. They are impervious to facts or experience.

Ed Husain was right when he spotted (see: The Islamist) how much Islamists took their cue from the European revolutionary tradition and not from 'classical' Islam. That, for him, was the beginning of awakening. Ideas he thought as an inquisitive seventeen year old to be novel and exciting radical 'Islamic' analyses, turned out to be recycled unoriginal and discredited European ideas. He now renounces these ideas, not just for their lack of authenticity and relevance to Islam, but to all of humanity in this 21st century.

Seamus Milne and David Edgar are frothing mad over this latest 'renegade'.

Ed has returned to his search for 'classical Islam' (pre-Islamism) just as we progressives return to our search for true 'liberalism' pre-Marxist-Leninism.

It is to be hoped that our paths converge.

M Clyde

A few years ago one of my (German) Erasmus students (clearly left wing) wanted to interview me for his student magazine back home, because I was his tutor. In our conversation he revealed he was appalled by many of the 'right wing' attitudes he sensed amongst fellow students at our university, a major institution north of the Tweed... He quoted me some German saying that at 20 people were 'left-wing' but by 40 were usually 'right-wing'. However, his fellow students were 20 years old with 40 year old attitudes... I objected to this crude analysis as, amongst other things, ageist. His point was (you'll be glad to hear) that most of the British students at said university, were, to his mind, a tad 'right wing' for 20 year olds... (says something for the high academic standards of said university). To which I replied, that in all my life, it had never seemed to me that I had ever been in any way inconsistent in my basic values. I opposed and continue to oppose:

1. TYRANNY in all its forms.
2. HYPOCRASY in all its guises.

It's just that my perception of reality has changed.

That's because reality does not remain static over 20-30 years, neither does your naivity as regards the foibles of human nature.

field

Just a storm in a Guardian espresso cup.

It is meaningless nonsense. Edgar seems to think that supporting the rights of a community precludes criticism of the beliefs of that community.

That's completely illogical. I can support the rights of the Jewish community to live free from the fear of persecution and Jihad. Doesn't mean I agree with the Orthodox position on male genital mutilation.

Roy

One of the lefts children, unionism, is like many of its offspring more akin to a disease rather than a national spirit for good. With the lefts newly adopted multicultualisms Britain will surely lose more than its car industry.

elixelx

The left is obsessed with what ought to be.

Once they know what ought to be it becomes their is.

If people or facts do not conform to this dearly-to-be-hoped-for "ought-to-be-ness" then they must be forced to.

I believe Aristophanes correctly identified the "ought-is-is" land where the left loonies live as "Cloud-Cuckoo-Land", as fertile as ever in London and New York!

Dominic L-R

Mostly spot on as usual, although I would disagree with Melanie's assertion that "From the French Revolution onwards, the left have in fact generally sided with tyrants and oppressors". In the Spanish Civil war, thousands of volunteers from England (and many other Euopean countries) who were most definitely 'of the left' went to Spain and fought against the Fascists. Clearly not siding with the tyrants there..
Sadly, that would be unthinkable now. And it does seem that something has happened to the left wing mindset. The almost pathological hatred of America results in the ludicrous position of siding with (or at least appeasing) groups like Hezbollah, and grotesque slogans like 'we're all Hezbollah now'.
Melanie has written many times of the left's knee jerk response to Israel (which is undoubtedly true), and has ascribed this mostly to anti-semitism. Although there may be an element of this, I think it is more to do with being pro-palestinian, which is perhaps more to do with a romantic attachment to the oppressed, and the idea of overthrowing tyrannies (which is of course a traditional left-wing idea). The problem lies in being unable (or unwilling) to distinguish which groups are genuinely oppressed and tyrannised (is that a word?) - they all get lumped together: Tibet, Darfur, South Africa, Palestine... all seen as victims of evil imperial powers. Throw in a dash of moral and cultural relativism ('one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter') and you end up with the default left-wing position today, which can end up supporting murderous, irrational thugs.

a'llah mode

To be right wing is to be libertarian, to support citizens rights, small government, personal freedom, plurality, low taxation and economic innovation. The left believe in state control, social engineering, self appointed elites and political coercion. Nazism is labelled right wing by the lefties whereas it was in fact national "socialism" and as such typically left wing in it's contempt for the individual.Another own goal for the left.

Ann

You have pretty much described my own intellectual development; except that in my case this happened in my mid- to late teens ;-)))

Tim M

Fantastic piece Melanie.

This, for me, is the killer line in the piece:
'The reflex reaction of a left-winger, when presented with a set of facts which challenge his or her assumptions about the world, is not to ask ‘Is this true?’ but ‘Will adopting this position make me right-wing?’
This is also the default position of global warming alarmists when presented with any evidence.

Nick

Melanie,

Could the copy of the Guardian article be posted online? I'm sure readers would be keen to read it.

Paul

Great article Melanie. And spot on. Particularly when you say: "It is no exaggeration to say that, since the vast majority of the media and intellectual class in Britain are on the left, this mindset has quite simply poisoned British public debate and brought us to our current state of suicidal irrationality in the face of an unprecedented global threat."

Joshua

"I can support the rights of the Jewish community to live free from the fear of persecution and Jihad. Doesn't mean I agree with the Orthodox position on male genital mutilation."

Similarly, I can support the rights of the Christian community to live free from the fear of persecution and Jihad. Doesn't mean I agree with the many centuries of vicious persecution which has been visited on Jews by Christians.

Dr. Irene Lancaster

This is indeed a fine article.

What is puzzling is that in Israel itself, many Muslim Arabs are embarrassed by white leftists in Britain and elsewhere who claim to be taking their part, when in fact many are merely haters of Jews.

For example, I explained to the new Anglican admin at St. George's Cathedral, Jerusalem (formerly home to Bishop Riah, who succeeded in getting the Church of England to agree to divest from Israel, although in actual fact the divestment did not go ahead) that making friendly overtures to the Jewish community was not compatible with possessing anti-Israel tapes produced by the Revd Stephen Sizer, for instance.

After explaining the negative effect of this cleric on the Jewish community of Britain, the tapes were unceremoniously dumped in the bin, where they belonged.

Sensible people in Israel know that there are two, if not three, sides to everything and are genuinely desirous of peace, even if some of their western hangers-on have a totally different agenda.

Ann

I beg to differ, Dominic. Lefties couldn't care less about the 'Palestinians'. How much indignation do you hear from lefties about the plight of Christians in Egypt, for example (one of very many)? The answer is 'Virtually none', and that's because you can't blame the Jews for that. The loonie left's position on Israel is motivated by visceral antisemitism, and that has a long tradition going back to the Communist bloc even before 1948.

Dhimmier

There is one thing I'm afraid Melanie has still to realize the full truth about: mass immigration. It is the engine of many of the other things she deplores, from multiculturalism to the destruction of national identity to the appeasement of Islam.

mark, Yorkshire

Bloody hell Mel, I've been right wing a bit longer than you and I'm only 38.

Totally agree with your article. I'm from a working class Yorkshire background and totally reject the labour / socialist model of state interference. The politics of the left are "regressive".

Funnily enough most of the folk in Yorkshire I associate with think the same as I do on a whole range of issues but still vote labour because they view it as the historic Jim Callaghan/ Dennis Healy version of labour. Some of them are starting to see the true colours of new labour and move away from them, but it's a bloody long process as Yorkshire folk are quite tribal / loyal.

Jonny Mac

Good article. I'd recommend Nick Cohen's "What's Left" for a book length analysis of this phenomemum. Fantastic book. The tide is turning, though, towards truth, I am sure of that.

Ron

Like the world we live in, the world of ideas is round. Wander too far to the left and you will meet those who have wandered too far to the right.
That is why one can find leftists and Hezbollah marching
together.

Michael

Melanie, you are largely responsible for my sanity.I read you to confirm that there are people you think as I do.

Oscar

.......a powerful cri de coeur and rallying call from the pen of England's brilliant doyenne of sweet reasonableness........!

david skinner

C.S.Lewis had his book “ The Screwtape letters” first published in 1943
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/74/story_7427_1.html

This book is an imaginary conversation between the devil and his nephew, Wormwood who is trying to capture the soul of someone . In the first page of the first chapter he says,

“Your man has been accustomed, ever since he was a boy, to have a dozen incompatible philosophies dancing about together inside his head. He doesn't think of doctrines as primarily "true" or "false," but as "academic" or "practical," "outworn" or "contemporary," "conventional" or "ruthless." Jargon, not argument, is your best ally in keeping him from the Church. Don't waste time trying to make him think that materialism is true! Make him think it is strong, or stark, or courageous--that it is the philosophy of the future. That's the sort of thing he cares about.
The trouble about argument is that it moves the whole struggle on to the Enemy's [God] own ground. He can argue too; whereas in really practical propaganda of the kind I am suggesting He has been shown for centuries to be greatly the inferior of Our Father Below.
By the very act of arguing, you awake the patient's reason; and once it is awake, who can foresee the result?
Even if a particular train of thought can be twisted so as to end in our favor, you will find that you have been strengthening in your patient the fatal habit of attending to universal issues and withdrawing his attention from the stream of immediate sense experiences. Your business is to fix his attention on the stream. Teach him to call it "real life" and don't let him ask what he means by "real."

oliver

Agree totally.

Part of the conceptual problem is that the left is supposedly about idealism; the right about realism. So if you're on the left, you support egalitarianism, whereas those on the right would support the natural order, so to speak.

But I'm right wing, and am idealistic. Except that my idealism doesn't assume that the state can solve my problem, or fill the gaps in my life, and is more about the aspiration of spirit and self-reliance.

Telling people this still causes gasps in some circles - you're right wing, they cry. But then, as you dig a little and test those assumption, you often find that hey, they agreed with you all along.

I don't always agree with Peter Hitchens, but when he says that left-wingers are merely slow learners, I have to concur.

Fabio P.Barbieri

So, Melanie, "Ever since the French Revolution, the Left has always sided with tyrants and oppressors"? Please. Don't talk of things you know nothing about, such as European history. The tyrants and oppressors were the Emperors of Russia and Austria; the king of Prussia; the usurping Emperors of France; and, in Britain, the likes of Castlereagh. The Holy Alliance was not a left-wing enterprise. In fact, until 1917 and Lenin's crime against Russia and against the Aliance, the left was consistently in favour of all liberationist movements. The rise of Communism in Russia has confused the waters ever since, and we have not yet got rid of its poisonous influence. But to speak of the French Revolution - really, what bullshit. As well say that George Washington was an oppressor and a tyrant.

Pete

"I moved from being right-wing to far-right to ultra-right to clinically insane to far-right lunatic Zionist Jew."

Welcome to the club. Can I quote you on that?

Fabio P.Barbieri

Dominic L-R
More ignorant unhistorical nonsense. Just because the reds of the Spanish Civil War fought against a side that was poorly identified as Fascist (it was, in fact, a resurrection of the old Carlist reactionary party, widely different from Fascism on many essential facts), it does not mean that they were fighting for freedom. In fact, they were fighting for Stalin and mass murder. George Orwell found that out and went home and spilled the beans. Others found that out - and were OK with it. No side in the Spanish Civil War had any decency about it. Find a better argument.

Colin McQuade

A very interesting article. I've always felt that the left is made up of 3 main constituencies: The Thick, The Naive and The Evil. In the UK, It's not that hard to work out who belongs where. In fact, it's great fun mentally allocating left wingers a "T", "N" or "E" tag.

Ian C

There are many good comments here, in addition to your own Melanie. Having read of your earlier 'path' since your days on the Sunday Times, I have been familiar with the above views which are new for Spectator blog newcomers. In the follow on comments, I like the Roundhead/Cavalier definition. It has a lot to say about where a politician is. I would add that some ae Roundheads who try to use a Cavalier disguise - Clinton 2? Obama is clearly a Roundhead. Unionism is mentioned by Roy. As a past and constant student of economics and politics I was always a fan of the union movement but it became hi-jacked (as so many worthwhile aspects of progresivism were) by the left, thus devaluing something that could have been such a long term constructive force in society into one that is relevant today at the margins. The same can be said (Dominic L-R) of the genuinely concerned left who went to Spain to fight Franco. They have been subsequently betrayed by what the modern left has become. The overriding message that could and should be added, for the sake of clarity of vision and purpose, is that the word 'liberal' has become so misused. We need to home in on this as it has become a dangerous disguise for the left who are, as argued here, are so illiberal, and so often with frighteningly totalitarian sympathies and tendencies. To reclaim the word for its true home would help explain the left's incoherence, while giving those who canbe described today as 'soggy' a wake up call as to what it means to be a true liberal.

David M

A very good article as always. I agree with you 100%. However, Melanie, you do sometimes do the same thing yourself, especially in regard to the party I support.

The logic appears to run thus...

(a) The BNP are self-evidently evil as is anyone who supports them.

(b) Evil people are liars.

(c) Therefore, you cannot accept that what the BNP says it believes, it actually does believe.

(d) Therefore, even if you agree with what they say, don't support them because it's just a cunning plan to dupe the public.

I am an honest man. I have a strongly developed sense of good and evil, right and wrong, true and false. Please apply the same rules to me as you would to supporters of other political positions.

Thinkster

Spot on M. Come give a talk at Oxford Uni one day. Request that you are allowed to finish your talk with no interruptions from over the over excitable brainwashed youth here, whose views are terrifying in their naivity. It is worrying how missinformed the intellectual populace of this city is.

GS

Don't worry. Soon it'll be fashionable to be right-wing. Once everyone realises that being left-wing is out of date and almost pervasive, it'll fall out of currency for a few decades. For now, we should consider ourselves "avant garde."

Gordon Neil

Fascinating posting. More evidence for your hypothesis has emerged at the Harry's Place blog over the past few weeks as the call goes out there for the left to hold it's nose and vote for Ken Livingston ! Ergo- Left is good even if the left is bad !!! A perfect example of the moral corruption of the left.

Corin

The posters who think a Roundhead?Cavalier distinctoin would work clearly have no idea of the Roundheads or the Cavaliers. It was Cromwell (Roundhead) who let the Jews back into England. The Puritans and the Roundheads have been systematically misrepresented over the centuries. Remember, the Royalists wrote the history books. Parliamentary freedom owes more to Cromwell and not the Monarchs. The Civil War was a clash between an absolute dictator and Parliament. Cromwell ended up as Lord Protector because of the temperament of the times. Today he would still stand for Parliament.

richard

If I were to describe the trends in the left responsible for the verious themes Melanie addresses here, I'd say the schisms lie between those of liberal vrs. multiculturalist and principled vrs dogmatic.

If one approaches politics from the most shallow of perspectives, namely of propagating memes by conforming one's every opinion to the prevailing orthodoxy, then one can quite easily conclude that other people have moved rightward. If a person approaches their politics from the standpoint of values, however, they are far more likely to ask the question "is this consistant with my values" than "am I conforming to expectations".

Since liberalism places primacy on individual rights based upon a sense of moral reasoning and multiculturalism places primacy on group rights based upon an avoidance of any sort of moral position at all, then these two philosophies are quite at odds. That both exist within the left gives rise to these various charges by those who apply the dogmatic multiculturalist position rather than the liberal position as their litmus test for being included in their little club.

Joe Strummer

The hypocritical mindset of the archetypal British Left winger, usually of the comfortable middle class variety, can never be fathomed. They love the British "working classes" as long as they live as far away from them as possible and God forbid their "comrades" children attend the same school as little Jocinta and Tabitha. That would be just too much assimilation to bear.!

Marzipan Man

"As I ploughed on over the subsequent two decades through issues such as family breakdown, gender roles, drug abuse, victim culture, multiculturalism, national identity and then in the past seven years, Israel, America, Iraq and Islamism..."

You missed some: MMR, autism, Intelligent Design, creationism in schools, global warming, anything at all to do with science...

Whatever mugged you, Melanie, it bears astonishingly little resemblance to reality.

Frank Pulley

Another keystone article Melanie in the fight for reclamation of reason. Wonderful! Obviously you have recovered your strength.

The reflections, from the other side of the Herring Pond, of another 'apostate' Gerard Vanderleun, on his blog American Digest last month are worth weaving into the tapestry of this thread:

http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/american_studies/radical_roots_a_1.php#005097

Extract: (Musing about 1968 and all that),

"When you got done with feeling cool about those friendly states and organizations, you still weren't out of friends. Instead, you just went on to the "enemies of your enemy" that were not necessarily rooted in real estate, but in the mind and the culture. These groups have been summed up in a stunning fashion by Paul Mann in his perceptive essay "Stupid Undergrounds." They were --take a deep breath --

Apocalyptic cults and youth gangs, garage bands and wolfpacks, alternative colleges and phalansteries, espionage networks trading in vaporous facts and networks of home shoppers for illicit goods; monastic, penological, mutant-biomorphic, and anarcho- terrorist cells; renegade churches, dwarf communities, no-risk survivalist enclaves, unfunded quasi-scientific research units, paranoid think tanks, unregistered political parties, sub-employed workers councils, endo-exile colonies, glossolaliac fanclubs, acned anorexic primal hordes; zombie revenants, neo-fakirs, defrocked priests and detoxing prophets, psychedelic snake-oil shills, masseurs of undiagnosed symptoms, bitter excommunicants, faceless narcissists, ideological drag queens, mystical technophiles, sub- entrepreneurial dealers, derivative derivistes, tireless archivists of phantom conspiracies, alien abductees, dupe attendants, tardy primitives, vermin of abandoned factories, hermits, cranks, opportunists, users, connections, outriders, outpatients, wannabes, hackers, thieves, squatters, parasites, saboteurs; wings, wards, warehouses, arcades, hells, hives, dens, burrows, lofts, flocks, swarms, viruses, tribes, movements, groupuscules, cenacles, isms, and the endlessly multiplied hybridization of variant combinations of all these...
That just about sums up the enemies of our enemy, AmeriKKKa, in the Vietnam era.

As you can see we had plenty of friends.

And they and we all grew older. We survived and thrived. Some even grew up, but only a few. For most of us -- no matter what was our lot in later life -- it would always be 1968. We so loved being "The Lost Boys."

Although I was of -- and among -- many of the groups above, none of them are among my friends any longer. I have, alas, far fewer friends. Indeed, as my strange political odyssey of saying "Goodbye to all that" continues, old friends seem to melt away like the highland mist at high noon in the desert. It is sad, but still, with friends like those.... "

Read it all! We are all suffering from the fallout of that toxic era, but as long as Melanie, Gerard and other temporary fellow travellers, whose immunity to agitprop eventually prevailed, keep up the pressure towards a new pragmatism, there is hope for us all.

Mike Woodman

Melanie, I think this piece of writing is an instant classic. It drives so deep into left-wing puffball philosophy. Bravo!

phil

Some years ago I saw Melanie on question time ,having no idea who she was ,checked the web site and read that she was a right wing journalist-I then watched the programme --it was the one where a mother had been jailed for not sending her child to school ,after many warnings. I seem to remember Tracy Emmins supporting the woman and saying she was of a similar view -Melanie strongly disagreed giving good reasons which coincided exactly with my own views of a caring British society -she was not applauded half as loudly as ms Emmins -I was so shocked by what I saw as anti establishment rhetoric that I emailed Melanie to ask her why she was considered right wing .She did reply but not as fully as this article

-From that day on I realised that instead of being slightly left of centre I must be a full blown right winger -you know ,one with compassion .one who cares for the less fortunate and prefers peace and listens to both sides of an argument I saw the other way last night on newsnight the truly incredible Hamimi (Hamas)arguing with Ed Husseins partner Maajid Nawaz,hate spouting with every spit .how any sane person could support that mans views is truly beyond me .I will proudly accept the label of right winger from now on with pride -thank you Melanie

Jack R.

Excellent; for complementary piece: "Two kinds of Dhimmis", Jamie Glazov interviews Bill Warner -http://frontpagemagazine.com

Ann

The terror of the French revolution was about liberty? What nonsense you do spout, Fabio.

London Calling

When I was little my left foot said to my right foot, 'you go to the left and I'll go right and we’ll meet up in the middle' only when they met in the middle they ended up on opposite sides, so the left foot said, 'I don’t want to stay in the middle because we are neither Left or Right' and whilst they were squabbling the Eyes looked down at them and said 'Don’t worry I can see everything to the left and to the right and in the middle'.

The moral to my story is this:
Do not delude yourselves that the right is all good and the left is all bad, what utter nonsense, for if what you say is true, then we would now be living in paradise, show me a Conservative right paradise in any part of our planet earth and I will accept your claim with an open heart, for my eyes are yet to see such a wonderment?

Jack R

On the French Revolution, Danton, Paine and Wordsworth all supported the French Revolution in 1789; but within a few years, Danton was executed by self-described 'revolutionaries'of the 'Terror', Paine was sentenced to be executed (but by chance avoided that fate), and Wordsworth became totally disenchanted and returned to England, and nature. There are still many on the European 'left' who even support Napoleon Bonaparte's military dictatorship, and are critical of the (successful) British Nelsonian resistance to it, which I hope I am allowed to mention on St. George's Day.

James McCubbin

Brilliant essential daily reading as usual, thank you Melanie. May I advise "Vision of the Annointed" by Thomas Sowell as an excellent book to further one's understanding of the sanctimonious left?

A. Sarko

Another homerun M. We are born on the left, and but for a Libersal conspiracy, we would naturally go right. When you break it down, for those on the left, there is nothing worse than being on the right. It trumps everything, including family ties. It does not matter if it's a parent or sibling, if you are not with them, YOU are worse than Hitler. Their God is Liberalism...but you know all this. I also thank you for keeping me(somewhat) sane.

Dr. Irene Lancaster

The German left-wing appears to buck the present trend:

http://blog.z-word.com/2008/04/german-leftists-declare-solidarity-with-israel/

Gareth

I have often thought that socialism is a quasi-religion. The promise of Heaven (on Earth), the obsession with being Holier than the Right, the childish enthusiasm for marches and demos...your problem is that you are a heretic, Melanie.

Stephen Fox

Wonderful stuff Melanie
Is this how you respond to getting a stomach bug? I just sulk.
I think many of us are maknig that same transition, though it seems to me as to others that it is the 'left' that lost its way not us.
Rather like Gloria Swansons famous reply in Sunset Boulevard to 'Weren't you big in the movies once?': 'I still am big. It's the movies that got small...'
Quite properly, one commenter recommends Nick Cohen's 'What's Left'. I would add that for a transatlantic view of this, anyone who has not yet read neo-neocon's blog, and especially 'A mind is a difficult thing to change' should hasten to do so. It is a long, autobiographical account over ten or so long posts, of a very similar journey to that which Melanie describes, and which many of us are also making.
http://neoneocon.com/category/a-mind-is-a-difficult-thing-to-change/

Paul

Excellent stuff Melanie.So many people I know seem to share the default position of the Left,it always brings to mind 'Animal Farm' but in this case they all seem to go round repeating the mantra.....'Left-wing good,Right-wing bad,Left-wing good,Right-wing bad...'

Robert Wood Ottawa, Canada

I found Edgar to be attempting to buttress the faith of the left by deconstructing the apostates.

Alf Tupper

Last time I read something as sharp, clean and simply unimpeachable as this, I was reading Orwell's collected essays.

Of the many comments elicited, I think Colin McQuade's Trinity is one I'll remember.

I would take the liberty to venture that there is a trait common to all of these three groups (The Thick, The Naive and The Evil) which make up the Left. That trait is an innate timorousness which masquerades as rebelliousness.

Hence the Left's annual intake of vulnerable freshers, who, having adopted it, cling to it in later years as a totem of their youth, long after they have come to the realisation that it is totally without merit.

A bit like fans of The Clash I suppose.

Commondog

London Calling.

I don't think that you really think that anyone here is going to claim that the Right is totally without fault do you?

What you would more likely find is the shared understanding that the way things are and have been in the World for quite some time, is unhealthily weighted to the Left; and that the correction will require ideas to be aired, which run counter to the assumptions of that Left.

That's not too out of reach as a concept is it?

Alistair D

This is a wonderful update on Melanie's piece "Why I am a progressive" of some years back. The great thing is that M's journey articulates perfectly a parallel journey that so many of us have made. We are not alone!

Steve

The left-right dimension has one - and only one use. Self-defined left wingers are collectivist, arrogantly believe they are morally right and economically illiterate because they don't understand how complex systems work. If given power they make people poorer while believing they are doing the opposite.

Right wingers, incidentally, are similar but less economically illiterate and less confused. Hence, Hitler was ecomically superior to Stalin while using similar methods.

David M.

For the avoidance of doubt I would like to state that I am NOT the previous "David M" or a member of the BNP or any other politcal party.

It is a weakness of this site that there is no requirement to register and anyone can post under whatever name they like.

Ann

Of course socialism is a quasi-religion; and communism is entirely a religion, for the reasons you mention and many more: the personality cult of a holy leader, the neophytes (mentioned by another poster), and other such reasons on which I believe Karl Popper had a thing or two to say.

It is one of the strengths of this site that anyone can post under any chosen handle or name, without worrying about such juvenile nonsense as user names, passwords, registering etc. I assume there is some moderation going on (by Melanie? By an assistant), that screens out obscenity and such.

Matt

Oh, dear, this article is filled with {gulp!} common-sense!

(shakes head sadly...) There can be no room for common-sense on the broad left.

Thank God I am not on the broad left! I departed at about the same time as Melanie did!

Barry Larking

The list of Edgar's 'recusants' was a peculiar one to begin with; and some omissions were glaring. Orwell for example, whose anti-Stalinism dogged his initial attempts to publish 'Animal Farm'. Orwell was staunchly of the Left even unto death as his last written words demonstrate; clearly, such a clear sighted opponent of totalitarianism and cant would not serve Mr Edgar well. As Orwell put his own choice as between the capitalism and Stalin, it is a case of "rats and rat poison".

Simply lumping together people one disagrees with does not mean they agree with each other, a fairly rudimentary exercise in thought for a sixth form debater, leave alone doyen left wing playwright.

Paul Hayman

"Right wingers, incidentally, are similar but less economically illiterate and less confused. Hence, Hitler was ecomically superior to Stalin while using similar methods."

Though Hitler was indeed to the right of Stalin economically (in the sense that a corporate state is "to the right of" a collectivist one), Hitler was still a socialist, and called himself one.

Socialism is the belief in the perfectability of man: as evidenced by the commenter who said "show me a Conservative right paradise in any part of our planet earth and I will accept your claim with an open heart". This is a classic socialist critique of conservatism, and misses the point. No true conservative is interested in the glorious business of building earthly utopias, but rather in the unglamorous business of sustaining liberty --- the protection of property and person, the rule of law, etc.

Finally, although I disagree with Mr. Barbieri about his apparent claim of moral equivalence between the French Terror and George Washington's activities, he's correct when he says, "Just because the reds of the Spanish Civil War fought against a side that was poorly identified as Fascist (it was, in fact, a resurrection of the old Carlist reactionary party, widely different from Fascism on many essential facts), it does not mean that they were fighting for freedom. In fact, they were fighting for Stalin and mass murder. George Orwell found that out and went home and spilled the beans."

Orwell, as Mr. Larking notes, was a keen cataloguer of Leftist pathologies.

Fabio P.Barbieri

Ann - oh, yeah, and Enoch Powell wasn't a racist. I wish there was a word bad enough for your likes. For someone to dare claim Popper while defending the racist Powell is not so much beyond the pale as beyond any possibility of reason.

For the rest of the illiterates here: the French Revolution chased an absolute monarch and set up a parliamentary republic. When the parliamentary republic was nearly overthrown by another tyrant (Ropesbierre), the French Revolution cut off his head and modified the institutions to avoid having another. Finally, the Revolution was destroyed by a military adventurer who outlawed its flag (the Tricouleur) and its hymn (the Marseillaise), proclaimed himself Emperor, and restored the aristocracy. Not unlike - in view of the trash spoken in this same thread about another revolution - the military adventurer who disbanded what was left of the English Parliament, taking the monarchic title of Lord Protector, and trying to pass the crown to his son.

God in Heaven, what DO people learn in English schools?

Ann

Fabio, I can see the foam flecking your lips all the way from here.
You can't think of a word bad enough for me? What a shame. I would be honoured to be denounced by the likes of you, with your knee-jerk reaction to and labelling of a man who stated the evident truth. But I suppose we can't expect any different from a loonie who defends and rationalises the horrors of the French revolution.

Graeme

You write beautifully and this article is so perceptive. I am fond of the Guardian and read CiF every day, but the Edgar column was quite the most revealing one I think - revealing in a way, as you've spotted, that its author would never have intended.

Stephen Fox

Fabio
I’m passing on the question of Powell’s racism, except to say I don’t agree with you.
But you speak of the hijacking of the French, and English revolutions by military strong men. The same might be said, and often is, about the Communist revolutions of the 20th century.

I do not doubt that many of the people who supported these events had good intentions, and no inkling that things would take such a grim turn. This is precisely the problem. If a popular movement arises that takes as its starting point the notion that power is evil, and seeks to rid itself of the hierarchical structure it hates so much, then what results is, after a brief hiatus or ‘power vacuum’, a new hierarchy. All living communities, whether animal or human are regulated by power. There are no exceptions. Almost invariably, the power that arises to resolve instability is brutally oppressive. The essence of conservatism is to know that in advance, and to permit evolutionary change.

I would support a left-wing that is capable of recognising that absolute equality is unattainable, and seeks to achieve the best balance of stability and justice. Justice does not mean equality, note. The eternal weakness of the Left is that it drifts away into a stance that is purely ‘anti-power’, and that is what is happening now. Tony Blair managed to hold some kind of balance for a while, but the tensions were too great. Ann is quite right to say the leftwingers who complain about Israel do not care about the Palestinians. They hate Israel because it is more powerful than than the Arab countries around it, and they hate the US because it is more powerful than everyone. That is not good enough, and it is a matter of principle to say so.

Nick Kaplan

The mindset of the left is an incredible and more often than not incredibly childish thing, based not on rationality (which they claim to favour) but pure emotive responses to the ‘problems’ of the world. It is quite unbelievable how those on the left will say and do almost anything to avoid being associated with anyone/thing/ view that is remotely right wing. Once when debating with a left-wing friend, he was so desperate to avoid any right-wing recognition of individual rights, that in an attempt to cling to his Utilitarian mindset he claimed that the killing of children up to the age of three is perfectly morally acceptable so long as it promotes some ‘social good.’ If such desperation really does lie at the heart of the left-wing mindset, then it is a position that really should be treated with the total contempt it deserves.

Brian of London

Judaism (the kind most Jews have left behind) is all about obligations, not rights. There is not right to free speech, there is an obligation to speak and seek only truth. Free speech fails without an obligation to Truth (and many others you'll have to look up). Many of our cherished Freedoms are the same: corrupted without the obligations that should protect them.

The old Left and Right adjectives just don't work anymore. We hosted Douglas Murray and Nick Cohen on our podcast (Shire Network News) a few weeks ago and for all the important topics of the day, they're in complete agreement.

There are, however, plenty of "right wingers" and "left wingers" who don't get the whole global warming scam, understand the problems that Islam brings or any of the other matters that are the real big issues of the day.

Steve Platt

Forgive me if I've broken netiquette by posting from my own blog, but I wanted to respond to this and not simply to preach to the converted. The original is at:
http://plattitude.blogspot.com/

Every so often, I dip my toes into the poisonous waters that comprise a large chunk of the right-wing blogosphere. I’m invariably shocked by the levels of anger, vitriol and contempt that characterise even the most routine comment or discussion in these quarters. (It’s amazing how easily people who are, by any objective standard, among the most empowered and privileged in human history can convince themselves that they are in fact the victims of some kind of terrible global left-liberal oppression.)

But then I remind myself that the left-wing blogosphere has no shortage of people who think that diatribe constitutes debate and that cussing people you disagree with (who are also, as often as not, on the left themselves) is an integral proof of ideological purity. So I suppose that an intolerance of differing opinions and an unthinking bigotry towards those who hold them should be seen as a general human failing rather than a specifically ideological one.

Even so, I hold an old-fashioned sort of attachment to the pursuit of truth as well as the expression of opinion. So when the right accuses the left of lying, which Melanie Phillips does big time in her Spectator blog this week, they really ought to get their facts right.

‘The left claim they are the ‘progressives’ in society – but the truth is the precise opposite,’ she writes. ‘Nothing new here: the idea that the left were always the heroic opponents of tyranny is merely a self-serving myth invented by the left. From the French Revolution onwards, the left have in fact generally sided with tyrants and oppressors; ever since that time the most ‘progressive’ intellectuals have been fascinated by violence; socialism and national socialism were after all brothers in blood, descending from the same counter-Enlightenment strain of thinking.’

This is unhistorical nonsense. Neither the left nor the right have come out of the past two centuries with their reputations unblemished, but to say that ‘the left’ (in any case a worthless broad-brush categorisation that lumps together, for example, Stalinism and many of its opponents and victims) has ‘generally sided with tyrants and oppressors’ simply can’t be supported by the evidence.

Phillips goes further. ‘The single most important thing for left-wingers – what defines them in their own eyes as people of moral worth – is the fact that they are not “right wing”,’ she says. ‘For “the right” is a place of unmitigated evil. Only the left is good. So this is how it goes in the left-wing mind. To be not on the left is evil. To be not on the left is to be on the right. Therefore everyone who disagrees with the left on anything is automatically an evil right-winger.’

And further still: ‘So this is what follows. The left believe a wide range of lies. Others believe in the truth instead. Therefore to the left, those people are “right-wing”. Therefore truth is actually a right-wing concept. Therefore truth is evil. Therefore truth has to be relabelled lies while lies of course remain unchallengeable truth.’

‘The reflex reaction of a left-winger, when presented with a set of facts which challenge his or her assumptions about the world, is not to ask “Is this true?”’ Phillips argues, ‘but “Will adopting this position make me right-wing?”’

Is this true? Does Phillips really believe it herself?

Some of her readers certainly do. Among those commenting on her blog, one describes it as ‘an instant classic’, another as ‘a beautifully written and really quite brilliant post (easily the best I've ever read at this or any other site)’, while yet another sees it as ‘another keystone article in the fight for reclamation of reason’.

‘Reason’ and ‘truth’? All of this under the headline ‘The open society and its enemies’ in a nod to Karl Popper’s famous philosophical work critiquing Plato, Aristotle, Hegel and Marx (published, incidentally, in 1945 by the left-wing Routledge).

I worked with Melanie for a short while on New Society in the mid-1980s before she turned into the unabashed right-winger that she is today. (I was going to write ‘evil’ but that might be a shade too subtle.) She now says, ‘I don’t think I was ever really left-wing: more a soggy liberal just going along with the consensus. Then I was mugged by reality.’

Yet one of New Society’s great virtues was that it didn’t go along with any consensus. It followed the evidence rather than any party line. And in seeing the world in many different colours rather than unsophisticated black and white it enabled many of us, left and right alike, better to understand the way it works. The sad thing about Melanie Phillips is not that she has moved from ‘soggy liberal’ to ‘right-wing realist’ but that she seems to have dumped her critical faculties en route.

Ann

To call Melanie a 'right winger', in the sense that you use it, is nonsense. On most points of agreement between us, she is an old-fashioned liberal.

You talk about 'unhistorical nonsense'. Let's see your evidence. I notice that you have not provided any, however many persuader words you resorted to.

As to 'poisonous waters', oh, dearie dearie me ... the left constantly splits up into tinier and tinier factions, each hating each others' guts with a degree of poisonous malice that is a wonder to behold, and all on points of arcane disagreement that bear little or no relationship to life on this planet. Never mind not being mistaken for right-wingers, heaven forbid: the most important thing for many of those people is that their alphabet soup, say SWP, not be confused with the vile WSP.

Sebastian

Steve
Point us to one good outcome in the name of elitist, left-wing, revolutionary politics ! None. Everything from France to Russia to Germany to China to Syria to Cuba to Iran to Hamastan to Guardian Man perpetrated according to some mad leftist ideological Utopian plan has resulted in, not the expected heavenly dream of the happy blameless child, but in the pure infantile hell of everyone against everyone, the children-minded mass murderers plotting universal death in the name of some childishly hypocritical, therefore, mercilessly evil game.The game of left,lefter and leftist politics. That has been the unspeakably cruel world of the last two-and-a-half centuries whenever the death-dealing intellectual ideals of the envious and spiteful ones have been allowed to hold free and untrammelled sway.

Frank Pulley

Steve Platt

Bwaahahahahaha! Cute way to try to pump up you own blog hits. I just peeked. Your last 10 posts produced 5 duck eggs in the comments section and the remaining five shared four between them (2 to a piece about Ralph Harris for Chrissake!). Plattitudes indeed. When were you thinking of retiring? Methinks Melanie will be retiring first - except unlike you, she probably doesn't want to. Good writers never do. I suggest you go trawling for leftie punters elsewhere, I don't think you find much of following here (Mike and patricia might provide some balm for your ego, but they have been designated trolls to this blog, so I doubt it).

Ann

Oh, dearie dearie me ...
The Judean People's Front and The People's Front of Judea would have been far more appropriate. ;-)))

Ann

I don't know who it is that's masquerading as me, but the one posting as Ann (9:40) is not me ;-))
Yes, you are right, it's like the Life of Brian episode, but the whole point of that scene was not to present a historical analysis of Judea in the first century but to mock the loonie left. We had them running our council at that time ;-((((

Nick Kaplan

Steve Platt; you say that Melanie’s claim that the left have historically sided with tyrants is “unhistorical nonsense”, yet you offer not a shred of evidence for your assertion. In fact to say the left has often sided with tyrants is an understatement; Tyrants themselves are almost always left wing. Consider the list; Moa (killed about 30 million people- communist), Stalin (killed several-million people- Communist), Pol Pott (killed about a third of his population- Communist), Kim Jong Ill (communist), Robert Mugabe (socialist), Fidel Castro (has killed about 5,000 people and still you lefties love him) Hugo Chavez (socialist). In addition, the idea that Fascism is an ideology of the right is a complete joke to anyone with even a basic understanding of what this ideology entails. Fascism is deeply collectivist, and as the left-right divide is primarily one between the collectivist left and the individualist right; Fascism properly understood is certainly an ideology of the left. It is no coincidence that the Nazi party was called the National ‘Socialist’ German Workers Party and that both Mussolini and Oswald Mosley were Socialists before converting to Fascism, so you can probably add Hitler and Mussolini to that list also. Then you make the wild claim that Karl Popper must be left wing because Routledge is a left-wing publisher. I’m sorry, but is that not the same Karl Popper who was a close associate of Friedrich von Hayek, Thatcher’s favorite philosopher, and the very same Routledge who published his seminal work ‘The Constitution of Liberty’? Perhaps when you blog in future you want make unsubstantiated and untrue claims to bolster your own ego, but since you’re a creature of the left I shan’t be too hopeful since evidence to the left is like garlic to a vampire.

Steve Platt

Tyrants and oppressors know no ideological boundaries, and as I said previously neither left nor right emerged from the 20th century unblemished. But it really is 'unhistorical nonsense' wilfully to ignore the role of the left (among others) in opposing tyranny, from the ancien regimes of Europe through colonialism and imperialism, Nazism and fascism, apartheid and military dictatorship. To suggest that the left 'generally sided with tyrants and oppressors' simply isn't accurate.

As for me providing 'one good outcome in the name of elitist, left-wing, revolutionary politics', why should I as I'm neither elitist nor revolutionary - and nor is the left tradition to which I, and the vast majority of the British left, has always subscribed?

Steve Platt

To Norman McGreevy. Roundheads and Cavaliers produces some odd results. Thatcher was undoubtedly a Roundhead, Kinnock a Cavalier. I was always struck by the comment that most people would choose Kinnock as their neighbour - but would you want your neighbour running the country? In my case, as you probably guessed, I would.

Fabio P.Barbieri

Stephen Fox - Lenin was not a military adventurer, although he used civil war as a means to his end. He was a destructive utopian who disguised his own power lust (that led him to drive every independent thinker away from his movement - people remarked on what a bunch of yes-man nobodies, except for Trotsky, all his followers were) for idealism, and a mass murderer. In a normal state of society, he would have led a tiny sect, Gerry Healey style. In a society destroyed by Tzarist mismanagement and devastating war, he had his chance, and he took it.

Your commonplaces about power are out of place here. What happened in France in 1789 and in Russia in March 1917 was that power collapsed. The summons of the Estates General was Louis XVI's recognition that he could no longer govern or tax the country, and the Estates or National Assembly took power in literal default of any other working government. Russia had it even worse, since the blind and incompetent rule of Nicholas II had denied anyone the opportunity to learn to govern even at a local level, while running the machine of the state down and entering twice into disastrous wars. There was no power in Russia left. Of course a destructive fanatic took over. And even so, would you want the Russian and French absolutism, both of which had proven thoroughly unreformable and had corrupted every institution they touched, to have lasted?

Ann - yes, oddly enough, I find hypocrical racists such as yourself repulsive. Dear me, how strange.

Ann

Fabio, you need to seek professional help. You also need to find yourself a dictionary. I am neither hypocritical nor racist, and you are using these terms as childish ad hominem insults rather than as English words with very concrete meanings. The rest of your rant is on a similar level: trying to rationalise away the failure of your argument.

Sebastian

No Steve P. not elitist enough to ever gain power(or even notice)! Nor even for anyone to even want to read you ! Just another one of the ever-increasing number of convenient leftist dupes. Or should that be dopes ?

Nick Kaplan

Steve; You seem to have misunderstood my point, perhaps because your logic is poor or maybe you are just being disingenuous, either is possible given that both are particularly prevalent amongst left-wingers. What I said was most tyrants properly seen are of the left, this in no way implies that most of the left are tyrants. Your misunderstanding is akin to concluding that all mammals are human from the statement that all humans are mammals. You have not even attempted to counter the point that I have made except by asserting “Tyrants and oppressors know no ideological boundaries” which is again unsubstantiated nonsense. Whilst you can have what may be called a ‘conservative tyrant’ such as Saddam Hussein, this does nothing to counter the fact that the vast majority of such Tyrants are certainly of the Left and the vast majority of deaths in the 20th century came at the expense of left-wing experiments. Moreover, the left- wing relativism that replaced left-wing dogmatism (after they finally recognized the problems inherent in the socialist ideal) has led the left to support Tyrants in new ways by justifying those the old left would have rightly opposed such as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. As one blogger explained earlier, the left is composed of the evil (Stalin, Moa, Castro, Chavez, Pol Pot, Mugabe, Hitler) and the Naive. You I would imagine firmly fit into the naive camp, in your belief that government intervention can work and your belief that left-wing ends justify the means by which you bring them about (i.e. through violation of property rights etc). The problem is that, as Hayek argued, the collectivist ends of the left necessitate the violation of individual rights, and when the collective is placed above the individual the result will inevitable be a slide down a slippery slope into tyranny and oppression. Once the option of rights violation is opened it become very hard to close, as such a violation involves rejecting the fundamental ethical principle, the ‘Categorical Imperative,’ that you cannot coercively use one person as a means to an end for another. Once this principle is violated it is very hard to justify not using individuals for whatever means whatsoever, and this is where the tyrants are able to come in and take advantage of the foundations the naive have unintentionally built.

phil

Steve Platt what I find when reading blogs is that those who send massive screeds are usually writing rubbish and mostly for their own ego (except Nick)-what you have failed to see is that both right and left are wrong ,somewhere to the left of centre or right as the case may be is the ground for moral sensible people to debate,so you will probably realise that I think your placing of Melanie ,myself and others of a similar persuasion is way off the mark -many of us have "admitted " here to being right wing but cant you see it was with a sense of ironic humour?

It is extremists from both sides who cause us endless heartache -many have lurched from the extreme right to the extreme left with the only constant being the hatred of others which remains -so I hope you will understand my message which is simple and in plain language unadulterated by words that many people will not understand and relatively short

Stephen Fox

Fabio

‘What happened in France in 1789 and in Russia in March 1917 was that power collapsed.’
Quite.
No I am not saying that the absolutist regimes destroyed by those revolutions should have continued. I am saying that those events were breakdowns, which while they permitted some degree of convulsive adaptation to modernity, produced power structures barely less naked and brutal than those that preceded them.
I am saying that it has been the regrettable role of the modern left to idealise and render heroic those catastrophes. Great heroes like Jean-Paul Sartre were corrupt and foolish enough to express the wish that the Soviet Union had liberated Paris, rather than the Americans. Many silly French people I know now idolise Sartre. In fact they wheeled him out for a leading role in their 1968 coup de theatre.
Similarly, during Napoleon’s exile on Elba, a constant stream of Whig politicians from England travelled there to pay their respects (a la Ken Livingstone and Jimmy Carter), and no doubt to encourage him to try again. And when he did, and was finally defeated at Waterloo, our great ‘intellectual’, William Hazlitt, described spending two weeks dazed and unshaven from the blow to his hopes.
So to see recently apparently intelligent, free, well-fed people marching under banners saying ‘We are all Hezbollah’ is depressing but no surprise. They are not Hezbollah, just shallow, utopian, lucky people who do not understand, or refuse to admit the truth of what you are pleased to call my ‘commonplaces about power’.

Commondog

Stephen Fox 6 : Fabio P. Barbieri 0

J. Isaacs

Commondog - How about Steve Platt: out for a duck to the bowling of Frank Pulley (or should that read "five duck's eggs").

Mr C

Great article MP. The word 'progressive' is slowly but surely being hijacked by the left in substitution of use of the term 'left-wing'. This is not surprising, as the left have good reason to be coy, given the failure of left wing regimes the world over, and wider public recognition, at home, of the bankruptcy of both left wing thought and social policy. I’m not particularly ‘political’ or right wing myself. The tendency of the left to smear anyone who disagrees with their world-view is anything but progressive and incompatible with the exercise of Liberty, Freedom, and Conscience.

Ann

Stephen Fox, you have sure demolished Fabio by an innings and 10 wickets. One small point, however: you seem to be conflating 'intelligent' with 'educated'. Islingtonites who march under the banner 'We are Hezbollah' are not intelligent, even if they hold a university degree and read the Guardian (or perhaps 'even' does not apply logically to that last bit): they are dumb and ignorant, plain and simple. They are ignorant about what Hezbollah is, or they know what it is but are too dumb to realise the implications. Some of them are knaves rather than fools, to be sure, but my view is that the majority of them are very very stupid. Being literate does not stop you being stupid, and we can see this by looking across the landscape of the West, or indeed on this blog.

Fabio P.Barbieri

Commondog, you are very silly to regard any discussion that does not involve odious fanatics like Ann or Bob Latchford as a kind of duel in which what the one gains the other loses. Your idiotic comment spoils a mostly very interesting response by someone with more brains than you appear, on the evidence, to have.

Fabio P.Barbieri

Stephen Fox: the difference between the French and the Russian revolutions is that the French did not, in spite of a number of pathological events about the dreadful year 1792, immediately fall to a totalitarian enemy. The first tyrant to appear, Ropesbierre, had his head, literally, handed to him; and it took a few years for Napoleon to alternatively bully and worm his way to supreme power. Those years were long enough to make the experience of parliamentary government percolate through French society. Napoleon, who had effectively suppressed the Assembly, was forced to re-create it when he was in trouble, and Louis XVIII did not even think of abolishing it. From then on, with the partial interval of Napoleon III and the brief and disastrous interlude of Petain, parliamentary representative government has remained the constant feature of French politics. Quite an achievement for a state that had been throughout its history the most absolute and uncontrolled monarchy in Europe.

IN general, I am against the reactionary commonplace of assimilating the French Revolution to the Russian and taking both for totalitarian phenomena. It is rotten history and worse politics, and the last place it ought to be heard is in a discussion thread headed by a quote from Sir Karl Popper.

Fabio P.Barbieri