councilor.org
| Source | Jurriaan Bendien |
| Date | 03/10/31/11:37 |
| Alexander Cockburn, whom I traditionally respect and admire, now writes:
"Krugman is a press agent, a busker, for Clintonomics. For him as for so many others on the liberal side, the world only went bad in January, 2001. If a Democrat, pretty much any Democrat conventional enough to win Wall Street's approval, takes over again, maybe in 2005, the world will get better again." The question that needs to be asked is what we achieve by polemically writing off Krugman and calling him nasty names. Krugman is a very learned left-liberal economist capable of very good critical inquiry into the US economy and suggesting positive alternatives. I personally believe we should aim to attract people like that to the socialist movement, rather than vent abuse language against them. By doing so, we just shoot ourselves in the foot more than anything else. If you look at most American economists, rightwing economists vastly outnumber leftwing economists, and incompetent leftwing economists vastly outnumber competent leftwing economists. This being the case, and given the policy of the US government to encourage barbarism across the planet, I think we should be doing everything possible to attract good people like that to our side. This does not mean that we shouldn't criticise them, but rather that we should criticise them with a purpose, namely to bring them over to our side. There is nothing specifically radical in these ad hominem attacks against individuals, and it convinces only the converted in your own camp. I could for example go and say things like "Joseph Stigler is a nasty such-and-such" but this achieves nothing other than that Stigler would get disgusted with socialist people and their puberal behaviour, whereas if I advance a cogent knock-down argument which proves Stigler is mistaken in some point of economics, or alternatively show why Stigler is correct on some issue, then Stigler would be more interested in me, and I might be able to persuade him of something more, perhaps even win him to my side of the argument in particular cases. Then I have a new friend, instead of a new enemy. As long as leftism remains at the level of ad hominem attacks which aim to prove how nasty other leftists, liberals or conservatives are, we will never get anywhere. Our criticism should be aimed at what people actually do, and not at the spirit or integrity of the people who do it. The principle here is to accept the the person, and criticise/change the behaviour, so that we show superior insight and humanity, rather than demonstrating our superior ability to substitute swearing for cogent argument and criticism. This is correct, because socialists are no more good or bad people than anybody else. Stupid polemics and ad hominem attacks is one of the main reason why the Left fails, because most people reject this "cultural habit" and find it unpleasant. The Socialist Party of the Netherlands therefore had adopted it as a norm of conduct that we do not engage in direct ad hominem attacks in public politics (you might curse somebody in private or among friends, workingclass people can do that at times, but that is another story). We want to concentrate on better ideas and on what people actually do, rather than on their personal failings, and thus we show a constructive alternative. Personally, I have very good reason to feel extreme hostility towards quite a few people who intervened in my adult life without my consent in violation of my civil and human rights, nearly driving me to suicide sevral times. But constantly verbalising this hostility does not get me anywhere, and is not conducive to anything or restoring my own sense of joie de vivre or dignity, it does not benefit me, nor anybody else. I am better off avoiding or ignoring those who do me harm and concentrating on what I positively have to do, making good, cogent arguments and criticisms and, trying as I am able, to show a better way of doing things. And I recommend the attitude which I have described to Alexander Cockburn and everybody else on our side, because that is the only way we will succeed in the long term. I might add that I consider a lot of leftwing discussion and criticism as myopic in the sense of attesting a warped world view. Instead of targeting the people who are the most influential, and the most dangerous people from the point of view of human progress, the people that could do that target their own people, and they target people who are small fry anyhow or who, although they differ from us, could be won to our side. And on that basis, you can never hope to succeed politically. I also admit I do not always get it correct myself, but I know what my norm is in this area, as I have explained. Refer also Karl Marx: sectarians always emphasise how they differ from other progressive people in order to prove that they are more radical, instead of radicalising other progressive people more, they seek to distinguish themselves from the movement instead of constructing it. This doesn't mean that I am a "Clintonite" myself, but that I consider myself no better or worse as a moral subject than Clinton, and consequently can have respect for him even if I absolutely disagree with his politics on many, many scores. To argue that this attitude is just a "liberal" attitude is just nonsense. It is not. What is liberal or not liberal is defined not by what somebody says, but by what somebody does. And even in criticising what somebody does, we ought to keep the purpose of why we are criticising in mind. Long ago, Karl Marx ridiculed "critical criticism", among other things on the ground that being critical for the sake of being critical is useless and should not be confused with a genuinely radical stance. |
Copyright (c) 1998, Joongpil Cho