| Review of: | What's Left? How Liberals Lost Their Way by Nick Cohen |
|---|---|
| Reviewed By: | Mark Garnett |
| Reviewed in: | The Political Quarterly |
| Date accepted online: | 14/01/2008 |
| Published in print: | Volume 78, Issue 03, Pages 456-466 |
Book Reviews: The columnist's progress
Nick Cohen established his journalistic credentials through savage and unrelenting criticisms of New Labour. He based his
But now there is another cause to summon Cohen from his slumbers. He still thinks that Blair is capable of egregious error, but the Prime Minister has been proved right on one crucial issue-the need for regime change in Iraq. Cohen's approval of the war was flagged up in
Cohen's argument is that many people who regard themselves as 'left-wing' have allowed themselves to be persuaded into an alliance with the enemies of freedom in Iraq. They have withheld their support from brave and sincere democrats, throughout the Middle East, who detested Saddam Hussein and continue to oppose 'fascism' in all its forms. Cohen regards this desertion of progressive principle as a symptom of a wider malaise. He alleges that some prominent anti-war campaigners are animated by hatred of the West rather than a love of humanity as a whole. They have abandoned the universal ideals of the Enlightenment in favour of a moral relativism that allows them to pick and choose their causes. Such people are not really 'left-wing' at all; indeed, the worst of them are conscious coadjutors with fascism, whenever that gives them an excuse to attack the West. Their prominence in contemporary protest movements and in academic life demonstrates that the left is in deep crisis.
Whether or not talk of a 'crisis' is justified, recent developments at home and abroad have emphasised the urgent need for a debate about the current condition of the British left. Unfortunately, this intemperate and overlong polemic cannot be counted as a constructive contribution. Cohen always brings tremendous gusto to his work, and
Cohen's main strategy in his bid to shame the anti-war left is to imply guilt by association. To this end he attacks specific individuals, notably Noam Chomsky and George Galloway, and belabours the jargon-ridden relativism of postmodernists. Possibly some of the demonstrators of February 2003 were inspired by the writings and rhetoric of political or literary celebrities. But it is reasonable to suppose that the overwhelming majority took to the streets because they had made up their own minds. Indirectly, they might be siding with some unsavoury characters; but Cohen can hardly deny that the same dilemma applies to the war's supporters.
Having demonstrated that some anti-war leftists are no better than they should be, Cohen turns his attention to their ideological ancestors. G. B. Shaw and H. G. Wells were unavailable for comment during the Iraq controversy, but Cohen is sure that they would have lined up on the dark side given half the chance. This can be deduced from their appalling ideas on questions such as social Darwinism. Other flawed prophets from the past are drawn into the indictment. The sneering snobs of the Bloomsbury Group are summoned to the drawing room for yet another posthumous chastisement, and the author even finds room to denounce George Lansbury (d. 1940) as 'an extraordinarily silly man'.
As inflated reputations are smashed into atoms, the reader begins to suspect that the 'left' never really existed, apart from George Orwell, Nick Cohen and a handful of unflinching friends. Their lack of numbers is more than compensated by their adamantine sincerity in upholding the values of the Enlightenment. Unfortunately for Cohen, it is possible to adhere to these values and still draw the conclusion that the war in Iraq was always likely to increase human suffering in the Middle East and elsewhere. Yet Cohen is committed to the view that anyone who opposed the war, for whatever reason, must be insufficiently exercised by the moral case for democracy in Iraq. Consciously or not, they are all apologists for Saddam's tyranny.
The urge to unmask the true meaning of anti-war sentiment forces Cohen to pick additional quarrels. Opposition to the war cut across familiar ideological and partisan divisions. But Cohen thinks that most protestors had one thing in common. Predominantly, they were middle-class intellectuals. This allows the author to recalibrate his fire, from sniping at individuals to generalised abuse. Middle-class intellectuals, we learn, have abandoned moral engagement with the real world and taken on the role of self-righteous spectators. They exhibit a 'herd' mentality, perpetually moaning about the supposed faults of democratic countries while turning aside with a shrug from atrocities committed in other parts of the globe.
The inclusion of such passages leads one to speculate about the real purpose of Cohen's book, and the audience he thinks he is addressing. Those who are not already with him, he implies, are irretrievably lost. Thus
Whatever Cohen's purpose, his book would have benefited from a more systematic investigation of the reasons for the perceived decline of the left. He does make a connection between the plight of the left and the more general tendency towards apathy in Western democracies. There is some significance in the fact that the left only stirred itself in significant numbers when it was trying to
Yet if the left-or, on Cohen's terms, the middle-class intellectuals who wrongly claim that label-have become more apathetic and even cynical, it would hardly be surprising. Over the past three decades, British political life has become increasingly inhospitable for people who think. At one time they were strongly represented in key decision-making positions. Even during the benighted 1990s, intellectuals were allowed to hold ministerial office, provided that they played down their cerebral qualifications. When the Cabinet fell under populist control, intellectuals could still hope for some rational policy input from senior civil servants who owed their positions to the Northcote-Trevelyan tradition of meritocracy. Now that the bureaucrats have absorbed the culture of spin and 'sofa government', the only remaining outpost of the intelligentsia is the judiciary. Unsurprisingly, Cohen turns his hostile attention to the judges, echoing arguments that will be over-familiar to readers of the
Cohen is clearly gratified by the marginalisation of middle-class intellectuals. He gleefully relates that during the 2005 general election campaign, New Labour MPs were given early reassurance that the war would not prove to be a salient issue. There is, though, one middle-class grouping that is unaccustomed to feeling sidelined. Although nowadays it would be ridiculous for them to copy Orwell by volunteering for armed combat, newspaper pundits can fight the good fight in their weekly columns. Unlike most people who consider themselves 'left wing', they can nurse the illusion that their words make a concrete difference, and use this as their reason to 'get out of bed in the morning'.
From this perspective, it is possible to argue that the 'crisis of the left' brought about by the war in Iraq is really a crisis among media commentators. Those who opposed the conflict have had to accept that their passionately stated views have failed to influence policy on a crucial issue. People like Cohen, by contrast, have been discredited by the unpalatable consequences of their 'victory'. In the incestuous world of the London media, the war has induced harsh words and severed friendships. Private quarrels have spilled over into the public prints: and, as this book shows, some writers are more quarrelsome than others.