I listened to a podcast recently that featured three Hoover Institution senior fellows, namely British historian Niall Ferguson, US Army Lt. General H.R. McMaster (retired), and John Cochrane. The podcast is called “Goodfellows” and I consider these gentlemen to be responsible Conservatives, worth listening to because there are two sides to every story, if not more.
It was a statement by Ferguson, the author of Civilization: The West and the Rest, that most caught my attention. He lamented how “illiberal” the Left, many Progressives and increasing numbers of liberal institutions have become. I’ve been seeing that term – illiberal – quite a lot lately. I follow a blog by Jerry Coyne, a retired University of Chicago professor emeritus and former anti-Vietnam War activist from the 1960s, and he too has decried the “illiberal” Left and “illiberal” liberals, mostly for their “wokeness.” His blog is called WhyEvolutionIsTrue and it’s based on his earlier best-selling book of the same title.
Some of the points the above gentlemen make are that the so-called cancel culture is real and is evil; that fringe academic theories such as structuralism and critical race theory have now overwhelmed universities as well as much of mainstream media; and that little or no proof ever is offered as to how the demand for “equity” will work unless it is just a masquerade for a strict quota system.
Many of you reading this post either will agree or disagree with the above sources. But the point I want to make is how little these highly educated and successful people understand the historic Left’s relationship to liberalism. The Left, the real Left, has always hated liberalism and has always sought to crush it. And I don’t just mean Classical Liberalism, as it’s sometimes labeled – a belief in individualism and individual rights; in the rights of citizenship and not “birth;” in tolerance; and in the basic freedoms such as freedom of religion, freedom of the press and free speech. These are essentially Enlightenment values, and you can think of John Locke if you like.
This is not to say liberals have always lived up to their values, or that Liberalism is a perfect model for society, but those are among the most important values and goals.
The Left hates all of it, and always has, and no one should be surprised by the illiberalism of the Left today, as well as by many Progressives who are simply unreconstructed and rebranded New Left activists inspired by the 1960s, both in America, Europe (especially France) and the Cultural Revolution in China of the 1960s and ‘70s. This would include scions of the New Left, of course.
Here’s their argument in brief, as I see it: Liberalism just benefits people who already have power. The liberals may claim that all men are created equal, but in truth they know that it is people who already are way ahead in the game of life who will benefit the most from such an ideology. Liberals may tout “equal opportunity,” but it’s not really a level playing field, is it? Even in times of crisis, as is the case now in the West, liberals will only give up as much power as they need to in order to hold on to as much power as they can. This last point is pure Karl Marx, by the way.
It’s the bourgeoisie, the owners of the means of production, and the bourgeoisie generally, those upper-middle class people who serve the rich and powerful, that are to blame for everything. The Left that knows how to take care of those kinds of people - get rid of them and everything will be all right, sort of like defeating “sin” and then you get to go to heaven. Perhaps you’ve read about the Khmer Rouge and the “killing fields” of Cambodia in the late 1970s, or perhaps not. They knew how take care of recalcitrant people. I read one book on that genocide quite a few years ago and while it acknowledged that as many as one million people died in that nightmare, it claimed that “only” about 15,000 teachers, mayors, and civil servants were outright murdered by the Communists. Think about it – mayors, teachers, and civil servants – the Red Cambodians were killing the backbone of liberal democracy. I wonder if putatively liberal colleges and universities teach the history of that Leftist movement much anymore.
Or perhaps you’ve read about the Russian Revolution of 1917, oftentimes referred to as the October Revolution. It was nothing but a coup led by supporters of V.I. Lenin against the new provisional government of Russia led by Alexander Kerensky – he was too liberal, and his parliamentary plans for Russia were too liberal. Most people in the West today, if they know anything about the Russian Revolution, almost certainly would think that Lenin overthrew the Tsar. No – Lenin overthrew Kerensky.
The hosts of “Goodfellows” mentioned at the top are not the only people to confuse liberalism with actual Leftist politics. I don’t subscribe to Fox News on cable television but I’ve seen segments of their programs online, as well as their website generally. People like Hannity and Tucker Carlson seem to make no distinction between liberal, Progressive or Leftist. Either they hate everyone to the left of themselves, or they just don’t understand the difference.
Even the late John Scruton, a respected English philosopher and political conservative, sometimes conflated “liberal” and “Leftist,” but in his case only in the sense that he thought erstwhile liberals had too easily been co-opted by the Left. Perhaps the “Goodfellows” do have some sense that this is what has happened, that liberals have allowed themselves to be co-opted, but then they don’t understand the Marxist thesis against Liberalism.
One public figure who clearly does understand what’s going on is Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who is largely credited with bringing Edward Snowden’s revelations about American and British surveillance to the pages of The Guardian newspaper. He too has observed that mainstream media, pubic institutions and even corporations are rapidly falling in line with Leftist doctrine and are abandoning liberal ideals (hence, “illiberalism”). He has argued that they’ve all seen the writing on the wall, that the new “ideology” in America has been fashioned by the Left, and they’re running for cover. His is a clear-cut Marxist analysis, which is that the corrupt sons and daughters of the bourgeoisie will give up as much power as they need to in order to hold on to as much power as they can, as stated above.
And, you certainly see what’s happening in China and Hong Kong today, and what is going to happen soon enough in Taiwan (because that island nation is indefensible). You may think the Communist Party of China has simply become way too nationalistic and chauvinistic (you wouldn’t be wrong in thinking those things, of course) but what the Party really is doing is wiping out liberalism. Proof? Liberalizing the economy in years past has made China the second biggest economy in the world, but now that this is so, the leadership if reigning in the successful businesses. Ditto for increasing controls on social media – they’re too liberal! And somewhat balanced textbooks in the universities are being replaced by Xi Jinping’s version of Mao’s “Little Red Book.”
The Left hates liberalism.
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