DAMON LINKER JUNE 11, 2009
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This week's shooting at the Holocaust Museum has sparked some discussion about whether it's accurate to describe the raving anti-Semite who opened fire at the museum (James Von Brunn) as a "right-wing extremist." That discussion has now taken an odd turn by the news that Von Brunn may have also targeted the offices of The Weekly Standard, a magazine associated with the neoconservative movement. How could Von Brunn be a right-winger, extreme or otherwise, when the Weekly Standard is a magazine of the right? Shouldn't we just call him a deranged all-purpose hater and be done with it?
For the sake of political and intellectual clarity, it's crucially important that we don't do anything of the sort.
The American political spectrum is extremely narrow. For all the seriousness of the differences that separate Democrats and Republicans, both parties are thoroughly persuaded of the legitimacy of liberal democratic government. That's a wonderful thing, since it's produced long-lasting civil peace and stability.
But that very peace and stability, and the ideological narrowness that makes it possible, can also lead us to forget the persistent character of the anti-liberal left and anti-liberal right, with which we (unlike citizens in less fortunate regions of the world) have very little acquaintance. The anti-liberal left has historically been defined by the radical universalism of its principles, the anti-liberal right by its exclusionary (racial, ethnic, national) particularism. That is the primary difference between them. And that's why Von Brunn is unmistakably a man of the anti-liberal right: he believes in a particularistic vision of the world in which Jews, blacks, neocons, people with low IQs, and sundry other classes and groups of people have been eliminated; on Wednesday, he made a small contribution to realizing this distinctively right-wing ideal.
This is also why I think Jamie Kirchick confuses matters by invoking the anti-Semitism of the left, which (though it may have similar psychological sources) is linked to very different ideas. For the far-left, Judaism (and especially Zionism) is offensive because of its particularism, its affirmation of ties to family, tradition, heritage, and nation. I'd say that this is even true for most of the anti-liberal leftists who have embraced the pseudo-particularism of radical multiculturalism. In the end, they take the side of the "other" mainly for the sake of undermining the authority of those currently in positions of political, economic, and military power -- not because they actually want to "go native" and affirm the particularism of the downtrodden as if it were their own. (How many admirers of Edward Said actually go off and become strictly observant Muslims?) On the contrary, the ideal world of the radical multiculturalist would be one of complete cosmopolitan egalitarianism in which every group affirms its own beliefs while (somehow) equally affirming everyone else's too. As for the few who take these ideas so far that they actually do "go native," well, they've moved so far left that they've ended up on the right.
This analysis also helps us to understand some of our confusion in placing neoconservatives on the political spectrum. Neocons tend to be staunch American nationalists (making them right-wing), but their vision of Americanism consists of universalistic ideals and principles (placing them somewhere on the left -- which is why left-leaning writers like Paul Berman and Christopher Hitchens have expressed sympathy for some neocon ideas and policies). In this, and perhaps only in this, neoconservatism resembles the ideology of French republicanism, which also asserts the universalism of a particular nation's ideals.
So, yes: Von Brunn is unambiguously a right-wing extremist.
Jonathan Chait Responds: "Liberal Fascism Reductio Ad Absurdum"
7 comments
"How many admirers of Edward Said actually go off and become strictly observant Muslims?"
FWIW, Said was an Anglican Christian.
- timteeter
June 12, 2009 at 12:06am
Some people are not 100% consistent with the "wing" they are identified with simply because their views are informed empirically rather than dogmatically. Dogmatists are conservatives, left or right.
- jm_rice
June 12, 2009 at 2:29am
I like the descriptors "anti-liberal left" and "anti-liberal right". I think that's spot on and very useful in discussing the difference between mainstream conservatives and progressives and the lunatic fringe on both sides.
- smlevy
June 12, 2009 at 9:09am
You could actually come up with a universalist-particularist axis to run perpendicular to the right-left axis:
(1) On the far end of the right-particularist axis are racialists and nationalists who believe that Western political and cultural mores (however defined) are superior to all others but can't be exported because they're inextricably linked to European culture and / or biology -- and who thus believe that growing non-white populations in Western countries will lead to economic or moral downfall. In the past, these types of people were unabashed imperialists or fascists.
They also tend to be anti-Semites, and although they may seek to harness the power of free market capitalism, they oppose it to the extent that it breaks down traditional barriers between nations and races and harms the interests of the volk (e.g., allows Jews and non-whites to assume positions of power, or sends "white jobs" to Third World countries, or pulls immigrants into "white countries").
Thus it shouldn't be surprising at all to discover that someone on the very far end of the right-particularist axis would hate a right-universalist publication like The Weekly Standard. It's a fallacy to suggest that dislike of capitalism is leftist per se; right-particularists also object to capitalism, but do so on different grounds than leftists. This nut Von Braunn is clearly an extreme right-particularist.
(2) On the very far end of the left-particularist axis are extreme cultural relativists and multiculturalists who ostensibly question whether any political or moral system can be said to be better than any other -- but who are in practice mostly skeptical that Western-style liberalism or democracy or capitalism should be considered superior in any respect to its cultually-specific and -authentic alternatives.
These are the sort of people who say things like: "Hey, man, who are WE to say that the Taliban isn't, like, the best system of government for Afghanistan?" Or who conflate all criticism of Islam with racism, or compare Al Qaeda in Iraq to the Minutemen of Concord and Lexington. Think George Galloway, or any number of witless undergraduate sociology majors.
To the extent that some left-particularists are anti-Semites, it's because they associate Jews with capitalism, liberal universalism, and Zionism (which they view as a form of European colonialism). They're also bizarrely sympathetic to Cuban communism and political Islam, which they see as a culturally authentic forms of resistance against Western imperialism.
(3) On the far end of the right-universalist axis are people who believe that Western liberal democracy and free market capitalism are everywhere and at all times superior to any known alternatives, and that the liberal democratic regimes -- and especially the paragon of liberal democratic capitalism, the United States -- have a duty to use whatever means possible to promote their own interests and advance the case of liberty around the world (in that order). These people are often described as neocons, though this term is most accurately applied to right-universalists who used to be left-universalists.
(4) On the far end of the left-universalist axis are people who believe that some form of left-liberal democracy or socialism is preferable to all known alternatives, and would like to see their preferred system spread around the globe, ultimately breaking down barriers between peoples and nations. In some cases, they may support the use of military force to achieve their aims.
The best left-universalists want to fight -- either metaphorically (think Amnesty International) or literally (think Hitchens or Berman) -- for human rights and liberal democracy around the globe. But unlike right-universalists, they aren't free market fanatics. They're also less nationalistic and more willing to criticize the liberal democratic powers (esp. the U.S.) when they fail to live up to left-liberal ideals, and may be more skeptical of the use of military force and more sympathetic to trans-national institutions and the concept of international law.
At its worst, left-universalism embraces a "begin the world anew" ideology that would tear down all existing structures and hierarchies and purge all "irrational" and "reactionary" elements. Relatively few people embrace this form of left-universalism these days, since it's now clear that it's synonymous with war abroad and totalitarianism at home.
- Androscoggin
June 12, 2009 at 9:38am
Here's a key difference: The "anti-liberal left" are off in a corner somewhere, talking to each other. The "anti-liberal right" control Fox News, the Washington Times and other major media outlets. They have also successfully bullied much of the mainstream media into giving conservative extremists much more attention and credence than they deserve.
- connieboyd
June 12, 2009 at 10:06am
I guess I don't understand Jamie's point here . I was addressing whether James Von Brunn's
- Anonymous
June 12, 2009 at 4:35pm
I am late in coming to this, but this is one of the finest posts explaining the current political situation in America today. One might even say it was Michael Lind-esque.
- jyunis
June 18, 2009 at 7:35pm