Four legs good, world-wide revolution of the proletariat better
For some time, I’ve been maintianing something that it is pretty patently untrue, namely that 1984 isn’t about the USSR so much as it is about the totalitarian dangers of capitalist liberal democracies. As I say, probably not really true, but an interesting way of looking at the book. Particularly the later parts of the book where the action moves to questions of objectivity seem uneccesarily sophisticated as a critique of the blunt propoganda of Stalinism, but perhaps more appropriate to what Badiou calls the ‘regime of opinion’.
Yesterday, I found an old school book of mine from when we read Animal Farm, clearly an even worse book on the USSR, never rising above the stupidest propoganda. My 16-year old self wrote this summary:
> Although Napolean [the pig-Stalin] is now as bad as Jones [the farmer-Tsar], he has
> manipulated the animals so they don’t rebel. There is also a feeling that it is their own fault,
> and that Napoleon is still ‘one of them’, so is better than Jones.
Isn’t this just what k-punk has noted, that the supposed revolutionaries of the ’60s are, because they can still trade on their position as an ‘alternative’, now a much stronger establishment than the old guard they once fought? Animal Farm, too, works better as an attack on capitalist democracy, and shows us that the problem is not just that the ex-New Left have _given up_ on socialism. Depressingly, Blair’s soft neo-liberalism is in part the success of ’60s leftism, as well as its betrayal. What we need, then, is not a revitalised New Left, but an other left that opposes the new forms capitalism has learnt from the struggles of the ’60s.
Talking of ex-New Leftists, this piece by Nick Cohen is an excellent example of the authoritarianism of the regime of opinion, supported, as Badiou says, by a consensual definition of evil. Actually, it’s such a perfect, ludicrous example I’m slightly worried I’m misreading it. He does say, right, that BBC reporters would be _more_ credible if they started referring to people as ‘enemies of all humanity’?
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On a point of detail, how is Cohen an “ex New Leftist”? My understanding is that he is ex-CPGB (although he may have been just an American agent all along, who knows?)
Comment by Sarcy Fenian @ 7/21/2005 3:47 am
I may be being a bit cavalier in my use of the term ‘New Leftist’. Cohen is a late-60s leftist isn’t he? Or is he of a younger vintage? I suppose if he was CPGB, he would count as an Old Leftist whatever time-period he’s from.
Comment by Tim @ 7/21/2005 11:54 am
I’m not sure, but I think he was a Eurocommunist, along with Aaronovitch (or perhaps I’m just getting the two confused — all pro-war liberals ranting away in the Guardian sound alike to me). That would make him a Blairite 20 years before the fact, more or less. The “New Left” were never quite *that* bad!
Comment by Sarcy Fenian @ 7/21/2005 1:53 pm