By Edward
Jean-Paul Sarte, who would have been 100 this June, is being remembered in a major exhibiton at the French National Library. Although he’s not the only one, The New York Times’ Alan Riding is marking the occassion by asking, "But is Sartre remotely relevant today?"
As political visionaries, two of his contemporary critics, the novelist Albert Camus and the sociologist Raymond Aron, stand taller because their view of freedom was untainted by association with Stalinism or Maoism. And outside France, Sartre is certainly read less than his own muse, Simone de Beauvoir, whose book "The Second Sex" is a founding text of feminism.
Yet there is no underestimating Sartre’s influence over French intellectual and political life for three decades after World War II. Indeed, many who grew up in his shadow, as supporters or opponents, are now among the politicians, intellectuals and journalists who shape public opinion here. And in that sense, traces of Sartrism still flow through the country’s veins.
Central to the question of Sartre’s relevance is the contemporary denunciation of his involvment with Communism. Unlike other historical figures whose reputations are, at least temporarily, soiled because they were associated with a failed ideology, Sartre deserves to be given a bit more consideration here.
First and foremost, Sartre struggled greatly with the question of whether to accept the nonstop invitations to join the Marxists in France. When he eventually agreed to side with them (from 1952 until the invasion of Hungary in 1956), he explained his decision with the famous suggestion that "Marxism is the inescapable philosophy of our time."
In other words, he felt the questions Marxism raised had to be answered, and that’s what philosophers did. I know it’s fashionable now to suggest the only response to these questions is to "Just say no," but Sartre’s intellect flattered itself as a bit more capable than that. The invasion of Hungary showed him he was on the wrong side, and he promptly corrected the situation.
When Sartre later signed up with the French Maoists (1970 and 1974), it can be argued that he did so more to promote the idea that they had the right to exist than because he fully accepted their worldview. In this way, he was like Sonntag, recognizing that the world is a much more complicated place than most politicians want the populace to believe, and that rejecting ideas before giving them at least intellectual consideration is the work of hacks, not thinkers. Folks who pop out of their mothers with their minds made up on such matters need not have been born with brains as, to paraphrase Einstein, for them a spinal cord would suffice.
During the periods in which he sided with the Communists, I like to think Sartre was attempting to live up to his primary idea that what defines us, indeed, what makes us free, is what we do. It was unacceptable to his mind for people not to be politically involved, for how else does one "do" anything about the ills that plague society. He was also witness to excesses by true believers on both sides of the fence, and so the idea that those opposed to Communism had a monoply on morality was a joke. But in the end, as he so eloquently noted, one must choose, and more importantly, one must choose freely. Having someone else make the decision for you is not to live free. Sartre eventually chose to reject Communism, but he did so on his terms.
When Sartre later signed up with the French Maoists (1970 and 1974), it can be argued that he did so more to promote the idea that they had the right to exist than because he fully accepted their worldview.
Try this out: “When X later signed up with the French Nazis, it can be argued that he did so more to promote the idea that they had the right to exist than because he fully accepted their worldview.”
Hm. Doesn’t sound so clever.
At the very LEAST after the Cultural Revolution, being a Maoist was endorsing horror. Sartre chose, and he chose wrong.
Don’t know that much about Sartre, but must second Anderson. You can make an argument about being misguided in the 50s, but certainly not by the 70s.
At the very LEAST after the Cultural Revolution, being a Maoist was endorsing horror. Sartre chose, and he chose wrong.
Is being a capitalist endorsing all the horrors committed by the nations that practice it? Seriously.
I understand your final assessment, but the shortcut you’re taking to get there is the very process Sartre rejected.
Well: I think Sartre had dreadful political judgment, and there’s not much more to say about it than that. I also think he was a very good (though not great) novelist and playwright. His philosophy is (to me) maddening: its ratio of worthwhile stuff to unreadable dreck is just high enough to make it worth reading, but the basic insights of existentialism are, in (say) Being and Nothingness, drowned in a sort of pseudotechnical jargon that makes me want to throw the book across the room at times. And then, for a page or two, there will be some really luminous prose that reminds me why I’m reading it; but then the veil of jargon descends again.
Being a Maoist in the 1970s isn’t analogous to being a ‘capitalist’. It might be analogous to being pro-Hitler after 1941.
What hilzoy said.
I am a huge, huge, huge fan of Albert Camus.
His philosophy is (to me) maddening: its ratio of worthwhile stuff to unreadable dreck is just high enough to make it worth reading, but the basic insights of existentialism are, in (say) Being and Nothingness, drowned in a sort of pseudotechnical jargon that makes me want to throw the book across the room at times. And then, for a page or two, there will be some really luminous prose that reminds me why I’m reading it; but then the veil of jargon descends again.
All of philosphy is like that for me, so I don’t hold it against Sartre in particular.
I think he was a much better novelist than philosopher myself. His novels captured his world vividly and poignantly…they succeed in the most challenging aspect of any novel: presenting a rich, fully believeable universe. His plays…eh? “No Exit” has it’s moments, but the others…who really cares.
As for J-P’s politics, he’s perhaps the classic example of someone thinking too much about such matters.
Having said that, personally, I can’t stand the idea that it’s all supposed to be so immediately black and white for everyone. That requires a lack of self-examination I find dishonest in the extreme.
Even in the responses here, we see immediate rejection of even the idea that anyone could understand the appeal of Maoism during the midst of the Cultural Revolution. That’s to insist that those at that time should have had the hindsight we now have. Perhaps similar to the way we don’t want to believe the stories coming out of Abu Ghraib or Guantanmo, those who heard the stories coming out of China perhaps wanted to believe there were bad-apple explanations for the abuses, so they could cling to their belief in the altruistic messages of equality, etc. Others probably decided that although what they heard was awful, they had to place their faith in Mao, that he had this grand plan that would make it all work out in the end. That concept is not foreign to us here in the US even today.
I know that will strike some as apologist speak, but I’d rather we openly debate alternative ideas than promote binary thinking. We can agree in hindsight that Sartre was wrong, but to suggest he should have known so at the time is not entirely fair.
Being a Maoist in the 1970s isn’t analogous to being a ‘capitalist’. It might be analogous to being pro-Hitler after 1941.
Again, from this vantage point, yes, but plenty of people were pro-Hitler back then, and not all of them evil in the way Hitler or Mao were.
Look at the world today. Who are the Evil leaders and ideologies? Was Hussein evil back in the 80’s when the US was supporting him? You can argue now that, yes he was, but yet we were pro-Hussein then. Does that make us analagous to being pro-Hitler in 1941?
It’s not all as clear as folks like to pretend it is.
I am a huge, huge, huge fan of Albert Camus.
ditto…
It is a matter of timing. Being pro-Mao before the Cultural Revolution is one thing–deeply misguided. Being pro-Mao during the Cultural Revolution is completely different–wilfully misguided at the very most generous.
“Even in the responses here, we see immediate rejection of even the idea that anyone could understand the appeal of Maoism during the midst of the Cultural Revolution.”
I can very well understand the appeal of Maoism during the Cultural Revolution. I can understand the appeal of Stalinism and Fascism. I understand that all three appeal to the darker side of a need for authority. I understand that the first two appeal to the darker side of wanting to change things by demonizing and smashing to bits all that has gone before. I understand the lure of all sorts of dark impulses in human behaviour. That doesn’t mean that embracing them is laudable.
What? No Raymond Aron love?
Is Locke and Adam Smith and American capitalist thinkers read by more Eastern Europeans than, say French Commies?
Well, I want to partly agree with Edward, and partly disagree. The agree part: I think it’s important for people who were not around at the time to realize just how little information out of China we actually had during the 60s and early 70s. (There was more after Nixon’s visit.) It’s not just a matter of hindsight; it’s that there was very little factual reporting. Certainly a lot of the horrors of the Cultural Revolution were more or less unknown.
Besides, much of the information there was was suspect, since it came from people who had huge axes to grind, on both sides. It was like having to piece together what’s happening in a distant country when your only sources are Rush Limbaugh and Ward Churchill, and you (understandably) don’t really trust either of them. In that informational vacuum, it was easier than you’d think for people to get excited about e.g. the idea of barefoot doctors and such.
That being said, it’s obviously important, even if you aren’t a literary icon, to think seriously before you endorse something: to ask yourself: am I really sure I know what’s going on here? And if not, to act accordingly. — There are lots of stories I haven’t written about here because I just didn’t know the facts and couldn’t find them, as I’m sure is true of the rest of us. And the rather obvious fact that I’m nowhere near as influential as Sartre just means that he had a correspondingly greater obligation to be cautious.
Plus, while I can understand being a Maoist (in private at least, not publicly endorsing it) in, say, ’70 and ’71, it gets a lot more dodgy later. If memory serves, enough information was coming out by, say, 1975 that anyone who was following this should have been very worried.
Is being a capitalist endorsing all the horrors committed by the nations that practice it? Seriously.
Not really a serious question if you think about. Communism is about a monolithic collective whereas capitalism is about individual choices. The “group” is not responsible for the actions of the individual, because in fact the group doesn’t actually exist in capitalism, whereas individuals who choose to actively join and support communism are responsible for the actions of the collective.
So much for “community spirit” and nationalism and words like “our culture and values”
Oh, and “ONE nation under God”
Very worried, indeed. I mean, Mao had this pretext of equality, but what was actually implemented was persecution of the merchants and businessmen, followed (or later accompanied by, depending on your perspective) persecution of the academics and ideologically unsound. For women, things remained pretty much the same except for that footbinding thing. Women remained second- or third-class citizens under Mao.
Plus, who in their right mind (outside of China, I mean) would believe that household metal smelting was a good idea? That pretending you could make doctors (as hilzoy pointed out) from the uneducated? That sending academics (read: intellectually and possibly socially advantaged) out to work in the fields instead of contributing at a more useful level, was going to have any net advantage? Mao pretty much removed one sort of undemocratic rule and replaced it with a more evil, more psychotic one. And by “evil” I mean not only all of the above, but also the denunciations (which had much more than social consequences and were in fact often fatal), but also his egging on of the Cultural Revolution, entrapment of the academics via the Let One Hundred Flowers Bloom piece of work, and on and on. And if none of that is sufficiently revolting, maybe his proclivity for deflowering young girls might seem perfectly acceptible.
Oh, and don’t even get me started on Mao’s reproductive encouragements. China’s still trying to work its way out of that whole mess.
Is being a capitalist endorsing all the horrors committed by the nations that practice it? Seriously.
Yes, seriously. If there were a “Capitalist Party,” I wouldn’t join it. (Come to think of it, I voted against their candidate for president last fall ….) But it’s not the same thing. Edward’s analogy implies that everyone living in Nazi Germany was a Nazi, etc.
Sartre’s value as a philosopher or artist shouldn’t depend on his bad political choices. If Heidegger’s being a Nazi contaminates his work, then that should be clear from a reading of Being & Time (etc.) without having to invoke the biographical facts. Ditto Sartre.
I would shoot from the hip & say that the trauma of prewar Nazi sympathizing, military collapse, and wartime collaboration left France hungry for a Sartre, and that ultimately he’s very much a figure of that time & place.
(Hilzoy makes plausible points about what was known in the early 1970s, but I have a different impression. Of course, anyone who was “carrying pictures of Chairman Mao” wasn’t going to credit what the Capitalist Media was reporting out of China, so it’s a paradoxical situation.)
I think Sartre would believe blindspots are the results of the human condition. Since we are the sum total of our choices and most choices are pregnant with blindspots it would only be natural that our choices will always appear absurd. But you still have to make choices.
Reagan (1982):
In December 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan without provocation and with overwhelming force. Since that time, the Soviet Union has sought through every available means, to assert its control over Afghanistan.
The Afghan people have defied the Soviet Union and have resisted with a vigor that has few parallels in modern history. The Afghan people have paid a terrible price in their fight for freedom. Their villages and homes have been destroyed; they have been murdered by bullets, bombs and chemical weapons. One-fifth of the Afghan people have been driven into exile. Yet their fight goes on. The international community, with the United States joining governments around the world, has condemned the invasion of Afghanistan as a violation of every standard of decency and international law and has called for a withdrawal of the Soviet troops from Afghanistan. Every country and every people has a stake in the Afghan resistance, for the freedom fighters of Afghanistan are defending principles of independence and freedom that form the basis of global security and stability.
In other words, he felt the questions Marxism raised had to be answered, and that’s what philosophers did.
I don’t get this. Surely it is possible to think about Marxism, to answer the questions it raises, without joining the Marxists. In fact, shouldn’t one answer those questions before deciding whether or not to become a Marxist, rather than afterwards?
When Sartre later signed up with the French Maoists (1970 and 1974), it can be argued that he did so more to promote the idea that they had the right to exist than because he fully accepted their worldview
This is a weak defense. Why does promoting the idea that an organization has the right to exist require that one join the organization, or even sympathize with their views?
It was unacceptable to his mind for people not to be politically involved, for how else does one “do” anything about the ills that plague society.
By individual action perhaps?
He was also witness to excesses by true believers on both sides of the fence, and so the idea that those opposed to Communism had a monoply on morality was a joke.
Again, this doesn’t sound quite right to me. It is not necessary to claim a monopoly on morality to oppose plainly immoral things.
entrapment of the academics via the Let One Hundred Flowers Bloom piece of work…
My understanding was that Mao wasn’t intending to entrap anyone with Let One Hundred Flowers Bloom; rather, he was so shocked at the sheer volume of criticism of his beloved Communism — as distinct from others’ views of Communism, I mean — that he freaked and used the results to purge the intelligenstia.
Selected Sartre
Read “Being and Nothingness” in my youth, but always figured the novels were parochial. The main thing I got out of “B & N” was the decision to not read “Being & Time”.
“The “group” is not responsible for the actions of the individual, because in fact the group doesn’t actually exist in capitalism” …macallan
Critique of Dialectical Reason was the talk of the sixties, and I still believe it may be Sartre’s most important work. Capitalism or liberalism, as mac shows above, does not provide an adequate theory of culture. But actually liberal capitalism is a collectivism in “bad faith” or “false conciousness.” A market is not an accidental meeting of individuals wandering around with products and demands.
I understand that the first two appeal to the darker side of wanting to change things by demonizing and smashing to bits all that has gone before. I understand the lure of all sorts of dark impulses in human behaviour. That doesn’t mean that embracing them is laudable.
Ahh…the essence of it. I should preface this next bit by saying I agree that Sartre was wrong, but I disagree that there’s no way he could not have known he was wrong (hilzoy’s point about greater responsibility on influential people to go the extra mile to make sure they’re right duly noted, although from what I’ve read, I believe Sartre thought he had gone that mile.).
Let’s zero in on something very specific and update this a bit to see if I make make myself more clear.
I don’t think “shock and awe” as applied in Iraq is in any way laudable, personally. I think it’s cowardly, immoral, and arrogant.* I can still discuss it as a means toward an end without demanding that those who advocate it are giving into their “dark” side or whatever.
Why?
There are those for whom the inhumanity of “shock and awe” is justified by the ultimate goal behind the effort. This is not to compare spreading democracy in the Middle East with spreading Facism or Communism, but to point out that even people with good ideas use morally questionable methods to promote them. At what point do we turn on Bush and insist anyone who supports his ideology isn’t laudable? No, that’s not a cheap partisan shot, it’s important here. The point at which we can expect reasonable people to choose whether to excuse or condemn all the excesses (the torture, the lies to sell the war, the buckets and buckets of money it’s costing future generations of Americans not related to Halliburton stockholders) is usually after we know if the grand plan has succeeded or our value system hits its limits and we can’t take additional information that contradicts our sense of right-and-wrong or further ambiguity. Sartres’ value system hit its limits regarding Stalinism when the Soviet Union invaded Hungary. So he wasn’t morally bankrupt (as some try to portray him). And there was something that led him to reject Maoism by 1974 as well.
Here and now, we’re basing our most of our rejection of Maoism on after-the-facts assessment of its failure and then highlighting its excesses to buttress our case.
Had it succeeded in making China the shining city on the hill Mao imagined it would, there would be many who see Sartre as visionary and excuse Mao’s excesses as necessary evils toward that greater goal. Nothing impresses people like success.
All of which, again, is to say, from this vantage point it’s easy to say Sartre was wrong. Of course, this is the vantage point we have now, but my overarching point was to suggest we consider his siding with the Communists in historical context.
*Overwhemling force in battle is honorable to me when its use places those using it in reasonably equal harm’s way as well. Proxy techniques are tauntamount to fighting only with hired mercenaries. Personal code regarding war, that’s all.
But it’s not the same thing. Edward’s analogy implies that everyone living in Nazi Germany was a Nazi, etc.
I should have used an upper case C on “Capitalist,” yes.
Again, this doesn’t sound quite right to me. It is not necessary to claim a monopoly on morality to oppose plainly immoral things.
Oh, dear God, I’ve totally failed here.
When was it plainly immoral?
Hilzoy’s point about the extremely limited and unreliable information about life in China pre-1972 is important. But information about Maoism was much more available to left activists in the 1969-72 period, in the form of sectarian parties and movements (are Hilzoy and I the only ones here old enough to know what RYM 2 was?)
Those sects discredited (non-Chinese) Maoism pretty effectively; the facts about China that came along over the next five years just finished the job for the vaster public.
A market is not an accidental meeting of individuals wandering around with products and demands.
Except in many ways it is. One of the ironies of communism is that it stimulated more pure capitalism than alleged free market systems. If you wanted to see capitalism on steroids, all you needed to do is visit the thriving black markets that grew like mushrooms in the dreary darkness of communism.
Actually, I don’t know what RYM 2 was. (In 1970, I was eleven. Since no one had told me that I was supposed to be interested in the news, I just was; and besides, I always wanted to go everywhere, and so was especially interested in distant and fascinating countries like China. I also knew a couple who did serious work on China, and had an uncle who, owing to various estrangements, I have only met twice, but whose writings I was aware of, and one of them was a laudatory book on Mao’s China. (Didn’t trust him; had read the book anyways.) And I knew various diplomats, political theorists, historians of East Asia, and the like. All of this is what I base my take on “what was known” on; I believe that I was probably better informed at that point than most people, and still knew very, very little with any degree of certainty.)
If you wanted to see capitalism on steroids, all you needed to do is visit the thriving black markets that grew like mushrooms in the dreary darkness of communism.
I witnessed these “mushrooms” first hand in the USSR. Scary people involved…hey, you’re right…it was just like capitalism.
Scary people involved…hey, you’re right…it was just like capitalism.
Says the capitalist art dealer!
“When was it plainly immoral?”
If “it” refers to abstracted Marxist analysis and tools, and abstracted Marxist ideals, it still is arguable. Tho I accept that many view the base concept of collectivism and communal living as immoral.
If “it” refers to Communist Parties as they existed and Communism as practiced in the actual regimes, as I remember in the late sixties, it was at best considered silly and adolescent, and more widely as immoral. The case for the Soviet Union and China was closed. But I was a midwesterner, so most of what I knew was reading Horowitz in Ramparts and laughing at him.
Says the capitalist art dealer!
Nothing scarier than most art dealers I know…although I do draw a distinction between the sort of capitalism represented by small businesses and that represented by multinational corporations (like the Guggenheim).
Edward, you are indeed, a beautiful man.
Strongly disagree on this one, Ed. I might excuse his affection for the communists, but nothing — nothing — excluses his alignment with the Maoists. Indeed, the fact that he joined the French Maoists suggests that your interpretation of his relationship with the communists is incorrect; obviously, he did not learn his lesson.
Other folks in Sartre’s group (Camus immediately springs to mind) figured out what was up and what was down from the start. I’m not giving brownie points to Sartre for “struggling” with the issue — particularly where he made the same grievous error twice.
If “it” refers to abstracted Marxist analysis and tools, and abstracted Marxist ideals, it still is arguable.
Thank you!!
If “it” refers to Communist Parties as they existed and Communism as practiced in the actual regimes, as I remember in the late sixties, it was at best considered silly and adolescent, and more widely as immoral. The case for the Soviet Union and China was closed.
All this was a foregone conclusion by the time I awakened politically, so it’s hard for me to say definitievely one way or the other. I like to think that I have come to my own conclusions about Communism (rejecting it on my terms, through my own consideration, as Sartre suggested). I believe that’s important.
Tho I accept that many view the base concept of collectivism and communal living as immoral.
On a voluntary basis I don’t see anything immoral. On a forced basis, I see it as outrageously immoral, as did millions of others from the moment Marx put pen to paper, and they didn’t need the insanity of Stalin or Mao or to see it.
Strongly disagree on this one, Ed.
Glad to know that’s still possible. Seriously. Makes all this that much richer. (Thanks for being polite about it, though).
but nothing — nothing — excluses his alignment with the Maoists. Indeed, the fact that he joined the French Maoists suggests that your interpretation of his relationship with the communists is incorrect; obviously, he did not learn his lesson.
Here, I disagree. I’m not sure Sartre saw them as equal: the Stalinists and the Maoists. As Bob has noted, the jury is technically still out on whether “abstracted Marxist analysis and tools and abstracted Marxist ideals” are plainly immoral.
On a voluntary basis I don’t see anything immoral. On a forced basis, I see it as outrageously immoral,
Broadly speaking, that’s not true Mac. You couldn’t support our actions in Iraq if it were. We forced democracy onto the Iraqis, they didn’t volunteer, in the sense that they rose up in revolution and took it.
Edward, you are indeed, a beautiful man.
Not entirely sure what that’s in reference to, but as I’m generally getting my a** kicked on this thread, I’ll thank you all the same.
I’ve read otherwise. Seeing as my books are now back on the shelf where they belong, I’ll try and quote you a couple of sources after I get the kids to bed. If he truly didn’t intend it as entrapment, the speed and verve with which he went to using it as such is revealing in itself.
We forced democracy onto the Iraqis,
Nonsense. We added a ground campaign to existing shooting war. The consequences of war were forced on the Iraqis by their dictator. You’re right though, they didn’t get much of say in it.
they didn’t volunteer, in the sense that they rose up in revolution and took it.
I think a bunch dead Iraqis tried that. Remember?
So you do believe in forced democracy, just not forced communism then?
Here I thought you were doing rather well (for you ;p), which just goes to show you that an a**-kicking is in the, um, eye, of the beholder.
Actually, “forced communism” at a minimum would be quite preferable to what Mao did.
Many Neoconseravtives, and the right-wingers who love them, are pretty much arguing that a political theory of representional government is absolutly universal and it should be globaly socialized by force and killing.
So you do believe in forced democracy, just not forced communism then?
No. I believe in actually fighting and winning wars started by others. If the people who suffered under them happen to get a crack at democracy as an aftereffect, well that’s icing on the cake and to our long-term benefit.
If the people who suffered under them happen to get a crack at democracy as an aftereffect, well that’s icing on the cake and to our long-term benefit.
So-o-o-o-o-o-o disengenuous. Have you even heard of Wolfowitz?
“a crack at democracy”?
What about a crack at theocracy? Would that be just “icing on the cake”?
Come on, Mac! You can’t believe what you’re writing here.
I suggest you take this up with them, whoever they are.
So-o-o-o-o-o-o disengenuous.
Well that’s one way to end a discussion.
What, with a spelling error? It would’ve been so much more authoritative, otherwise.
If he truly didn’t intend it as entrapment, the speed and verve with which he went to using it as such is revealing in itself.
Oh, I agree. That wasn’t in any way intended to be mitigating factor on Mao’s crimes, merely a different take on his particular psychosis.
As something of a tangent: my grandparents were missionaries in China during the ’30s through ’50s (with a brief stint away during the worst of WWII). They were there for the Communist takeover; in fact, they stayed until they were forced out. What I’ve always found interesting about their stories was that the CCP (as perceived by my grandparents) in the early ’50s wasn’t any more brutal or cruel than any of a myriad other regimes, Communist and others, that we all know about. Deeply unpleasant, yes, but not the sort of epic cruelty of the Great Leap Forward or the Cultural Revolution. To this day, I can’t tell if that’s because they simply weren’t that barbaric at first or if they just hid it really well.
Well that’s one way to end a discussion.
What? You wanted a smiley face? my bad ;-PPP
What you’re suggesting is contrary to what even the president is now saying with regards to our objectives in the Middle East. It’s not a matter of simply giving democracy a chance. It’s a matter of ensuring democracy succeeds. You know this…what are you saying with that “give them a crack” stuff?
And it all began with the whole WMD being pointed at my child’s head.
Apparently Edward, you are confusing postwar goals with the question you asked me. At least that would be my surmise.
In that case, the initial intention isn’t something I’m going to argue. Dang. Sounds like your parents had some stories. Most of my knowledge of recent (i.e. the last century or so) Chinese history is of the anecdotal variety, and so what the initial, actual motivations were isn’t something I can address. If you’re interested in life accounts from that period, I recommend the following:
Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China
Red China Blues: My Long March From Mao To Now
Life and Death in Shanghai
Red Azalea
The Lost Daughters of China
China Wakes
The common element between most of these is pretty easy to spot; nevertheless there’s some good general history to be had here. Not to mention some extraordinarily gripping true stories. Life and Death in Shanghai was particularly good.
Apparently Edward, you are confusing postwar goals with the question you asked me. At least that would be my surmise.
Now I’m confused.
I asked:
So you do believe in forced democracy, just not forced communism then?
You responded:
I believe in actually fighting and winning wars started by others. If the people who suffered under them happen to get a crack at democracy as an aftereffect, well that’s icing on the cake and to our long-term benefit.
Which I interpreted as suggesting we didn’t invade Iraq because Wolfowitz wanted to test his theories on social re-engineering and was using 9/11 and the suspicion of WMD as the excuse, but rather because Hussein never quite complied to the letter with the UN resolutions that were set as the condition for ending the open hostilities we ended more than a decade ago.
Right so far?
The part that strikes me as wishful thinking (being more generous) is this:
If the people who suffered under them happen to get a crack at democracy as an aftereffect
We have orchestrated this “crack at democracy” and have repeatedly implied at the very least that it was our goal all along with this latest invasion.
How can you and I look at the same information and come to such radically different conclusions?
The real test of your view is whether we’d let Iraq form a theocracy. What do you think?
It’s a cart before the horse thing Edward. There is the X, then the Y. You don’t get the Y without the X.
Dictator X demands we kick his ass, even signs a contract with a “come kick my ass” clause. We had avoided meeting his demand and our obligation to kick his ass because we’ve been afraid of what comes after the ass kicking – the Y.
When the lack of an ass kicking was making things worse, not better, and stability isn’t all its cracked up to be, we must first kick X’s ass, and then let’s work toward the best possible outcome for those who got stuck with this moron.
I don’t believe I, or Wolfy for that matter, believe in Y without X.
Further
We have orchestrated this “crack at democracy” and have repeatedly implied at the very least that it was our goal all along with this latest invasion.
Why do you think strange that we would extol the benefits and potentials of kicking his ass in anticipation of said ass kicking?
I don’t believe I, or Wolfy for that matter, believe in Y without X.
You I believe believe that. Wolfy (like this spelling better), I’m not at all convinced.
My understanding* is that Wolfy selected Iraq because it was the best choice (other options being Syria or Iran) in which to plant democracy in the Middle East, so it would spread (and so we’d have forces there to help it spread). It was the best choice because Hussein had been weakened by years of sanctions; he was a pariah with no friends; the world thought he had dangerous weapons and knew he had used them before; and it’s geographcially (and geologically**) advantageous.
In other words, it was a calculation somewhat independent of the specific X or Y in question. If it had proved undoable (say, before we got there, Hussein and his team were overthrown by Sistani’s people, as an example), Syria or Iran would have been considered as well.
*I read the report and its critiques that he and his team initially supplied the Gov. from Texas.
**Most generously because it could pay for its own reconstruction rather quickly (or so the theory went).
Mao did a lot ass kicking. He got China out of a feudal system to become a world power. I bet most in China found the move to be hard and tough but “the hard choices of a great people.”
Ass kicking, indeed.
Hilzoy: Actually, I don’t know what RYM 2 was. (In 1970, I was eleven.
Then I must truly be the geezer on this board. I was 18, still too young for direct participation in the breakup of Students for a Democratic Society, but old enough to have friends who were part of that sad process.
RYM was the Revolutionary Youth Movement, one of the several groupuscules into which SDS was splitting. One of them — I’ve lost track — morphed into Bob Avakian’s Revolutionary Communist Party. Over the years I’ve worked with several people who’d been active in Maoist parties; whether the time was long or short, they all viewed it as time spent in a cult.
in other words, it was a calculation somewhat independent of the specific X or Y in question. If it had proved undoable (say, before we got there, Hussein and his team were overthrown by Sistani’s people, as an example), Syria or Iran would have been considered as well.
Except it wasn’t independent of X. For instance, I think there is a better case to be made that Iran could make a transition to a secular democracy because they’ve already experienced the downsides to theocracy and have better cultural traditions and foundations for the institutions necessary to sustain a liberal democracy. If we were involved in an existing shooting war with Iran, they might have moved to the head of the line.
9/11 brought to bear that we’d made poor and cowardly choices in the region for 50 years. It was time for a change, and the first change was to actually follow through and finally end the Gulf War. That had to be done, now if you do it the question becomes can you turn it into something bigger and sustaining than just taking care of unfinished business.
You might want to hire John Edwards so you can ask the tens of millions that died under (and as a direct result of) his “hard and tough” rule what they think. The survivors that dare speak out are pretty unappreciative, as far as I’ve seen. Some of the barely pubescent girls he deflowered by the dozens are probably still available for comment, though.
By all means, though, please tell us more about your admiration for the Chairman.
Oh, ‘scuse me. I meant Chairman.
“9/11 brought to bear that we’d made poor and cowardly choices in the region for 50 years. It was time for a change, and the first change was to actually follow through and finally end the Gulf War.”
Could you please elaborate for all of the philistines here unaware of the undercurrents of Islamic extremism, what exactly the unresolved tension between the US and Hussein had to do with 9/11? My understanding was that the participants were sheltered and trained in Afghanistan, funded and led by a Yemeni, and fueled and angered by events in Saudi Arabia. In particular, I’m curious as to how the invasion of Iraq was intended to modify this sort of data.
As for ‘kicking ass’, I hope you’ll forgive me for getting nauseous whenever that kind of rah-rah jingo bubbles up. I can’t help but be reminded that these are the asses getting kicked. Save kicking ass for the NCAA tournament. Killing people is hard and serious work.
Slarti, not that Neo can’t speak for emself, but in the interest of defusing some unnecessary grief while I’m in the area, I’m fairly sure Neo was making a point, in through-a-glass-darkly style, about the merits of sacrificing other people to a grand rebuilding plan, and about how our interpretation of those merits rests in no small amount on whether we agree with the plan or not, not the fundamental morality of the transformation.
Slartibartfast,
I was being sarcastic.
However, it is a bit relativistic, that some seem to see the innocent victims of Mao’s ass-kicking, on the march out of feudalism, as deserving of solemn rememberance and tears.
While the innocent victims of our ass kicking, are the unfortunate souls, on the march toward an absolutly wonderful political theory of representional government.
“Could you please elaborate for all of the philistines here unaware of the undercurrents of Islamic extremism, what exactly the unresolved tension between the US and Hussein had to do with 9/11?”
I’ve written on the topic a number of times. The short version is that Saddam was a hero on the Arab street for ‘proving’ that the United States had a glass jaw–that it was unwilling to risk the lives of its troops in any meaninglful way. This very dangerous outlook is similar to Hitler’s mistake about democracies and fueled bin Laden’s apparent belief that he could destroy the WTC and sit back with his apparatus safely tucked away in an inviolate Afghanistan. (This whole bin Laden wanted to suck the US into a war thing is very after the fact. 2001/2002 indications were that he thought we wouldn’t invade Afghanistan. Stupid, a pseudo-logical extension of the Saddam model of warfare).
Or better yet, the innocent victims of our ass-kicking, because our President scared the hell out of us because someone gave him the wrong information.
Oops! Long live the revolution for better government!
Yet another data point to support the idea that sarcasm doesn’t communicate well in text.
“2001/2002 indications were that he thought we wouldn’t invade Afghanistan.”
And he was proven quite wrong for all the world to see. Unfortunately not fatally wrong, but we gave it a go. So now I’m curious as to how much additional value, the point having been proven, was in invading Iraq to prove the point over again a year later. And as to the calculation that determines how many tens of thousands of innocent lives are worth that value.
Interesting that you should use that poll sidereal, given that it demonstrates so well the cumulative effects of poor policy in the region. It’s not in the least bit surprising that people living in the “stability” of tyranny don’t trust those that have either ignored it or so long propped it up.
I hope you’ll forgive me for getting nauseous whenever that kind of rah-rah jingo bubbles up.
Spare me. Take it up with the individual responsible for putting so many at risk, he’s in prison cell in Iraq right now, but perhaps he’ll take a letter.
Spare me.
Take it up with the individual
responsible for putting so many at risk,
he’s in prison cell
in Bejing right now,
but perhaps he’ll
take a letter.
Sounds like some of the anti-traditional poems of the cultural revolution.
The march to Freedom and Revolution lives on.
Take it up with the individual responsible for putting so many at risk…
I’m sorry? There’s a single individual responsible for all that? That’s a truly impressive individual; can I get him for my next bar mitzvah?
Actually Anarch, Saddam isn’t very Jew-friendly.
can I get him for my next bar mitzvah?
I’m guessing he doesn’t do bar mitzvahs, but he used to send money to people who liked to blow up similar festivities.
Yes, we certainly are better people than Saddam. High-fives all around.
Wonder what Sistani an the Najaf’s School relationship is with the other destroyer of bar mitzvahs, Hezballah?
Long live the Democratic Revolution!
And bring back together.
Sartre on Terrorism
Again, this doesn’t sound quite right to me. It is not necessary to claim a monopoly on morality to oppose plainly immoral things.
Oh, dear God, I’ve totally failed here.
When was it plainly immoral?
There, there, Edward, don’t be so hard on yourself. You wrote:
He was also witness to excesses by true believers on both sides of the fence, and so the idea that those opposed to Communism had a monoply on morality was a joke.
It’s not altogether clear to me what you are saying here, but I took it to mean that the existence of murderous anti-Communists somehow justified some sympathy for Communist regimes. Maybe that’s not what you meant. As for the “plainly immoral” part, I was referring to the actual practices of the regimes in question, not Marxist analysis.
Was there reason for Sartre to know, in the early 70’s, a lot about government practices in China? I don’t know. Maybe, but despite being even more of a geezer than Nell (feel better, Nell?), I can’t say for sure.
But the question is not whether everything was known, but whether enough was known. Is it your opinion that so little information was available that someone considering becoming, or remaining, a Maoist, could reasonably conclude that there were no serious problems with the regime?
As always, late to the thread but I have to say that I’m always amazed at these discussions that move to ‘Communism was wrong’ certitude without even pausing for a moment to take into account the fact that these systems (in China and Russia) grew up _in living memory_ of feudalism. That kind of motivation tends to make things very messy, as the French Revolution showed. This is not to say that Communism/Maoism/whatever is right, but to ignore the fact that the serfs in Russia were only emancipated in 1861 (they consisted of half(!) of Russia’s 60 million population) and Sun Yat-sen, though held up reverently as the father of modern China, held a theory of the ‘Three stages of Revolution’ that argued that China had to go through military dictatorship, then political training, followed by democracy and then wonder why they didn’t turn out just like us freedom loving Westerners is laughable.
I say this a a huge fan of Camus, who had the clarity to get things right _at the time_. But he didn’t spend a lot of time trying to adduce evidence from the past as to why Communism was bad and that history was not the driving force. (and if you haven’t read _The First Man_, do it now!)
Is it your opinion that so little information was available that someone considering becoming, or remaining, a Maoist, could reasonably conclude that there were no serious problems with the regime?
It’s my opinion that three factors make it impossible for us to declare definitively that Sartre should have known he was wrong to side the French Maoists (who were not the Chinese Moaists remember) before he came to that conclusion on his own: information out of China was limited; Marxism as an abstract philosphy was still debatably valuable; and Sartre had already seen the horrors wrought by Capitalistic nations first hand (he was a prisoner of war for a short period).
Too much of the instant condemnation for Communist sympathizers today ignores the complexity of the world back then. Folks were a bit more three-dimensional not too long aog.
Besides, what LJ said.
Nell, you are certainly not the only geezer. As I look back, from my great age of fifty three, everybody I remember from the seventies seems to have been nuts one way or another. The difference is that there was a sense of optimism, hopefulness, and a belief that one could make the world a better place. I don’t know how Sartre’s mind worked, and to be honest I’ve never read anything by him, but I can imagine a person being so morally offended by, say, the Viet Nam war, that the person might run to an opposite extreme. I remember when one of the members of my church gave us a talk on the virtues of communism. She was probably all of twenty one which seemed old to me since I was probably about sixteen. She behaved exactly like someone who had got religion. My guess is that Sartre fell prey to sloppimindedness, which seems like a significant failure in a person who wrote professionally and philosophized. But he got over it. It just shows how important it is never to take any ist or ism too seriously.
Just in case there was any confusion, none of the preceding were arguments that I made.
I’m guessing he doesn’t do bar mitzvahs, but he used to send money to people who liked to blow up similar festivities.
It’s nice to see people subscribe to theories that make Manicheanism look like moral relativism.
I should note, since it’s not clear, that my previous comment is not exactly in reference to what I quoted, but rather to Take it up with the individual responsible for putting so many at risk… yet again.
“RYM was the Revolutionary Youth Movement, one of the several groupuscules into which SDS was splitting. One of them — I’ve lost track — morphed into Bob Avakian’s Revolutionary Communist Party.”
Don’t forget the Revolutionary Youth Brigades; I had the opportunity of watching some members closely as they tried to infiltrate, co-op, and take over, as per SOP doctrine, a campus protest group I was involved with in 1975; the group was innocuously entirely about protesting and changing the campus food plan/system, and somehow I went from being a galactic observer leaning on the wall in the back of the room to, a bit later, finding myself exhorting a crowd with a megaphone as I led them to take over the college president’s office, but I digress. (One route to unwanted leadership was because I was one of the few concerned who had any sense as to how to write a poster or flyer that was intelligible and appealing, and moreover, I was the only person with his own set of mimeograph styli and letter guides, but the amusing part came when the RYB members kept trying to write the flyers in mao-speak [“strike down the running dog paper tigers of the fascist administration!,” etc.], but I digress.)
I think you’re wildly wrong about the unreasonableness of holding Sartre at fault for either not seeing through Maoists in 1970-74 — I was 12-16 in that period, and very well-read indeed on the topic, and hadn’t the faintest problem discerning right from wrong, and neither did anyone else with their head screwed on right, which is to say that tons of terribly nice people were insanely wrong — and in supporting soviet communism from 1950-56, but I don’t desire to spend the energy explaining this at length; suffice to say that you’re using the same line of reasoning that apologists for non-abolitionists use about people in the 1770-1870 period, which is essentially that since lots of people were wrong, that’s understandable and okay; it’s, of course, perfectly understandable in both cases, but also perfectly wrong; the key point is that the also huge numbers of people who saw what was wrong with either slavery, or Leninism, at the time, shows how very possible it was to have clear vision, and how very wrong their contemporaries were who did not.
In short: if a bunch of contemporaries can and did rationally see what was wrong, and Person X (famous, or unknown, historically) couldn’t and didn’t, yes, it’s perfectly fair to hold Person X blameworthy for being dumber and blinder than all those contemporaries who got it right, even if they were a minority. Even if a lot of folks were wrong about various ways in which they were, or were pursuing being, right, such as over-the-top anti-communists, or McCarthyites, or perhaps John Brown.
In the end, it was perfectly possible to get the issues right — whether slavery or Leninism or Maoism — and simply wrong to say people shouldn’t be blamed for their opinions, whether the argument is that the opinions were so popular, or information so hard to obtain at the time, or whatever, because lots of contemporary people got it right. History is harsh, and it sucks to have been foolishly wrong, but one can’t get off the hook by having had good intentions. Almost everyone has good intentions; that’s not enough. Sarte got it wrong, along with lots of other folk; Camus got it right, along with lots of other folks. It’s not wrong to bang Sartre for having been wrong, and it’s right to praise Camus. In the short version, the story ends there.
I really can’t address this further without waxing on at great length, I’m afraid. (Another problem is that a lot of folks have trouble understanding how communism can be so awful when they have a number of friends who are communists who are simply lovely people, some of the best around; this is both a social problem — if you understand the events, you don’t understand how someone nice can rationalize them, so you either engage in cognitive dissonance and don’t think about it, or you conclude that communism can’t be so very bad when such nice people, who would never hurt a fly, are communists, or you have a big problem with some of your good friends; I understand that perfectly well, but, really, it’s not very different from the problem rightwing folks would have with neo-nazis if it were somewhat more socially acceptable to have neo-nazi friends; it’s very hard to believe very nice people — people you otherwise greatly admire and like! — can have idealistic ideas that are actually quite horrible if put into practice. But it’s something one has to learn to believe if one wants to face reality.)
And there’s an endless amount more here to discuss, which I won’t for now; sorry.
And do enjoy these fine revolutionary movie reviews, by the way.
Note the difference between “communism” and “Communism”, of course. Also note that people can be “right” for the wrong reasons and nearly v.v.
Just in case there was any confusion, none of the preceding were arguments that I made.
Err, slarti
Plus, who in their right mind (outside of China, I mean) would believe that household metal smelting was a good idea? That pretending you could make doctors (as hilzoy pointed out) from the uneducated? That sending academics (read: intellectually and possibly socially advantaged) out to work in the fields instead of contributing at a more useful level, was going to have any net advantage? Mao pretty much removed one sort of undemocratic rule and replaced it with a more evil, more psychotic one.
Look, Mao bad, absolute power corrupts absolutely, terrible about sexual proclivities. But your ‘outside of China, I mean’ is implying precisely what I noted.
Gary
It’s not wrong to bang Sartre for having been wrong, and it’s right to praise Camus. In the short version, the story ends there.
True, but, I see a lot of people putting figures in categories of naughty and nice. I also see wrongness related to degrees of separation. Simone De Beauvoir, naughty or nice? If you want to end up with a tally sheet, yeah, fine knock yourself out (that’s a generic 2nd person), but trying to figure out how someone got there and why, and why there was such obstinancy in the face of falsifying evidence, well, you have to talk about lots of different things. But as soon as you start to talk about such things, a lot of sputtering. Sure, as a 12-16 year old living in the US, you had it right. But if you had been a 12-16 year old at a lycée? Or as a cadre in the Pioneers? I don’t know about you, but I really have no idea.
There is the conundrum of why we are more willing to forgive Communist/far left associations but are more condemning of Fascist/far right. Ideas I have, time I do not.
There is the conundrum of why we are more willing to forgive Communist/far left associations but are more condemning of Fascist/far right.
“We”, in this case, will likely encompass no more than half of the commenters here.
I think you’re wildly wrong about the unreasonableness of holding Sartre at fault for either not seeing through Maoists in 1970-74 — I was 12-16 in that period, and very well-read indeed on the topic, and hadn’t the faintest problem discerning right from wrong, and neither did anyone else with their head screwed on right, which is to say that tons of terribly nice people were insanely wrong — and in supporting soviet communism from 1950-56, but I don’t desire to spend the energy explaining this at length; suffice to say that you’re using the same line of reasoning that apologists for non-abolitionists use about people in the 1770-1870 period, which is essentially that since lots of people were wrong, that’s understandable and okay; it’s, of course, perfectly understandable in both cases, but also perfectly wrong; the key point is that the also huge numbers of people who saw what was wrong with either slavery, or Leninism, at the time, shows how very possible it was to have clear vision, and how very wrong their contemporaries were who did not.
I dare you to say that sentence in one breath. Double-dog dare you.
“I dare you to say that sentence in one breath. Double-dog dare you.”
How about if this little dummy on my knee says it while I drink a glass of water?
Okay, that would be impressive, but I can’t do that, either.
I possibly should have, incidentally, made perfectly clear that the above is, of course, merely my strong opinion; judgement is obviously a subjective thing, not a matter of pure fact.
“We”, in this case, will likely encompass no more than half of the commenters here.
Point taken, but there is the question of why is there no parallel Godwin principle for the invocation of Communism.
Gary: In short: if a bunch of contemporaries can and did rationally see what was wrong…
Well that’s part of the problem, isn’t it? Was it indeed “rational” to deduce from the evidence available at the time (say the US in 1971) that the CCP was inducing people to commit cannibalism, for example?* How much of the horrors of the Cultural Revolution were actually visible from the outside, and realistically how much should well-informed people have known? I obviously can’t speak to this from personal experience but I’m in roughly the same camp as hilzoy here in that I think it would have been unreasonable to expect Western civilians to understand the full scope of the insanity of what was happening in China at the time. Being wrong and being sufficiently wrong to be worthy of condemnation are two different things, and while deserving of criticism for the former I don’t know — and likely never will, since this is well beyond my area of expertise — whether Sartre is deserving of castigation for the latter.
To pre-answer LJ’s observed asymmetry, I feel something of the same thing when talking about Allied civilians** in WWII and the Nazi death camps: for such people, the sheer scope of the evil being perpetrated really was something that IMO a reasonable person could be forgiven for failing to apprehend. It’s only with the benefit of hindsight — of having seen the wrought-iron “Arbeit Macht Frei” and hearing the testimonials of the survivors — that Auschwitz and the other death camps are “rationally” comprehensible to the average person. One of the worst things you can say about the twentieth century is that such horrors are now an indispensible part of our mental landscape; where a hundred (or even sixty) years ago a rational person would have been expected to be incapable of imagining something so awful, nowadays it is the irrational person who cannot imagine an unfolding genocide. Here’s to hoping the next century will reverse that trend.
* I’m overstating somewhat for effect; AFAIK the allegations of cannibalism during the Cultural Revolution were never actually proven.
** While I’m busy generalizing, military planners get no such pass from me. They had enough information to be able to come to the correct conclusions about what was happening.
LJ: Point taken, but there is the question of why is there no parallel Godwin principle for the invocation of Communism.
Because the Nazis are a discrete, easily-identifiable, easily- and universally-condemned phenomenon and “Communism” is an amorphous blob. I’d be perfectly happy with Stalinism becoming synonymous with evil, or the Cultural Revolution, or the Killing Fields, or Kim Il Sung/Kim Jong Il’s twin reigns of terror, but they lack the easy mental referents in Western culture. People simply aren’t as familiar with the Stalinist purges or people being made to kneel in broken glass for wearing glasses (geddit?) or Pol Pot’s belief that the “cities” were inherently evil, or what have you, and I suspect that’s largely because most of the real horrors of Communism happened to non-Western people.
This isn’t the product of racism, mind, it’s just simple ignorance about what happened outside of Europe coupled with the fact that there’s no pat description (i.e. “Jews”) of the victims/survivors.
Getting back to the amorphous nature of Communism, another reason there’s no equivalent Godwinization is that it’s too heavily dependent on what, exactly, you’re talking about. The economic theories postulated by Marx? The eschatological politics accompanying those theories? The concept of “workers of the mind” and the Vanguard Party? Lenin’s particular implementation of Communism? Mao’s? Stalin’s psychotic take? Castro’s? Pol Pot’s? There are similarities between the various implementations but there are also radical differences; do you consider Communism to be that which is common to them, even when it flies in the face of their ostensible teachings, or is it something else altogether?
And so on and so forth. It’s hard to make it the easy watchword-for-evil that Nazism can be, and that, above all, is the essence of Godwin’s observation: people are profoundly lazy and would prefer to demonize with a pithy retort rather than address substantive issues and engage in meaningful debate.
Or neocons.
Maybe ’cause Nazis, Neocons; the both of them are right-wing socialist/social democrats.
Actually, neo-cons probably share more in common with Trotskyites, advocating continual world-wide revolution. (not an original thought, but one that I find interesting) Which of these quotes are from Trotsky and which are from neo-cons?
The trinity is Sidney Hook, Leo Trotsky and Leo Strauss.
Right-Wing Trotskyist?
liberal japonicus,
I think you might get a kick out of this one:
Scenes From the Cultural Revolution
OK, which is which!
Posted by: liberal japonicus | March 17, 2005 07:03 PM
OK, which is which!
1 and 4 are Trotsky, 2 is Ledeen, 3 is Perle
and thanks for the Billmon link, I had forgtten he was back.
NeoDude, that’s horrible. I feel dirty and ashamed, especially from the laughter.
I hate to admit it, but Leeden’s Creative Destruction awakens my inner revoltionary.
Rejecting stability as “an unworthy American mission,” Ledeen goes on to define America’s authentic “historic mission”:
Creative destruction is our middle name, both within our society and abroad. We tear down the old order every day, from business to science, literature, art, architecture, and cinema to politics and the law. Our enemies have always hated this whirlwind of energy and creativity which menaces their traditions (whatever they may be) and shames them for their inability to keep pace. … [W]e must destroy them to advance our historic mission.
Found: Whose War?
A neoconservative clique seeks to ensnare our country in a series of wars that are not in America’s interest.
by Patrick J. Buchanan
What has this to do with the ‘live dog [donkey], dead lion’ debate? Did Sartre ever quote that biblical phrase. Ernest Shackleton did in order to explain to his wife why he turned back at 88 degrees south on an Antarctic expedition to the South Pole in 1909. I see the freedom to ‘do’ what you choose but what about ‘dependents’ – surely even personal freedom must involve a limit on selfishness to this extent?