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The Losers
FrontPageMagazine.com | February 6, 2002
By: Thomas S. Garlinghouse
BESIDES THE TALIBAN, the biggest loser in America’s "War on Terror" has been the American Left. Although its most prominent spokesmen -- such as Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Susan Sontag, and Edward Said -- remain celebrities in the halls of academe, elsewhere the Left hasn’t fared as well. In the weeks and months following September 11, millions of average Americans heard, many for the first time, the undiluted hatred of America that is so characteristic of the American Left. They were being told, in effect, that America had it coming. It was a message, emanating from a pampered and well-paid intelligentsia, that these average Americans, still reeling from the horrific terrorist attacks, were in no mood to hear.
The result was a justifiable outrage. Millions of Americans were angry, and they let the America-haters know it – by exercising their First Amendment rights. Yet, many on the Left were shocked and dismayed that anyone would dare disagree with their anti-American fulminations. Sontag even wrote to this effect in one of her more idiotic screeds. On college campuses, Leftist professors predictably invoked the specter of McCarthy and claimed they were being "silenced." Apparently these professors had become so used to having their opinions treated as holy writ that they had trouble distinguishing criticism and dissent, of which they claim sole proprietorship, from bigotry, intolerance, and censorship. The Chronicle of Higher Education, even more predictably, explained the trend as an example of American anti-intellectualism.
That many average Americans would reject the Left’s anti-American message is hardly surprising. The venerable common sense and silent patriotism of the average American, though too easily disparaged by the "more sophisticated," are among our Republic’s greatest and most enduring strengths. What is surprising, however, has been the reaction of many liberals to the anti-American onslaught.
Since the September 11 terrorist attacks, some liberals have begun to rethink their association with the extreme Left. They have begun to evince little patience for much of the knee-jerk, anti-American rhetoric that has emanated from prominent Leftist luminaries. This was aptly demonstrated by Todd Gitlin, a prominent academic liberal and author of an authoritative book on the student radicalism of the 1960s. In an insightful essay, he took on his former comrades for, as he put it, reveling in a perverse Schadenfreude at America’s tragedy. He singled out Edward Said for particular chastisement, accusing the Middle Eastern literary critic of engaging in shameless whataboutism -- the tendency to excuse the atrocity of September 11 by pointing to the victims of American foreign policy. Islamic fundamentalists may have bombed the World Trade Center, but whatabout…? Gitlin maintained that critics like Said are unable to perceive the victims of September 11 as true victims because that sanctified label (sanctified at least in the eyes of individuals like Said) is wholly reserved for people (like Palestinians and Iraqis) who have ostensibly suffered under American imperialism.
The Anglo-Indian novelist Salmon Rushdie, someone never to be confused with a conservative, likewise added his own rejoinder to the rhetoric of the anti-American Left. Writing in the Washington Post, Rushdie called the bien-pensant anti-American onslaught, "appalling rubbish," and argued that "to excuse such an atrocity by blaming U.S. government policies is to deny the basic idea of all morality: that individuals are responsible for their actions."
And Jeffrey Isaac of the left-leaning The American Prospect took on the Leftist icon Noam Chomsky in an article titled "Thus Spake Noam." In it he criticized Chomsky’s lack of intellectual honesty and the MIT professor’s assertion of moral equivalence between U.S. policy-makers and terrorists of bin Laden’s ilk. Even that venerable liberal stalwart, The New Republic, has done yeoman’s work in this regard. Its "Idiocy Watch" column, an on-going compendium of the most ill-conceived rants following September 11, is like reading the thoughts of today’s most prominent Leftist writers, journalists, and academicians. Although there are some hysterical voices from the Right, the majority of examples accrue from the Left. Indeed, one gets the impression from reading "Idiocy Watch" that every prominent American Leftist is a self-loathing, out-of-touch nincompoop or a condescending gasbag (and I’m being charitable).
Surely all this is good news. It demonstrates the moral seriousness of some liberals. It also demonstrates that the doctrine of moral relativism has not penetrated as deeply into liberal ranks as some conservatives have argued. Still, the liberal rejection of its radical wing is a rather new phenomenon. During the height of the Cold War, for example, as many American Leftists were more than willing to sell out their country to the Soviet Union, the liberal intelligentsia was loathe to condemn the Left. In his influential 1964 book Suicide of the West, conservative intellectual James Burnham excoriated Western liberals for their inability to perceive the danger posed by the radical Left. The reason for this, he asserted, was twofold. First, liberals, while not necessarily endorsing the Left’s tactics, nonetheless shared many of its egalitarian, utopian sentiments. Burnham pointed out that "As the liberal sees it, some persons on the Left are doubtless mistaken in some of their views… but the liberal feels instinctively that their ‘intentions’ are good, that they are aiming at the right goals." The second, and perhaps more significant, reason for liberal myopia verged on the psychological. Burnham contended that the liberal’s main bête noire -- the enemy that ultimately had to be confronted, no matter the cost -- was the Right. Indeed, Burnham asserted that many American liberals ascribed to the venerable French saying: Il n’y à pas d’ennemi à gauche -- there is no enemy to the Left.
The events of September 11 have changed, at least for the time being, this dynamic. In many ways, the tragedy of September 11 has acted as an ideological litmus test, forcing defenders of America and American ideals to step forward. At the same time, September 11 has also shed a disinfecting light on those that truly wish harm upon this nation: The radical Left. For far too long, those on the Left in this country have posed as defenders of free speech, minorities, and various other causes. But, in truth, such causes are used cynically and tendentiously, as clubs with which to bash American institutions and ideals. It is clear, if one pays attention, that the Left is motivated not by a desire to reform America or to create a more "humane and just society," but by a deeply held antipathy toward America.
Apparently some liberals are beginning to figure this out.
Dr. Thomas S. Garlinghouse is a freelance writer in Davis, California. He holds a doctorate from the University of California, Davis, in anthropology, with a specialty in archaeology. E-mail him at tsgarlin@aol.com.