Cretino-Leftism

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Cretino-Leftism, Political and Epistemological: A Brief Guide

Jeffrey Ketland



[This page is still very much under construction. The suggestive term “Cretino-Leftism” seems to have first been used by Paul Anderson, on his webblog GAUCHE, which is subtitled “democratic socialism with a libertarian punch”.]



In all this I feel a grave danger, the danger of what might be called cosmic impiety. The concept of ‘truth’ as something dependent upon facts largely outside human control has been one of the ways in which philosophy hitherto has inculcated a sense of humility. When this check upon pride is removed, a further step is taken on the road towards a certain kind of madness---the intoxication of power which invaded philosophy with Fichte and to which modern men, whether philosophers or not, are prone. I am persuaded that this intoxication is the greatest danger of our time, and that any philosophy which, however unintentionally, contributes to it is increasing the danger of vast social disaster. (Bertrand Russell 1945, History of Western Philosophy, p. 782).



I think Russell is right when he attributes to epistemology practical consequences for science, ethics and even politics. For he says that epistemological relativism, or the idea that there is no such thing as objective truth, and epistemological pragmatism, or the idea that truth is the same as usefulness, are closely linked with authoritarian and totalitarian ideas. … The situation is really very simple. The belief of a liberal – the belief in the possibility of a rule of law, of equal justice, of fundamental rights, and a free society – can easily survive the recognition that judges are not omniscient and may make mistakes about facts ... But the belief in the possibility of a rule of law, of justice, and of freedom, can hardly survive the acceptance of an epistemology which teaches that there are no objective facts; not merely in this particular case, but in any other case. (Karl Popper, 1963, Conjectures and Refutations, pp. 4-5).



There is not just an equivalence, but a blend, between the Islamism that condemns the Western liberal democracies and the international pseudo-Left intelligentsia that condemns them as well. ... We can be certain ... that the performance of the Western intelligentsia has never been worse. Before the collapse of the Warsaw Pact regimes, the intelligentsia was merely deluded. After the collapse of the World Trade Center, it has gone haywire. Essentially a branch of the home entertainment industry, the Left intelligentsia circulates, almost entirely for its own consumption, opinions even more contemptuous of ordinary people than used to prevail on the Right. (Clive James, 2004, Times Literary Supplement: requires subscription).





1. The Enlightenment Left



First, the bleeding obvious. The Enlightenment Left¾or, to be more exact, the progressive, democratic parts of the Enlightenment Left¾has historically been associated with the following political principles: democracy, liberty, social justice and human rights. But there is no monopoly on these broad principles and it is accurate to say that virtually all conservatives agree with these principles too (though they are a bit colder on social justice).



Second, to state the somewhat less obvious. The manner in which such ideals have been advocated, or might be supposed to be implemented, varies greatly. At the theoretical level, it is well-known that these political ideals can in many cases lead to inconsistencies, a point frequently stressed by liberals and more recently by conservatives. For example, in order for a State to implement “equality” or “social justice”, it is necessarily a powerful State, and one which might severely restrict both liberty and democracy. Democracy has its own pitfalls, for obvious reasons, since the majority might oppress the minority (the “tyranny of the majority”), and thus there must be protections of various kinds for minorities and since the majority may just be plain wrong. These are some of the reasons for preferring representative and deliberative democracy. Again, as is well-known, various principles of liberty face obvious compatibility problems: liberty to do as I please will sometimes lead to conflict with your liberty to do as you please.



For these reasons and for many others, it is important to emphasise two traditions within the Enlightenment Left:

(a) a liberal tradition;

(b) a socialist tradition.

Here I understand liberalism is its classical (see the Russell and Berlin articles below) sense, as opposed the sense in which the term is sometimes used in the US, where it is often a near-synonym for socialism. Liberalism, or classical liberalism, involves respect for individual liberty and responsibility; a general tendency towards individualism as opposed to collectivism; a distinction between the private and public spheres; advocacy of competitive market capitalism; support for the rule of law and equality before the law; support for free trade, property rights; enthusiasm for entrepreneurial initiative; a tendency to support a dynamic and pluralist conception of society; and so on.

Obviously, to some extent, liberalism and socialism are partly in conflict, both theoretically and in practice. Historically, the more liberal, reformist and democratic parts of the Left have, by and large, supported liberalism understood in its classical sense, but regarded liberalism with a certain suspicion. A good example of these conflicts can be garnered from studying the history of the British Labour Party.



The reason for stressing this liberal tradition within the Left is to draw a contrast with the political ideology of the radical Left, where radical socialism of one sort or another is the driving force, and for whom liberalism is the enemy. Here, individual liberty, representative democracy and universal human rights are sometimes relegated to mere “bourgeois constructs”. The principal foes are market capitalism, imperialism and free trade. Certainly from the middle of the nineteenth century forwards, an assortment of radical socialists¾communists, anarchists, Marxists, Leninists, Stalinists, Trotskyites, Maoists, third-world revolutionaries, etc.¾have all been united in their hatred of liberalism understood in the classical (“British”) sense. Here I am not concerned to dissect radical socialism yet again, and the serious confusions and errors of Marx and Engels: collectivism, historicism, epistemological constructivism, labour theory of value, false consciousness, etc. What is discussed below does in fact apply to much contemporary radical Left ideology (whether or not Marx would have approved). For example, in the UK, such ideology is represented by the Stop the War Coalition, the Socialist Workers Party, George Galloway's RESPECT (a fusion of the SWP and the Muslim Association of Britain). More broadly, the Chomskified Left.



2. Cretino-Leftism



The focus here concerns Cretino-Leftism, a persistent stream of Left thought which is characterized by opposition to Enlightenment liberal democracy. In its most extreme and virulent form, Cretino-Leftism is Left-Fascism. The Cretino-Left terrain here is complex. There are two main sub-variants, a political form and (curiously, one might suppose) an epistemological form. Both of these will be analysed in terms of its motivation, its method and its main symptom:



(A) Political Cretino-Leftism

Motivation: Contempt for political arrangements associated with Enlightenment liberalism and the open society: representative democratic government, liberty, pluralism and universal human rights. One primary focus of this contempt is its savage, and always predictable, denunciation of the liberal democracies. Most frequently, the US, but often also the UK and Israel.

Method: Dissemination of half-baked fantasies and conspiracies about current affairs; denunciation and vilification of the progressive Left; gross exaggeration and one-sidedness in its depiction of history and current affairs; advocacy of tribalism and communalism; repeated and unfounded accusations that liberals are themselves “hypocritical”.

Classic Symptom of Political Cretino-Leftism: Claiming that modern liberal democracies are equivalent to fascist or totalitarian dictatorships.



(B) Epistemological Cretino-Leftism (aka, postmodernism)

Motivation: Contempt for Enlightenment rationalism, understood to mean critical rational inquiry, adherence to epistemological fallibilism (i.e., truth is correspondence to fact), assessing arguments in terms of their validity, and examining factual claims in terms of empirical evidence; and associated “disembodied” notions of objective truth, fact, logic and evidence.

Method: Promulgation of incoherent postmodernist gibberish, epistemological and cultural relativism, combined with incompetent attacks on science, reason, logic and analytical reasoning.

Classic Symptom of Epistemological Cretino-Leftism: Claiming that criticism, reason, rational inquiry and the pursuit of truth are “instruments of oppression”.



All in all, one can sum up the Cretino-Left in a simple slogan:



Manichean Credo of the Cretino-Left

All evil in the world derives from the politics and epistemology of the liberal Enlightenment.





3. Examples



¨ Examples of Political Cretino-Leftism. [to arrive]

¨ Examples of Epistemological Cretino-Leftism. [to arrive]

¨ November 1933 speech by Martin Heidegger, hero of the (epistemological) Cretino-Left, defending Hitler, and explaining the intimate relation between his postmodern “philosophical” views and Nazism. [to arrive]

¨ Benito Mussolini on the relation of fascism and relativism. [to arrive]





4. How should the progressive democratic Left cope with Cretino-Leftism?



First, one must constantly defend the principles of the progressive Left against attacks from the Cretino-Left. On the political side, this means democracy, liberty, human rights, social justice, fairness; on the epistemological sides, this means science, rational inquiry, fallibilism and the method of rational criticism, debate and argument. One must do this despite the rampant nonsense promulgated by the Cretino-Leftists.



Second, Cretino-Leftists hate and despise the decent, progressive Left. So, don’t be bullied by the common techniques of vilification and denunciation, and don’t be bullied into accepting grotesque exaggerations and fairy stories. Simply defend freedom, democracy, human rights, fairness, reason, inquiry, etc. These vilifications and denunciations are standard far-Left propaganda techniques, attempts to psychologically intimidate and humiliate their opponents.



Third, one must fight against Cretino-Leftism, and the nonsense it represents. A growing and more urgent reason is that the Cretino-Left has formed a dangerous allegiance with a new array of totalitarians: fundamentalists, militant islamists, nihilists and fascists.





5. Some Resources



¨ A Liberal Decalogue, by Bertrand Russell (“The Best Answer to Fanaticism¾Liberalism”).

¨ A spoof Jerry Springer episode mocking both political and epistemological Cretino-Leftism.

¨ Torture scenes from George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, where the Inner Party intellectual O’Brien describes the Party’s Cretino-Leftist postmodern epistemology.

¨ Splitters! scene from Monty Python’s The Life of Brian.



Websites and weblogs:

¨ Butterflies and Wheels.

¨ Alan Sokal.

¨ Christopher Hitchens.

¨ Harry’s Place.

¨ GAUCHE.

¨ Normblog.

¨ Oliver Kamm.

¨ Blithering Bunny.

¨ Eric the Unread.

¨ Melanie Phillips.

¨ Johann Hari.

¨ Jonathan Derbyshire.

¨ ModBlog - Popsensible.

¨ Labour Friends of Iraq.

¨ Tim Blair.

¨ Clive James.

[to be continued]



Books and articles:

[1] Popper, Karl R. 1945: The Open Society and its Enemies. Volume 1: Plato.

[2] Popper, Karl R. 1945: The Open Society and its Enemies. Volume 2: Hegel and Marx.

[3] Russell, Bertrand A.W. 1945. History of Western Philosophy.

[4] Russell, Bertrand A. W. 1945. “Philosophical Liberalism”, from [3] above.

[5] Orwell, George 1942. “Looking Back on the Spanish War”. In George Orwell, Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters, Volume 2, edited by Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus, Penguin Books, 1970, pp. 286-306.

[6] Orwell, George 1945. “Antisemitism in Britain”. In George Orwell, Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters, Volume 3, edited by Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus, Penguin Books, 1970, pp. 378-388.

[7] Orwell, George 1945. “Notes on Nationalism”. In George Orwell, Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters, Volume 3, edited by Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus, Penguin Books, 1970, pp. 410-31.

[8] Orwell, George 1949. Nineteen Eighty-Four.

[9] Berlin, Isaiah. 2002. Liberty. Edited by Henry Hardy.

[10] Berlin, Isaiah. 1958. “Two Concepts of Liberty”, in Berlin [9] above.

[11] Berlin, Isaiah 1995. “Liberty”, in Berlin [9] above.

[12] Gross, Paul R. and Levitt, Norman. 1994. Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and its Quarrels with Science.

[13] Gross, Paul R., Levitt, Norman, and Lewis, Martin W. 1996. The Flight from Reason and Science.

[14] Sokal, Alan and Bricmont, Jean. 1998. Fashionable Nonsense.

[15] Haack, Susan. 1998. The Manifesto of a Passionate Moderate.

[16] Koertge, Noretta. 1998. A House Built on Sand: Exposing Postmodernist Myths about Science.

[17] Lilla, Mark. 2001. The Reckless Mind: Intellectuals in Politics.

[18] Weinberg, Steven. 2001. Facing Up: Science and its Cultural Adversaries.

[19] Wheen, Francis 2004. How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World.

[20] Wolin, Richard 2004. The Seduction of Unreason: The Intellectual Romance with Fascism from Nietzsche to Postmodernism.

[to be continued]

Revised 9 June 2005