The Unworldly Left

Lefty blogger Michael Totten thinks there's "an intellectual weakness on the left" that needs to be acknowledged. Many on the left, he's concluded, aren't as worldly as they like to think. Yes, he writes, they may have certain more cosmopolitan cultural tastes, but "If you want to find a person who knows the history of pre-war Nazi Germany, the Middle East during the Cold War, or the partition of India and Pakistan, you?re better off looking to the right than to the left."

Totten thinks the left lacks historical worldliness because "Liberals are builders and conservatives are defenders. Liberals want to build a good and just society. Conservatives defend what is already built and established." Thus they've pursued different sorts of worldiness.

Totten's view has already received support from at least one other liberal blogger. Is this a potential fissure involving pro-war liberals (Totten was one) reacting to anti-war liberals? Totten's case suggests that the debate over the war has at least played a role in his thinking. Anyway, the left is rarely accused of "unworldliness," much less of being unworldly because it's the left.

Thanks to Daniel W. Drezner.

Comments

[Dean]

Ouch. Generally, I never viewed someone who was ignorant or uninterested in history as being to the right or the left. I viewed them as "just plain dumb" and never stopped to think about their politics, at all. I'll keep better track to see if it lines up with Totten's claims.

As far as the focus of left journals vs. right journals, "The Nation" is about, well, "the nation." No surprise that its international coverage is a bit thin. Totten puts "Atlantic Monthly" in the "Good Liberals" column, and they have a bunch of good historical international coverage gems.

Plus, hardened policy-wonkdom is by and large the domain of the left, and these are some of the most historical-minded people I know.

On the other hand, if one is talking about the college-age-activist crowd, then, yes, the lefties will be completely ignorant of history, while the righties will make historical references like, "if you discount their crackdown on internal dissent, hatred of unions, and racial philosophy, the Nazis are really indistinguishable from the WTO-protestors!" (apologies to Tim Cavanaugh for that last one)

[Andrew]

Ignoring the obvious exceptions to the rule, I (a self-described "entrepreneurial progressive") tend to agree with Totten.

However, my personal theory is slightly different from Totten's builder/defender approach. I think leftists tend to have a more positive view of human nature, whereas conservatives are more cynical. History, and particulary military history, provides endless support for a dark view of human nature. I can understand why righties would be drawn to it as confirming their world view, or that people who study history would come around to a darker, more fearful perspective (and see WMD under every tree).

But I don't know many experts in Latin America policy who are pro-American right-wingers.

[Daniel]

I didn't understand the builder/defender analysis. It seems to me the non-loony left (or your typical "liberal") has been willing to accept the idea that the US needed to defend against the spread of tyranny into at least certain places (Western Europe, Japan our 35k troops in S. Korea). Most liberals I would imagine that defending these places was, and is, the right thing to do.

As far as liberals being the builders, correct me if I'm wrong, hasn't it been those big-evil-capitalist corporations that have built much of the infrastructure in this country and provided consumers with the goods they desire. For all the hand-wringing at the New York Times about Bechtel and Haliburton being awarded large contracts for the rebuilding of Iraq, somehow I get the feeling they'll do a much better job than the bleeding heart NGO's in Afghanistan.

[j.c.]

Xmas, we must know the same people. Among the friends I grew up with, it's clear that the lefties had artistic and creative aspirations and screwed around in school and the righties were obedient and actually read every word of the assigned reading. In my adult life, I have noticed that if someone has a strong background in world history, that person is going to be more right than left - and probably spent an unhealthy amount of time playing Risk in high school.

[Mitch]

I have to admit, the liberal and left wing poli-sci grad students I know are always saying stuff like, "When I taught a world civ class I focused on how Napoleon helped to spread democracy during his defensive wars" and "Um, which party was Truman in?"

[Frenk]

I don't agree entirely with Totten; there are plenty of conservatives that don't know history, too. Just go down to the Republican convention (or call up George W. Bush) and see how much you can learn about foreign countries. My guess is that since Totten is a liberal, he doesn't know too many conservatives on a personal level. So the "liberals" he talks about are mostly his friends.

One need only consider publications like the _New York Review of Books_ to see that liberal-type journalism can be as informed and intelligent as anything else.

The prevalence of conservative voices in current political debates is another issue. This has more to do with what makes more people comfortable than anything else, I think.

[Rick Barton]

Getting the answer wrong leads poor Michael Totten into making quite silly arguments. First, the correct answer: The reason that "liberals and leftists are bored by the outside world." as Totten puts it, is that most of the rest of the world has adopted policies that the left of center has long advocated to a far greater extent then the U.S. ever has and the results have not pretty and not the kind of things liberals want to compare to the U.S. or even to those same foreign lands prior to the implementations of these left of center advocacies. Examples include the needless and drastic degradation of nature that occurred inside the "workers paradise" nations of the Soviet empire, the stream of Canadians daily crossing the border for operations because their socialized medicine doesn't concur with them as to how painful and/or serious their condition is as to warrant them moving up in months long que.
And of course there are the "speech codes with teeth" which have made the reoccurrence of the famous periods of open debate and reflection that have taken place in England, France and Germany quite impossible if you want those discussions to include race, religion, and ethnicity since "engendering ill feelings" toward any of those categories can get one thrown in jail. (Not to mention the "chilling effect" on debate in general that laws for "political correctness" no dought cause).
A whole generation of the left grew up worshiping the Soviet empire, at least the revolution that gave it life. Its true history must have been quite dispiriting to them. Some of them, dejected, just turned their leftist gaze inward, some made genuine political conversion but others who departed were still very wedded to political force as a tool. These are among the ones who are called neo-conservatives and pervert the conservative movement from its more libertarian agenda. Most of the rest of the world and its history engender embarrassment as much as boredom for the liberal/left.
Totten accounts for this "worldliness gap" with the idea that "liberals are builders and conservatives are defenders. Conservatives defend what is already built and established..." This view of the right as so static can only come from somebody who thinks who actually thinks "Weekly Standard" is representative of thought on the right. I remember the unthinking panning it dished out to Charles Murray's "Why I am a libertarian" Totten claims "Defenders, unlike builders, are on the lookout for threats. This is what conservatism is for... threats exist abroad... The biggest threats are on the other side of the world." Then to provide evidence for this thesis he trots out just two countries! Two! China and Iran. Iran? A threat to the U.S.? I know he reads the "Weekly Standard" but still...Of course he is a pro-war liberal and he got his way in Iraq...
Totten asserts on the other hand that "Liberals want to build a good and just society." Yeah right, a "good society" with prosperity destroying taxation and stifling regulation and a "just society" with speech codes and racial quotas. But of course this "builders" approach requires much looking inward you see. As evidence for this nonsense he calls our attention to the fact that:" Think globally" but "act locally" is a bumper sticker for the left." That that phrase might be better used to support the opposite view apparently escapes Mr. Totten.
Latter in the Essay Michael Totten does something very strange when he claims that. "Every Arab state is guilty of far worse than anything Israel has ever inflicted on Palestinians." First of all even if that were true it wouldn't excuse the Israeli governments dispossession and butchering of the Palestinians. But to the point, the statement is clearly false. Qatar and Dubai (one of the UAE) are counter examples. By the way, Dubai 1. Has a free market, (a sort of Arab Hong Kong) and 2. Keeps its religious extremists away from the government. (The current Israeli government would do well to emulate Dubai on both counts.) It's ironic that Totten, after making such a weak case for his thesis then makes a patently false statement about another part of the world as if to be another liberal corroborating his initial observation, despite his claims that he was an exception.

[Howard Stirner]

Anyway, the left is rarely accused of "unworldliness," much less of being unworldly because it's the left.

No, that's not true at all. The Left is often accused of little else: all that's needed is a single reference to the song "Kumbayah" (a song this leftie loathes) or people in sandals or "looking like they stepped out of the 'Sixties" and the implication is clear: liberals live in a never-never land that serious adults must reject. There's no need to go further than that.

Now, sure, tons of liberals and other lefties don't have any good arguments to back them up: most politics is temperamental, and so some positions seem immediately valid to some people and immediately wrong to others. Only some bother to fill in the reasons for their opinions. This isn't as bad as it seems, as long as there are competing groups in the polity. The alternative (start from a simple set of principlas and integrate forward) probably never should be popular, since we all are eminently fallible and short-sighted, and ideological machinery has a tendency to work more like the factory in "Modern Times" than a hot car.

[Sandy]

While I think among the general population, as opposed to historians, classic Buchanan-esque conservatives tend to have read more world history in the broad sense than liberals, I doubt very much there's a "one knows more than the other."

Instead, it seems like each knows their type of history, as someone alluded to above. Liberals will know something of the Diaspora, labor history, Bad Things US Imperialism Did(tm), and so on. Conservatives, ever quick to find a king, will have studied the various empires and sweep of Western Civ-type history.

In short, both seem to be reinforcing their predjudices, which isn't exactly shocking behavior, unless you're a liberal or conservative who can't believe that your side would be anything other than dispassionate analyzers of historical trends.

That being said, liberals tend to believe themselves more intelligent and moral than their competitors, while conservatives tend to just think they're more moral and have more 'common sense.' In practice, I find neither to have a lock on virtue, common sense, or intellect.

[Lenin]

This argument is firmly based on a simple premise; left wingers as idealistic but igorant children, right wingers as mature, educated adults.

Historically, one thing is fairly obvious: yesterday's revolutionary idea is not unlikely to be today's orthodoxy.

Left-wingers from olde England are today's firm defenders of parliamentary democracy, bastille -storming frenchies from 1790 are today's...."surrender-monkeys"?

And of course, the revolutionaries of the 1776 are today's republicans.....

Which of today's children will be tomorrow's adults?

[Rick Barton]

I said:

"First, the correct answer:"

I meant to say: First, to the extent Totten's premise is correct, in my opinion the correct asnwer is...

[joe]

"The Nation" doesn't discuss foreign affairs? Huh? How many times have I slogged through essays about Latin America on that website?

Rick, "A whole generation of the left grew up worshiping the Soviet empire, at least the revolution that gave it life." Yes, but the people who reached adulthood in the 1930s don't exactly define the discourse any more. To claim that a significant part of the left has worshipped the Soviet Union has been an anachronism since World War II.

How's this for a theory: Conservatives believe in Great Man history, while liberals believe in mass movement history. Therefore, conservatives are likely to know more about the Egyptian government's alliances with Soviet bloc countries in the 1970s, while liberals are more likely to know about how laborers and homemakes had their lives changed under a Nasserite government. Like most "We got Saddam" types, Totten is a Great Man-thinker, and thus sees the former type of knowledge as more significant.

"Next on All Things Considered, the story of how NAFTA has effected one Honduran boy..."

[Xmas]

The problem I have with my leftie friends is that their arguments often run straight to the loony. A discussion about Iraq goes straight to Bush's oil company ties, as if that was the only reason we went to war, even though they don't know what ties Bush actually has to the oil companies. A discussion of health-care goes straight to Universal Health Care and how great Canada's system is, even though they don't understand the problems Canada has with health care. A discussion of politics or religion runs straight to the ultra-Baptist Republicans like Jerry Falwell. Etc., etc.

Its as if they've become fixated on the "vast right-wing conspiracy" and they've taken on the worst traits of the ultra-conservative right wingers by using ad-hominem attacks, bad logic and worst-case scenarios. I blame Rush Limbaugh.

[Rick Barton]

"While I think among the general population, as opposed to historians, classic Buchanan-esque conservatives tend to have read more world history in the broad sense than liberals..."

Yes; Pat Buchanan, himself, is certainly fluent with American and world history. "American Conservative" is great on foreign policy, not so on trade but Buchanan's historical insight makes each issue worth the price for sure.

[Sven]

All generalizations are stupid.

[Rick Barton]

Joe wrote:
"To claim that a significant part of the left has worshipped the Soviet Union has been an anachronism since World War II."

No way. Check out lefty publications and you will see that outright admiration continued thru the 50s and then morphed into excuse making
in the 60s.

[fyodor]

Has anyone mentioned (gulp!) Chomsky?? He's always citing history, though I generally find it annoying when he does cause it seems like he uses it mainly for obfuscation.

Sven's well-taken point notwithstanding, it was my perception that liberals don't understand ECONOMICS that drove me away from statist liberalism.

[omnibus bill]

Come on, Mr. Totten. Get with the program before you lose your membership in the liberals club!

The party line is that conservatives know the history of pre-war Germany because they are barely closeted Nazi sympathizers.

Now repeat after me:

- You can't sell liberal policies on talk radio because liberal policies are too smart and complex to be boiled down to talking points. Besides, talk radio listeners are all dumb sheeple. Except people who listen to NPR. They're discerning.

- Liberals know much more about history, but because they are classier than either libertarians or conservatives, they don't flaunt it. Besides, your tests are racist, and history is just about dead white males.

- Republicans favor welfare reform and testing of school children because they are mean and hate minorities, women and children. They are also greedy and don't want to pay their fair and equitable share of taxes.

I suggest you stick to these arguments in the future...

[joe]

Surely, Bill, you aren't suggesting that people who choose to call themselves "Dittoheads" are anything less than fair minded policy wonks!

[Croesus]

Most of my professors, when I was garnering my MA in history, leaned left or liberal. And they were all a talented group of historians, who were very knowledgeable in their fields. The fact that I read everything from Garret Mattingly's _The Armada_ to Morgan's _AMerican Slavery, American Freedom_ to Mungo Park's _Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa_ in my seminars belies (at least anecdotally) this rather stupid theory.

[joe]

Yes, Mr. Stinker, the definition of liberal is different than it was before the industrial revolution. But then again, I don't hear many modern "conservatives" arguing in favor of Divine Right theory and aristocratic privilege.

[Gary]

I blame college history profs. History is taught almost as anti-history. They leave out the important things, and give an impression of all past history, especially Western history, being about dead-white-male-capitalist-exploiters-raping-women-and-torturing-minorities. A historical figure's race/class/gender is more important than their actions.

Liberals with that sort of view of history are naturally going to be ignorant about the important things. They will know more about James Madison's treatment of women and minorities than about federalism. They will know more about the suppression of homosexuals by Nazis than the geopolitical events which led to the rise of Nazism.

[Frenk]

In universities and colleges, the professors (not surprisingly) tend toward the liberal side of things. This includes not only "cultural studies" folk, but history and other profs, too. Where do they fall in this picture? Aren't these people publishing constantly? Don't they know history?

I just don't buy the basic premise that there is a division of knowledge between liberals and conservatives. This is a clear case of mistaking media-ted perception as reality.

The better question would be: Why do conservative political voices tend to appeal to history more --and differently-- than liberal ones do? Why is the National Review long on informed analysis that brings relevant history into play, while the Village Voice and Mother Jones are short on the same?

I am not entirely a fan of the National Review, but, e.g., Jonah Goldberg is a seriously smart guy. I rarely come away with the same impression after reading liberal commentators. Goldberg has clearly mastered the material on both sides of the debate, and he delights (perhaps a bit too much) in hoisting the left on its own petard. Can Chomsky claim to have given serious thought to the pros and cons of conservative thought? In the things I've read, it's not in evidence. He is the leftist equivalent of Michelle Malkin and Rush Limbaugh--all rhetoric and little thought.

[Craig]

Allow me to hypothesize that one of the problems is that a lot of left of center thinkers (Mickey Kaus, Matt Welch) get identified by the medium-far left as "right wingers", for various reasons.

As for whether either side of Americans lacks worldiness... that depends. I do find, however, those on the right are far more likely to assume that countries and individuals other than the US might have some role in what other countries do than the Left is... for example, the right assumes that French intransigence on Iraq is the result of the French (or alternately, Iraqi bribery), as opposed to assuming that it must be because of "bungled American diplomacy".

However, I'm more inclined to ascribe that to a pathological desire to blame anything that goes wrong anywhere on a Republican administration than on a lack of knowledge of world affairs; which is to say that the knowledge might be there, but ideological blinders cause it to be ignored.

[Bumbray Rashida]

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