[Marxism] On NLR's Ideological Retreat (was Tariq Ali responds to aliens from outerspace)

["Charlie Parks" <jcparks5550@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I agree with Louis about some of the problems NLR displayed since its new
series--inter al., the tendency to publish career academics as
representative Marxists, and the detachment from on-the-ground radical
politics. But I don't think even the new series of NLR is monolithic in this
regard, as it seems that many contributors (and some of its editors) have
been tacitly working against Perry Anderson's assertion in the lead-off
editorial for the new series that (roughly) "the only point of departure for
a serious left today is a lucid registration of historic defeat." Issues as
early as NLR 2 feature pieces by the likes of Alex Callinicos insisting on
the continued relevance of revolutionary Marxism, who asks "has world
history really thrown in its hand?" and goes on to cite Seattle and French
public sector labor agitation. This alone is one of the most direct
refutations I've seen of Anderson's announcement of historic defeat in NLR 1
(which itself is not necessarily an attempt to invalidate revolutionary
politics) in the journal. Moreover, some of its editors at least seem to
have been making attempts to reconnect with radical political movements on
the ground, particularly with the "Movement of Movements" series as well as
the various supportive articles on Chavez and Bolivarianism that the journal
has run.

So perhaps there is another, more welcome retreat going on in NLR, a retreat
from Anderson's hasty ideological retreat in NLR 1 and back into actual
political movements. And I still think Anderson's subsequent discussion of
the 2000 presidential elections (NLR 8) has enormous relevance for upcoming
ones, particarly his formulation of the lesser evil problem:

"Historical situations exist, of course, when the argument holds. Where a
genuinely urgent and formidable danger looms, even the least reliable ally
is better than none. More typically, however, arguments from the lesser evil
rest on exaggeration of the greater one, to coerce acceptance of what would
otherwise be unacceptable. There is no shortage of recent examples of this
sort of casuistry: Spanish socialists justifying the scuttling of the
Republic after Franco?s death, on the grounds that fascism was still round
the corner; Italian leftists sustaining centrist coalitions in Italy, on the
grounds that Berlusconi or Fini threatened the country with little short of
dictatorship; British radicals condoning Yeltsin?s bombardment of his
Parliament, on the grounds that Stalinism threatened Russia once again. In
cases like these, the contrast is not between a greater and lesser evil. The
true distinction is between an operative and an inoperative evil? the second
invoked to mask the first."

My point in all of this is that the journal's new series may not be
monolithically courting bourgeois respectability, despite the career moves
of some of its editors (and despite an advert for NLR subscriptions I recall
seeing which cited the praise of the Economist for the journal). Its
embourgeoisement is undeniable, but it is partial, rather than total.

CP



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