Righting the left

Progressives have wandered far off course, writes Bernard-Henri Levy, and suggests some solutions

Left in Dark Times: A Stand Against the New Barbarism
By Bernard-Henri Levy
Translated, from the French, by Benjamin Moser
Random House, 233 pp., $25

For moral philosophers, dark times offer bright opportunities. When political leaders commit atrocities, intellectuals remind the world of right and wrong. Ever since Emile Zola accused the French military of railroading a conviction in the case of Alfred Dreyfus in 1898, Parisian thinkers have been especially adept at this task. In "Left in Dark Times," Bernard-Henri Levy, perhaps the most prominent intellectual in France today, seeks to revive this tradition of speaking truth to power.

This time, however, those who stand accused are on the left rather than the right. Levy sees major threats to freedom and individual self-development from genocidal regimes and religious fanatics tempted by terror. All too often, he argues, the left, hating the United States and prepared in the name of anti-imperialism to justify Third World tyrants, looks the other way. Levy hopes to remind liberals of the historic attachment to liberty and human rights that grew out of the French and American revolutions.

The result is a moving and inspiring book. Levy is prominent for a reason. His prose, even when translated into English, never descends into academic jargon. He likes telling stories, even if all too many of them seem to have little purpose other than name-dropping. Most of all, though, Levy is remarkably clear-sighted. He is right not to succumb to the easy anti-Americanism so common in France. His sarcastic dismissal of postmodernist thinkers for their flirtation with fascist ideologues is spot on. For all his criticism of the left, he never succumbs to the right; compared with the neoconservatives in his country and ours, Levy retains his faith in equality as well as liberty.

The opposite of liberty is totalitarianism. As Levy explains it, totalitarians believe that there is an absolute good revealed through history in dialectical fashion and that the world's problems are the result not of human evil but of a sickness for which only they have the cure. Against such a vision of the world, liberals must insist on a pluralism of ends, an insistence on proper procedures, and the need to respond without qualification to evil in the world whenever it appears. Levy's big fear is that although the left was eventually victorious over the previous forms of totalitarianism represented by fascism and communism, it has lost its way in dealing with such contemporary issues as genocide and terrorism.

So far, so good; I consider myself a member, hopefully in good standing, of the anti-totalitarian liberalism Levy wants to bring back to life. Yet something nonetheless troubles me about "Left in Dark Times." This does not involve what Levy has to say about genocide and ethnic cleansing; the world was too slow to respond to the barbarities in Bosnia and Rwanda, and too many innocent people died as a result. My problem lies with the way Levy explains the threat to liberty posed by terrorism, especially those forms inspired by radical Islam. Here he comes much too close to the kind of apologetics he all too rightly accuses the left of engaging in.

It is frequently said that we ought to tolerate religious differences; whatever we might think of Islam, we should respect the rights of adherents to believe what they want. No, Levy responds, what the Muslim world needs is not tolerance but secularism. It is not freedom of opinion that we ought to seek but freedom of thought. Only by applying to Islamic societies the same standards of free inquiry that we apply to our own do we treat Muslims as our equals. If Muslims say that cartoons caricaturing their prophet are offensive and should not be published, we should ignore their calls for sympathy and in the name of freedom of thought be willing to stand charged with blasphemy.

The problem with this way of thinking is not just that secularism taken to such an extreme is itself illiberal; knowing what is right, it tramples on the sensitivities of others with little regard for how they may understand the world. A bigger issue lies elsewhere. Levy is convinced that one reason we do not respond forcefully to Islamofascism-- a term he is perfectly willing to use--is because the world is rife with anti-Semitism. Most people, even if not especially on the left, have always hated Jews, he insists, and see no reason to come to the defense of Israel in its own struggle against its terroristically inclined neighbors.

But Israel is not a secular society; it is a Jewish state. If we are to tell Muslims that they ought to open up their societies to outside influences, shouldn't we be putting pressure on Israel to reform its incredibly strict marriage laws? If we decline to stop the publication of cartoons offending Muslims, shouldn't we permit people to say anti-Semitic things? Levy ends his book with a ringing call for universalism: "And why can't something that works in one place not work in another?" he plaintively asks. It is a good question. Answering it, alas, would require a liberalism willing to treat Israel the same way we treat every other country, something that Levy never does.

Levy is right to insist that liberalism embodies enduring universal values as pertinent to our own times as ever. It also requires a deeper willingness to see the flaws of one's own side than he offers in this book.

Alan Wolfe is professor of political science and director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College.