From the much-loved, witty and excoriating voice of journalist Nick Cohen, a powerful and irreverent dissection of the agonies, idiocies and compromises of mainstream liberal thought. Nick Cohen comes from the Left. While growing up, his mother would search the supermarket shelves for politically reputable citrus fruit and despair. When, at the age of 13, he found out that his kind and thoughtful English teacher voted Conservative, he nearly fell off his chair: 'To be good, you had to be on the Left.' Today he's no less confused. When he looks around him, in the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq, he sees a community of Left-leaning liberals standing on their heads. Why is it that apologies for a militant Islam that stands for everything the liberal-Left is against come from a section of the Left? After the American and British wars in Bosnia and Kosovo against Slobodan Milosevic's ethnic cleansers, why were men and women of the Left denying the existence of Serb concentration camps? Why is Palestine a cause for the liberal-Left, but not, for instance, China, the Sudan, Zimbabwe or North Korea? Why can't those who say they support the Palestinian cause tell you what type of Palestine they would like to see? After the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington why were you as likely to read that a sinister conspiracy of Jews controlled American or British foreign policy in a liberal literary journal as in a neo-Nazi rag? It's easy to know what the Left is fighting against - the evils of Bush and corporations - but what and, more to the point, who are they fighting for? As he tours the follies of the Left, Nick Cohen asks us to reconsider what it means to be liberal in this confused and topsy-turvy time. With the angry satire of Swift, he reclaims the values of democracy and solidarity that united the movement against fascism, and asks: What's Left?
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Editorial Reviews
Review
'A roaring polemic of outrage against the moral and political crisis of the liberal tradition. It is already one of the most discussed current affairs books of the new year!At the very least it forces anyone on the left to think carefully about where their movement has ended up in the modern world.' The Guardian '!exceptional and necessary!Do not feel you have to be a leftist or liberal to read it, because it engages with an argument that it crucial for all of us, and for our time.' Christopher Hitchens, Sunday Times '(He writes with) a genuine passion and human sympathy about people who have experienced appalling suffering.' Michael Burleigh, The Evening Standard 'Undoubtedly controversial and provocative "What's Left?" is, as its title suggests, a bleakly witty but perhaps dimly hopeful examination of what it means to be liberal in an age where the lines that have been drawn in the sand are in danger of being washed away.' Waterstones Books Quarterly 'One of the most powerful denunciations of the manner in which the Left has lost its way!Cohen's is a brave voice.' Michael Gove, The Spectator 'Nick Cohen explains how contemporary liberals have lost their way with his usual polemical brio.' The Observer 'An essay of wide reference and great brilliance.' John Lloyd, Financial Times 'Cohen skilfully shows how the left perversely set its moral compass by the United States!Cohen is at his best as a painstakingly forensic officer and he marshals his evidence with flair and rigour!He is at his very best when he exposes the dishonesty of the liberal press!Cohen's book has made me look with greater respect at the motives behind those who led the journey to war in Iraq in 2003, and view many of the anti-war campaigners with a new scepticism!This book is much more than a mere denunciation of old left-wing friends and colleagues. It is also a moving account of a long personal journey carried off with wit, verve, considerable literary skill and compassion.' The Observer 'It is an essay of wide reference and great brilliance, which flays every kind of foot-shuffling excuse for not facing up to the nature of the regime which that evil (and now, mercifully dead) tyrant, Saddam Hussein, inflicted on his country and planned for his region. Cohen surveys a gamut of liberal-left Western opinion that, in part under the pressure of the Iraqi war, has forgotten its best tradition and instead lapsed into its worst, that regards nothing as more important than the failures of its own societies, and that lacks the imagination or the will to comprehend the agonies of those living under tyranny.' Financial Times 'Nick Cohen smells out the cesspits of corruption and injustice with the keenest of noses. He tells it as it is, without fear or favour. He's one of the few independent voices left in an increasingly closed society.' Harold Pinter
About the Author
Nick Cohen is a columnist for the Observer, The New Statesman and The Evening Standard. In his Channel Four documentaries and general media appearances, he has proved himself to be the witty and excoriating voice of the left. He commands a loyal readership, as his groaning weekly postbag attests. He is the author of two books. 'Cruel Britannia: Reports on the Sinister and the Preposterous', a collection of his journalism, was published by Verso in 1999 and 'Pretty Straight Guys', a dissection of the Blair leadership.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
48 of 53 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
It's not dark yet, but it's getting there,
By
This review is from: What's Left? (Paperback)
In this fascinating book, Cohen tries to find answers to why the world is upside down, why liberals and leftists are nowadays more likely than conservatives to excuse fascist movements and governments. With the exception of their native western far-right parties, they embrace all foreign oppressive governments as long as these oppose the West. The author argues that the death of communism has brought a dark liberation to those who consider themselves on the left; they are now free to champion any totalitarian group that is anti-western and anti-American. This mindset is particularly prevalent amongst the intellectuals and the mass media, as also documented in Can We Trust the BBC? by Robin Aitken.
Third world democrats, feminists and liberals have been betrayed by those who so style themselves in the West. The fall of communism and the disappearance of a coherent set of principles have liberated Western leftists into a kind of nihilism that is akin to modern consumerism. Now you can pick your issue du jour from an anti-Western smorgasbord. Cohen chronicles the etiology of the disease - how it started with postmodern theorists and obscure fringe groups, entered the mainstream and led to the failure of left-liberals to confront genocide in Bosnia, Kosovo and the Middle East until it grew into an all-consuming fever. He also attempts to salvage the best of the liberal-left's internationalist and democratic traditions. In this regard, please consult A Matter of Principle edited by Thomas Cushman. The author chronicles these developments in part by telling the story of Iraqi human rights campaigner Kanan Makiya who exposed Saddam's atrocities in the book Republic of Fear and was later shunned by his former so-called comrades. Makiya was prescient as he foresaw the outcome of these relativist multiculti tendencies in his 1993 book Cruelty and Silence. Many myths and lies are exposed by Cohen, for example those concerning Saddam's arms suppliers. For the record, between 1973 and 2002, 57 per cent of those weapons came from the Soviet Union/Russia, 13 per cent from France and 12 per cent from China. The USA and UK together did not contribute even one per cent. Other revelations concern sinister British groups on the left, like the Workers Revolutionary Party of the thug Gerry Healy, a toxic cult if ever there was one. Some of the juiciest writing is about the obscurantism of postmodern theorists - it makes you laugh out loud. The Sokal Hoax is inter alia covered here, but the very best dissection of this species may be found in Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault by Stephen Hicks. Cohen observes that the utopian, the hate-filled and the irreconcileable do not dissappear with geopolitical changes, so a revived radicalism was inevitable after the fall of the Berlin Wall. But the death of communism gave birth to a nasty nihilism, the breast milk of the Moonbats. Not surprising since one of their intellectual masters, Michel Foucault, already hailed the Khomeinian ayatollocracy back in 1978. Thus his intellectual heirs ended up endorsing anything that was against liberal democracy. The author examines these disturbing trends against the history of the 1930s, the infamous Hitler-Stalin pact and the disgraceful behaviour of some Tories and Leftists at the time. The book provides too much evidence to discuss in one review, but Cohen's analysis of characters like George Galloway and the Hezbollah shill Noam Chomsky is superb. Further information on the sinister marriage of leftism and fascism is available in Unholy Alliance by David Horowitz. The book provides a vivid picture of people so deluded, they have completely abandoned the values that once formed part of the democratic mainstream and swopped them for a nihilistic culture steeped in hedonism and ignorance. That is why they embrace or excuse losers, demagogues and dictators like Mugabe and Chavez. It is not a large leap from marching in support of homicidal terrorists and sadistic Islamist and Baathist regimes to nurturing the loathsome antisemitism which motivates the moral inversion that they need in order to appear the champion of the victim. The eerily erotic quality of the expressions of their hatred has been well documented by writers like Christopher Hitchens and Julie Burchill. These faux liberals desperately need to have faith of some sort, no matter how evil or psychotic, to persuade themselves that their paranoia about an American "theocracy" or a "Zionist conspiracy" is valid. They cling to their conspiracy theories so fervently that it is impossible for verifiable facts or reality to penetrate the bell jar of lunacy. Their delusions shield them from the implications of the abject failure of their murderous ideology that has brought misery and death to millions. The intensity of their projection derives from the need to believe that the latest manifestation of their bankrupt collectivist ideology, properly called "transnational progressivism" stands for peace and that the Neocons/Christians/Zionists/Capitalism cause all the world's evil rather than their own utopian grotesqueries. The paranoia and projection of the PoMo liberals and leftists and their newfound friends amongst the wingnut paleocons like Pat Buchanan and "libertarians" like Lew Rockwell anaesthetize the pain and make them feel good about themselves. In their chosen role as the victims of America and Israel, these pampered elites congratulate themselves on their "courageous" and "principled" stand against "Western hegemony." They are thus not to blame for the terrifying emptiness within and the encroaching darkness of terrorism out there. Without Bush, the world would be a paradise. Externalizing the blame for their own unease is essential in order to deny the facts and banish the gnawing of reality. Without their projection - The Perpetual Banishing Ritual of the Progressive Sinisterist - there is nothing left. The book concludes with 19 pages of notes arranged by chapter, plus a thorough index. In order to further investigate the matter and the overall spirit of the times, I highly recommend the following: The Big Lie by David Solway The Force of Reason by Orianna Fallaci The New Anti-Semitism by Phyllis Chesler Exposing the Real Che Guevara by Humberto Fontova Sinisterism - Secular Religion of the Lie by Bruce Walker The Death of Right and Wrong by Tammy Bruce Why Truth Matters by Ophelia Benson and Jeremy Stangroom
20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
a call to action,
By
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This review is from: What's Left? (Paperback)
Nick Cohen's argument is (in one sense) a simple one. Once upon a time, the Left championed all the right causes: women's rights, free speech, universal education, human rights, unions, solidarity with the oppressed, amongst others. And it championed those causes on behalf of the working class which the Left (largely composed of middle-class intellectuals) romanticized on the one hand and despised on the other. And then the working class got all these rights and all this education and all these opportunities but didn't support all the causes the (middle class liberals) of the Left wanted the working class to support. And in their disappointment and defeat, the middle class liberals cast about for new heroes to romanticize. They found them in the fascists of Third World countries who claimed to be revolutionaries (well, they were and are against the established order anyway) and who declared themselves to be for the people (of a certain culture and religion).
The privileged of the West, in other words, found solace in identity politics which led them to support of fascism. And this, in turn, led them to identify those who support fascism with the Left. A simple argument, as I have said. But this book (which is so rich and so filled with wonderful anecdotes--from professorial mumbo jumbo to Hamas' Charter) is much more than a mere argument. It is a call to action. For this wonderful book ends by pointing out that a group of "politically aware citizens" who were not "intellectual celebrities" met at a pub in Euston to draw up a manifesto spelling out what the Left truly is. And that, by restating what should have been obvious (but wasn't) these men and women found a way to make a difference. Because they did not abandon the effort, the hope, the principles of the Left. Just as Nick Cohen hopes (and hope is the last word in this book) that he has made a difference with his book. So now it's your turn and mine. What do you say?
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Passionate and well argued but not entirely persuasive,
By
This review is from: What's Left? (Paperback)
"What's Left" is a crie de coeur from a man of the left who has come to believe that the principles have abandoned his position, and from that perspective it positively zings. Nick Cohen writes well - brutally - but fairly: he is still prepared, as he goes, to confront and acknowledge potential criticisms of his argument, valid alternative perspectives, and I think he realises that with this work he may have cooked his goose with a number of hitherto supportive readers. A valuable document, too, because Cohen still has left-wing credibility (but for how much longer, it remains to be seen) and so is sparking much needed debate in a way that a neo-con screed might not if it came from the pen of a traditional supporter of the moral right (pun intended).
That said, I think "What's Left" will find support in all the places, and with all the people, Nick Cohen would least like it to: for the most part, they won't be on the political left. Though he doesn't say it explicitly, this does represent something of a conversion on the road to Damascus: I think after this work Cohen will be generally considered a neo-conservative: he expresses unqualified support for Paul Wolfowitz and is far less distressed by Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair or George Bush than one would expect from a child of the far left. What I think it boils down to is the subjectivism/objectivism debate. Cohen is an objectivist: he is prepared to say what he thinks is morally unacceptable, and is prepared to advocate whatever action or force is required to defeat the morally unacceptable. By contrast, many on the left are "under the evil spell" (as Cohen sees it) of cultural relativism and are not prepared to make that judgment about the regime in Iraq, but are perfectly prepared to make it about the political elite in Britain and the United States. Cohen cites Ian McEwen's recent novel, Saturday, which remarks about anti-war protesters: "... people are hugging themselves, it seems, as well as each other. If they think - and they could be right - that continued torture and summary executions, ethnic cleansing and occasional genocide are preferable to an invasion, they should be sombre in their view." (p. 69) While I have a great deal of respect for his book and the passion with which he argues his case, I'm (unusually for me) with the lefties on this one. For a start I don't feel qualified, either in terms of facts at my disposal nor the necessary cultural, social or political understanding, and nor do I consider it my business, to judge the situation in Iraq. On the other hand I *do* feel qualified, as a participant in the political process, to express a view about my own government. Furthermore, the resources of my government, contributed by people like me through taxation, are limited, and I can see more productive uses to which they could be put: before we sort out Iraq's mess, there is plenty of our own we could be fixing. But more to the point - and this is a point that Cohen glosses over entirely - the government's case for war had nothing whatsoever to do with alleviating the Iraqi people from torture or summary execution: this was not a humanitarian intervention at all. It couldn't be - since to take on Iraq would provoke obvious follow on questions: if Saddam, why not Mugabe? How about Kim Jong Il? The war was sold to the electorate as a pre-emptive measure against a credible military threat to the west (either directly or through the encouragement and cultivation of terrorists). That case was not properly made at the time (hence, in large part, the anti-war demonstrations), and has transpired to have been erroneous. Nor has the war, which was prosecuted in spite of clear opposition in the electorate, been much of a success. Again, Cohen glosses over prescient warnings issued at the time that Iraq risked becoming another Vietnam, bogging the US army down in a close-quartered conflict with no obvious means of resolution. This, it seems to me, is exactly what happened, and the threat of terrorism and level of "Muslim angst" in western communities - which is surely fertile ground for new terrorists - is no lower than it has been since 9/11. For all that I really enjoyed this book, and found it challenging and thought provoking. John Mueller's Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them is an interesting counterpoint to "What's Left" - the two do not intersect on subject matter (Mueller restricts himself to terrorist threat; Cohen to the brutal governmental regime, and arguably the two are unrelated), but Mueller's skeptical view presents an interesting prism through which to consider Cohen's arguments. Olly Buxton
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