Yesterday I had a post on the deranged right-wing demagoguery on Obama being a “socialist,” in which I linked to an NYT op-ed by Milos Forman. A couple of weeks ago the NYT’s Paris correspondent, Steven Erlanger, had a news analysis asking precisely what it means to be a socialist today. The response:
Not very much. Certainly nothing radical. In a sense, socialism was an ideology of the industrialized 19th century, a democratic Marxism, and it succeeded, even in (shh!) the United States. Socialism meant the emancipation of the working class and its transformation into the middle class; it championed social justice and a progressive tax system, and in that sense has largely done its job. As the industrialized working class gets smaller and smaller, socialism seems to have less and less to say.
Into the article he quotes BHL
“There are no more socialists — if they were honest they would change the name of the party”…Socialism “evokes the nightmare of the Soviet Union, whose leaders named themselves socialists.” Today, [BHL] maintains, European socialists are essentially like American Democrats — there has been no ideological left in France that matters since the effective demise of the Communist Party, which was “the true ‘exception française.’”
Maybe BHL read my blog post from last month, where I argued that the French equivalent of the American Democratic party was the PS. On the PS still calling itself “socialist”—and the Communist party “communist”—, of clinging to the symbol, this is a sign of how conservative and tradition-bound the French are. When I teach American undergraduates about the French left, I sometimes tell them that if they meet a member of the PS and want to make him or her uncomfortable, they should ask the simple question “what makes the PS socialist?” Isn’t socialism about the nationalization of industry, class struggle, and all that? (And if they really want to watch someone hem and haw, they should put the same question to a PCF militant about communism). The French Socialists did indeed believe in these things not so long ago. E.g. the party’s platform after WWII contained all sorts of references to Marxism, though with a vigorous defense of parliamentary democracy. Voilà a party poster from just after the war
One may read on the red flags the following: Purge [of German collaborators], For Peace, Reconstruction, Protection of Women and Children, Secularism, For Youth, For the Elderly, Works Committees, Against the Black Market, Defense of Farmers, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, Reform of the Bureaucracy…
Hardly revolutionary, even for the time…
And below, revolutionary-looking Socialist militants cheering François Hollande’s victory on May 6th in front of party HQ
Could they possibly be more BCBG?
But what do I know – I was raised by American hippies. 🙂
Sure, sure. But these are no militants, rather MEPs : Benoît Hamon in the middle of the picture, Harlem Désir, plus Aurélie Filipetti,… Well, they may be militants too!
What I find amusing is the Socialist militants wearing suits on a Sunday (and it’s not to go to church, that’s for sure). No blue jeans and t-shirts for Messieurs Hamon & Désir, that’s for sure…
These two pictures are worth 10 000 words…
I didn’t think about the juxtaposition of the two when I put them up. They do perfectly summarize what the Socialists were then and now.
I don’t frankly understand the point of all this. The definition of many, many words changes over time. “Socialism” is no different, I suppose. But that doesn’t mean that we should pretend that those who sometimes call themselves “socialist” or that those who are sometimes called “socialist” by others get to define the term for us.
Obama isn’t a socialist in any reasonable definition of the term. If we define socialism to include political and economic beliefs like those held be the American president, and if we then define the term to also include the political and economic beliefs of Francois Hollande, and then we define the term to also include the political and economic beliefs of a member of, say, the Socialist Workers Party in the US, then we have made the term meaningless.
“Socialist” is no more abused by its use in the name of the French Socialist Party than “democrat” (one who supports democracy) is abused by its use in the American Democratic Party. And consider “Republican” as it is abused by the party of said name in the US In fact, American Democrats support repubicanism (a government through elected representation), not democracy. And American Republicans are actually opposed to Federal government in almost every way (with the exception of providing for the common defense).
We get bogged down by discussions of semantics. The French Socialist Party stands for something very different than the UMP (or at least it says it does). The American Democratic Party stands for something very different then the American Republican Party (or at least it says it does). And the French Socialist Party has many, many differences with the American Democratic Party.
We are better served, I think, discussing the various differences than the terms they use in their party titles.
Dojero, good comment. You’re right of course.
One more thing I want to add. There are serious discussions going on every day among serious students (and teachers) of socialism. For those who are interested in something more than the BHL/Erlanger condescending dismissiveness, consider looking at publications like Monthly Review (monthyreview.org). For books, read something by Michael Lebowitz (excerpt for the latest is here: http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/665.php…and by the way, the Socialist Project site is another place to find serious discussion of socialism).
Thanks for the Socialist Project link. One notable website – for research purposes – is http://www.marxists.org
Arun: I appreciate the reference to http://www.marxists.org (with which I was familiar), but want to differentiate it from socialist sites. Socialism as a political/economic philosophy pre-dates Karl Marx, who drew a clear distinction between socialism and communism. And after Marx, socialism developed separately from both Marxist philosophy and from communism (which are not the same either).
I know you don’t need this lesson, but your readers might. And I don’t think it’s unimportant. If for no other reason, it’s important because recognizing these divergences and differences permits us to grow and change with the times. Dogmatic Marxists are no less damned by their insistence that everything Marx wrote in the 1800s applies today than are religious people who insist on the absolute truth of the Bible or Americans who consider the Constitution something that should be immutable.
I have found the tests of political leanings amusing, but I’d be disappointed if every time I took them I got the same results. The same quadrant, perhaps, but willingness to learn, nevertheless. So it is with “socialists” and Marxists, and communists. All need to be able to move about within their persuasions, even as they might want to insist on certain fundamental truths.
Of course Obama is a “socialist” in the European socialist party sense:
http://pjmedia.com/ronradosh/2012/07/11/is-obama-a-socialist-an-answer-to-milos-forman/?singlepage=true
dojero says:
“Dogmatic Marxists are no less damned by their insistence that everything Marx wrote in the 1800s applies today than are religious people who insist on the absolute truth of the Bible or Americans who consider the Constitution something that should be immutable.”
Amusing.
As a religious person who insists on the absolute truth of the Bible (what’s the point otherwise?), I stand damned. As for the Constitution, of course it’s not “immutable” — there is an Amendment process to change the Constitution when it needs changing. Goes to show how much you know about constitutional law…
Fake Herzog: I certainly agree that your belief in the Bible as literal truth damns you to ignorance and an inability to learn and grow. But it may be of less concern than your ability to read with understanding. I specifically wrote about Americans who believe the Constitution is immutable…which isn’t remotely close to saying that I believe it is immutable. Which means that your claim that it shows that I don’t know constitutional law is silly. If anything, it shows the opposite (since I actually am criticizing the Americans who consider it immutable).
The fact that the Constitution of the United States has only been amended 27 times in its more than two centuries of existence demonstrates that amending it is far too difficult. Moreover, it’s getting harder and harder. Of the 27 amendments, the first ten happened in 1791 and the 11th was in 1795. From 1919 to 1933, it was amended 6 times, an average of nearly once ever two years. But from 1971 onward, only one amendment has been enacted. That’s more than half a century. It’s true that there was a nearly identical gap from 1870 t0 1913, but of course the country was recovering from its most destructive time in its history (the Civil War). Americans who believe it is immutable, or should be, are no less damned by their ignorance and an inability to learn and grow than you are by your belief in the Bible. But unfortunately, these Americans have been able to prevent their fellow Americans from having a better country. Your belief in the Bible is unlikely to hurt anyone but you.
dojero,
You say, “it may be of less concern than your ability to read with understanding.” Ouch! But I (sort of) deserved the barb. My comment was more of a reaction to the idea that the constitution needs all sort of change. As a political conservative, I think the version we have, interpreted with an originalist bent, works just fine. IMHO, what’s prevented my fellow Americans from “having a better country” are activist judges who insist on legislating from the bench and continue to find new and…interesting rights and powers that never existed in the constitution in the first place. I know you like those rights and powers — I think they are destructive of good order and morals.
As for your other amusing comments about the truth of the Bible, one quick question. Why is it that many great believers over the centuries, especially Catholic believers, have also been scientists, those presumably willing to “learn and grow” — even to contribute to mankind’s knowledge? Your cheap atheist talking points just won’t cut it when dealing with the great religious minds of the West.
Fake Herzog: In terms of judges and the Constitution, I can understand your concern with activism. Interestingly, the Court of the 50s and 60s was activist for liberal causes and the Court of the past twenty years has been activist for conservative causes. No Supreme Court justice in history has been more activist than Scalia. But none has been more activist than William O Douglas either.
But I think the activism is beside the point. You say clearly that you believe the Constitution is sufficient and that it provides for enough rights and powers in the right proportions. That’s the point of our disagreement. The Constitution was written in 1787 (or in and about that year). The US of 1787 and the US of 2012 are so completely different that it seems to me obvious that the document must be changed in many important and significant ways in order to address the enormous number of changes the country has gone through. To imagine that the writers of the original document, amended 27 times, were otherwise perfect (other than those 27 times) is in some ways belittling to those writers. You want originalist thinking? Try this: the people who wrote the Constitution would not agree with you that it is now sufficient to the task of forming the basis of all laws in the country.
The answer to your question about believers who are also scientists, is that only those Catholics (and others) who have refused to accept the Bible as absolute truth have been scientists who have contributed to the knowledge of mankind. No scientist in history has ever considered the Bible to be absolute truth. Not one. Because such a rigid belief closes a person to the possibility of learning and growing.
dojero,
It is fun arguing with a liberal, because you always are forced to drill down to so-called “first things” before you can even figure out what you are arguing about. You and I don’t share a definition of “activist judges”, and we don’t share the same basic philosophy about the proper role and responsibility of the federal government versus the various states in the United States, so of course we aren’t going to agree on how the U.S. Constitution needs to be amended for modern times. Unlike you (and I’m assuming most liberals) I don’t believe that just because technology or social customs change we need to change our fundamental laws (as opposed to our day to day laws), because I think people’s basic values and ideals don’t change over time. But this is a much larger topic and it is kind of silly to argue about it over a couple of comments in a blog post.
Meanwhile, back to basic definitions — you are just being silly now repeating yourself. Basic orthodox Christianity accepts the Bible as “absolute truth”. Now, we can go back and forth on what you mean by “abolute truth” and what I mean by “abolute truth”, but you are just factually wrong about scientists and their understanding of the Bible. To pick just one of my favorite French scientists, there is no question that this guy believed in the absolute truth of the Bible:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lema%C3%AEtre
I dare you to prove otherwise.
Fake Herzog: If you believe that Lemiatre believed in the absolute truth of the Bible, then you are either simply ignorant of Lemaitre or you don’t understand the English language. Lemaitre was a developer of the Big Bang Theory and in no way would have supported the concept of God creating the earth in seven days, which is how the Bible begins.
It’s dumb to believe that the Bible is right about the origins of the planet and man and it’s dumb to claim that a man who developed a theory of the origins of the universe believed in that dumb idea.
dojero,
Let me quote myself: “we can go back and forth on what you mean by “abolute truth” and what I mean by “abolute truth”.
I’m afraid we have to go through this tedious exercise as you don’t understand that there is a difference between the Bible being the abolute truth and reading the Bible word for word literally. Of course every Christian with basic common sense knows that every book of the Bible cannot be read literally, some books are poetic, some are metaphorical, some are historical, etc. But that doesn’t mean Genesis, to take one example, isn’t the abolute truth — it is the abolute truth but it takes a careful reader to understand the deep spiritual truths that are to be discerned within Genesis. For example, the point of the creation story is not that it describes in step by step detail how God created the Earth, but that God did create the Earth in the first place. God the creator (and sustainer of all life) is what makes science intelligible in the first place to a Christian philosopher and someone like Lemaitre started from that premise and then said to himself (I’m guessing) “how did God’s awesome creation unfold across space and time”? And over the years he developed the Big Bang theory.
In other places in Genesis the author (Moses?) refers to the hand of God — does this mean God, who we know from other Biblical references is beyond space and time, also has hands like you and me? Or course not. The author was just using a metaphor to make a point. So we have to understand the genre of the book we are reading before we go off half-cocked to claim the Bible is ignorant or somehow in error.
Fake Herzog: You’re right about the futility of this discussion. There’s no point in discussing the idiocy of the Bible with a person who believes it to be the absolute truth. By your standard, nearly all fiction is “absolute truth”, because nearly all fiction can be said to be metaphor, poetry, or whatever.
So I concede. By this definition of “absolute truth”, the Bible is no less absolutely true than Alice in Wonderland or Catcher in the Rye.
Given that we get to have all fiction be “absolute truth”, there’s nothing to either recommend the Bible nor to remove it from the list we might consult. My own preference for works of fiction that provide such “absolute truth” would be The Phantom Tollbooth or Le Petit Prince.
No more. I won’t respond to any additional comments in this particular thread. I concede on the basis of this tautological definition.