Bernard-Henri Levy (BHL, as he is known in France) arrived at Powell’s last night (Tuesday) just a little late, fashionably late, actually, because he looked great in his black suit and deep purple shirt. He’s been here before, two years ago, to read from American Vertigo, his travelogue through American places and faces, and so he knew the landscape — the smallish Powell’s lecture nook packed with… well, really I have no idea, maybe “fans.” The woman sitting next to me had heard him on OPB and decided to come hear him in person. She was grading papers from a high school French class and speaking French with those around her. Which gave me pause when I first took my seat. Would BHL be lecturing in, horrors, French?
No, he would not. Accented English, yes, but confidently employed, expressive English. And what was his subject? One of his favorites since his first big book (Barbarism With a Human Face) more than 30 years ago — the problems with the Left. Of course, the problems then were much bigger than now, specifically the embrace of Stalinism, either actively or passively, by Left and Left-leaning parties and intellectuals. Now, the Left in Europe is ineffective and practically “broken,” or so it feels in France, I suspect, after the election of Sarkozy, an old friend or “buddy” of BHL’s, who appeared in BHL’s talk (and the beginning of his new book) several times.
So what’s left to criticize? BHL argued that the Left (or Liberals, in the American formulation, though Liberal doesn’t quite have the historical depth or granularity of the European Left) has abandoned many of its core principles to embrace another ideology, another Grand Narrative, that of anti-Imperialism, American Imperialism. And in dividing the world into Evil (the U.S. and Israel and their supporters) and Good (the rest of the world), the Left manages to overlook little things like the genocide in Rwanda, the bloodbath in Darfur (BHL doesn’t think it qualifies as genocide at this point), the suppression of democracy in Iran or the rights of native peoples in Ecuador. These don’t fit the Narrative.
What are the principles BHL thinks the Left stand for? He listed them: 1) An embrace of historic Liberalism and its belief in the reconciliation of equality and liberty. 2) Internationalism, the contention that the idea of “nations” isn’t intrinsic and often is harmful. 3) Universal values, the contention that human rights in the U.S. (equality between men and women, democracy, opposition to torture, etc.) are the same as human rights in Iran and should not subject to cultural differences. 4) Taking the part of victims. “To be a liberal means very often to have a body of ideas that makes you blind and deaf to the suffering of Darfur,” BHL said.
And that led to his reading from his new book, Left in Dark Times, which continued that theme, in the rolling, almost stream-of-consciousness sentences that propel the book along. The book is a sort of explanation of how and why BHL became a member of the “family” of the Left, a lot of personal history about his early days as a political activist/philosopher, his reactions to various recent events from the riots in immigrant neighborhoods around Paris to the continuing conflict in Darfur, and then his analysis of the inability of the Left to come to grips with the very real problems real people in the world face. It doesn’t read like philosophy at all, and some would argue that BHL isn’t really a philosopher at all, more an opportunist and a self-promoter.
After BHL finished his reading, which was vigorous and expressive, the book held up to his face with one hand, the other gesturing almost theatrically, his face concentrated and active as he read, he took some questions. The first was from famous Portland Leftist, Joe Uris, who wondered if BHL was overlooking the many examples of American transgression in the world. Like Iraq, say. That allowed BHL to roll out his own Left credentials, his opposition to Vietnam and Pinochet in Chile, the war in Iraq, etc. But it also allowed him to expand a key point: The Left’s idea of the American Empire is wrong, because it’s rooted in 19th century ideas of imperialism. Times change and concepts have to change. The U.S. isn’t Great Britain or France in 1880, or Belgium in the Congo, he might have added. To a later question, he segued into an attack on American Neo-Conservatives, who have hijacked the ideas of democracy and human rights and used them to justify the invasion of Iraq. “Save the principles of democracy and human rights from these guys.”
“The real victims of the Iranian regime is not us, it’s the Iranians.” But the Left can’t recognize that because it doesn’t fit into the Narrative. It won’t argue for dissident students or support efforts to democratize the country or condemn unequal treatment of women. It might have its reasons, but they are spurious. And then BHL expressed his fear of the Palin-McCain ticket (“you might have a president who believes that dinosaurs were walking around here 3,000 years ago, a nightmare”), his support of Obama (about whom he wrote a positive account four years ago, he said), and the moral decay represented by the current financial crisis. And that was about it, except for hearty applause and a long line of book buyers.
What struck me most was how pragmatic BHL’s account sounded. Art Scatter old-timers will remember several early posts that featured John Dewey and Richard Rorty and attempted to show how old-timey American Pragmatism seemed to pop up in unlikely places. I feel similarly about BHL (and several other Continental philosophers). He’s anti-ideological, keen to the way ideology limits our ability to describe the world in useful ways, even when it’s well-intended. Of course, that’s not limited to the Left, even though the flaws of the Left were the ones under discussion. And whatever your position on BHL might be, this particular line seems fair enough.
Other accounts of BHL? Carlin Romano has a positive one in The Chronicle of Higher Education, which also mentions the pragmatism of BHL. American Leftist Doug Ireland summarizes the anti-BHL position with delightful vitriol in In These Times. And we’ll toss in Christopher Hitchens review in the International Herald Tribune.