Is the Left Evil?
The Banality of the American Left
By Daniel G. Jennings
In the last few days quite a few people have called CU-Boulder Professor of Indian Affairs Ward Churchill and his extreme left wing beliefs “evil.” One of Churchill’s former students called him that in a newspaper article and the Colorado State legislature has branded Churchill’s writings “evil.”
Churchill’s writings are certainly repugnant he has called for more Sept. 11 style attacks, branded America an evil empire, the destruction of the United States, praised the Sept. 11 hijackers and compared victims of Sept. 11 to Nazi war criminal Adolph Eichmann, one of the architects of the Holocaust.* But are the tenured professor and former department chair and those who share such beliefs such as MIT linguist Noam Chomsky “evil?”
We should obviously be hesitant to brand anybody or anything evil but there is some truth in the characterization. No, Churchill, Chomsky and company aren’t evil monsters in any sense of the word but there is a sort of evil to their beliefs. A banal evil that explains much of the appeal and power of the Far Left in America today.
After observing Adolph Eichmann in Israel in 1961 where he was on trial for his crimes after years of exile in South America, author Hannah Arendt wrote of the banality of evil. She was struck by the ordinary and even mundane humanity of Eichmann who was recently working as an electrician at a Mercedes factory in Argentina. The architect of such terrible evil was an ordinary little man who didn’t seem different from those around him.
A similar thing can be said of Ward Churchill and his fellow leftists. If media reports can be believed Churchill lives a fairly ordinary upper middle class existence he lives in a large ranch house in a suburban cul-de-sac outside Boulder and drives to work everyday in his pickup truck. * At work he is a fairly ordinary college lecturer who teaches a few classes and participates in the administration of his department. Obviously a nice life but also a boring hum drum existence.
Yet by buying into extreme left wing ideology, Churchill can transform himself into something else. When he dons his leftist cape and cowl Ward Churchill, middle aged chain smoking college professor from Boulder, Colorado, is transformed into Ward Churchill great Indian warrior and brave and bold revolutionary. Churchill becomes a sort of left wing super hero living in a comic bookish alternate reality.
In the alternate universe of Churchill’s comic book ideology; the United States is an evil empire that has long oppressed poor indigenous people and terrorized the world, average middle class Americans are evil Nazis and Christopher Columbus an evil super villain. That’s not any sort of legitimate ideology or philosophy it’s a very sick fantasy.
So what Ward Churchill and a lot of other leftists such as Michael Moore are doing is living out a fantasy. Churchill has dressed up as Che Guevera, he falsely claims to be a Native American and a leading member of the American Indian Movement (which has repudiated him).* Every year he and some fellow activists travel to Downtown Denver and disrupt the local Columbus Day Parade because it celebrates genocide against Indians. He and his ilk have compared the parade marchers, a few elderly and middle aged Italian Americans celebrating their heritage, to the Ku Klux Klan. Obviously, disrupting the Columbus Day parade boosts Churchill’s ego and lets him establish his credentials as an “activist.” It does nothing to help Native Americans or change the world.
The Churchill case demonstrates what makes the Far Left so popular in America today. It allows ordinary people to live out a fantasy of being activists fighting the forces of evil. In other words the Far Left may have more in common with Star Trek fandom or fantasy role playing than a legitimate political movement. A group of bored middle and upper class people dressing up in costumes and acting out a fantasy regardless of the consequences. This explains why people participate in meaningless demonstrations that often hurt the election prospects of liberal candidates.
Is there a danger from this kind of banal fantasy? Yes, there will always be a tiny minority of true believers in such fantasies who will try to make them a reality. Remember Timothy McVeigh he tried to make the sick racist fantasies in the Turner Diaries a reality and killed several hundred people in Oklahoma City? Or Bin Laden he’s certainly living out a sick fantasy of some sort, the little man hiding in the cave in Pakistan believes he’s the leader of Islam and future conqueror of the world.
Churchill, Chomsky and company are no threat to anybody. They’ll never risk their comfortable middle class existence, their nice salaries, big houses, big cars and country club memberships for their beliefs but there will be others probably living on the margins of society who will.
It’s not Ward Churchill we should worry about it’s the Wal-Mart maintenance man who still lives with his mother and has a shelf full of Chomsky and Churchill’s works. When he isn’t reading Churchill, the maintenance man is down in the basement studying old army manuals and practicing his bomb-making skills. Sooner or later this nut will blow up something and kill a bunch of innocent people. Then he’ll be arrested and put on trial for his crimes and start spouting Churchill and Chomsky’s rhetoric and get mad when his heroes don’t show up to defend him.
Yes there is evil to Ward Churchill’s beliefs, the evil of a banal fantasy designed to excite and empower bored bourgeois. Unfortunately Nazism, Communism and Radical Islam are also banal fantasies that appeal to the middle class and those beliefs started wars, inspired terrorism and led to the deaths of millions of innocent people.
The question facing us is how do we stop the banal fantasies of nasty little men like Ward Churchill from turning into an ugly reality?
* “Some People Push Back On the Justice of Roosting Chickens” Ward Churchill, Pockets of Resistance #11, Sept. 2001. Posted at www.darknightpress.org
* “Churchill defiant in face of outcry” Charlie Brennan, Rocky Mountain News Feb. 5, 2005.
* “Prof’s genealogy is sketchy; he offers little clarification” Kevin Flynn Rocky Mountain News Feb. 5, 2005.
By Daniel G. Jennings
In the last few days quite a few people have called CU-Boulder Professor of Indian Affairs Ward Churchill and his extreme left wing beliefs “evil.” One of Churchill’s former students called him that in a newspaper article and the Colorado State legislature has branded Churchill’s writings “evil.”
Churchill’s writings are certainly repugnant he has called for more Sept. 11 style attacks, branded America an evil empire, the destruction of the United States, praised the Sept. 11 hijackers and compared victims of Sept. 11 to Nazi war criminal Adolph Eichmann, one of the architects of the Holocaust.* But are the tenured professor and former department chair and those who share such beliefs such as MIT linguist Noam Chomsky “evil?”
We should obviously be hesitant to brand anybody or anything evil but there is some truth in the characterization. No, Churchill, Chomsky and company aren’t evil monsters in any sense of the word but there is a sort of evil to their beliefs. A banal evil that explains much of the appeal and power of the Far Left in America today.
After observing Adolph Eichmann in Israel in 1961 where he was on trial for his crimes after years of exile in South America, author Hannah Arendt wrote of the banality of evil. She was struck by the ordinary and even mundane humanity of Eichmann who was recently working as an electrician at a Mercedes factory in Argentina. The architect of such terrible evil was an ordinary little man who didn’t seem different from those around him.
A similar thing can be said of Ward Churchill and his fellow leftists. If media reports can be believed Churchill lives a fairly ordinary upper middle class existence he lives in a large ranch house in a suburban cul-de-sac outside Boulder and drives to work everyday in his pickup truck. * At work he is a fairly ordinary college lecturer who teaches a few classes and participates in the administration of his department. Obviously a nice life but also a boring hum drum existence.
Yet by buying into extreme left wing ideology, Churchill can transform himself into something else. When he dons his leftist cape and cowl Ward Churchill, middle aged chain smoking college professor from Boulder, Colorado, is transformed into Ward Churchill great Indian warrior and brave and bold revolutionary. Churchill becomes a sort of left wing super hero living in a comic bookish alternate reality.
In the alternate universe of Churchill’s comic book ideology; the United States is an evil empire that has long oppressed poor indigenous people and terrorized the world, average middle class Americans are evil Nazis and Christopher Columbus an evil super villain. That’s not any sort of legitimate ideology or philosophy it’s a very sick fantasy.
So what Ward Churchill and a lot of other leftists such as Michael Moore are doing is living out a fantasy. Churchill has dressed up as Che Guevera, he falsely claims to be a Native American and a leading member of the American Indian Movement (which has repudiated him).* Every year he and some fellow activists travel to Downtown Denver and disrupt the local Columbus Day Parade because it celebrates genocide against Indians. He and his ilk have compared the parade marchers, a few elderly and middle aged Italian Americans celebrating their heritage, to the Ku Klux Klan. Obviously, disrupting the Columbus Day parade boosts Churchill’s ego and lets him establish his credentials as an “activist.” It does nothing to help Native Americans or change the world.
The Churchill case demonstrates what makes the Far Left so popular in America today. It allows ordinary people to live out a fantasy of being activists fighting the forces of evil. In other words the Far Left may have more in common with Star Trek fandom or fantasy role playing than a legitimate political movement. A group of bored middle and upper class people dressing up in costumes and acting out a fantasy regardless of the consequences. This explains why people participate in meaningless demonstrations that often hurt the election prospects of liberal candidates.
Is there a danger from this kind of banal fantasy? Yes, there will always be a tiny minority of true believers in such fantasies who will try to make them a reality. Remember Timothy McVeigh he tried to make the sick racist fantasies in the Turner Diaries a reality and killed several hundred people in Oklahoma City? Or Bin Laden he’s certainly living out a sick fantasy of some sort, the little man hiding in the cave in Pakistan believes he’s the leader of Islam and future conqueror of the world.
Churchill, Chomsky and company are no threat to anybody. They’ll never risk their comfortable middle class existence, their nice salaries, big houses, big cars and country club memberships for their beliefs but there will be others probably living on the margins of society who will.
It’s not Ward Churchill we should worry about it’s the Wal-Mart maintenance man who still lives with his mother and has a shelf full of Chomsky and Churchill’s works. When he isn’t reading Churchill, the maintenance man is down in the basement studying old army manuals and practicing his bomb-making skills. Sooner or later this nut will blow up something and kill a bunch of innocent people. Then he’ll be arrested and put on trial for his crimes and start spouting Churchill and Chomsky’s rhetoric and get mad when his heroes don’t show up to defend him.
Yes there is evil to Ward Churchill’s beliefs, the evil of a banal fantasy designed to excite and empower bored bourgeois. Unfortunately Nazism, Communism and Radical Islam are also banal fantasies that appeal to the middle class and those beliefs started wars, inspired terrorism and led to the deaths of millions of innocent people.
The question facing us is how do we stop the banal fantasies of nasty little men like Ward Churchill from turning into an ugly reality?
* “Some People Push Back On the Justice of Roosting Chickens” Ward Churchill, Pockets of Resistance #11, Sept. 2001. Posted at www.darknightpress.org
* “Churchill defiant in face of outcry” Charlie Brennan, Rocky Mountain News Feb. 5, 2005.
* “Prof’s genealogy is sketchy; he offers little clarification” Kevin Flynn Rocky Mountain News Feb. 5, 2005.
posted by great one at 4:56 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home