Ripping off the Mask
Then there was that Nick Cohen piece answering that excommunication by Peter Wilby that I commented on last week. He criticises the same thing I did.
The least attractive characteristic of the middle-class left – one shared with the Thatcherites – is its refusal to accept that its opponents are sincere. The legacy of Marx and Freud allows it to dismiss criticisms as masks which hide corruption, class interests, racism, sexism – any motive can be implied except fundamental differences of principle. Wilby went through a long list of what could have motivated mine and similar ‘betrayals’. Perhaps we became right wing as we got older. Perhaps we wanted to stick our snouts into the deep troughs of the Tory press. Perhaps taking out a mortgage committed us to the capitalist system or having children encouraged petit bourgeois individualism of the most anti-social kind. Generously in light of the above charge sheet, he plumped for the conclusion that our restless minds just got bored with the ‘straitjacket’ of left-wing thought. We left the slog of building a better world to the decent plodders.
And not only that its opponents are sincere, but also that its opponents are in fact motivated by what they say they are motivated by: ideas, facts, thoughts, evidence, reasons. That the motivation is in fact cognitive rather than fiscal or procreative or some other stupid venal trivial factor. That’s the part that irritates me. It’s not just the smug ‘I know why you’re doing what you’re doing even if you won’t admit it so ha’ trope – although that is plenty irritating all on its own – it’s also the underlying assumption that ideas aren’t strong enough to motivate anyone. Well why wouldn’t they be? Why? Because we’re all dime-store Freuds and think every rational explanation is necessarily a mask for a desire to have sex with the dog or to eat our best friend for lunch? Let’s hope not, because surely dime-store Freudianism (and the upmarket kind too) has been well and truly discredited for some time now. Sometimes a cigar is indeed just a cigar, and a rational reason really is just a rational reason.
…when confronted with a movement of contemporary imperialism – Islamism wants an empire from the Philippines to Gibraltar – and which is tyrannical, homophobic, misogynist, racist and homicidal to boot, they feel it is valid because it is against Western culture…Who is going to help the victims of religious intolerance in Britain’s immigrant communities? Not the Liberal Democrats, who have never once offered support to liberal and democrats in Iraq. Nor an anti-war left which prefers to embrace a Muslim Association of Britain and Yusuf al-Qaradawi who believe that Muslims who freely decide to change their religion or renounce religion should be executed.
That’s a very genuine reason to say ‘No thanks.’ A more convincing explanation is surplus to requirements.
It is painfully obvious that Peter Wilby is really motivated by penis-envy. By searching for Nick Cohen’s “real” motives, he is actually revealing his own unconscious desire to steal Nick’s member and attach it to the smooth patch of skin between his own legs, thus depriving his critic of his potency and magically acquiring the moxie Wilby himself so sorely lacks. This psychological mechanism is so obvious it does not need proof.
If Cohen claims that RESPECT and co are the whole of the ‘anti-war left’ once more, I’m going to get more than a little pissed off with him. Four letters: WCPI.
I don’t really care why Cohen’s changed his position on the War on [some] terror. But there are logically demonstrable problems with some of the things that he’s claiming about the issue.
I don’t know how it is across the pond, but Stateside the decent anti-war left refuses to ostracize the loony left, and it has paid the price in political impotence and castration (to continue the Freudian theme above). I kept asking my decent anti-war activist friends why they didn’t publicly, vociferously dissociate themselves from groups like ANSWER and all the other raving loonies who hijacked every rally and spouted the kind of vicious paranoid crap that’s practically guaranteed to make every decent person flee to the nearest American Legion outpost. But they just gave me a fishy look, as if I were some secret agent from the Bush administration who was trying to undermine their movement by dissuading them from forming smart alliances with the fruitcakes.
Perceptive readers may have spotted a familial relation between Karl Freud’s piece and his analysis of Wilby’s motives. Reading between the lines, and with the aid of many years study of Sigmund’s writings, I recognize that under the cloak of satire (and completely unconsciously) he is actually trying to promote the ideas of his great-great-great Uncle, twice removed.
Astute readers will recognize that Mr. Esterson is engaging in projection when he attributes unconscious motives to my esteemed self. Such projection is usually caused by trauma during the anal stage of infantile development.
And for those scoffers who demand proof for my analysis of Mr. Wilby’s real motives, I need only point out that his first name is Peter, a colloquial term for “penis,” while his last name is a dream-pun on the word wilt, which is highly indicative of severe impotence anxiety. Thus we see that unconsciously Peter Wilby is re-enacting at an unconscious level the trauma implied by his name and attempting to rectify this trauma by stealing the phallus (and by extension the potency) of the Ur-Father represented in the figure of the intimidating Mr. Cohen. QED
Oy vey! Granted there are limits to the hermeneutics of suspicion and the reductio ad hominem,- (though when these are turned upon religious beliefs here, they are supposed simply to evoke cheers from the peanut gallery, regardless of any complexities in traditions and situations),- but I suppose the matter here boils down to to gets to decide the exception. If you’d bother to look over at CT, a link was provided on a post on this very topic to a N. Cohen colunm from early 2002, which I found fairly unexceptional, except that it’s diametrically opposed to his current professions,- (which apparently began just a year later),- which does, legitimately raise into salience the question of just why he made such a spectacular volte face. (He even opposed the war in Afghanistan, for Christ’s sake, which, though I’m not in the habit of supporting wars, which are never “justified”, only more or less “necessary”, I didn’t oppose, and only would oppose retrospectively, in terms of its utter failure, in terms of what should have been its methods, objects and ends, i.e. specifically the exemplary reconstruction of that tragically war-torn and fatally abandonned country.) So the fact of the matter is that there is a real explanandum here that won’t be satisfied by repudiating polemics, nor by evasive and antiseptic arguments, that, through the sheer denial of current reality, as best as we can discern it through faulty media reporting, amounts to sheer sophistry and patheticly preening self-justification. Did the pro-war “liberal” crowd fail to grasp that they were allying themselves, via tertiam non datur, with reactionary forces and interests that are far more potent and violent than the reactionary configurations that they so valiantly opposed? And do they still fail to grasp that the strategies actually adopted by the powers-that-be are not only quite differently motivated, but completely fail, nay, are counterproductive, toward defusing the very reactionary tendencies that they feel so threatened by, but actually threaten far more quite distant and alien others? And then they have the unmitigated gall to accuse their opponents of allying with reaction! It appears that they have entered into an imaginary that is far more po-mo than the po-mos.
Come on, Sigmund FRAUD, please!
Perhaps people should re-read the late P. B. Medawar’s book “Plutos Republic” which included the most devastating critique of psychoanalysis and by implication, psychobabble, I’ve ever seen.
I am pretty sure that Karl and Allen are being sarcastic and facetious.
He even opposed the war in Afghanistan, for Christ’s sake…
If it is true that Nick Cohen had opposed the invasion of Afghanistan, his present position might indeed require a fuller explanation, although I think Wilby’s hunt for base and trivial motives is just plain silly. Why not just deal with the arguments pro and con and leave motives out of it?
Sorry- I’m new here so perhaps I don’t understand John C Halasz’s point. (Or maybe its a parody I haven’t got the hang of)
Is he seriously saying that the insurgents in Iraq or extremist Islamists in the UK are *not* reactionary?
Or is he saying that the reactionaries in Iraq are “nicer” than the reactionaries in the US?
Personally I hate both but, if pushed, I would go for reactionaries with some notion of democracy and human rights over the totalitarian islamo-facists of the Taliban and Al-Quaeda
John C. Halasz raises the pertinent question of just why Nick Cohen “made such a spectacular volte face”. Or to put it in terms I prefer, why he started to dissociate himself from the views of his former allies on the Left. Can anybody pin down when this occurred, and if he gave his reasons at the time?
Musing about possible reasons, might Cohen argue that he came to see things differently when he saw that many of his erstwhile colleagues were associating themselves with organisations he vehemently opposes, or that the most vocal of the anti-War crowd held views that he found objectionable, and drew the conclusion he must be on the wrong side? I don’t think that this would suffice. I was opposed to the invasion. I also despise many in the anti-War crowd and the arguments they put forward, but that hasn’t caused me to change my mind about the inadvisability of the invasion.
“The least attractive characteristic of the middle-class left – one shared with the Thatcherites – is its refusal to accept that its opponents are sincere”
This from Nick Cohen, a man who spends a considerable portion of his time claiming that anyone that opposed the war in Iraq is somehow objectively pro-fascism. Way to engage with the nuances there Nick.
“I don’t know how it is across the pond, but Stateside the decent anti-war left refuses to ostracize the loony left, and it has paid the price in political impotence and castration (to continue the Freudian theme above).”
But is it not funny that the decent pro-war crowd are -not- asked to ostracize the loony pro-war right? I mean, let’s face it, a whopping great big proportion of your population believed that war in Iraq was something to do with Sept 11th, and much of the pro-war crowd did nothing to disabuse them of this notion. So motes and beams.
Allen, I think, despite Cohen’s objections, you have to take a slightly more psychological analysis than he wants. With others I would be less inclined to do so, there were perfectly valid reasons for opposing or supporting the war, the evaluation of which it is probably still to early to judge, but Cohen has that zeal and vehemence of the newly converted, he seems to care rather more about who associates with who (which side you’re on), rather than evaluating the wisdom of an action based on its likely consequences, which would be the rational way of going about things.
I believe there is a thread on crooked timber on this very subject.
“I am pretty sure that Karl and Allen are being sarcastic and facetious.”
Moi? Sarcastic? How DARE you, sir! Anyway, it’s only because of your transference-caused sexual feelings towards me that you dismiss my potent psychological arguments by labeling them as sarcasm. The first step on the road to recovery is to stop denying the truth.
“But is it not funny that the decent pro-war crowd are -not- asked to ostracize the loony pro-war right?”
Sure, it’s funny. Funny as a fart in church. But the pro-war side doesn’t pay any political price for its loonies. The anti-war side does. So, if you want to be politically effective, dump the loonies. Unless of course you prefer the masochistic pleasure of having your political testicles ripped off and flushed down the toilet, so to speak. But that’s a deep-rooted problem that will take years of intensive twice-weekly therapy to cure. My rates are reasonable. Call my secretary and schedule an appointment soon.
>I think, despite Cohen’s objections, you have to take a slightly more psychological analysis than he wants…<
>Cohen has that zeal and vehemence of the newly converted< PM, that still leaves unanswered why he changed (some of) his views.
“But the pro-war side doesn’t pay any political price for its loonies. The anti-war side does. So, if you want to be politically effective, dump the loonies.”
But that is a question of tactics, not principles.
“PM, that still leaves unanswered why he changed (some of) his views.”
True, but I think his focus on sides, groups and personalities suggests it is not necessarily for rational reasons to do with consequentalist reasoning.
“But that is a question of tactics, not principles.”
Yeah? So?
>”PM, that still leaves unanswered why he changed (some of) his views.”
True, but I think his focus on sides, groups and personalities suggests it is not necessarily for rational reasons to do with consequentalist reasoning.< I still would like to know what reasons he gives!
He claims that he read Berman and the scales fell from his eyes, etc.
Yes – the article published on this very site and first published on Norm’s does explain the changes in Nick’s thinking. It’s on the front page.