Levy: "Moving Freely Across All Borders"

Being neither a fan of the unhinged left nor the God-on-our-side right, I frequently feel politically homeless. Even libertarianism, which comes closest to my own belief system, has tenets I can't sign off on. So what the hell am I?

Not that I consider myself an intellectual, but this quote, from French thinker/provocateur Bernard-Henri Levy in an interview with Salon, sums it up pretty well:

"The thing about American intellectuals that so surprises me is the way they always take the entire menu. They endorse the foreign policy so they feel obliged to endorse the attacks against the private life of Bill Clinton, the defense of the death penalty, the sale of firearms, and so on. I had this conversation with Bill Kristol [the editor of the Weekly Standard]. When I met him I saw the most recent issue of the Weekly Standard in the waiting room and there was a truly disgusting article in there about Clinton and his girlfriends. And I asked Kristol why, of course. Bill Kristol doesn't care about the sexual life of Bill Clinton. But my sense was that he felt that his endorsement of the war in Iraq also obliged him to endorse the attacks on Clinton. This I don't understand. And maybe I'm wrong, maybe Kristol really, deeply thinks that Clinton is a bastard, and that a blow job is a crime. Maybe. But I don't think so. There's this idea that the world is black and white, and if you go with black then everything has to be black — very strange, in a country that is supposed to be so pragmatic. ... American intellectuals have this strange need to ally themselves with a single side. I believe that it is the duty of intellectuals to allow and make room for complexity, to ally with no one, and to move freely across all borders, political or otherwise."  

Levy's new book — an account of his Toquevillean road trip across America — comes out today. I've already ordered my copy.

Comments

[Tlaloc]

Honestly you might want to consider anarchism. There are many different forms.

I've always regarded libertarians as people who see half the problem- i.e. government power. Socialists are people who see the other half of the problem- i.e. corporate power.
Anarchism then can (because again there are as many forms of anarchism as there are actual anarchists) see the whole problem.

If you are interested in my form of anarchism you can get an introduction here:
http://tlaloc.gnn.tv/blogs/1604/Anarchism_Synthesis

[Rob D.]

Check out this Rogier as its relevant to this discussion...

The Libertarian Option
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=510819

Stephen Gordon at HoT (HammerOfTruth.com) blogged about that article here...
http://hammeroftruth.com/2006/01/12/libertarian-campus-organizations-will-harvard-beat-auburn/

[Anonymous]

What's equally scary is that if you go with black and black becomes red, everything suddenly has to be red.

Of course, you can never find a group of people that is both large enough to effect democratic change and small enough that everyone agrees about everything.