The Inversion of the Liberal Class

OCTOBER 25, 2010

This morning I was reading Chris Hedges' insightful essay The World Liberal
Opportunists Made, where he squarely puts the responsibility of the destruction of the left
onto the liberal class (the press, the church, universities, labor unions, the arts and the
Democratic Party), which traded its historical principles for access to power and money.
His critique of artists is particularly searing:

Artistic expression, along with most religious worship, is largely self-absorbed narcissism
meant to entertain without offense.

Hedges explains how the current rise of demagogues on the right can be seen as the direct
result of the failure of the liberal class to offer any credible alternative to the corporate
state:

The collapse of liberal institutions means those outside the circles of power are trapped,
with no recourse, and this is why many Americans are turning in desperation toward
idiotic right-wing populists who at least understand the power of hatred as a mobilizing
force.

Aside from the usual themes present in Hedges' critique, I would like to highlight a quote
in his essay from political scientist Russell Jacoby, which, in his book The End of Utopia:
Politics and Culture in the Age of Apathy, writes:

The left once dismissed the market as exploitative; it now honors the market as rational
and humane. The left once disdained mass culture as exploitative; now it celebrates it as
rebellious. The left once honored independent intellectuals as courageous; now it sneers
at them as elitist. The left once rejected pluralism as superficial; now it worships it as
profound. We are witnessing not simply a defeat of the left, but its conversion and
perhaps inversion.

The inversion of the left is a very interesting concept which can be observed in the
current smear campaign of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange coming from all sides,
including the liberal class and the establishment media.

Another good example of this inversion was clear in the recent debate over Don't Ask,
Don't Tell between Lt. Dan Choi and Queer Activist Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore which
took place on Democracy Now last Friday. In the debate, Sycamore pointed out the
absurdly hypocritical situation that the liberal class has put itself in on the Don't Ask,
Don't Tell debate. By pretending to champion civil liberties, the liberal class has put itself
in the awkward position of promoting the Empire and its deadly military machine. Dan
Choi, without a hint of irony, proudly made his own the title of one Chris Hedges' recent
books War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning in order to justify the U.S. military
machine:

I know this is going to sound like fingernails on the chalkboard to some of your viewers,
but war is a force that gives us meaning.

Sycamore, appropriately rebutted:

When Dan Choi says that war is a force that gives us meaning, I want to know what is the
meaning of the US obliterating Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan? What is the meaning of
soldiers pressing buttons in Nevada in order to destroy entire villages? You know, the
meaning is that the US is involved in wars for corporate profit and oil resources.

And Ive heard, you know, Dan Chois coming out story, and its a harrowing tale. And
as queers, you know, most of us grow up in a world that wants us to die or disappear.
And I think we see that with the coverage of the epidemic of teen suicides. So we
shouldnt be telling queer teens, "Oh, when you grow up, you can become part of the
same system thats destroying not only your life, but the lives of everyone in the world."

We need to be fighting for universal access to basic needs, things like housing and
healthcare and the right to stay in this country or leave if you want to. We need to be
fighting for comprehensive sex education, for AIDS healthcare, for senior care, for safe
houses for queer youth to escape abusive families. And the problem with all this attention
on the war machine, all this support for, you know, soldiers to serve openly in unjust
wars, the problem is that the military is whats taking away the ability to fund everything
in this country that would actually benefit, you know, the people who need the most. You
know, the war budgetif we could just, you know, take half the US war budget, wed be
able to have everything that we want in this country, whether its renewable energy,
whether its, you know, housing for everyone, whether its healthcare, whether its food
on the table. I mean, we need to get back to a struggle for basic needs.

The question is: how do we get back to a struggle for basic needs when the liberal class
has abandoned its historical core principles and values?

At this point, it seems that the most pressing question we have in front of ourselves is
what Lenin asked himself and the left slightly over a century ago: What Is To Be Done?