Notes from the Labyrinth
Unobtainium and Dragons' Bones
more from Franz Neumann 
18th-Feb-2010 11:28 am
ws: hamlet


First, although Neumann is, as I said, Marxist like whoa and not always particularly nuanced in his analysis, I want to single out this passage as the point where I said, Yes. I like this man. Because it's such a relief, after one has been wading through Nazi ideology, to get a passage that combines common sense with common decency--and in fact insists that both should be common:
Hardly any other ideological element is held in such profound contempt in our civilization as international law. Every generation has seen it break down as an instrument for organizing peace, and a theory that disposes of its universalist claims has the obvious advantage of appearing to be realistic. The fallacy should be equally obvious, however. To abandon universalism because of its failures is like rejecting civil rights because they help legitimize and veil class exploitation, or democracy because it conceals boss control, or Christianity because churches have corrupted Christian morals. Faced with a corrupt administration of justice, the reasonable person does not demand a return to the war of each against all, but fights for an honest system. Likewise, when we have shown that international law has been misused for imperialistic aims, our task has begun, not ended. We must fight against imperialism.
(158-159)

The really awful thing is how completely germane this is and continues to be sixty years after he wrote it.

The second thing: I don't think I've said it explicitly, but one of the things I find most disturbing about Holocaust denial is the way in which it not only defends the Nazis in its content, but emulates them in its form. The NSDAP was a superb practitioner of Know-Nothingism, and my second passage from Neumann for today shows that they were negationists as well:
[...] there is the characteristic trick of every National Socialist criticism of a traditional Western conception. For they make no attempt to transform the socio-economic structure so as to make the formal equality real. Instead, they use a legitimate critique to abolish even legal equality. This technique characterizes the whole conceptual and intellectual framework of National Socialism.
(162-163)

It's the same thing the Holocaust deniers do: critique becomes negation, and negation becomes propaganda.

And, you know, it's not so far off what the Tea Partiers are doing. Critique leads not to reform, but to negation--in their case, secession. The content is different--and I can't stress enough that this is merely a structural comparison and does not in any way, for instance, suggest moral equivalencies--but the pattern of behavior is the same.
Comments 
18th-Feb-2010 06:49 pm (UTC)
And, you know, it's not so far off what the Tea Partiers are doing. Critique leads not to reform, but to negation--in their case, secession.

Bang on. You're reached a point which has been both nagging at me and eluding me. And especially in your observation that this is not a moral equivalency, but a behavior pattern.

Thank you.
18th-Feb-2010 08:55 pm (UTC)
You're welcome! I'm glad that my maundering is useful to you.
18th-Feb-2010 07:32 pm (UTC)
The problem I have with universalism at the "world government" model is that so much of our current political debate is informed by examples from different states or different countries which do things differently. If we actually achieved a uniform set of laws and practices, we'd have lost most of the substantive (as opposed to pure propaganda and manipulation) content of our debate. We can argue for a single-payer health plan by pointing out that nobody has actually achieved a workable system any other way, for example, with quite a variety of examples to look at. Not all that many people make enough of their political decisions rationally based on information, but I'd hate to see it decline!
18th-Feb-2010 10:45 pm (UTC)
That's not the kind of universalism Neumann means. He's talking specifically about universal state sovereignty, the idea that each state is or should be equal in international law--i.e., the idea which the Nazis rejected in favor of racial sovereignty.
18th-Feb-2010 10:52 pm (UTC)
Huh, I'd never heard anybody object to that def. of universal. Although it's probably why the UN is so useless.
18th-Feb-2010 10:53 pm (UTC)
No, going back to read what you're quoting originally, I can't read it that way. Since you've read more of it you're presumably right about what he's on about, but I don't feel like I misunderstood the first time now.
19th-Feb-2010 02:26 am (UTC)
I have nothing substantive to add, but want to note that I am part of that subset of your readership that is interested in this.
19th-Feb-2010 02:44 am (UTC)
Thank you for telling me.
19th-Feb-2010 05:19 pm (UTC)
As am I.
19th-Feb-2010 06:05 pm (UTC)
Thank you. I'm (obviously) going to keep blogging about it anyway, but I feel better knowing that there are people who are interested.
19th-Feb-2010 03:26 am (UTC)
Faced with a corrupt administration of justice, the reasonable person does not demand a return to the war of each against all, but fights for an honest system.

Wow, THIS.
20th-Feb-2010 12:45 am (UTC)
As both someone who's way into history and pays close attention to politics and current events I'm also interested.

"When making public policy decisions about new technologies for the Government, I think one should ask oneself which technologies would best strengthen the hand of a police state. Then, do not allow the Government to deploy those technologies."-Philip Zimmermann
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