leftI've never really paid a great deal of attention to Naomi Klein. Anyone who surveys the landscape and concludes that the most pressing problem facing the world today is Nike doesn't seem worth expending much mental energy on. Her arguments seem so transparently ridiculous that it is a waste of time to bother refuting them. As Megan McArdle says:
But what's the point of disagreeing with Naomi Klein? It's like having an argument about economic policy with an eight year old. To have an interesting discussion, you would have to explain too many facts to the eight year old--facts that the child does't have any interest in learning. And the eight-year-old lacks a coherent intellectual framework into which to fit those facts; his reactions are pure instinctive emotion.
However, there is no denying that she is an increasingly influential figure, author of best-selling books who jets around the world giving lectures on the evils of capitalism. It's due to this rising prominence that I decided to read this New Yorker profile of her and her latest screed book The Shock Doctrine. I won't bother with the book or her economic philosophy, which you can see refuted here by the brilliant Johan Norberg who deserves a medal for reading and responding to what must have been 500+ pages of dreck.
What I was more fascinated by was the psychology revealed by the book of Klein and her ilk, what seems to me a really bizarre and misplaced romanticism.
When [Klein's older brother] Seth was little, he worried that all the good fights had already been fought, but Bonnie told him that she was sure he would find something that needed attending to, and from an early age he was on the lookout for what that thing might be—what fight would turn out to be his identity and his legacy. When he was in the sixth grade, his father took him to hear Helen Caldicott speak against nuclear weapons, and he decided that that was it. He started an anti-nuclear group, and after graduating he took a year off to travel around the country with the group, speaking to students.
That first sentence really struck me, a worry that all the good fights had already been fought. Not relief or thanks for all the progress that has been made, but a torment that he wouldn't get a chance to take up the revolutionary mantle. For these people politics is life. Che is not just an icon but a role model.
I am not exaggerating. Witness this quote from Klein's socialist father-in-law:
“I’m more fundamentalist now,” he says. “I have no patience for capitalism at all. I see now that there is almost nothing that is positive in this ugly international system, and that’s why I embrace Naomi’s view of the way the world works. I’m actually tired of my rhetorical outbursts—I’d like to engage in physical aggression.”
One gets the impression that in their ideal world these people would prefer to throw away their iPhones (Klein uses one) and take up a guerrilla existence deep in the jungle fighting off the menacing forces of Wal-Mart and Microsoft. Indeed, the article goes on to describe Klein as particularly fond of Zapatista rebel leader Subcommandant Marcos, who tries to cut a similarly dashing figure as Che.
And these people should lament, with many of the once-pressing battles already won. Women can vote and we're about to have a black president. We are living in the most peaceful time in human existence. But these people will not rest, for it isn't the outcome that they relish but the battle itself. If all the important fights have been fought then they will be deprived of the chance to relive the 60s, placing flowers in the barrels of guns and singing odes to themselves of change and struggle. They might even have to get a job.
With the urge to protest still beating fiercely in their breast they set off in search of new dragons to slay but find only windmills. The result is theaters of the absurd such as the "Battle of Seattle" WTO protests where the teeth gnashing on display was usually commensurate with the level of economic ignorance. These events were so much fun that participants attempted various re-enactments in DC and elsewhere. After all, how many times in your life do you get to put a doo rag around your face, chant slogans and raise your fist in the air while dodging tear gas?
With global poverty on the decline and rising prosperity across the world even this may one day run out as an issue. Already the days of G-7/IMF/World Bank protests seem like a fading memory, with climate change perhaps the heir apparent.
These people don't know what they're fighting for or against, but rest assured, they will continue the struggle.
2 comments:
The selfishness of people like this is apparent in the causes they chose. It is always about only about them and not truly about helping anyone else. Ironically, many of these types claim that is the problem with capitalism or the Western ills they rally against.
Even small contributions to the fight against AIDS, Malaria or extreme hunger and poverty in the third world helps so many people. Yet so many of these people who yearn for the good fights of the past focus their efforts on Global Warming or the latest cause celebre.
People make a living attending UN summits that cost tens of thousands of dollars. They travel to top destinations to discuss how to save the world with conferences held at 5-star hotels. Many try and write books or appear on TV. This is generalization and simplification of course, but as much as 70% of the population live on less than a $1 / day in parts of Africa it is difficult to believe that headline seekers are truly trying to help others, rather than help themselves.
The Shock Doctrine is the most thoroughly discredited public policy book of the last 10 years. It’s been destroyed by right-wing statists, left-wing statists (e.g., the New Republic), and even non-statists (e.g., Cato). It is truly astounding that anyone still takes this woman seriously. She’s just the kind of smiley-faced-statist that George Carlin warned us about.
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