Tony
13th May 2003, 05:26 AM
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110003467 ...full article
BY MICHAEL J. TOTTEN
Monday, May 12, 2003 12:01 a.m. EDT
After September 11, I discovered an intellectual weakness on the left that I never noticed before. For some reason, perhaps for several reasons, liberals and leftists are bored by the outside world.
Compared with conservative magazines, publications like The Nation and The American Prospect rarely feature articles about what happens in other countries. They'll do it occasionally, but almost always in the context of how it relates to America. The Nation might report on the effects of Iraqi sanctions, but rarely does it publish anything about Iraq in its own context. If you want to learn about the history of the Baath Party, Saddam's human-rights abuses, the fate of the Marsh Arabs, or Iraqi public opinion, you have to seek out magazines and journals of the center and the right.
Liberal blogger Gary Farber noticed something similar:
One problem I see is that only some leftists I know have actually engaged in a years-long course of education in the history of international politics (no, Howard Zinn isn't sufficient), or long study of military theory and history, or even, in many cases, long study of political history that isn't simply doctrinaire propaganda from a similar didactic point of view.
These two phenomena are, I think, very closely related. Those bored with foreign countries generally are less likely to study international politics and history.
Liberals think of themselves as more worldly than conservatives. This is true in some ways, but not so in others. It seems to me that liberals are more likely to travel, and are more likely to visit Third World countries in particular. (If you meet an American traveler in, say, Guatemala, odds are strongly against his being a Republican.) Liberals are more likely to listen to "world music" and are more likely to watch foreign films. Liberals are more likely than conservatives to study the negative consequences of American foreign policy. But that's about it. If you want to find someone who knows the history of prewar Nazi Germany, the Middle East during the Cold War, or the partition of India and Pakistan, you're better off looking to the right than to the left.
I am astonished and dismayed to discover this. I'm a lifelong liberal and I devour history like food. Not until after September 11 did I learn I'm a minority on the left.
This is a broad generalization and there are, of course, lots of exceptions. The New Republic and Dissent both publish excellent analyses of international relations and foreign policy. You can learn a lot about history and current events abroad by reading these magazines. And it isn't all filtered through a partisan lens. But look at other left magazines like The Nation. Foreign policy is unmentioned except as an excuse to whack the Bush administration. Read The Weekly Standard and National Review and you can easily find articles about, say, China or Iran. Many of these articles could easily have appeared in The Nation or other left magazines, and yet they didn't. Presumably the editors are bored with the subject, or their writers don't know enough to write about it.
BY MICHAEL J. TOTTEN
Monday, May 12, 2003 12:01 a.m. EDT
After September 11, I discovered an intellectual weakness on the left that I never noticed before. For some reason, perhaps for several reasons, liberals and leftists are bored by the outside world.
Compared with conservative magazines, publications like The Nation and The American Prospect rarely feature articles about what happens in other countries. They'll do it occasionally, but almost always in the context of how it relates to America. The Nation might report on the effects of Iraqi sanctions, but rarely does it publish anything about Iraq in its own context. If you want to learn about the history of the Baath Party, Saddam's human-rights abuses, the fate of the Marsh Arabs, or Iraqi public opinion, you have to seek out magazines and journals of the center and the right.
Liberal blogger Gary Farber noticed something similar:
One problem I see is that only some leftists I know have actually engaged in a years-long course of education in the history of international politics (no, Howard Zinn isn't sufficient), or long study of military theory and history, or even, in many cases, long study of political history that isn't simply doctrinaire propaganda from a similar didactic point of view.
These two phenomena are, I think, very closely related. Those bored with foreign countries generally are less likely to study international politics and history.
Liberals think of themselves as more worldly than conservatives. This is true in some ways, but not so in others. It seems to me that liberals are more likely to travel, and are more likely to visit Third World countries in particular. (If you meet an American traveler in, say, Guatemala, odds are strongly against his being a Republican.) Liberals are more likely to listen to "world music" and are more likely to watch foreign films. Liberals are more likely than conservatives to study the negative consequences of American foreign policy. But that's about it. If you want to find someone who knows the history of prewar Nazi Germany, the Middle East during the Cold War, or the partition of India and Pakistan, you're better off looking to the right than to the left.
I am astonished and dismayed to discover this. I'm a lifelong liberal and I devour history like food. Not until after September 11 did I learn I'm a minority on the left.
This is a broad generalization and there are, of course, lots of exceptions. The New Republic and Dissent both publish excellent analyses of international relations and foreign policy. You can learn a lot about history and current events abroad by reading these magazines. And it isn't all filtered through a partisan lens. But look at other left magazines like The Nation. Foreign policy is unmentioned except as an excuse to whack the Bush administration. Read The Weekly Standard and National Review and you can easily find articles about, say, China or Iran. Many of these articles could easily have appeared in The Nation or other left magazines, and yet they didn't. Presumably the editors are bored with the subject, or their writers don't know enough to write about it.