DANIEL BELL
631
munism. Thus, writing in
Survey
(London) in a special issue on capi–
talism, Edward Shils remarked that socialists and communists are
from the same family and that the fierce enmity which later de–
veloped between them derives from the original fraternal, and then
fratricidal nature of the movements. Now, to a Mohammedan it may
be that all Christians are alike, since he makes no distinction between
footwashing Baptists and High Church Anglicans. But it is false,
theoretically, to take a single axis and categorize all distinctions en–
tirely along that line.
If
one felt that these issues were being raised to
clarify the complex facets of beliefs, viewed from different perspec–
tives or vantage points, all this would be legitimate. But one senses
that this is not a debate but a desire to discredit. And that is where it
becomes invidious.
Three, there is the fact that the formulations of many con–
servative intellectuals are increasingly couched in ideological terms.
Ideology is reification, a frozen mimicry of reality, a hypostatization
of terms which gives false life to categories. One reads, increasingly,
(in capitalized letters), of The Media, The Liberals, The Universi–
ties, and then such assertions as "The Media are favorable to the
Soviet Union" or "The Liberals are unpatriotic." In some ways this
reification is the most disturbing of all. Not only is it a debasement of
language, but it is the formulation of issues in combat terms. (Lenin
once described all politics as
Kto-Kvo,
or "who-whom.") And there is
no middle ground. At the extreme, this leads to the reduction of
beliefs to motives, and the denial of legitimacy to one's opponents.
Four, underneath much of this fanfaronade is often an attitude
of self-righteousness and rectitude. This shriving attitude has be–
come characteristic of
Contentions,
the monthly newsletter of the
Committee for a Free World.
If
one reads the newsletter to find out
who are the enemies of the free world, it is astonishing to read at–
tacks on Michael Walzer for proposing some rules for equality, or on
Irving Howe for his memoirs. Walzer's and Howe's views may de–
serve criticism; but as enemies of the free world? Sometimes it is
hard to distinguish the Committee for a Free World from the Watch
by George McGovern and championed by
The New Republic.
What many neo–
conservatives do not wish to admit (or even understand) is that they have largely
carried the battle of ideas of the 1970s. But to admit that is to "lose" an enemy; and
in
ideological
politics, one never loses an enemy but reincarnates him in different
guises in order to maintain one's original momentum.
