Q&A: Right and Left in the Postmodern Context
Right and Left in the Postmodern Context
Question
Gadi Taub argues:
The main focus of Taub’s criticism of Israeli postmodernism is its “deconstructive” dimension. Postmodern thought generally claims that national, ideological, value-based, and all other cultural frameworks that human beings have are patterns created socially and historically, and that they contain an oppressive dimension (they precede the subject and “construct” it). Most postmodern thought is occupied with dismantling structures of discourse and the “grand narratives,” since it argues that there is no “high” or “low” culture, and no culture that is “better” or “worse.” In Israel this is expressed mainly in the criticism by thinkers committed to this line of thought of the Israeli melting pot, which, they claim, excluded non-Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants, as well as the Palestinians and Arab citizens of Israel. According to some postmodern critics and post-Zionists, a multicultural reality should be allowed, because, among other things, there cannot be any common denominator that does not reflect a power structure and a cultural preference for one group over another. According to Taub, what is perceived in these arguments as social-left-wing criticism is actually a right-wing individualist outlook. In his view, the criticism of shared values amounts to a call to dismantle society, which harms the weaker members, since the practical results of such moves are the dismantling of the welfare state, the economic and social privatization of society, and the loss of the possibility of solidarity and shared life. What appears, in his view, to be a radical left (postmodernist) is really nothing but an extreme right.
I understand that the Rabbi sees the correlation differently. Could you briefly write here where he is mistaken and how you see it?
Answer
I don’t think he is mistaken.
Discussion on Answer
Completely. And I’ve written this more than once. The radicalism of the two poles often meets in many cases (opinions are arranged on a circle, not on a line).
How then do you define yourself? As I understand it, you are a man of the right, so are you sharing the left-wing criticism? Or maybe besides the individualist value you also have a national value that balances it? That is, even for a right-wing person there can be tension between two values (except that in the end, the right-wing value is a bit stronger).
What’s happening here, really, is that the radicalism of both sides as he presents them (Gadi Taub) is basically anarchy. But it’s not the same anarchy. The anarchy from the right is a kind of jungle. Everyone has the right to exploit his talent in order to achieve success without some government (or society) interfering, even if all his talent is brute force. In contrast, the anarchy from the left actually comes from a desire not to harm equality, and on the other hand also not to limit individual rights. But there really is still right and left (their meeting at the other end of the circle is only at the level of the result, not at the level of the principle). Right is collective, and left is individual. Radical right according to this is simply fascism, and radical left really is anarchy in which there is no rule at all. In practice, the extreme left is communism, but that is the usual contradiction of the left (Russell’s paradox. I like to think of the set of all sets that contain themselves — I think it’s called Henkin’s set — as the right, and the set of all sets that do not contain themselves — Russell’s set — as the left). That is, it creates fascistic mechanisms of coercion (“Russian mother”) in order to impose its “god of equality” on individuals. But on the true left there is not really equality at all, but rather no possibility of comparison in the first place (no criterion for comparison), whereas on the right there are hierarchies (which are necessary for society to exist and function as a single entity).
That is, on the right there is also inequality among individuals (more precisely, there is an ordering relation among individuals — a hierarchy — and by virtue of it sometimes there is equality too), but as something necessary for society’s existence. And on the left too there is inequality, but it stems from the very absence of hierarchy altogether (some principle of comparison. That is, there is neither inequality nor equality; there is neither an ordering relation nor an equality relation).
First, the fact that something is called left does not mean it really is left. What is being called the extreme left here is an individualist approach that is unwilling to accept binding values. In such a situation nothing can be imposed, and in any case a situation similar to the right-wing utopia is created.
According to him, the radical left is really an extreme right-wing individualist outlook — do you agree??