In Defense of Radicalism

This critique ought to begin with a bit of appreciation. I actually really like Nate Silver and Fivethirtyeight.com, and tend to agree with many of his opinions. However, he recently wrote a post contrasting ‘Radical’ and ‘Rational’ progressivism. As part of this post, Silver produced a chart to describe the difference between these two types of progressives that relies on assumptions that I find highly troubling.

This post (which can be read here) has gotten a fair amount of play among left-leaning bloggers. My own response focuses on a few key points that, while not a comprehensive discussion of his entire argument, does generally lay out my basic objections.

1) Silver claims: Reformist sees politics as a battle of ideas, Radical sees politics as a battle of wills. This seems to me to be entirely wrong. Perhaps the neo-liberal or reform-minded progressives see politics as a matter simply of good governance or ‘doing what works’, whereas the more radical wing believes that there are such things as ideology that make the simple task of ‘good governance’ a highly fraught task. What I mean is that the radical objection is roughly as follows: People are deeply entrenched within ideological frameworks, therefor, it is often impossible to convince someone of the correctness of a policy by way of logical demonstration. In this way, the good ideas of progressivism cannot triumph simply through being good ideas, but require a certain amount of will and a recognition of the essentially agonistic nature of politics.

This could be seen as a argument between post-partisanship and a partisanship of deep convictions. Rather than say: we are beyond politics and all just want what’s best for our country, it’s better to to say: we admit disagreement about what’s best for the country and will admit that we cannot all agree on what constitutes good governance regardless of how hard we try.

Critically, radicalism does not close off pragmatism. Rather, it says at all moments: These are out firm beliefs. On some points, we cannot compromise, on others we must. But when we compromise, we will not call it a triumph but rather a partial failure in light of our real goals. The distinction of Idea v. Will is a misapprehension of the distinction between an attitude about the power of ideology and the minimums at which compromise is acceptable.

2: Silver claims that reformists are “Technocratic” and that radicals are “Populist”. Radicalism does not equal populism, although that is sometimes a form in which the far left manifests. Of course, populism is also a form in which the far right manifests. This also can hold true for technocracy with regards to the center-right and -left. So what Silver is arguing is that the radical branches of any politics lose sight of rational thought in favor of a broad populism.

However, I would argue that this distinction is highly problematic. For example, mainstream DLC-style Democrats use the populist appeal to the “center” in order to assert their political power. Further, radical thinkers like Paul Virilio and Donna Haraway take technological advancements as true openings for new modes of progressive politics and radical life-techniques. In fact, the history of Marxist thought is essentially technocratic, as it takes the development of mechanized industry as an essential stage in the development of a generally socialized society (hence the fundamental contradiction in largely undeveloped countries like Russia and China attempting to establish socialist states).

3) Later in the post, Silver makes the critical (if common) error of judging Marxism by the failure of the Soviet Union. Marxist modes of thought are not equivalent to the specific case of Sovietism, which is in fact a gross betrayal of the specifically internationalist tendency of Marxist critique. In fact, the lessons of Marxism are still quite valuable to even a reform-minded thinker, as they provide the basis for an understanding of property, value, commodity, and ideology. Much of my previous discussion is informed by Marxist thought, though I would never claim that it equates to an unquestioning acceptance of said thought, much less a desire for Soviet-style governance.

To me the real danger of a reformist politics is that in some cases, the reforms act to retrench and solidify interests and structures that in truth need to be entirely overhauled. Hence, if I say I am wary of certain kinds of health care reform, it is not because I do not see the desperate need for improved material conditions. Rather, it is that I fear that certain kinds of reform fail to greatly improve the situation and at the same time make it more difficult to enact the kind of change that is needed. This is not a matter of idealism v. pragmatism, it is a kind of calculation between short-term and long-term pragmatism.

There are, unfortunately, many totally non-pragmatic so-called radicals who take extremely shrill and self-righteous standpoints and totally close off any kind of rational debate. Having gone to Hampshire College, I’ve met more than my fair share of them. However, the election of President Obama should serve as proof of the fact that in a pinch, the majority of even radical progressives will act pragmatically. That they (we) will do so and then vocally criticize the very people thereby elected is not frivolity or inconsistency, but essentially the true mode of radicalism.

That is, the radical will act in a reformist capacity to relieve material suffering as much as possible, but will never call such action victorious. I once heard Alain Badiou say that of course he would (if he were American) vote for Obama, but he would not consider that as an action of (or even part of) radical politics. This kind of co-existance of pragmatism and radicalism, and the self-awareness to not confuse the two seems to me the proper condition of a thoughtful radicalism.

A radical politics deserving of the name requires a pragmatic approach that simply calculates risk/reward differently than Silver or the majority of Democratic Party members. Deciding the kinds of policies and compromises we deem acceptable is a serious and worthwhile debate. Attacking those that find themselves to answering these questions differently as ‘anti-intellectual’ or ‘anti-ideas’ is a thoroughly useless (and entirely non-pragmatic gesture), and is something that I normally consider Mr. Silver to be above.