Death of the Liberal Class, Chris Hedges

Que vaja per davant: Després de Reappraisals de Tony Judt, aquest és el segon millor llibre que he llegit enguany. Chris Hedges és un periodista i intel.lectual nordamericà, corresponsal de guerra i guanyador del Premi Pulitzer, que fou acomiadat del New York Times per la seva oposició a la invasió d’Iraq el 2003 i que ha escrit nombrosos llibres interessants, entre altres Empire of Illusions. També fou una de les cares visibles a Occupy Wall Street.

La mort de la classe liberal (dels intel·lectuals i institucions progressistes) és un llibre provocador, ben documentat i amb bona recerca al darrera. Hedges argumenta que les institucions i individus de la classe liberal, l’encarregada de garantir, amb una vigilància constant, que el sistema democràtic funcione per a tots els ciutadans i que l’Estat no siga cooptat per interessos privats, com ara les corporacions, ha sofert un procés de degradació profund durant el segle XX de manera que ha deixat d’existir i complir la funció crucial que tenia.

Per què sindicats, universitats, esglésies, artistes, intel·lectuals, periodistes i polítics de la classe liberal han deixat de ser rellevants? Han estat eliminats per les elits? Hedges argumenta que ha estat un procés dual: l’ús de la guerra com a instrument de les elits per controlar els afers econòmics, polítics, culturals i socials i la col·laboració de molts intel·lectuals liberals en aquest procès, sense adonar-se que estaven traïnt els valors i principis que els feien existir en primer lloc.

El període gloriós de la classe liberal va ser a finals del segle XIX i principis del XX i va acabar amb la Primera Guerra Mundial. Es caracteritza per ser un periode de gran creixement dels moviments de masses i de les reformes socials que milloraven les condicions laborals a les fàbriques, organizaven els treballadors en sindicats, potenciaven els drets de les dones, la educació universal, habitatge social per als pobres, campanyes de salut pública i socialisme.

La Primera Guerra Mundial va esquerdar l’optimisme liberal sobre la inevitabilitat del progrès humà i va consolidar el control de l’Estat i les corporacions sobre els afers econòmic, polítics, culturals i socials. Va crear una cultura de masses centrada en el consum i en el culte de l’individu, va portar els Estats Units a una era de guerra permanent, i va utilitzar la por i la propaganda de masses per acovardir els ciutadans i silenciar les veus independents i radicals de la classe liberal. Sembla mentida, però si per compte de Primera Guerra Mundia hagués posat la invasió d’Iraq del 2003 el paràgraf té la mateixa validesa.

Per a Hedges, seguint el filòsof Sheldon Wolin, els Estats Units són un règim de “totalitarisme invertit”, en el qual el poder corporatiu ha assolit la maduresa al mateix temps que la ciutadania ha estat desmobilitzada. I continua: “No queda cap institució nacional que puga acuradament ser descrita com a democràtica” (28-29).

I aquí us deixe amb algunes cites:

“The liberal class found it was more prudent to engage in empty moral posturing than confront the power elit. “It is much safer to celebrate civil liberties than to defend them, and it is much safer to defend them as a formal right than use them in a politically effective way. Even those who would most willingly subvert these liberties usually do so in their very name.” (aquí Hedges cita el sociòleg nordamericà C. Wright Mills) (12)

“The liberal class cannot reform itself. It does not hold within its ranks the rebels and iconoclasts with the moral or physical courage to defy the corporate state and power elite.” (17-18)

“The greatest sin of the liberal class, throughout the twentieth century and into the early part of this century, has been its enthusiastic collusion with the power elite to silence, ban, and blacklist rebel, iconoclasts, communists, socialists, anarchists, radical union leaders, and pacifists who once could have given... the working class the words and ideas with which to battle back against the abuses of the corporate state.” (19)

“Hope will come with the return of the language of class conflict and rebellion, language that has been purged from the lexicon of the liberal class” (21-22)

“The corridors of liberal institutions are filled with Underground men and women. They decry the social chaos for which they bear responsibility, but do nothing.” (25)

“Obama is part of the political stagecraft that trades in perceptions of power rather than real power” (31-32)

“If you pursue truth and justice, it will always mean a diminution of power and privilege” (Noam Chomsky, 39-40)

“In a time of faith, skepticism is the most intolerable of all insults” (67-68)

“The cultural embrace of simplification... meant reducing a population to speaking in predigested clichés and slogans. It banished complexity and further pushed to the margins difficult, original, or unfamiliar ideas. The assault on radical and original thought, which by definition did not fit itself into the popular cultural lexicon, saw art forms such as theater suffer.” (89)

“It is only when artists control their own work... that great, socially relevant theater can be sustained. The funding for this kind of work will never come out of the world of corporate sponsorship which... uses theater and the arts as a diversion.” (100)

“The new corporate capitalism and mass production sustained themselves through the pomotion of a new ethic that promoted leisure, self-indulgence and wasteful consumption, activities that called for traits such as charm, a pleasand appearance, and likability.” (100-101)

“The iron control of the arts is vital to the power elite, as important as control of the political and economic process, the universities, the media, the labour movement, and the church. Art gives people a language by which they can understand themselves and their society. And the corporate power structure was determined to make sure artists spoke in a language that did not threaten their entitlement.” (113)

“Marxists now (after the 70s) became culture and literary critics. These theorists invested their energy in multiculturalism... The inclusion of voices often left out of the traditional academic canon certainly enriched the university. But multiculturalism, rather than leading to a critique of structures and systems that consciously excluded and impoverished the poor and the marginal, became and end in itself.” (124)

“Dressed up as multiculturalism, it has become the opium of disillusioned intellectuals, the ideology of an era without an ideology” (124)

“The tragedy of the liberal class and the institutions it controls is that it succumbed to opportunism and finally to fear.” (139)

“Specific actions can be criticized, but motives, intentions, and the moral probity of the power elite cannot be questioned” (152)

“The indifference to the plight of others and the cult of the self is what the corporate state seeks to instill in us. That state appeals to pleasure, as well as fear, to crush compassion. We will have to continue to fight the mechanisms of that dominant culture, if for no other reason than to preserve, through small, even tiny acts, our common humanity” (214)