In the 20th century, there were no shortage of philosophers, sociologists, historians, and other academics in continental Europe and North America who not only enabled the most horrific forms of totalitarianism, but outright embraced it. One of the most notable among them was the decorated historian, Eric Hobsbawm.
What made Hobsbawm cling onto party leadership for so long, despite clear evidence, even before Robert Conquest’s research and after the blatant crushing of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising? In one story, it was to honor the memory of a girlfriend in his youth. But in another interview, it was to never betray the anti-fascist cause so many of his friends suffered and died for during the rise and fall of fascism. Unmentioned, however, was the fact that probably some of the activists he had known died at the hands of Stalinist purges, particularly ones who had fought in Spain’s civil war as communists.
However, while Hobsbawm heavily implies that the cause of anti-fascism and anti-Nazism is so important that one must fight with the communists, it was largely the social democrats and Christian Democrats of post-War Europe who stood up to communist tyranny and fascism. After World War II, the threat of Nazism was long gone so why side with Stalinism, especially in Hungary and Czechoslovakia?
While this is a common story amongst left-wing elites, we have seen a similar trend of fallacious thinking with conservative elites.
William Barr for example, speaks openly about seeing Trump’s narcissism and lies up close—including claims of a stolen election—but has indicated he will still vote for him. “The threat to freedom and democracy,” he remarked in a CNN interview in April 2024, “has always been on the left. I think the real threat to democracy is the progressive movement and the Biden administration.”
However this is hardly unique. How many Germans who went along with Hitler, despite understanding what he was about, did so because they saw the Nazis as the only game in town able to redeem Germany and put down the dangerous left? And similarly, the Communist Party of Germany branding of the Social Democrats as “social fascists” painted themselves as the only real opposition to fascism.
At the end of the essay, Chirot concludes by saying:
>To reject the center, to believe that one extreme or the other is “the only game in town,” makes it impossible to support and strengthen all that has been valuable about the Enlightenment’s best values. That is the lesson: those of us who write, who teach, who engage in politics, or who hold ourselves up as models need to be clear. There are usually many games in town that can help preserve sanity and broadly liberal center-right and center-left ideals. Let us never close those off because they are insufficient or imperfect. And let us never fall into the trap of thinking that moderates who are to our right or our left are so contemptible that we need to join the extremists on our side. If that happens to too many in the world’s democracies, then all is lost.
!ping EXTREMISM&HISTORY
Independent-Low-2398 on
> In 1986, Hobsbawm’s answers to questions about his loyalty to the Communist Party were both appealingly evasive and meaningful. After a particularly sharp question, he got a sort of dreamy, nostalgic look and said that as a very young man he had had a wonderful girlfriend, a Communist Party member and activist.
Eric Hobsbawm is a very famous historian and communist intellectual btw. Truly pathetic. I wonder how many straight men initially get into communism in order to get laid
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**Submission Statement**
In the 20th century, there were no shortage of philosophers, sociologists, historians, and other academics in continental Europe and North America who not only enabled the most horrific forms of totalitarianism, but outright embraced it. One of the most notable among them was the decorated historian, Eric Hobsbawm.
What made Hobsbawm cling onto party leadership for so long, despite clear evidence, even before Robert Conquest’s research and after the blatant crushing of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising? In one story, it was to honor the memory of a girlfriend in his youth. But in another interview, it was to never betray the anti-fascist cause so many of his friends suffered and died for during the rise and fall of fascism. Unmentioned, however, was the fact that probably some of the activists he had known died at the hands of Stalinist purges, particularly ones who had fought in Spain’s civil war as communists.
However, while Hobsbawm heavily implies that the cause of anti-fascism and anti-Nazism is so important that one must fight with the communists, it was largely the social democrats and Christian Democrats of post-War Europe who stood up to communist tyranny and fascism. After World War II, the threat of Nazism was long gone so why side with Stalinism, especially in Hungary and Czechoslovakia?
While this is a common story amongst left-wing elites, we have seen a similar trend of fallacious thinking with conservative elites.
William Barr for example, speaks openly about seeing Trump’s narcissism and lies up close—including claims of a stolen election—but has indicated he will still vote for him. “The threat to freedom and democracy,” he remarked in a CNN interview in April 2024, “has always been on the left. I think the real threat to democracy is the progressive movement and the Biden administration.”
However this is hardly unique. How many Germans who went along with Hitler, despite understanding what he was about, did so because they saw the Nazis as the only game in town able to redeem Germany and put down the dangerous left? And similarly, the Communist Party of Germany branding of the Social Democrats as “social fascists” painted themselves as the only real opposition to fascism.
At the end of the essay, Chirot concludes by saying:
>To reject the center, to believe that one extreme or the other is “the only game in town,” makes it impossible to support and strengthen all that has been valuable about the Enlightenment’s best values. That is the lesson: those of us who write, who teach, who engage in politics, or who hold ourselves up as models need to be clear. There are usually many games in town that can help preserve sanity and broadly liberal center-right and center-left ideals. Let us never close those off because they are insufficient or imperfect. And let us never fall into the trap of thinking that moderates who are to our right or our left are so contemptible that we need to join the extremists on our side. If that happens to too many in the world’s democracies, then all is lost.
!ping EXTREMISM&HISTORY
> In 1986, Hobsbawm’s answers to questions about his loyalty to the Communist Party were both appealingly evasive and meaningful. After a particularly sharp question, he got a sort of dreamy, nostalgic look and said that as a very young man he had had a wonderful girlfriend, a Communist Party member and activist.
Eric Hobsbawm is a very famous historian and communist intellectual btw. Truly pathetic. I wonder how many straight men initially get into communism in order to get laid