Anti-Climacus

THE PROBLEM WE ALL LIVE WITH:

"The issue of totalitarianism is neither academic nor merely historical; no one can seriously engage in politics without clearly and publicly defining his attitude toward it. I deliberately say 'attitude' rather than 'analysis,' for while there can be a great many legitimate differences of analytic stress and nuance in discussing totalitarian society, morally there should be only a candid and sustained opposition to it."
-Irving Howe, "New Styles in 'Leftism'"

So, as you may know, fifteen years ago today, the world's largest totalitarian state and arguably the biggest offender against the values and beliefs of democrats everywhere, brutally came down on students who were demonstrating for the ideals we all hold dear. That the students were heroes for doing so is clear. That it is a shame that their hopes have gone unrealized should be obvious, and that it might be a generation or more of mean servitude before there is any hope for future change stinks of--well--moral failure and loss of nerve on a tremendous level.

One could make some perhaps reasonable arguments that the time isn't right yet to do something, that expending serious military resources at this point in time would be massively counterproductive and perhaps unneccesary. Maybe. But let's not kid ourselves about this: the condition of people living under authoritarian governments is directly analogous to slavery, and any attempt to explain away our clear moral imperatives is cowardice or malice, as it would be for slavery.

Which is why it's especially disappointing to read Matt Yglesias' reflections, where he mentions:

"Making it all somewhat more troubling, one would like to really hate the current government of the PRC for what they did. And yet, the intervening fifteen years of strong Chinese economic growth have been one of the great moral success stories of human history. Repressive as the current Chinese state is, today's Chinese probably enjoy more freedom than their ancestors did for any significant period of time. Would a democratic China have done just as well? It very well might have, but then again it might not."

Let's not mince words: this is an apologia for totalitarianism, plain and simple. It cannot possibly be a novel argument to Matt that 'freedom' under the rule of authoritarians bears no resemblance to actual, desirable freedom. Saying that it's good (or at least not bad) that China has succeeded in moving forward in terms of rights misses the entire point as to why those rights are desirable in the first place--what meaning do they have when a man's political choice, his expressions of his own views, his desire to live his life his own way run him the constant risk of imprisonment, exile, or worse? That the odds of this happening to any particular man have lowered is not progress. The idea that this might be praised should be repellent to all free men.