Gentle Reader,
With great shock and greater sadness I report that one of the guides on my long march from true-believing communism to free-thinking capitalism is no longer with us. Jean-Francois Revel -- who enjoyed a prolific career as newspaper editor, political commentator, and literary and cultural critic -- passed away this weekend just outside of Paris at the age of 82. (Like so many important news items, this one comes to JMK via Michelle Malkin).
During the 1970s and 1980s Revel was arguably the most robust and articulate defender of capitalism and opponent of Communism to put pen to paper on the Continent. If you're sick and tired of hearing Europeans (or Americans, or anybody) trash America, then track down a copy of Revel's buoyant, optimistic take on the Nifty Fifty, written when the generation of '68 and of Woodstock was still in the streets, Without Marx or Jesus. For an analysis of how Communist and Socialist parties exploit democratic electoral systems and why democratic peoples fall for it, pick up The Totalitarian Temptation. For an unblinking analysis of how the West became enthralled to its detente strategy towards the Soviet Union, study How Democracies Perish. And for a refreshing book-length pamphlet on the idiocy and irresponsibility of Europe's seething opposition to our aggressive military response to the 9/11 attacks, run out and purchase Anti-Americanism (which would have been best translated from L'Obsession anti-americaine literally, as The Anti-American Obsession).
With perfect clarity I recall the moment, about five years ago, when my eyes first caught sight of the name Jean-Francois Revel. I was thumbing through castaway paperbacks (the way other people thumb through CDs or LPs) in the $.50 rack at a used bookstore when my fingers did the stumbling upon a dog-eared, out-of-print copy of The Totalitarian Temptation. While its precise content is by now outdated, its analytic rigor and stylistic vigor were and remain pure intellectual medicine. For up to that point I'd weakened my better discriminating faculties through years of shilling for leftwing politics. The title alone captured exactly what I'd been wrestling with, but hadn't been able to name: in a word, temptation. In a phrase, the temptation to let totalitarian politicos do my most important thinking for me. Gratefully, even greedily, I read from cover to cover Revel's analysis of 1970s French, Portuguese, Italian, and Chilean politics. It was the beginning of a beautiful intellectual friendship -- or rather, apprenticeship.
Update: Outdated in terms of its political minutiae, The Totalitarian Temptation nevertheless retains force and relevance by demonstrating how entire segments of Western societies let themselves be manipulated by their sworn ideological enemy. For example, just substitute "Islamofascism" for "Communism" or "totalitarianism" in the following excerpts:
The Communists demand total commitment and never recognize any value in the domestic policies of any party other than their own or those controlled by them.
Because of its fears of the sin of anti-communism, the goals of the liberal Left become so modest that it deceives itself into thinking it is conducting a fruitful “dialogue” with the Communists when all it is doing is avoiding their anathema by practicing preventive self-censorship.
At no time have the Communists ever planned political action with any goal other than obtaining a monopoly of power.
Only in the totalitarian society does the state arrogate to itself the right to give “meaning” to people’s lives. The free state, on the contrary, tends to create conditions under which the group imposes no way of life, no form of consciousness, on the individual.
The totalitarian temptation may well prove more powerful than the yearning for socialism, the hatred of capitalism violent enough to make acceptable the destruction of freedom, the fervor of nationalism so fanatical that it will engulf this earth in eternal civil war.
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Those who are tempted to categorically reject all things French would do well to remember that Jean-Francois Revel was one of the best French friends America ever had.
Rest in peace, Jean-Francois.
Update: Treason, Communist style. Gateway Pundit reports that Italian Communists may have betrayed their countrymen serving in Iraq by collaborating with the jihadist enemy and leading to the deaths of 3 Italian soldiers on April 27 (via Kesher Talk).
Further Update: Henri Astier calls J-FR "The French Orwell"; Joe Katzman grieves and concludes, "May we prove worthy of your legacy."
Thanks for the shout-out. I didn't know Revel had passed away.
Kevin
Posted by: Kevin Kim | May 05, 2006 at 01:53 AM