Lévy Looks Left — In Manhattan

The French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy thinks that the political left is in trouble. Simultaneously hobbled by cultural relativism and haunted by its own forms of intolerance — most particularly, anti-Semitism — the left is, to Mr. Lévy, a body diseased.Mr. Lévy will deliver this message and propose a solution — a recommitment to universal values and human rights — in two appearances in New York this week. On Tuesday, he will face off at the New York Public Library with another leftist intellectual celebrity, the Slovenian cultural theorist Slavoj Zizek. On Thursday, at the 92nd Street Y, he will be interviewed by the editor of the New York Times Book Review, Samuel Tanenhaus, about his latest book, “Left in Dark Times: A Stand Against the New Barbarism.”Mr. Lévy said in an interview that he makes his criticisms as a member of the left himself, who is deeply disturbed by the trends he describes. The three themes of his talk on Thursday, he said, will be the left’s relativism, its anti-Americanism, and its anti-Semitism.In many leftist circles, he said, “You have this idea that universal criteria should not be applied to every people, to every community,” and “criminal practices are legitimized because they are consistent with a certain cultural framework.” He mentioned as an example Muslim women’s wearing of the veil, which he described as a means of humiliating women.“I am fed up with the argument that human rights are the privilege of the Western world, and that proposing human rights to the rest of the world is an act of imperialism,” Mr. Lévy said. “Even if human rights are a European invention,” he continued, “why should an idea that was born here or there not migrate elsewhere? Christianity was born in the Middle East, and today it is dominant in America. So why should an idea born in England not be exported to Pakistan or Afghanistan?”Despite his enthusiasm for exporting human rights, Mr. Lévy did not support the American invasion of Iraq, which he called “morally right, but politically wrong.” As he explained: “It was of course right to overthrow a despot, but it was done by politically illiterate people, who had not the slightest idea of what it means to build a democracy.”While Mr. Lévy said that some of the strains of intolerance he describes are less potent among the left in America than in Europe, he believes that anti-Semitism is equally rampant and virulent here. As an example, he mentioned the book “The Israel Lobby…,” by the American political scientists John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, which argues that pro-Israel organizations exert an inordinate influence on American foreign policy. “It was a true anti-Semitic book, which intended to put the fire in the minds of a lot of people,” he said. This is the new “progressive anti-Semitism: It is not a racist anti-Semitism. It is not a Christian anti-Semitism. It is anti-Semitism in the name of foreign policy,” Mr. Lévy said.

Lévy Looks Left — In Manhattan

Lévy Looks Left — In Manhattan

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