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 s
this really the best moment for Time magazine to celebrate
the work of a terrorist? This week's issue profiles seven "thinkers
exploring new ideas." Among them are Michael Hardt and Antonio
Negri, the authors of the much-discussed recent tome Empire.Time's
profile mentions that Negri is "living under house arrest in
Rome," but leaves this minor biographical detail unexplained.
The missing explanation is that Negri was associated with the Red
Brigades in the 1970s, and is believed to have had a hand in the
kidnapping and murder of Italian prime minister Aldo Moro. Indeed,
he is believed to have called Moro's wife to taunt her just before
Moro was shot dead.
But hey, water
under the bridge, right? The trouble is that Negri, now joined by
Hardt, is still an apologist for terrorism. Not that you'd ever
guess that from Michael Elliott's profile. It merely has the authors
"reaching back to early Marxism and forward to postmodernist
literary theory." (Now there's a marriage that one would expect
to yield all sorts of useful ideas!) In fact, they are proud to
call themselves "communists."
The great "new
idea" that they are lauded for having is that globalization
is both liberatory and destabilizing. By making this point
they have allegedly "cut through one of the most tedious debates
in contemporary politics." Please. The argument is utterly
banal. The spin that Hardt and Negri put on the idea, meanwhile,
is the same one that orthodox Marxists always have. (Hardt even
told the New York Times that Negri and he "don't think
of this as a very original book.") Remember, Marx viewed capitalism
as a positive historical development, a necessary way station on
the road from feudalism to communism.
Armed with
this analysis, Hardt and Negri commend Islamist fanaticism-along
with riots in Los Angeles, Seattle, or just about anywhere else-as
a form of resistance to capitalism that will help move the world
to a higher stage. "Insofar as the Iranian revolution was a
powerful rejection of the world market, we might think of it as
the first postmodern revolution." As for terrorism, they put
the word in sneer quotes.
What on earth
came over Michael Elliott? He's not usually an idiot.
Time's
Favorite Perjurer
In the same section of Time, David Bjerklie profiles another
big thinker: philosopher Martha Nussbaum. Here again, Time
leaves out crucial details about its favored intellectuals. Nussbaum's
courtroom testimony in a gay-rights case "sparked an uproar
in academic circles." Indeed it did-although not as big an
uproar as it should have. What Time doesn't mention is the
reason for the uproar. It wasn't Nussbaum's gay-rights activism,
which is hardly controversial in the academy. It was the credible
charges that she had perjured herself in her testimony. Time
says that Nussbaum "has been savagely criticized for her zeal,
her sense of mission and her moral certitude"; that sentence
would be just fine if it ended with "and for lying in court."
But maybe Time doesn't take perjury all that seriously, as
evidenced by its tongue-to-shoelace coverage of President Clinton
in 1998.
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