Bernard-Henri Lévy

When you write about war, writing is less an art than an action. Lévy finished the French version of this book in late February 2024, less than five months into the war and the hostages’ captivity. The speed of writing reflects the urgency of his mission: to frame October 7th, the war, and the plight of the hostages in a larger historical picture than news media and TikTok can offer. And to do so before the world banishes the memory of what happened. Because October 7th opened a new show more moment in history. The return of antisemitism as a geopolitical force launches us into a shrouded future, yet one eerily reminiscent of the past. Israel stands alone, for now, Lévy says, against this evil. It doesn’t have to. If only the world will heed its example. show less

“Marxism is the opium of the people.” With a host of phrases like this, Lévy shakes you from the dream of socialism, the barbarism of his title. This biting critique of all theories of the good society gave him instant celebrity status in France. Against the state-sponsored socialism of his day, Lévy argued that any abstract “good” hatched in the minds of intellectuals inevitably contains a seed of totalitarianism: such good will always justify the evil that precedes it. The best show more an intellectual can do, then, is to fight evil. But this pessimism is a kind of optimism. It leaves it to us, to everyone, to work out the good, little by little, for ourselves. show less

To be a man of the Left, Louis Aragon said, means sometimes preferring to lose your arm than your compassion. If Aragon is right, then Lévy, to extend the metaphor, has risked his soul in an effort to heal the Left itself. The contemporary Left, prone to knee-jerk anti-Americanism and witless Jew-hatred, needs such a healer. Lévy’s diagnoses are sure to anger many on his side of the political spectrum, but his book tries valiantly to offer a cure for the neo-progressive barbarism that show more has lately edged out the Left’s traditional commitment to liberty and universalism. show less

French equivalent of a Nick Cohen or an Andrew Anthony, Bernard Henri Levy belongs to these Leftists intellectuals who, surprised and worried, dare a critical outlook upon the evolution of the Left during the past decades. Its ideological orientation, its engagements, its battles, are indeed for him against what the Left is supposed to defend considering its history. With the French political elections of 2007 as background, and bouncing back on a conversation he had with Nicolas Sarkozy show more (the Conservative who was then ultimately voted President, and who had asked him why, in regard to his ideas, he wasn't shifting to the Right...) the philosopher Bernard Henri Levy here dismantles the Left as it has turned, so as to better denounce it. Brilliant! It was written more than ten years ago; it could have been written yesterday.

To him, following the death of revolutionary ideals the Left had indeed to face a terrible vacuum. Forced to accommodate triumphing capitalism, a economic system it condemns but remain unable to offer an alternative to, its future can only rely upon criticisms, and so the denunciation of liberalism. The massive error the Left does, though, is to ignore (deliberately or not) that liberalism is way more than a economical doctrine. It is, above all, a whole philosophical movement, with the defence of freedom at its core, and which was one of the most important backbone of the Enlightenment. As such, by denouncing a liberalism that it doesn't understand (or doesn't understand anymore) while having to abandon Marxism at its most dogmatic, the Left cannot be but thrown onto very dark paths; ultimately leading to anti-Enlightenment ideas where ideals of liberty are betrayed - consciously or not. One just have to look around to see what has been the worrying impact of such a process!

Here's not a book about post-modernism, here's a book about politics; and, when it comes to politics, he believes the Left completely lost the plot. Denouncing universalism, it has now taken refuge into cultural relativism, a new kind of oppression which is, ironically, politically and historically rooted in the far-Right. Hence, from the reject of the European Union (we are mostly dealing here with the French Left...) to an obsessive condemnation of globalisation, the French Left has been dangerously flirting with nationalistic chauvinism... More, this closing down to the world, to which she seems badly adapted, also has her to flirt with a nasty anti-Americanism, this bizarre hate which focuses not on what the USA are doing or not doing, but what they are (a fully capitalistic society, exporting its model around the globe - or so the Left feels). This hate isn't without consequences. First because, as a result, the Left more often than not is supporting or at least bringing its sympathies to leaders or countries supposedly victims of American Imperialism, without much care for the vile ideologies these leaders often embody (eg. the Palestinians question, Serbia, Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, or, again, the jihadists, them strangely 'victimised'...). Then because, being thus the prisoner of such a narrow worldview, it completely ignores countries those situations has nothing to do with American foreign policy, countries that do not fit into its obsessional logic Empire vs oppressed by the Empire (Sudan, Sri Lanka, Tibet...). Toppling down some Leftists intellectual heroes, he here shoot his guns at the likes of Noam Chomsky and Naomi Klein in sharp criticisms that we are more used to read among Right wingers!

Now, is Bernard Henri Levy a Right winger in the closet? Or is he among the last true Leftist, at a time when the whole movement dangerously went down to the totalitarian far-Left? To each his own opinion. Left in Dark Time is surely extremely wordy, full of useless dabbling both pretentious and self-centred (you'll have to go through his personal ideological journey before fully getting into it!) but such an insight into the hijacking of the Left by anti-Enlightenment trends, and the nasty impact of it all upon the politico-cultural landscape, remains highly relevant. Yes, it's mostly about France; but worrying parallels can be drawn with other countries too! Again indeed: this was written in 2007; it could have been written yesterday. Sharp! show less