The modern left

So I’m reading Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq, and the Left; it’s a fascinating book. A collection of his essays from immediately after 9/11, it’s quite interesting to see his movement away from the Nation and other left-wing outlets, and towards a more militarist point of view when it comes to foreign policy. This post isn’t about Hitchens, though. It’s about the modern left and their style of conversation. In the introduction, the book’s editors (Simon Cottee and Thomas Cushman) write the following:

Our vision for this book was to bring together a diversity of critical responses to, and exchanges between, Christopher Hitchens and his critics. Unfortunately, that vision could not be fully realized, since the following authors–all of them towering figures on the intellectual Western Left–refused to grant us permission to reprint their work in this volume: Tariq Ali, Noam Chomsky, Stefan Collini, Edward Herman, Steven Lukes, and Katha Pollitt.

I found this both interesting and depressing because it reminded me that the modern left isn’t interested in debate, or an exchange of ideas. You either accept their edicts or they accuse you of moral blindness; if you don’t agree with them you’re either ignored or labeled a bigot. Another recent example: this post by Andrew, in which anyone who dares question the socialist implications of Obama’s planned redistribution of wealth is no better than the racist Jesse Helms. I understand why he needs to pose the question this way–the cognitive dissonance required for Andrew (a self-proclaimed conservative who thinks that progressive taxation is immoral) to support Obama (a man who will massively raise taxes on the wealthy) must be intense. So instead of wrestling with the question, he simply dismisses those who point to Obama’s Marxist tendencies as awful racists.

Can’t we talk about these issues like adults?