Political conversion narratives

There's a certain kind of political writing that we could call a "political conversion" narrative.  They were especially popular in the early years of the Cold War.  The favorite of this type in those days was the conversion from Communism to rightwing Republican McCarthyism.  Probably the best known among them was that Whittaker Chambers, who became famous as the accuser of Alger Hiss.

Chambers had been a Soviet spy in the 1930s, and among other things was Hiss' handler for passing documents to the Soviets.  (The Hiss case remains controversial.  But Chambers "had the goods" on him from documentation he had kept.)  After he rejected his life of espionage and political radicalism, he went to work for Henry Luce's Time magazine as an editor (and a highly-paid one, at that).  During his spying days, Chambers had a wife, but also sought out male partners at gay hangout spots, though they didn't use "gay" in those days.  At the when the Hiss affair broke, somehow that failed to make it into the public commentary.  Chambers remains a conservative hero today.

This kind of narrative was very popular among conservatives.  The spy stories had their own glamor.  But there were also stories of just a political conversion.  A collection of such conversion narratives from six famous writers was published under the title of The God That Failed, which is still in print.  The contribution to that book from Richard Wright is sometimes cited for its vivid description of how the communist vision could be especially compelling.  But Wright doesn't seem to have made hatred of Communism into his post-Party worldview, as Chambers and others did.

Such political conversion narratives are still around.  David Horowitz has made a career out of being a converted leftist who became a stark, raving rightwinger.  He was once editor of a long-defunct leftist magazine called Ramparts.  Now he publishes books with titles like Left Illusions: An Intellectual Odyssey and Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About the 60s.  His Web site FrontPageMag.com features the latest in "middle-brow" far-right polemics.  At this writing (5/23), it features a quote from Horowitz: "Leftwing traitors debase the left and the silence of patriotic liberals earns them contempt from those who care."

There are also political conversion narratives of people who were once conservative Republicans and became liberals.  David Brock of Media Matters for America is probably the best known example right now.  He has written a memoir, Blinded by the Right, on his experiences.

But this kind of conversion narrative seems to be far more popular among conservatives than among liberals.  And it's always puzzled me why.  I guess some of it is the claim of people like Horowitz to know the Other Side from the inside.  Part of it probably relates to the permanent persecution complex of the far right, with the conversion narrative letting them think, "We persecuted conservatives win some battles, too."

But with Chambers and Horowitz and those taking similar postures, the whole pitch seems kind of odd to me.  If they were willing to support a cause they now see as not just misguided but destructive, treasonous, irresponsible, dishonest and all-around evil, what does that say about their judgment?  And why should I trust their judgment now when they ask me to believe that those representing their former outlook are an urgent threat to the survival of the Republic?  Especially when they themselves represent extreme and perhaps dishonest causes of a different kind now?

Right Blogostan is apparently delighting at the moment in a lightweight conversion narrative by Keith Thompson:  Leaving the Left San Francisco Chronicle 05/22/05.  Horowitz highlighted it at his Web site.  Liberal bloggers have found some amusement in debunking his claims about "the left."

Reading Thompson's article reminds me of the Karl Marx quote that seems to have been the best-known in America for years now, and one that even conservatives like.  It's from the opening lines of the first chapter of The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon (1851-52):  "Hegel remarks somewhere that all  great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. "  Actually, in the American version itusually gets boiled down to: History repeats  itself; the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.

Okay, Keith Thompson hardly qualifies as a "world-historic" personage.  But his little conversion narrative does seem pretty farcical compared to the more famous examples of the genre.  I mean, come on.  So the guy campaigned for Bobby Kennedy back in the day.  And he worked on the staff of a Democratic Senator for a while.  Now he's a middle-aged Republican suburbanite.  Gee, how unique is that transformation?

People's political opinions change all the time, sometimes drastically over a period of years, for a variety of reasons: a change of environment, a shift of priorities, personal contact with local activists, a perceived career imperative, whatever.  Which seems to be what happened to this guy; it's like he woke up one day and decided that the greatest public value would be for him to pay less  taxes and so he figured out that Republicans were always  promising tax cuts.  According to his bio at the end, he lives in the suburb of Petaluma, California.

Still, I couldn't resist looking at the political points he's making, as opposed to his unlikely conversion experience.  He describes the latter as kind of a "road to Damascus" event, when the January 30 Iraqi elections happened, and "the left" didn't cheer the way "the right" did.  The "left's" reaction was "anemic" and "smirking" (dang wimpy smart-alecks).  If he's put off by smirks, I wonder what he thinks of that expression Dear Leader Bush wears 90% of the time he's on TV.  But the statements Thompson is making about current politics cover the following:

Critics of Bush's war policies  "hate George W. Bush more than they love freedom."

The "left" is guilty of elitism because they see "people" - apparently all people - as being "passive and helpless victims of powerful external forces."

"Leftists" don't think citizens have duties. (?!)

The "left" doesn't think much of values, morals, wisdom or common sense - at least not the  good ole Amurcan kind.

It's okay for guys in fraternities to have sex with women who are blind drunk, but the "left" doesn't think so.  (?!?)

Bill Cosby is cool when he's criticizing black people.

Colleges are elitist, too.

The "left" wants all public institutions to "guarantee equality of outcomes."

Liberals get upset if you say bad things about Joe Stalin.  (You know, liberals, progressives, lefties - they're all just a bunch of commies.)

Those on the "left" equate America to Islamic terrorists when they pay attention to civilian casualties in Afghanistan.

Apparently, the consciousness of American Democrats is decisively shaped by the opinions of Susan Sontag, Norman Mailer, Gore Vidal and Noam Chomsky.

*******************************

In other words, it's pretty much the same dreary litany of stock conservative insults against liberals.  Except maybe for the having sex with drunk college women part, which sounds more like Oxycontin radio than Focus on the Family.

And all of this came to him in a blinding flash when he thought he saw some Petaluma hippie "smirk" about the Iraqi election?  Please.

So, if you can't find any conservative echo-chamber Web sites anywhere else, Thompson has his own:  Thompson At Large.  And a blog:  Sane Nation.