Andrei Pleșu, Dilema.ro: Double standard

It is essential to publicly debate all moral resignations, all associations with the world of crime and lies. I only ask that we look with the same rigor at all extremes, which, unfortunately, does not happen very often. I do not want to "whitewash" the writers and philosophers guilty of serious far-right deviations. But it seems unfair and risky to forget the "generous" deviations of the opposite sense. A few massively neglected examples:

George Bernard Shaw was, without a doubt, an important figure of the last century. Who hasn't enjoyed his theater (Pygmalion, The Devil's Disciple, etc.), his prose, his oratory? He won the Nobel Prize in 1925, also received an Oscar in 1938, was a co-founder of the famous London School of Economics, and was very active in social and political matters. He was witty, energetic, original. At the premiere of one of his plays, the King of England laughed so hard that he almost broke the chair beneath him. All in all, the man was – and still is – a celebrated star worldwide. And stars are forgiven many things. However, G.B. Shaw is not forgiven, simply and plainly, for his deviations. They are overlooked. Does anyone still remember today the articles in the British press where the delightful writer expressed his enthusiasm, en masse, for Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini? Does anyone recall a speech of his from 1931, in which he proposed that, once every five or so years, every citizen should be called before a jury to justify their existence? And if they cannot justify it, they should be informed that the great social organism of which they are a part can no longer assume their maintenance in life? Does anyone still mention his appeal to chemists, made in 1934? G.B. Shaw asked, in a "reasonable" tone, for the invention of a "human gas," a "gentlemanly gas," that would kill instantly and painlessly, so that the undesirables could be evacuated civilly. A prophecy worthy of an "inspired" man. The gas he dreamed of was invented ten years later, was called Zyklon B, and was used by the Nazis in concentration camps. One would think that such "deeds" should become, for their author, an indelible stigma. Not so. G.B. Shaw, by 1930, a vocal friend of the Soviets, is absolved. Jean-Paul Sartre is also absolved, who, in 1972, could declare in an interview that anti-communists should not be arrested, but shot, because one can still get out of prison. In any case, for Sartre (himself a Nobel Prize laureate), "the anti-communist is a dog." In contrast, Che Guevara, whom he visited in Cuba in 1960, was worthy of being considered "the most complete human being of our era." It does not matter. There is no moral "case" against Jean-Paul Sartre. On the contrary, we praise his "commitment." We appreciate his "humanism," since, behold, in 1974, he was able to visit in prison the members of the Baader-Meinhof group ("Red Army") and protest against the poor conditions provided by the German prison. (This at a time when the horrors of the Gulag were already known worldwide!) I do not want to say that, given such behavioral enormities, G.B. Shaw and Jean-Paul Sartre should be placed on an index. I only note that nothing is too serious if you are "well situated" ideologically. The mistakes – obviously condemnable – of those in the opposite camp (like Heidegger, Céline, Mircea Eliade, Cioran & Co) always overshadow their merits. In other words, the deviations of the extreme left and those of the extreme right do not "benefit" from symmetrical treatment. It is understood that some, even if they have done wrong, remain "good bastards," while others, even if they have also done good things, remain, for eternity, "bad bastards." However, I no longer want to look blindly in one direction. I want to be equally upset with some and others and to find plausible arguments to forgive what is to be forgiven, regardless of the angle from which I look.

I cannot refrain from invoking a few more examples. Alexandru Călinescu reminded me, at one point, of the verses of some great French poets, who fell prey to a strange pro-communist and pro-Soviet enthusiasm. Here are fragments from the poem "Front rouge," by Louis Aragon, published in 1931, in the French version of a magazine from the USSR (Littérature révolutionnaire mondiale): "When the violent hegemony of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie / Aiming at its destruction. / The brilliance of the executions adds to the spectacle / A joy still unknown. / Engineers and doctors are executed. / Death to those who endanger the conquests of the October revolution, / Death to those who sabotage the five-year plan." Or: "Long live the GPU [..], the dialectical figure of heroism." Fragments from Paul Éluard ("Hommages," 1950): "Stalin is, for us, the presence of Mine, / Stalin drives away misfortune, / Distrust is the fruit of his loving brain." Éluard had already written, immediately after the war, that "the blue eyes of the revolution shine with a necessary cruelty" and urged murder: "Down with the police, Comrades, / Down with the police all the way to the west, where the children of the rich sleep / and the luxury whores. [...] The proletariat should wipe from the face of the earth, with its fury, the Élysée palace [...] / One day it will throw the Arc de Triomphe into the air / It will be unleashed [...], and its bullet will aim so surely / that all the social-fascist doctors / Leaning over the victim / will uselessly wander their fingers under her lace shirt / And will try to hear, with precision instruments, her already rotten heart." [...] / Shoot at the vile scholars of social democracy / Shoot, I say, under the leadership of the communist party / [...] And I will not be the one to ask you to shoot / But Lenin, / Lenin of the right moment..." Or: "Young communists [...] / Rise against your mothers / Abandon the night, the plague, and the family..."

All of these and many others are "glorious" echoes of the ideological pearls produced by the "founding fathers." Lenin: "We must act as in 1793" (the year 1793 is the year of the Great Terror during the French Revolution – note, A.P.). Marx on torture: "Torture has given rise to the most ingenious innovations, thus creating numerous jobs in the production of the necessary instruments for many honest craftsmen." Engels (in Anti-Dühring): "Universal love for people is an absurdity. Political freedom is worse than the worst slavery."

Let us understand each other: I do not want to evacuate either Marx, or Engels, or Lenin, or G.B. Shaw, Sartre, Éluard, or Aragon from the list of significant landmarks of European culture. But I demand the same "tolerant" treatment for Mircea Vulcănescu, Eliade, Cioran, Vintilă Horia, etc. By the way: both Aragon and Éluard have, in Paris, squares named after them. Aragon's was inaugurated in 2012, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of his death. It would seem that the jars only mix in certain cases. Never in the others...

(Text written in 2011, which I reiterate provoked by the debates recently arisen around the book of Tatiana Niculescu about Constantin Noica)

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