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Michael Ignatieff: The Lesser Evil?
One of the most influential intellectuals in the English-speaking world, Michael Ignatieff’s story is generally understood to be that of an ambitious, accomplished progressive politician and writer, whose work and thought fit within an enlightened political tradition valuing human rights and diversity. Here, journalist Derrick O’Keefe argues otherwise. In this scrupulous assessment of Ignatieff’s life and politics, he reveals that Ignatieff’s human rights discourse has served to mask his identification with political and economic elites.
Tracing the course of his career over the last thirty years, from his involvement with the battles between Thatcher and the coal miners in the 1980s to the Balkan Wars of the 1990s, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Israel’s 2009 invasion of Gaza, O’Keefe proposes that Ignatieff and his political tradition have in fact stood in opposition to the extension of democracy and the pursuit of economic equality. Michael The Lesser Evil? is a timely assessment of the Ignatieff phenomenon, and of what it tells us about the politics of the English-speaking West today.
Tracing the course of his career over the last thirty years, from his involvement with the battles between Thatcher and the coal miners in the 1980s to the Balkan Wars of the 1990s, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Israel’s 2009 invasion of Gaza, O’Keefe proposes that Ignatieff and his political tradition have in fact stood in opposition to the extension of democracy and the pursuit of economic equality. Michael The Lesser Evil? is a timely assessment of the Ignatieff phenomenon, and of what it tells us about the politics of the English-speaking West today.
- GenresPolitics
192 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2011
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August 20, 2018
Worth Reading
This is a well written book. Its basic theme is that democratic societies may have to, from time to time, suspend certain rights and freedom in order to deal with threats to their citizens or their very existence. The key presented is that these suspensions be limited by their scope in time and ultimately subject to review by the judiciary, democratic process, the public and the press.
The subject of torture comes up but what I found most interesting was the discussion of how we might have to react to the threat of nuclear or biomedical terrorism. As the cost of these technologies comes down it becomes more possible for society to be threatened by small groups or radical nations acting directly or anonymously through surrogates who would not be deterred by the threat of mutual self destruction.
Overall the message is that these are ethical issues that we must, even imperfectly, need to work out. Ignatieff's book does a good job of laying out directions of discourse. We may not get it right and we may have to even choose to do wrong for the greater good but the fact that we struggle with the question makes us a better society.
This is a well written book. Its basic theme is that democratic societies may have to, from time to time, suspend certain rights and freedom in order to deal with threats to their citizens or their very existence. The key presented is that these suspensions be limited by their scope in time and ultimately subject to review by the judiciary, democratic process, the public and the press.
The subject of torture comes up but what I found most interesting was the discussion of how we might have to react to the threat of nuclear or biomedical terrorism. As the cost of these technologies comes down it becomes more possible for society to be threatened by small groups or radical nations acting directly or anonymously through surrogates who would not be deterred by the threat of mutual self destruction.
Overall the message is that these are ethical issues that we must, even imperfectly, need to work out. Ignatieff's book does a good job of laying out directions of discourse. We may not get it right and we may have to even choose to do wrong for the greater good but the fact that we struggle with the question makes us a better society.
Displaying 1 of 1 review