Nick Cohen On Anarchism

"An honourable political philosophy that did not implicate itself in any of the criminal ideologies of the twentieth century from colonialism to Islamism, but also a facile one because its supporters could never put its theories into practice."

Quoted in "What's Left - How Liberals Lost Their Way" p. 156. The Spanish Civil War just passed you by Nick?

Comments

[Peter]

Not his finest moment but this is something that you find popping up in some otherwise excellent books (and I think Cohen's is an excellent book). It is down to the marginalisation of Anarchism and the failure to appreciate the scope of Anarchist ideas. Mostly they are met with incomprehension and misinterpretation and the history is unacknowledged totally. At least he noticed it though!

[Paul Stott]

I thought Cohen's book was very good.

He is a bit like Melanie Phillips in a way - his blind Zionism actually obscures what are some fair and relevant points.

I think if you had to live in a society run by Nick Cohen or a society run by George Galloway - you would choose Cohen's world everytime.