Even though I still consider myself left-wing in some ways, I've almost given up trying to hold conversations with people on the Left. It's simply too unpleasant an experience. I suppose I should take heart from Roger Scruton:
One of the great distinctions between the left and the right in the intellectual world is that left-wing people find it very hard to get on with right-wing people, because they believe that they are evil. Whereas I have no problem getting on with left-wing people, because I simply believe that they are mistaken. After a while, if I can persuade them that I'm not evil, I find it a very useful thing. I know that my views on many things are open to correction. But if you can't discuss with your opponents, how can you correct your views? (Via The Daily Ablution)
One of the most honest voices on the barricades, Nick Cohen has certainly moved away from the old dogmas. In Norm's Writer's Choice series, Cohen puts it all down to reading Paul Berman's excellent post-9/11 book, Terror and Liberalism:
I didn't see a blinding light or hear a thunder clap or cry 'Eureka!' If I was going to cry anything it would have been 'Oh bloody hell!' He convinced me I'd wasted a great deal of time looking through the wrong end of the telescope. I was going to have to turn it round and see the world afresh. The labour would involve reconsidering everything I'd written since 11 September, arguing with people I took to be friends and finding myself on the same side as people I took to be enemies. All because of Berman.
