Public Enemies by Bernard-Henri Lévy

neutral.
    Don’t worry, I am going to get around to talking about myself. Following your example—first the honorable reasons, then the more questionable ones, and so on to the worst—I’ll explain why I
am not
a politically committed intellectual.
    (Leaving aside the fact that, in any case, I’m not an “intellectual”; otherwise I’d need to explain why I studied at aninstitute for agronomics rather than
khâgne
* or Sciences Po, but that’s another matter.)
    To talk about political commitment, I have to go back to Russia, where I’ve been twice, in 2000 and 2007. The first time was impressive. In the deserted avenues of Moscow, 4×4s with tinted glass windows thundered past. The restaurants and the cafés were empty—except for Westerners; in the streets and the doorways, young people shared bottles of beer and vodka (drinking in the bars was much too expensive for them). A few young women were dressed like prostitutes; the others were barely modernized babushkas.
    Nowadays, it’s almost impossible to drive through Moscow; the cars now are Nissan Micras, Volkswagen Golfs. The restaurants and the cafés are full of Russians who drink according to their budget; young women wear the current fashions. In other words, a middle class has formed, and the first thing one notices is that the pockets of “terrifying poverty” have vanished; the mysterious, almost mystic formation of a
Westernized middle class
(or that, at least, is how it is usually referred to).
    These middle classes voted en masse for Putin, voted en masse for Medvedev; they believe they have no credible alternative; like their government they consider the rebukes of the West (over Chechnya et al.) to be
unacceptable meddling
. It must be admitted that, in this, the Russian government is on the same wavelength as the populace.
    Nor has Russia, and here I have to contradict you, become a cultural desert. In the numerous bookshops, literature from around the world is freely available with no restrictions. The books are exceptionally well made and well printed and, mostimportant, they are very cheap, even on a Russian budget. In short, in Russia, many people still regularly buy books—more so than in, say, Brazil or even Italy or Spain.
    It’s true that Solzhenitsyn is considered to be an orthodox old pain in the neck; he, I admit, has every reason to feel disappointed in the recent evolution of Russia, to feel that it has “betrayed its soul”; and I’m not sure that Dostoyevsky would have
adored
the nightclubs … Then again, I’m not sure whether I
adore
the nightclubs, but I was glad to see Frédéric again and the
sumptuous blondes
, well, you know the terms of the equation, I’ve written enough books on the subject.
    On my second trip to Moscow, I had a very interesting conversation with a civil servant in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. (These people lead a strange life; they spend a few years in a job, develop a temporary sense of belonging, only to be uprooted; their conversation is often fascinating.) I was telling him that in France after the war, it was said that the country was ungovernable, the Fourth Republic, the frequent changes of government, etc.; none of which prevented France from fast-track development, so much so that this period of government irresponsibility remains, from an economic standpoint, the most flourishing period in our history. He replied that though Putin’s Russia could be accused of all the evils in the world, though not of “governmental instability,” the same phenomena were evident (the rise of the middle classes, consumer capitalism).
    There was silence for a few seconds, then he said something like: “All in all, maybe it’s for the best; it proves that society has its own momentum and the system of government superimposed on it with its regulations, its government officials, is simply a form of parasite.”
    Then he stopped, remembering that he too was a government official, a civil servant at