One of the most debilitating side effects of liberal intellectual fashion in modern times is a peculiar species of political colorblindness: nothing pink or red registers accurately. No matter how tyrannous a regime or doctrine may be, as long as its left-wing credentials are in good order it enjoys a powerful rhetorical dispensation, a sort of metaphysical nihil obstat. The generic name of this dispensation is “idealism”: in theory a patent of noble intentions, but in practice a seductive moral narcotic that coats everything it touches with a glaze of mendacious sentiment. Even the most barbarous left-wing despotism can be camouflaged by repeated doses of this specific.

Not that despotism itself always goes unrecognized: indeed, part of the romance is to acknowledge and even deplore the “excesses” and cruelties of particular actors while praising the underlying “ideals” tha ...

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