It’s not a pleasant thought, but consider the growing collection of obituaries for the sixties most alluring radicals. They all seem to follow a boilerplate formula. Inevitably the words “fighter” or “good fight” come up. Throw in a “la lucha continua” for good measure.

Which is all well and good, there’s nothing wrong with honoring our own. But beyond hero-worship and self-congratulation there’s the need to acknowledge the reality of the Left’s present marginality. Wes Enzinna, in his own way, took up this task in n+1’s June book review. In a sympathetic portrait of John Ross, a recently deceased radical journalist, Enzinna explores the contradictions in that writer’s persona, as well as the Zapatista movement he championed.

Ross himself had reservations about the hopes he and many others attached to the peasant uprising, telling his future eulogist that: