Michael Walzer, professor emeritus at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study, is worried about the current state and future fate of liberalism. In his new book, The Struggle for a Decent Politics: On “Liberal” as an Adjective, Walzer attempts to describe a type of liberalism that retains the commitment to openness, compassion and robust economic reform while rejecting the authoritarian political tendencies on the left and right.
The right wing has partially succeeded in making “liberal” a political indictment, synonymous with cultural extremism, government overreach and lack of patriotism. While some on the left see liberalism as complacent at best and often a servant of military aggression, Walzer reminds us that American liberals have also been at the center of every struggle for social and economic justice throughout our history.
A former editor of Dissent magazine, Walzer has written books on just war theory and political philosophy as well as an exploration of political criticism. In his book Exodus and Revolution, which community organizers still use today, he describes the biblical Exodus story as a “paradigm of revolutionary politics,” pointing to how political struggle creates the capacity for collective decision making.
At 88, Walzer looks back on decades of political and academic work. He offers lessons and advice drawn from that experience, some of it no doubt controversial for a new generation of activists. In keeping with a liberal ethos, Walzer opposes organizational irrelevance of political sects, while looking at how a “big tent” of political and personal identities might bring the democratic left and our country together rather than fracture us.
Walzer describes himself as “a Jew, a socialist, an academic theorist, a New Yorker, an active citizen of the American republic — and a brother, husband, father and grandfather.” For Walzer, the term “liberal” is an adjective that describes an ideal quality of the various commitments we make, democratic, restrained and self-reflecting, but capable of bold action too.
Walzer writes that this book might be his last, but he continues to write about politics, war and economic inequality. He spoke to Capital & Main from his home in New York City.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Capital & Main: It almost seems like a law of organizational life that more extreme elements are prone to take over. How do you grapple with that tendency?
Michael Walzer: German sociologist Robert Michels wrote a book about this looking at the Social Democrats in Germany. He saw a tendency toward authoritarianism in all political organizations because there are people who aspire to power and who are willing to work for it full time. An organization like Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) has a membership that includes people who work and have families and can’t go to all the meetings and sit there until the end. So, the militants take over. That’s what happened in Students for a Democratic Society in the 1960s.
Sometimes you can organize rebellion against this tendency toward authoritarian rule; it happened recently in the United Auto Workers, where a small group, some of them corrupt, were running the union. There was a rebellion against them, which produced a leader who led the recent successful strikes.
In the Republican Party, the Trumpers have taken over and there doesn’t seem to be many people with the courage to resist. I hope that at some point there will be a revolt against Trumpism. Any vibrant democracy needs a decent conservative party, and it’s dangerous when you don’t have that.
There’s a certain part of the left that views liberals and liberalism in a more or less antagonistic way. What is the historical basis for that attitude?
In the 1950s, when I was growing up, people on the left like me thought that liberals were complacent and that they had lost any political edge. And the founders of Dissent magazine, where I began my political writing, were very hostile to the liberalism of the 1950s. In the course of decades of political work, we have realized that liberal values are crucial to any decent socialism. Irving Howe, the editor of Dissent magazine, and my political mentor, wrote an essay [in 1977] called Socialism and Liberalism: Articles of Conciliation? My book, in a way, is a continuation of that project. And it seems to be especially important right now, given the strength of right-wing authoritarianism and the reappearance of left-wing authoritarianism. Suddenly, liberal values have become enormously important for a decent life.
“I hope that at some point there will be a revolt against Trumpism. Any vibrant democracy needs a decent conservative party, and it’s dangerous when you don’t have that.”
You have a chapter on liberalism’s connection to socialism. Why insist on keeping the word “socialism” in the vocabulary of the left in the United States when for the most part the word seems to either scare voters or confuse them?
I have to express my political convictions in a language that makes sense to me. I do say in the book that “New Deal” liberalism in the United States is our version of social democracy. If it’s more expedient to call it New Deal liberalism, I’m willing to do that. But I think that what we achieved in the 1930s and to some extent in the 1960s was a modest version of social democracy. For my audience, and the people likely to read me, I think that the hyphenated word “social-democracy” works pretty well. And liberalism has never implied the kind of egalitarianism that my version of democratic socialism or social democracy entails.
Democracy also seems to need the ability to tell stories about our common life and agreement on what it means to be an American. Can you talk about the failure of developing a common language to understand ourselves?
We are waiting for some political figure who can tell stories. I tried to tell stories during my career but for a very small audience. I would like to find a public intellectual or politician who can tell stories in a way that really captures the imagination of Americans. I do think there are stories to tell that would attract at least some of the people who now seem lost to any kind of liberal democratic politics.
The contemporary left has a lot of policy wonks who can tell us how to reform the tax laws or develop legal protections for unions. But they can’t tell a good story about why American life should lead to greater equality than we now have.
How do you regard the intense focus on identity in our political culture today?
I recall a line from George Orwell that went something like, “I want to believe that the oppressed could do no wrong. The oppressors could do no right. That’s a mistaken view, but natural to someone like me, who was one of the oppressors.” Orwell served in the British Imperial Civil Service, so he was one of the oppressors.
I think the aim of some people on the left is to insist that all Americans are oppressors. That we are part of American imperialism and, therefore, we must always be wrong and we must support each of the oppressed groups which claims the right to do whatever it needs to do to relieve that oppression, no matter how heinous. The adjective “liberal” should work against that kind of politics. There are people in the Jewish community who are playing that identity game. My chapter on liberal Jews is meant to be a response to that. I would make similar arguments for other groups that have experienced persecution or segregation over the years.
“The classroom should not be a political rally, and you should not be trying to convince your students to enlist in your political projects.”
You write in your book that in our “sentimentalizing culture, anger got changed into a plea for comfort, sensitivities encouraged become ever more sensitive.” This passage seems to be largely directed at today’s students. A young student reading that passage might think, “This older professor is out of touch.” What would you say to that young student?
I may well be out of touch. But I do talk to young people and I have participated in various political campaigns on campuses. I tell the story in the book about students coming to me because their feelings have been hurt by something that was said or done on campus. And my response is that what was said or done in this particular case was a political act, so it requires a political response. To tell professors that they can’t talk about this or that because it hurts students’ feelings or makes them uncomfortable does not seem to be the path toward education. A university education is supposed to open up all kinds of issues which may make some people uncomfortable, and they have to deal with that. They can fight back — I mean with arguments — but not just claim that no one is allowed to make them uncomfortable.
You advise professors in what you describe as the “speculative subjects” — philosophy, politics — to alert students to the strongest arguments against your own particular position on whatever you are discussing. Why is that necessary?
The contrast I want to draw is between speaking at a political rally where you don’t tell people the best arguments against your position. You try to persuade them of your position. The classroom should not be a political rally, and you should not be trying to convince your students to enlist in your political projects.
I once gave a course defending socialism. But I did feel an obligation to make sure that the students knew all the arguments for and against socialism. That’s what education requires. I don’t want to sound like I’m at a political rally in my classroom.
“I think egalitarianism requires constant critique of all of the versions of inequality that arise almost naturally in every society.”
You described French philosopher and author Albert Camus as a “connected critic,” someone who was critical of, but also close to, the country and the institutions he was criticizing. Why is that stance important?
There’s a contrast in my head of some philosopher or intellectual who stands on the mountaintop and wags his finger at the wicked men and women down below. I don’t want to stand on a mountaintop like that. It seems to me that social criticism works only when the critics are seriously engaged with their fellow citizens — if they are thinking about the well-being of the society they are criticizing and if they are trying to bring people back to the highest ideals of their own time and place.
I don’t want to talk to my fellow citizens at some great distance, delivering the Word of God or voice of history or some kind of objective truth. I want to engage them where they are. If I’m talking about American racism, I want to talk like Martin Luther King Jr. did, invoking the biblical text about creation in the image of God. Talking to Americans, I would talk about our country as a multinational, multiracial, multiethnic, multireligious society, more diverse than any other human society has ever been.
But I would also emphasize that this process of bringing those who were excluded into the demos has been a constant struggle, still unfinished. I think that’s just the way social criticism works if it’s working well.
You’ve been fighting for liberal socialism or social democracy for most of your adult life. At this moment when the world seems to be coming apart, how do you avoid turning into a pessimist about the human capacity for democracy, freedom and peace?
This is not a good time. I certainly agree with that. I don’t want to play the role of the old man talking about the good old days when I was young, as in the early 1960s when it looked like people like me were beginning to win some political struggles. We’ve been losing for some time, and yet President Biden managed to push through positive programs against fierce opposition. Some of these programs are actually social democratic or New Deal liberal programs. We are still in the game.
I have never thought that there was an end to political struggle. I don’t believe there is some place we reach, like a socialist or communist society where conflict ends. There is no end. I think egalitarianism requires constant critique of all of the versions of inequality that arise almost naturally in every society. It is, I’m afraid, a sociological tendency that we can never stop fighting against.
