The Left Today: A Social Democratic View
An Interview with Mitchell Cohen
OVER THE last several decades, a deep crisis has developed on the left, and the effort to rethink its politics and ideas has sparked perennial debate on both sides of the Atlantic. Phase 2’s Robert Zwarg interviewed Dissent’s co-editor Mitchell Cohen early this summer in Leipzig after Cohen spoke at the university on the panel, “1968 in America.“
Robert Zwarg: The war in Iraq dominated Democratic and Republican campaigns this past year and Americans seem split over it. At the same time it seems to block out other important questions. G... More
Seven Years Since 9/11
Seven years have now passed since the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 and many of the political and moral challenges that arose out of that fateful, tragic day continue to burden both U.S. and world politics.
In the wake of the attacks, Dissent grappled with what liberal politics meant in a post-9/11 world. Dismayed by the “radical failure of the left” in responding to the attacks, Michael Walzer asked, “More
The 'New' New Left
In one of the lesser-known rituals of the literary world, every five years or so I interview for the position of book review editor of the Nation. Twice I’ve been a finalist, only to learn that the magazine had “decided to go in a different direction,” and once I withdrew before the magazine could get a chance to tell me about the excitingly different direction they had decided to go in.
But each time the experience has been worthwhile. I’ve had enjoyable conversations with Katrina vanden Heuvel, the editor of the Nation; I’ve pondered the... More
Two Visions of Democracy
Last winter, Sign and Sight asked Pascal Bruckner, Ian Buruma, and Timothy Garton Ash: “Who should the West support: moderate Islamists like Tariq Ramadan, or Islamic dissidents like Ayaan Hirsi Ali?” The question sparked fierce debate across Europe. Dissent’s Paul Berman entered the argument with his April New Republic article, More
Two Visions of Democracy: Nadia Urbinati
On few topics such as the one that concerns us here—that is, the relationship between liberal principles and religious cultures—the debate over the identity of the Left (i.e., progressive democracy views broadly conceived) clearly overlaps with the issue of the identity of democracy.
It seems to me that, for now, two positions have emerged: on the one hand, there are those who, questioning what they regard as a naive liberal ideal of toleration, acknowledge the existence of cultural and religious differences within a democratic community, but with one exception—Islam. On the o... More
Two Visions of Democracy: Michael Walzer Responds
Nadia Urbinati is an old friend and I am definitely in favor of dialogue with her. So this is a response to—and critique of—her essay, and all my arguments here are open to further discussion. Both the oppositions that Nadia sets up, between the two kinds of multiculturalism and the two versions of democratic theory, are examples of the rigid (Manichean?) dichotomies that she claims to be against.
These oppositions don’t come close, it seems to me, to an accurate description of the arguments that are actua... More
Two Visions of Democracy: Letter 1
Dear Michael,
I cannot but strongly agree with you that we should not be eager to bring “all the people” into the conversation. A culture of dialogue is not and must not be indifferent to whom our interlocutors are – we cannot dialogue with those who want eliminate us and threaten our life and with those who support them. I am not eager to bring terrorists into conversation! How could I?
In my intention, the argument I am advancing should take us to the opposite direction. The point of my argument is precisely that not all Muslims are friendly to or supportive of terrorism, ... More
Two Visions of Democracy: Letter 2
Dear Nadia,
Many thanks for your generous reply. Of course, I know that you don’t intend to launch a dialogue with terrorists and their supporters, and you know that I don’t exclude Islam from my view of multiculturalism – nor do any of my friends: the fiercest opponents of jihadi radicalism recognize that there are anti-jihadi versions of Islam. There may be block thinking on the far right; I just don’t find it among Dissent leftists. So we are not so far apart. But perhaps we have a different view of the value of dialogue. Let me use for a moment another analogy... More
Two Visions of Democracy: Letter 3
Dear Michael,
Your second reply helps me to assess the meaning of our dialogue and, above all, of the dialogue that Reset launched. It seems to me that two are the issues at stake in our correspondence: a) the extension to the Muslim world of what you have defined as “internal criticism” criterion; and b) the choice of dialogue, when dialogue is possible. Clearly, the former issue pertains essentially to the Muslims themselves in the sense that they have to start their internal quarrels and diasporas, their own “reformation” as it were. As you taught us, nobody can do what p... More
Two Visions of Democracy: Letter 4
Dear Nadia,
It appears that the Cold War analogy is centrally important in our discussion. You keep coming back to its Italian version, where Bobbio argued for a politics of dialogue rather than of confrontation. And I have conceded that that may well have been the right argument in Italy.
But its effectiveness, even in Italy, depended on the larger international confrontation. Without the Truman Doctrine in Greece, without the Korean War, without Radio Free Europe, without the strong support and wide publicity that American ‘Cold Warriors’ gave to the Eastern dissidents, w... More
Turin Controversy: Missing the Point
My friend Andrew Arato charges me with “pure evasion,” but he misses the point, indeed, several points. He grants Israel’s right to exist, which is good of him, but asks: “which territorial entity” should be recognized? That, however, is not the issue for Tariq Ramadan, Tariq Ali and (most) of the black-listers. Their issue is the existence of the Jewish state regardless of borders. My criticisms are of the “left that doesn’t learn” in explicit contrast to “the fair and opened minded left.” (See “Anti-Semitism and the ... More
Anti-Semitism and the Left that Doesn’t Learn
I.
A DETERMINED offensive is underway. Its target is in the Middle East, and it is an old target: the legitimacy of Israel. Hezbollah and Hamas are not the protagonists, the contested terrains are not the Galilee and southern Lebanon or southern Israel and Gaza. The means are not military. The offensive comes from within parts of the liberal and left intelligentsia in the United States and Europe. It has nothing to do with this or that negotiation between Israelis and Palestinians, and it has nothing to do with any particular Israeli policy. After all, this or that Israeli policy m... More
Taking Issue: Johann Hari Responds to Nick Cohen
[Johann Hari published “Choosing Sides” in Dissent’s Summer 2007 Issue. The following debate between Nick Cohen and Johann Hari will appear in the forthcoming Fall 2007 Issue. --The Editors]
NICK COHEN’S RESPONSE is perplexing, c... More
Taking Issue: Nick Cohen on What's Left
[Johann Hari published “Choosing Sides” in Dissent’s Summer 2007 Issue. The following debate between Nick Cohen and Johann Hari will appear in the forthcoming Fall 2007 Issue. --The Editors]
MY BOOK What’s Left? is about d... More
Campaigns and Movements
Dissent mourns the passing of Richard Rorty, one of America’s most distinguished philosophers. A long-standing friend and contributor to Dissent, Rorty wrote on a range of subjects from European foreign policy to the novels of Ian McEwan. In the Spring issue, Casey Nelson Blake notes that “in his best cultura... More
