Fall 2025

The new political thinking of Milovan Djilas is marked by a rather surprising contradiction.

In publishing this article more than one year after it was written, the editors are most uncharitable to the author. But they may be doing a service to those who shared his illusions during the time of the million flowers. …

Of my two opponents, Mr. Tumin has put himself outside the scope of discussion and discourse through the tone he adopted in his rebuttal. Mr. Spiti s argument, on the contrary, would deserve a point-by-point analysis if it constituted a …

May I add a word to the discussion begun in the last DISSENT on the political climate in America? Essentially, the 1958 vote continued a trend that began after the Korean War in the summer of 1953. The Polish and …

A soft, round face with a dull and banal expression; a mouth out of which come resounding but hollow words. Haven’t I already come across him on some subway platform or in his home town of Arras? No, I must …

Politics, as everyone knows, is the art of drawing distinctions. It involves, to be sure, the pursuit and use—as well as the misuse—of power; but we seek that power for the potential good, not the evil, that its possession affords. …

The Mindless Typewriter If Dwight Macdonald’s “America!—Americal” [DISSENT, Fall 1958] were read by the European audience for whom it was intended, would it satisfy their curiosity about this strange land? What European needs to be told that there is a …

Preliminary Remarks This article was written more than a year ago upon the suggestion of one of the editors of Commentary. It was a topical article whose publication was delayed for months because of the controversial nature of my reflections …

A new type of political leader has developed in the last few decades. He is a figure both fascinating and ominous, at times attractive for his raw vigor and at other times frightening in his distance from modern assumptions. We …

INCREASED agitation this year by those devoted to pacifism or to racial equality often resulted in civil disturbance. Planned demonstrations sometimes were, and frequently bordered upon, vioIations of local or federal laws. More common still was the jarring of mass …

Editors: Have you read Galbraith’s Affluent Society? I don’t know what your plans are for dealing with it in DISSENT, [see p. 84] but I do know that it strikes me as a piece of wrong-headed smugness which deserves the …

The economy, like any organism, can absorb only so many minor injuries before the cumulative impact begins to undermine the economic health of the nation. Builtin stabilizers of unemployment compensation, social security, and the like may pull the economy out …

The general consensus that there has been a significant change in political mood, a shift toward liberalism, seems correct. It is, of course, extremely welcome, offering new possibilities for people of our persuasion; though we should take care to make …

Let me go directly to the heart of the matter: at present, there is no more politics in France. No more politics, that is, if we mean by politics a reasonable calculation of the balance of those forces able to …