Iraqis show ink-stained fingers after voting in the January 2005 elections. Photo: Jim Goodwin (US Army) The editors of Dissent posed the following question to several respondents: Iraq has provoked the bitterest debate about American foreign policy since Vietnam. One …
The Twilight of the Intellectuals
The editors of Dissent asked a number of distinguished commentators to respond to the following statement and questions: For a quarter of a century, Iran has been ruled by a militant theocracy. After the shah’s regime–authoritarian, brutal, and backed by …
Is the United States facing a constitutional crisis? We posed the following question to a group of prominent writers and intellectuals who represent a range of political opinion: Many people, as politically diverse as members of the National Rifle Association …
This is a time to speak quietly and act carefully…firmly, inventively, boldly, but above all carefully. With all Americans, with decent people the world over, we mourn the victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. …
Recently, a number of French intellectuals endorsed an appeal urging Europeans to address seriously the negative consequences on social life of neoliberal economic trends. The following is an abridged version of their “Call,” translated and edited for a U.S. audience. …
Editors: I very much appreciated the symposium on Jeffrey C. Isaac’s critique of a revived progressivism and his hymn to localist democracy (“The Poverty of Progressivism,” Fall 1996). Still, I am concerned that the discussion surrounding the piece so quickly …
Editors: Nicolaus Mills (Affirmative Action Symposium, Fall1995) is correct to point out that “[t]he left needs to acknowledge all that affirmative action cannot do…” and that “liberals [should] worry more about…undoing [the past] altogether [rather than compensating for it].” Affirmative …
We mourn the death of our friend and comrade, former Dissent editor George Eckstein.
Editors: It is true, as Dennis Wrong wrote (“PR on PC” Spring 1994) that political correctness has been widely discredited and often ridiculed (though it is significant that this happens far more often outside than inside academia). However, the fact …
Editors: Robert Post’s critique of “liberal” First Amendment theory, “Outrageous Speech and the Constitution: Thoughts on Hustler v. Falwell” [Dissent, Summer 1990] raises more issues than can be treated in a letter. However, a few points should not pass without …
Editors: Writing the history of Local 1199 (Upheaval in the Quiet Zone) was a humbling experience. We were (and remain) sympathetic to the political ends of the union and impressed by the extraordinary achievement of leaders and members alike in …
Upon receiving my Summer 1989 issue of Dissent, I was dismayed to see that you had changed the title of my review of Arno Mayer’s book without consulting me. My title— “The Holocaust as Byproduct?” — was meant to focus …
Last March Dissent organized, under the leadership of editor Fred Siegel, a round-table discussion on the problems of New York, with emphasis on the possibilities of solutions. We print below a transcript, sharply reduced for reasons of space. The round …
We have lost a dear friend. Muriel Gardiner was a distinguished psychoanalyst, author of several valuable books on psychological and social themes, and the wife of Joseph Buttinger, a leader of the Austrian socialist movement during the 1930s and, for …
