1968 and the ongoing revolt against the masses  

The events of 1968 came forty years after the publication of H.G. Wells’ The Open Conspiracy: Blueprint for a World Revolution, which would be reissued three years later with the new title What are We to Do with Our Lives. …





Waiting for Lefty  

In Waiting for Lefty, the radical play of the 1930s, Clifford Odets’s characters suffer not only from poverty but also from disintegrating families and a decline of individual honor. The audiences, caught up in a felt connection between their own …



The New Liberal Journals  

Can you think of a time in this century,” asked a Democratic party activist, “when the Democrats were in worse shape than they are now?” “Yes,” I answered, “the 1920s.” One would have to go back to the uninspired Democratic …



Is There a Fish in this Class?  

Stanley Fish, the Duke University Arts and Sciences professor of English, chair of the Duke English Department, distinguished professor of law, and self-described “academic leftist,” has just finished a dazzling performance. The overflow audience at Princeton has sat rapt as …



About the Election  

This is the year of the Tory tickets. All four of the men selected to run are the sons of millionaires. The fathers of three of the four were millionaires many times over. They are being generously supported by their …



Dependent Individualism  

The decline of the Republican right and the renewed interest in major social legislation compels us to ask a crucial question: Can the welfare state fulfill its promise without a strong ethical core? In Western Europe that ethical core was …



Fred Siegel Comments  

Two questions inform Sandy Levinson’s essay. He asks (a) why we should respect and obey the law, particularly when there is so often a tension between morality and law, and (b) by what authority judges impose their will on the …



“Republicanizing” the Democrats  

When Teddy Kennedy was asked what he thought of the Democratic neoliberals, he is said to have responded: “We don’t need two Republican parties.” There is a good deal of substance to Kennedy’s quip. Many of the neoliberals, including two …





The False Promise of Generational Politics  

The history of the last half-millennium can be written as the story of rising classes, each pronouncing itself a universal class that embodies the general good. More narrowly, just as Virginia gentlemen stressed the virtues of breeding and farmers extolled …



Race: The Missing Issue of 1980  

In the months before the 1980 election when voters were asked what the number one issue was, they replied inflation/the economy. When they were asked what should be done, about half supported the balanced-budget proposals of Jimmy Carter, a little …