Michael Walzer | Dissent Magazine

Reading the Signs in the Streets with Marshall Berman

Michael Walzer ▪ April 12, 2017

As Marshall Berman wrote, reading Capital won’t help us if we don’t also know how to read the signs in the streets.

The Politics of Resistance

Michael Walzer ▪ March 1, 2017

Suddenly, everyone on the left is talking about resistance. This is something we should celebrate—while recognizing that it is only half a politics.

Learning to Listen

Michael Walzer ▪ Winter 2017

Internationalism, first and foremost, requires a commitment from leftists to listen to our comrades abroad.

Someone on the march told me that this was the best line I had ever written. But I didn’t write it. It was a collective product, written down by my grand-daughter. The “grand” is in parenthesis because my daughters are also nasty women. And my wife has been a bolshevik feminist since she was twelve. I am absolutely certain that they will win.

The Historical Task of the Left in the Present Period

Michael Walzer ▪ January 2, 2017

If the survival of a vital center is also the precondition of an active left, one of the historical tasks of the left today is to help hold the center—even as we promote a militancy all our own.

On Democratic Internationalism

Michael Walzer ▪ Spring 2016

Struggles for democratization are always local struggles: the first thing their protagonists want is a state governed by the people who live in it. We must relearn how to support them.

What Kind of a War Is This?

Michael Walzer ▪ December 3, 2015

The war against ISIS, as it is currently being waged, cannot be called a just one.

The Syriza Problem

Michael Walzer ▪ October 6, 2015

Greece’s Syriza party has substituted rhetorical bluster for concrete plans—and has had an extraordinary free ride from the global left even as it has become the party of surrender.

Back to Class

Michael Walzer ▪ Fall 2015

It is time to think about class. The insurgencies we most need today are the insurgencies of large numbers.

The European Crisis

Michael Walzer ▪ September 11, 2015

The EU as a whole is once again, as Europe was in the 1930s, a world of borders and refusals.

Islamism and the Left

Michael Walzer ▪ Winter 2015

Most leftists have no difficulty opposing Hindu nationalists, zealous Buddhist monks, and the messianic Zionists of the settler movement. Why won’t they take a firm stance against Islamists?

In Place of a Hero

Michael Walzer ▪ Spring 1960

Young people today have no spokesmen. The day of the youth league and its ideology seems to be over. Today we have the club again, and the gang, and perhaps the family. It might even be wrong to say that …