The Jean Harris trial has mesmerized Americans. It has received an unprecedented amount of publicity. Diana Trilling, Shana Alexander, and Lally Weymouth, daughter of Katherine Graham, owner of the Washington Post, have been commissioned to write books on the subject; …
Originally published by one university press in 1973, Paul Hollander’s work is now reissued in paperback by another. The publishing business being what it is a revised text is impossible, but this new edition does carry a new Introduction in …
The other day I was asked to speak at a gathering on “the moral basis of socialism.” I was somewhat taken aback since it was not clear to me whether socialism can claim a moral basis apart from that of …
Despite opinion polls that consistently show the majority of Americans supporting abortion, the status of legal abortion seems more precarious than ever. Anti-abortionists in Congress are proceeding on two fronts to outlaw abortion altogether: with a constitutional amendment banning abortion …
Three assumptions of popular political wisdom often heard since the November 1980 debacle do rob one of patience: (1) the Democratic party must learn to forgo the temptations of “ideological politics”; (2) the Democratic party and liberalism in general have …
This book, the most comprehensive look so far at dissidence in the Soviet Union, is a well-written summary account of the Moscow human rights movement, from the era of the post-Stalinist reforms through Andrei Sakharov’s internal exile in 1980 to …
Intellectuals, whatever their national or ethnic origins, often have had to make hard choices between creative and political activity. This problem is particularly acute for black American intellectuals. In no generation have they escaped the simultaneous pulls of creative and …
The fate of the American family has become news. Even casual exposure to the media reveals this recurring preoccupation. Throughout television and the popular movies, the public is bombarded with themes of incest, divorce, runaways, parental abandonment, nonmarital cohabitation, and …
Military conscription is once again on the national agenda, but neither conservatives nor liberals, neither proponents nor opponents of registration seem interested in confronting the underlying issues of the place of national service in the life of a democratic republic. …
On “The Legacy of Herbert Marcuse” Editors: Jean L. Cohen writes of “The Legacy of Herbert Marcuse” (Dissent, Winter 1981), expostulating his “penetrating analyses” and “spirit.” In the spirit of Dissent, I dissent. Marcuse was a sad figure and his …
Israel is, of course, Semitic. It is rooted in the Middle East. Its population is, in a steadily growing majority, non-European. Yet Israel is perceived-—by itself as well as by others-—to be a European nation. That this should be so, …
A new battle of political statements has begun— this time about El Salvador. Most of those I’ve seen appear to be little more than rewritings of statements produced in the ’60s about Vietnam, and this doesn’t encourage one to rush …
The economic and social situation of American workers is deteriorating. The purchasing power of their earnings is declining, and that decline is barely offset by family incomes bolstered by the earnings of a working wife. Workers’ families thus must work …
I am holding what our Chinese friends would call a “Speak Bitterness Meeting” with my typewriter. The subject of my bitterness is Doctors; Medical Doctors, “Doctors Doctors.” Doctors, as a group, are no better, certainly no better, but also no …
I have written in Dissent [in the Summer 1980 issue] about activities of rightist groups in France that are openly racist although they now call that age-old hatred by new and discreet names. They’ve surely had some success with the …
