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PARTISAN REVIEW
social perspective is confronted by others, he forgets his own theory and
tends to regard it as "true," as something assimilable to fact. He abso-
lutizes what cannot be absolutized. But just as soon as anyone holds him
to the consequences of his point of view and uses them as evidence of
what he is committed to, Burke either denies their relevance or what is
still worse, as his airy references to the Moscow trials show, interprets
facts and evidence as he pleases. Here he relativizes what cannot be
relativized.
Burke asserts that I seek to give the impression that his point of
view is that
"of the most restricted kind
of party politics." He must have
read my review very hastily. I quoted him as accepting, with direct ref-
erence to Russia, a communist frame "of ideological homogeneity, to be
corrected by a
methodology
of latitudinarianism." Latitudinarianism, he
says, "is another word for casuistic stretching." This works out in prac-
tice as follows. Any major policy or action sanctioned by the official
interpreters of communist ideological homogeneity must be accepted. But
it need not be defended or justified in the official way. Usually the official
defense repels intelligent and sensitive people. Burke's "latitudinarianism"
in practice amounts to thinking up persuasive rhetorical apologias for
conclusions for which there is no
objective evidence.
Burke does not fol-
Iowa party line to a party conclusion. He follows his own line to a party
conclusion. Few know how he will get there, still fewer can understand
the amazing ways by which he gets there, but all know he
will
get there
-and that's the main thing.
(3) Burke's private bull of excommunication against me because I
did not give three socialist cheers in my review of his book, to show
where I stood, is amusing. (It's the party line on Hook all right but in
Burke's own way.) It is also a little saddening because it verifi'es in part
the prediction I made about the consequences of his political perspective
upon his critical powers. His argument is not only
ad hominem
but dis-
ingenuous. First, the truth or falsity of my criticisms does not depend
upon my socialist opinions. Second, my SQcialistopinions-good,
bad or
indifferent-have been expressed in numerous other writings. Third,
Burke is acquainted with these writings as his references to them in his
own books show. Fourth, for a socialist audience, such as the PARTISAN
REVIEWattempts to reach, I regard the exposure of Burke's technique
of mystification as necessary in the interests of clarity, truth, and
so-
cialzsm.
I now return to Burke's intentions and allegiance which, he insists,
must be considered. Very well, I shall oblige him. Nowhere, complains
Burke, have I allowed for the fact that his general perspective is pro-
socialist. A strange complaint! When Burke attacks socialist critics of
Stalinism, does
he
call attention to
their
anti-capitalism? He does not!
Or when he criticizes Trotsky, or Dewey, or Farrell? He does not! But
just as soon as his own position is probed, he makes loud outcry that he
is not being given sufficient credit for his socialist intentions. Is Burke
really serious?
