of an unsympathetic view by parody–
ing it out of respectable existence, and
we doubt whether anyone worth argu–
ing with has ever indulged in so crude–
ly simple and sentimental an interpre–
tation. But in any case, is what Mr.
Chase describes as "man's 'dependence
on society'" merely good liberal doc–
trine in some fatuous sense? We should
have said that, less tendentiously
phrased, some such doctrine has many
other associations-associations, for ex–
ample, with the Platonic conception of
man's dependence on civic unity and a
rightly ordered State, with the Pauline
doctrine that "we are members one of
another," or (to get as far from lib–
eralism as may
be)
with the insight
that Father Zossima expresses in
K
ara–
ma{ov:
"All this terrible individual–
ism must inevitably have an end, and
all will suddenly understand how un–
naturally they are separated from one
another." Indeed, has not "good liberal
doctrine" been open to the charge ra–
ther of social atomism than of an ex-
cessive emphasis on sociality?
It is surely a major intellectual task
of our period to re-examine, to criti–
cize, and to revise the assumptions, phi·
losophical and other, of the demo–
cratic liberalism that is our inheritance
from the eighteenth and nineteenth cen–
turies. We doubt whether, in the end,
it will or should continue to prevail in
the form in which we have received it.
Whether it should be summarily and
unreservedly repudiated is another
question, and one which intellectuals
cannot hurriedly or lightmindedly un-
ertakf' to answer. Too much, from
every point of view, depends on, the
character of the result: 'it is not by any
means a question of purely literary or
literary-critical importance. Meanwhile
the process of arriving at a responsible
and genuinely critical answer will hard–
ly be assisted by extreme semantic lax–
ity and the combustion of straw men.
Newton Arvin
Robert Gorham Davis
Daniel Aaron
Northampton, Massachusetts
THE
NEW
TRANSITION
Editor: GEORGES DUTHUIT
Advisory Editors: Eugene Jolas, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jean Wahl, Stuart
Gilbert, Rene Char, Douglas Cooper, Max-Pol Fouchet, Georges Bataille,
and David McDowell (for the U.S.A.).
TRANSITION 48 is devoted entirely to the best of contemporary French
literature and thought, translated into English. It is completely non-parti–
san and aspires only to print the best.
Contributors include: Gide, Sartre, Malraux, Wahl, Breton, Paulhan, Jolas,
Genet and many others.
TRANSITION PRESS, 96 Rue de l'Universite,
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