THIS AGE OF C ONF O RMI TY
17
but hardly
in
the hands of political writers obliged to deal with imme–
diate relations of power, it can become a myth which, through abra–
sion, profoundly challenges modern experience.
As
for the "conserva–
tism" of the late Senator Taft, which consists of nothing but Liberal
economics and wounded nostalgia, it lacks intellectual content and,
more important, when in power it merely continues those "statist"
policies it had previously attacked.
This prevalence of liberalism yields, to be sure, some obvious and
substantial benefits. It makes us properly skeptical of the excessive
claims and fanaticisms that accompany ideologies. It makes implaus–
ible those "aristocratic" rantings against democracy which were fash–
ionable in some literary circles a few years ago. (So that when a
charlatan like Wyndham Lewis is revived and praised for his wisdom,
it is done, predictably, by a Hugh Kenner in the
Hudson Review.)
And it allows for the hope that any revival of American radicalism
will acknowledge not only its break from, but also its roots
in,
the
liberal tradition.
At the same time, however, the dominance of liberalism con–
tributes heavily to our intellectual conformity. Liberalism dominates,
but without confidence or security; it knows that its victories at home
are tied to disasters abroad; and for the
elan
it cannot summon, it
substitutes a blend of complacence and anxiety. It makes for an at–
mosphere of blur in the realm of ideas, since it has a stake
in
seeing
momentary concurrences as deep harmonies. In an age that suffers
from incredible catastrophes it scoffs at theories of social apocalypse–
as if any
more
evidence were needed; in an era convulsed by war,
revolution and counter-revolution it discovers the virtues of "moder–
ation." And when the dominant school of liberalism, the school of
realpolitik,
scores points in attacking "the ritual liberals," it also be–
trays a subterranean desire to retreat into the caves of bureaucratic
caution. Liberalism as an ideology, as "the haunted air," has never
been stronger in this country; but can as much be said of the appetite
for freedom?
Sidney Hook discovers merit in the Smith Act : he was not for
its passage but doubts the wisdom of its repeal. Mary McCarthy,
zooming to earth from never-never land, discovers in the American
war economy no less than paradise: "Class barriers disappear or
tend to become porous; the factory worker is an economic aristocrat
