BOOKS
447
I and II) and with "the varying ways in which stable democracies,
viewed comparatively, may occur" (Part III ), choosing six democratic
countries (including the United States) for discussion. The task which
Lipset has set himself is clearly an enormous one. But in a preface, he
writes, by way of a disclaimer, that "significant innovators in any field
must be prepared to learn that they have been in error; these are the
risks inherent in opening new perspectives on old problems." Apparently
he has overlooked the fact that one need not be a "significant innovator"
in order to be in error.
This book is indeed full of errors of a peculiar kind, namely contra–
dictions. Between "thesis" and "antithesis"-actually statement and con–
tradiction- there may stretch spaces of a hundred pages, a chapter, two
pages, one paragraph ; and there are even instances in which a single
sentence asserts and contradicts itself, such as the following. Here Lipset
is discussing the six democratic nations.
They alJ have democratic political systems. Yet they differ in
one
important respect: the United States, Britain, Canada, and
Australia have
stable
policies, while France and Germany
have
(or have had)
unstable ones. (Italics mine )
The difference can't have been so "important," can it? And there are
very few theses or assertions in
The First N ew Nafion
which are not
"supplemented" by a counter-opinion or a piece of evidence in support
of the opposite. In the course of the book important and less important
assertions switch from positive to negative apodictic, and vice versa. This
PARTISAN REVIEW
IS
the magazine
most people don't
want to read.
