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STEPHEN ROUSSEAS
order. They are more complex and not of easy solution. They are,
moreover, of a type that cannot be readily understood by the
ubiquitous man in the street. He can neither believe nor grasp
the threat of nuclear annihilation. The problem of disarmament
is
also much too complicated to be fully comprehended by him. And
the long-run power threat of an inadequate growth rate vis-a.-vis
the Soviet Union
is
the most remote of his immediate concerns,
as is the problem of peaceful coexistence. Though these current
problems are not within the conceptual framework of the common
man, they are even more important than the problems he had to
face in the thirties; problems which could rouse a nation into social
experimentation and only because they affected a
majority
of the
people in a direct and meaningful way.
Faced with these broader and more complicated social problems,
the majority of academic intellectuals have retreated into their special–
ties and only now and then come out and try to communicate with
the public at large, as they did in such an impressive way in the
Washington teach-in on Vietnam. The non-academic intellectuals are
no better off as can be seen from the appalling fare we are being
provided with in the theater and in the arts in general-not to mention
the recent flap in
Partisan Review
over what is and what is not
"camp." In general, the intellectuals have turned their eyes inward
and are steadfastly gazing into their psyche when not losing themselves
in their specialties. They have, as a result, become politically ineffectual
and by default defenders of the status quo.
The postwar decline of American liberalism can be laid squarely
on their doorstep. The New Deal of Franklin D. Roosevelt came to
an end as a social movement with the outbreak of World War II.
In the immediate postwar period, the Fair Deal of the Truman
administration was quickly caught up in the exigencies of the Cold
War, and with the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, it was
largely forgotten. The early years of Eisenhower as president saw
American liberalism cowed by McCarthyism and then later shunted
aside by the enormous influence of the business community. It would
be remarkable, indeed, if a major part of the intellectual develop–
ments of the past decade were not the result of a compromise with
the practical politics of the entire postwar period. These twenty odd
years took their toll of American liberalism and it changed gradually
