HERE AND
NOW
581
Whenever in the past American radicalism has flourished some–
what, it has largely been in consort with an upsurge of liberalism.
There have been two major periods: first during the years immedi–
ately preceding World War I and then during the thirties. The
notion that radicalism can grow fat on the entrails of liberalism is
a crude error, an absurdity.
But all of this remains hope and speculation. Before such a new
coalition emerges, if ever it does, there is likely to be severe tension
and conflict among its hoped-for component parts. The Vietnam war
stands as a harsh barrier, political and psychological, which must be
broken down in order to take care of our business at home - which
is by no means to accept the quietistic and reactionary argument that
until the war is ended nothing can or should be done at home.
Even the full realization of the "idea" of the welfare state would
not bring us to utopia or the good society. The traditional socialist
criticisms in respect to the maldistribution of power, property and
income would still hold. But to continue the struggle for such a
realization is both a political and human responsibility. And through
the very struggle to realize the "idea" of the welfare state - if I may
offer a "dialectic" observation - it is possible to gain the confidence,
strength and ideas through which to move beyond the welfare state.
Unfortunately, American intellectuals do not seem well equipped for
keeping to this dual perspective: they either lapse into a genteel and
complacent conservatism or they veer off into an ultimatistic and
pseudo-utopian leftism. Yet, when one comes to think of it, why
should it be so difficult to preserve a balance between the struggle to
force the present society to enact the reforms it claims to favor and
the struggle to move beyond the limits of the given society? Tactically,
to be sure, this creates frequent difficulties; but conceptually, as a
guiding principle, I think it our only way.
