PARTISAN REVIEW
69
evidence (and my reasoning) in considerable detail, even at the risk
of limiting the general appeal of the book. That approach may have
made the book more academic than desirable, but I cannot accept Zinn's
judgment that my work itself is "primarily of academic interest." For if
one wants to help build a social movement, then it is crucial to know
a great deal more than we do about the
Weltanschauung
of the major–
ity. Particularly when the key equation used by the elite to mystify and
manipulate the majority emerges as a central belief which
in
large mea–
sure was generated and sanctified by the majority.
It may be possible to stop a war, or to effect domestic reforms,
without destroying the belief in that equation; but it is not possible to
make a social revolution without understanding the deep
~oots
of that
belief. For to persuade people either to give up their
Weltanschauung
and join a movement for such fundamental change, or to agree to such
change, the radical has to confront their
Weltanschauung
as it exists:
he must accept it as a basis for initiating the dialogue in order to change
it
in
the course of the dialogue.
Zinn speaks briefly to this point (pp. 522-23), but then dismisses
my efforts. Were I convinced, I would accept the judgment. But I am
not. I think I do offer much to explain how the belief in a causal rela–
tionship between freedom and an expanding marketplace evolved out
of a reality experienced by a large number of Americans during a par–
ticular period; how that belief became dogma; and how the dogma was
manipulated by an industrial elite to extend and consolidate a global
empire (as well as to gain and hold domestic power) long after the
reality had changed.
Nor am I persuaded by Zinn's final criticisms.
If
we are as radicals
to
honor his Radical Model, then we have no choice but to be schizo–
phrenic about our radical consciousness. We have to act on it as it
stands, but we must simultaneously explore it with as much critical
rigor as we can muster. And, finally, if I demonstrate, as I consider
that I have done, that a
Weltanschauung
tying freedom to capitalistic
marketplace expansion produces imperialism, then I think I have logical–
ly confronted the reader with two questions: is not that outlook in–
herently contradictory, and would it therefore not be useful for you to
consider the wisdom (to say nothing of the existential pragmatics) of
redefining freedom so that is is not dependent upon private property,
the capitalist marketplace and imperialism?
Zinn offers one specifically historical criticism (p. 522) that speaks
to a significant point. I am not persuaded by his charge that my
evidence "is clearly from the bigger farm businessmen." Some of it is,
but much of it is not. Even where it is, he neglects the element of social
