INTELLECTUALS AND POLITICS
Editor's Note: The following discussion presents some of the political views and
concerns of the editors of
Partisan Review.
Other reflections will appear in
forthcoming issues. The comments by William Phillips, Edith Kurzweil, Steven
Marcus, Leon Wieseltier, and Dennis Wrong are written in the form of responses
to the observations of Peter Brooks and Morris Dickstein, but they are also meant
to address some current political problems and confusions.
Morris Dickstein
A specter is haunting our political life today-not the
specter of communism but the specter of our renewed obsession
with communism. One of the few bright trends of the 1970s was
our commitment to detente with both Russia and China and our
persistent efforts to negotiate arms control agreements, imperfect
as they were. Today, instead, we have a president who resorts to a
theological anticommunism as a way of building popular sup–
port for vast increases in arms spending. In language unseemly
for a chief of state, Reagan descri bes the Soviet Union as "an evil
empire" and "the focus of evil in the modern world." This is no
surprise in the light of Reagan's record, his love of easy simplifi–
cation, and his need to pacify the extreme right on social issues
without giving them anything of substance. Yet it contributes to a
growing cold war climate which may have a serious impact on
our own policies and those of the Russians, to say nothing of the
disquiet of our European allies. Where have we heard such sweep–
ing words since the 1950s? Will they contribute to turning a cold
war into a hot one?
George Kennan has written that "we have to put an end to
the often systematic condemnation of another great people and
its government-a condemnation which if not stopped will really
make war inevitable by making it seem inevitable."
If
such con–
demnation were merely a political tactic, its potentially inflam–
matory effects would still cause concern. But Reagan is doing
more than defusing his evangelical supporters. He is trying to
build a new consensus for a more aggressive, confrontational
foreign policy. Much of this is sheer bluster, as his passive reaction
to the Polish coup demonstrated. But the reversal of Carter's
sensible policies in Central America shows how much our think-
