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though in a much less unpleasant form. For this reason
Dickstein's antifascist platitudes, which are plenty in some parts
of the left, are a bit beside the point. Fascism does not deserve the
support of a democracy, except in an emergency, and the United
States should add no strength
to
fascist governments, as the pre–
sent administration is wont to do; but it is disingenuous and a
little romantic to pretend that fascism is any longer the greatest
danger.
Dickstein and I share a lot, I suspect, "self-righteousness,"
for one, a rejection of Reaganism, for another. But Dickstein
must understand that not everything that Ronald Reagan says is
wrong and not everything that the peace movement says is right.
Maybe thinkers do not belong in movements. They certainly must
not surrender to what Adorno called "the ticket mentality,"
which mentality is responsible for the loss of a considerable
amount of credibility by the left in recent decades. The terms of
the debate are not quite as rigid as Dickstein (and the people he
hates most) would have it. The argument against the strategic
doctrine of the present Pentagon does not require the argument
for the fellow travelers of the 1950s. And the argument for the
strategic doctrine of the present Pentagon does not require the
argument for the blacklist. The former characterizes the radicals,
and the latter characterizes conservatives. But arguing in packages
is just the death of argument. This is what writers for this
magazine grasped in its early years. For that reason they were a
thorn in the side of the left and a thorn in the side of the right. We
should all remain thorns. Dickstein wants a rose.
Dennis Wrong
In their remarks on both the United States and the So–
viet Union, Brooks and Dickstein often confuse the two separate
dualisms of left-right and domestic-foreign. Since its early
years,
Partisan Review
has always been anticommunist, reject–
ing the Soviet and all other communist regimes as repulsive
tyrannies, differing only in degree, that negate the democratic
and libertarian values cherished by its editors and contributors.
This position, however, carries in and of itself no necessary im–
plications for foreign policy. The editors of
Partisan Review
