8
PARTISAN REVIEW
realizing the difficulty of reconciling these beliefs with current politi–
cal realities. After all, the socialist vision has been the dominant faith
of the modern era - and perhaps the last one. And its death has left
a moral vacuum in contemporary society - as did the death of God
earlier. This is probably why so many former socialists cling to their
original beliefs, in the face of all the failures to implement the idea of
socialism and all the barbarities committed in its name. One of my
fellow editors, for example, was aware, as early as the thirties, of the
betrayal of socialism by the Stalinists, but a few years before his
death in 1973, he said he did not want to abandon the idealism of his
youth . Naturally, no one wants to abandon the exuberant ideas of
his youth. And I recall my vow when I was questioning the accepted
wisdom of my elders that I would not like to harden into the kind of
cynicism exhibited by older people who scoffed at my youthful en–
thusiasms and could not wait until I grew out of them. Nevertheless,
reality has a way of superseding either the will to believe or the will
to disbelieve. In any case, all that my colleague's radical rejuvena–
tion came to was an exaggerated sympathy with the worst aspects of
new left politics, although he could not get himself to accept the cul–
tural primitivism that went along with it.
So here we are at the end of the century, a civilization without
a belief in progress or a social ideal to work for- and to give a moral
meaning, as religion once did, to existence. This is difficult for young
people, especially for the more sophisticated and restless of the
younger generation, who are not always content to be prosperous
and happy.
Conservatives argue that it is better to defend the moral and
material possessions you have than to dream - often counterproduc–
tively - of some imaginary paradise in the future. Unfortunately,
many people find it difficult to give up their dreams without giving
up their responsibilities.
But there are other, perhaps more serious results not so much
from the loss of faith as from the loss of the possibility of a rational
faith. One of the most disturbing consequences is the splintering of
Utopian ideals into a variety of narrow causes that, in the absence of
some central vision, take on the extremist quality of cults. And it is
significant that these causes that sport an air of rebellion soon be–
come chic and, far from threatening the social order, are taken up by
the establishment itself.
It is also interesting to note that where social-democratic parties
flourish, the liberation cults playa secondary political role. But social
