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PARTISAN REVIEW
doing better than others, and the objective is worth pursuing. The
ultimate reason why this should be so is that simple but effective in–
sight which, from Sperber's
Analysis
of
Tyranny
to Karl Popper's
Open
Society
and beyond, has informed the reconstitution ofliberty against
the totalitarian threat: no human knows all answers; we are all living
in a world of trial and error; we must therefore make sure that no
one arrogates to himself superhuman certainty; we must have the
courage to live with uncertainty . As Popper put it: "We can return to
the beasts. But if we wish to remain human, then there is only one
way, the way into the open society ."
New Literary Frontiers Edition
The Alien Mind of
Raymond Williams
Jan Gorak.
Williams's authenticity as a critical voice comes
from a working-class perspective that allows him to interpret
middle-class institutions as an alienated outsider. Viewed as the
products of Williams's estranged but deeply probing mind,
works such as
Culture and Society
and
The Long Revolution
yield
new insights, as episodes in the intellectual history of a writer
who represents Britain's mostimportant contribution to contem–
porary debate about the cultural future of our society.
November 160 pages $9.95 paper
University of Missouri Press
200 LeWIS Hall, ColumbIa, MO 05211
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maJor credit (ard, accepted 11 ROO
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