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dividualism and
economic
collectivism. Here, the acclaim of liberalism is
more a reflection of the New Deal philosophy that emerged triumphant
at the end of the Second World War than a theorist's search for new
vistas. Cohen could write, "We need a certain amount of sociability,"
and follow this immediately with a Millsian concern that '''nevertheless
too much sociability is inimical to thought." A strange platitudinousness
envelops Cohen's last writings on liberalism, as if at hand were a sense of
the closure of old liberal verities and a corresponding fear that the new
liberalism would not exactly foster his own vision of "free thought" and
an "enlarged vision of the good life."
It is not unfair to say that Cohen was simultaneously caught up in
the Greek ideal of the good life and the American ideal of the practical
life. Cohen did not, indeed could not, resolve the issue of how ancient
thought and modern industrial society might coalesce, the two making
even theoretically an uneasy alliance. Perhaps the problem is one oflabels:
if the world is not exhausted by communism and fascism, then neither is
it exhausted by liberalism or conservatism. At his best, Cohen understood
this. The much vaunted Socratic method stood in contradistinction to
the Platonic definition of the Socratic dialogue .
The Faith of a Liberal
ends with the triumph of the process over the
decadence of the structure. "So in life there is growth and decay. In hu–
man history there are ups and downs. There are periods of flowering and
periods of decay. There is no use," Cohen concludes, "in thinking that
anyone movement of history, or of human life, will continue forever."
Liberalism ultimately consists in this sense of openness or at least of the
absence of closure. Cohen's last book remains a marvelous, vital guide
for the perplexed. It is a tragic reminder of how far down the path of
totalitarian temptation even the blessed vision of liberalism has traveled.
Even the best systems of thought fail
to
continue forever.
Cohen was part of that special generation that transplanted the clas–
sical liberal tradition onto American soil. The first half of the twentieth
century revealed a liberalism positioned between fascism and communism,
or, if one prefers, between the political right and left. Like others of his
time, Cohen had a lasting and innate suspicion of ideological extremism
and psychological exaggeration. He envisioned liberalism as the natural
handmaiden of a scientific world view, but one which was also tolerant
of religious belief the way the scientist is appreciative of the limits of ex–
act knowledge. For all of his sense of epistemological differences with
people like John Dewey and the pragmatic tradition in general, he
shared with his philosophical cohort common concerns in education,
law, and literature. He was a Russian Jew, without the aristocratic na–
tivism of either Ralph Barton Perry's New England tradition or Vernon
Parrington's frontier spirit, yet he also shared with them the American
