Todd Gitlin: The New Liberal Agenda
[Todd Gitlin is a professor of journalism and sociology at Columbia University.]
It is a pleasure to respond to E.J. Dionne Jr.'s essay now that it can truly be said that liberals and the left face the greatest political opening since the 1960s. We ought to be in for a time when civil discussion about our nature and principles can proceed without being mistaken for self-flagellation or for the giddy presumption that liberalism is bound to prevail. The world is in too much jeopardy for the latter and the dilemmas too difficult for the former.
The easy part for liberals now, intellectually, at least, is that George W. Bush has concentrated our attention on what happens in the world when governments both fail and overreach. As partisans of the Party of Reason, liberals start in a strong position now that the conservative movement, which thrives on rancor against the brie-Chablis-Volvo-latte crowd, has painted itself into a corner, a Confederate corner at that, by trying, as the Columbia University journalism dean Nicholas Lemann noted in a recent New Yorker article, to repeal the gains of the Progressive Era.
The Christian right's contempt for reason found a counterpart in the Republicans' contempt for government except as an occasion for plunder. Stanley B. Greenberg, the Democratic pollster, is surely right that Democrats have to push for accountability along with good governance. But liberals also have to fight back against the demonization of government. Bill Clinton did that more effectively than generally recognized, and it can be done again.
So we liberals are now poised to present ourselves as we are -- to start with, as pragmatic advocates of intelligence and thoughtfulness. As Dionne points out, that is more a continuation of Clinton's 1990s self-presentation as an opponent of the "brain-dead policies of both parties" than a radical departure. But it ought to be no small element of the liberal counteroffensive.
That said, it's worth restating the Princeton sociologist Paul Starr's point that "the exhaustion of conservatism is not tantamount to a liberal revival." The country is not conservative in the Bush-Karl Rove sense, but neither (excepting a scatter of ZIP codes) is it liberal in the Dennis Kucinich sense....
Read entire article at Chronicle of Higher Education (CHE) (Click here for embedded links.)
It is a pleasure to respond to E.J. Dionne Jr.'s essay now that it can truly be said that liberals and the left face the greatest political opening since the 1960s. We ought to be in for a time when civil discussion about our nature and principles can proceed without being mistaken for self-flagellation or for the giddy presumption that liberalism is bound to prevail. The world is in too much jeopardy for the latter and the dilemmas too difficult for the former.
The easy part for liberals now, intellectually, at least, is that George W. Bush has concentrated our attention on what happens in the world when governments both fail and overreach. As partisans of the Party of Reason, liberals start in a strong position now that the conservative movement, which thrives on rancor against the brie-Chablis-Volvo-latte crowd, has painted itself into a corner, a Confederate corner at that, by trying, as the Columbia University journalism dean Nicholas Lemann noted in a recent New Yorker article, to repeal the gains of the Progressive Era.
The Christian right's contempt for reason found a counterpart in the Republicans' contempt for government except as an occasion for plunder. Stanley B. Greenberg, the Democratic pollster, is surely right that Democrats have to push for accountability along with good governance. But liberals also have to fight back against the demonization of government. Bill Clinton did that more effectively than generally recognized, and it can be done again.
So we liberals are now poised to present ourselves as we are -- to start with, as pragmatic advocates of intelligence and thoughtfulness. As Dionne points out, that is more a continuation of Clinton's 1990s self-presentation as an opponent of the "brain-dead policies of both parties" than a radical departure. But it ought to be no small element of the liberal counteroffensive.
That said, it's worth restating the Princeton sociologist Paul Starr's point that "the exhaustion of conservatism is not tantamount to a liberal revival." The country is not conservative in the Bush-Karl Rove sense, but neither (excepting a scatter of ZIP codes) is it liberal in the Dennis Kucinich sense....