Curioser and curioser, Phil, that you would post this... thanks for doing so! My brain needed something to chew on.

"From the left"? It took a while before I was convinced that the publication and the author (this posting is, I gather, in the manner of a 'pre-pub') are from 'the Left'. As alcaray implies: there is so much stereotyping and thinly-veiled namecalling in the characterizations of 'leftists' that it begins to resemble (forgive me, gentlemen) the less considered, more reactionary posts on this forum by the likes of ebnelson and Tom B. If Mr. Walzer is truly writing about people with whom he identifies, he goes to some pains to distance himself from them... to be truthful, so would I. What remains to a thoughtful reader of the article itself is that the characterizations are meant as hyperbole: to admit, "Yes, there are radical leftists whose utterings and behavior match these descriptons, but I and my friends are not among them."

On the other hand:

I expect I will continue to be pleased at the reaction to the article of self-characterized 'rightists' here in the Zone, as I already am with Phil for posting it and with Tom's comments below. They and others like them already know the sort of 'rational leftist' Walzer seems not to: people whose liberalism is driven by the very moral absolutism our sometime-opponents accuse the Left of lacking; whose social philosophy is rooted in the day-to-day experiences of and with our friends and neighbors, not some abstracted intellectual concept of 'the Oppressed'; who bear no guilt for being American, nor for speaking out when America's behavior in the world seems at odds with her ideals.

How familiar to Zoners are phrases resembling these:

"The encounter with [...] politicized religion, should help us understand that high among our interests are our values: secular enlightenment, human rights, and democratic government. Left politics starts with the defense of these three."



"...[A]lienated intellectuals may well have, more than anyone else, the anger necessary to begin the critical project and the lust for intellectual combat that sustains it. But they don't necessarily get things right, and the angrier they are and the more they are locked into their combative posture, the more likely they are to get things wrong. ...[W]hat is necessary now, is an engagement with our fellow citizens that recognizes the fellowship."

"If we value democracy, we have to be prepared to defend it, at home, of course, but not only there."

"... [T]he American left has an honorable history, and we have certainly gotten some things right, above all, our opposition to domestic and global inequalities."





I suspect Mr.Walzer (and others like him, not all from 'the same side of the aisle') has been reading and listening to the rarified intellectual Left for far too long, as if it were the only voice coming from that direction. One of the purposes of the movement for the acceptance of diversity is the understanding that there are no monolithic cultures; that includes the socio-political cultures of the Left and Right.

Fox