Of definitions of intellectuals there is no end. One major approach places intellectuals according to their social position or occupational role; this has at least the value of reducing our tendency to excessive pride, for it analyzes us in terms …
In the Winter 1984 Dissent, Mr. Gordon Beadle has what I take to be a definitive refutation of the effort made by some neoconservative writers, notably Norman Podhoretz, to “kidnap” George Orwell for their side. Mr. Beadle shows with precise …
There is a political sensibility—it can be found in the pages of The Nation, though elsewhere too—that might roughly be called “the troubles and confusions of the children of Stalinism.” Children literally, children figuratively. The writers who cultivate this sensibility …
One thing is clear beyond the shadow of a doubt: the United States has the military strength to defeat Grenada. Everything else being said in defense of the invasion last fall is, at best, dubious. The claim that the invasion …
You don’t have to be radical to see that a major disaster is building up in Central America. You only need some common sense. Nor do you need to be a subtle thinker to recognize that the architect of this …
Suppose the Golem had been made, not of the clay that legend has it, but of plastic: what would have been his fate? Well, he might have been elected president and as he acquiesced in the engineering of a depression …
Suppose the Golem had been made, not of the clay that legend has it, but of plastic: what would have been his fate? Well, he might have been elected president and as he acquiesced in the engineering of a depression …
The Automobile Workers Union (UAW) will be holding its convention this May in Dallas; we expect to have a report in our next issue. Meanwhile, we print below excerpts from a conversation recently held in Washington, D.C., between Irving Howe …
No one said: we will now establish a welfare state. The phrase “welfare state”—that is, a state assuming some direct responsibility for the socioeconomic welfare of its citizens—was not commonly used in the early 1930s. What characterized the Roosevelt administration …
: usually for comments, more or less weighty, on topics of the day. But this time we want to break with our tradition and say a word or two about ourselves. Dissent is now into its 29th year–a fact that …
We printed in our last issue a quietly thoughtful piece by H. A. Feiveson, “Can We Decide About Nuclear Weapons?” Mr. Feiveson wrote about the difficulties ordinary people face in trying to reach political conclusions about nuclear policy, yet the …
We ought to have a clear idea of what is happening in this country. In the few months since Ronald Reagan took office, there has occurred a large-scale retrogression. In depth and scope, this is almost as significant as the …
The following text was delivered as a talk at the convention of the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee in the spring of 1981.— Eds. In a luminous sketch the Italian writer Ignazio Silone recalls an incident from his childhood. He once …
A new battle of political statements has begun— this time about El Salvador. Most of those I’ve seen appear to be little more than rewritings of statements produced in the ’60s about Vietnam, and this doesn’t encourage one to rush …
Nothing could be more foolish than to blink the extent of the defeat we have suffered in the recent election. By “we” I have in mind both the larger “labor-liberal” community and the smaller “democratic left.” If Carter’s defeat can …
