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Some Present-Day Critics of Liberalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Francis W. Coker
Francis W. Coker
Affiliation:
Yale University
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Extract

“Liberalism” is a late modern word, appearing first (along with “conservatism,” “socialism,” and “communism”) in the early nineteenth century. Its basic ideas are old. The particular freedoms called for have changed as the denials of freedom have changed. The demands have been for liberation from oppressive political rule or intolerant ecclesiastical authority; or from a status of slavery or serfdom; from restraints embodied in laws and customs that hamper the rise of new productive forces, or from limitations on equal opportunity resulting from narrow concentrations of private economic power; from limitations on voting rights and from interferences with freedom of religion, speech, and association. The constant concern has been with pleas for deliverance from restraints which, although perhaps widely regarded at a given time as a normal part of life, have come to be regarded, by some in the community, as unnatural and intolerable.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 47 , Issue 1 , March 1953 , pp. 1 - 27
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1953

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References

1 Politics, Barker, Ernest trans. (Oxford, 1946)Google Scholar, Bk. I, Chs. ii and v; Bk. III, Ch. xi; Bk. IV, Ch. iv.

2 For general descriptions and appraisals of traditional liberal ideas, see Watkins, Frederick, The Political Tradition of the West (Cambridge, Mass., 1948)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Trilling, Lionel, The Liberal Imagination (New York, 1950)Google Scholar; Brinton, Crane, Ideas and Men: The Story of Western Thought (New York, 1950), esp. pp. 373–550Google Scholar; Saunders, John J., The Age of Revolution; the Rise and Decline of Liberalism in Europe since 1815 (New York, 1949)Google Scholar; Heimann, Eduard, Freedom and Order (New York, 1947), Chs. 1, 8, 10, 12Google Scholar; Hallowell, John H., Main Currents in Modern Political Thought (New York, 1950), pp. 84–367Google Scholar and passim.

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6 For a discriminating criticism of our system of judicial review as it operates in the protection of civil liberties, see: Commager, Henry Steele, Majority Rule and Minority Rights (New York, 1943)Google Scholar; Cahill, Fred V., Judicial Legislation (New York, 1952)Google Scholar; Latham, Earl, “Theory of the Judicial Concept of Freedom of Speech,” Journal of Politics, Vol. 12, pp. 637–51 (11, 1950)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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11 Reflections on Government (Oxford University Press, 1942), pp. 26, 175, 196Google Scholar.

12 Modern Democracies, Vol. 2, Ch. 64 and pp. 393–95Google Scholar.

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18 Eliot, T. S., “Religion and Literature” and “Catholicism and International Order,” in his Essays, Ancient and Modern (New York, 1936)Google Scholar. The following account of Eliot's specific criticisms is based chiefly on The Idea of a Christian Society (New York, 1940)Google Scholar Ch. 1.

19 The following summary of Eliot's ideas on the structure and functions of a Christian society is based chiefly on The Idea of a Christian Society, pp. 23 ff. See also his Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (London, 1948), pp. 13–20, 28–34Google Scholar, Chs. 4–5, and pp. 122–24; For Lancelot Andrewes: Essays on Style and Order (London, 1928)Google Scholar, Ch. 8.

20 Professor Hallowell's views on the moral and practical defects of modern liberalism and his proposed reforms are set forth in his Main Currents in Modern Political Thought (New York, 1950)Google Scholar; see especially pp. 558–70, 612–24, 662–73.

21 Ibid., p. 613.

22 Ibid., pp. 614–15.

23 Ibid., pp. 689–91, quoting from Temple, William, Christianity and the Social Order (London, 1942)Google Scholar.

24 Professor De Grazia's eloquent pleas for the restoration of the idea of community are set forth at length in his The Political Community: A Study of Anomie (Chicago, 1948)Google Scholar. See especially his preface and pp. 176–90.

25 De Grazia's ideas on the evils of toleration and his proposed cure are emphatically set forth in an address on “Toleration and Forgiveness: the Ability to Judge Good from Evil,” in Vital Speeches, Vol. 16, pp. 149–53 (12 15, 1949)Google Scholar.

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27 London Times, May 24, 1935, p. 17, and October 5, 1938, p. 9.

28 Main Currents in Modern Political Thought, pp. 326, 613, 614, 678.

29 For Lancelot Andrewes, Ch. 5 and at p. 89.

30 The Idea of a Christian Society, p. 61.

31 Ibid., p. 43.

32 The Irony of American History, pp. 25, 43, 46, 63, 80.

33 Ibid., Ch. 6 and p. 174.

34 Hocking, William E., What Man Can Make of Man (New York and London, 1942), pp. 49–50Google Scholar.

35 Niebuhr, Reinhold, Irony of American History, pp. 157–58Google Scholar.

36 Niebuhr, Reinhold, Irony of American History, p. 156Google Scholar.

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39 Earl Latham, in article cited in note 6, above; and see generally Holcombe, Arthur, “Natural Limits to the Power of Numerical Majorities” and “The Paramount Principle of the Political Mean” in his Our More Perfect Union (New York, 1950), pp. 23–36 and 400–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.