Michael Walzer is an emeritus professor at the Institute for Advanced Study. He was also a longtime editor of Dissent. He is the author of many books including the classic of political philosophy Spheres of Justice. His most recent book is called The Struggle for a Decent Politics: On “Liberal” as an Adjective.
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It doesn’t have a fixed character. It’s a mindset that has to do with a respect for human rights and civil liberties, toleration of different religions, and an ability to live with ambiguity. So, I like the idea of liberal as a qualifier on other and more specific and coherent commitments.
Michael Walzer
Key Highlights
- Introduction – 0:45
- What is Liberalism? 3:53
- Liberal Democracy – 11:47
- Liberal Nationalism – 17:35
- How Does Liberalism Change? 22:14
Podcast Transcript
In his latest book, Francis Fukuyama wrote a line that caught me off guard. He wrote, “It is liberalism rather than democracy that has come under the sharpest attack in recent years.” His point is most countries have not abandoned the outer trappings of democracy. They still hold multi-party elections. They still have representative assemblies. Instead, what we often attribute as democratic backsliding is actually a rejection of liberal principles such as human rights or the rule of law.
Still, liberalism is often the source of disagreement and debate. The word means different things to different people. In the United States, it means left-wing politics. However, classical liberalism is associated with free-market intellectuals like Hayek, Freedman, and Mises. It’s a hard idea to wrap our heads around.
So, I wanted to do a deep dive into liberalism with three of the most celebrated writers on the subject. Over the next three weeks I will speak with Michael Walzer, Patrick Deneen, and Francis Fukuyama to help us better understand liberalism. Michael Walzer fully embraces liberalism, while Patrick Deneen offers a sophisticated critique of it. Finally, Francis Fukuyama generally defends liberalism, but has some caveats.
This three episode arc begins with Michael Walzer. Michael is an emeritus professor at the Institute for Advanced Study. He was also a longtime editor of Dissent. His book Spheres of Justice is one of the classics of contemporary political philosophy. For those who still don’t recognize the name, he’s a giant of political theory and thought. He has a new book called The Struggle for a Decent Politics: On “Liberal” as an Adjective.
If you enjoy this episode, make sure to subscribe so you can hear the other conversations on liberalism over the next two weeks. You can also give the podcast a 5 star rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Like always you can find a complete transcript at democracyparadox.com. You’ll also find posts on the blog from a range of writers. If you’d like to contribute, send me an email to jkempf@democracyparadox.com. But for now… This is my conversation with Michael Walzer…
jmk
Michael Walzer, welcome to the Democracy Paradox.
Michael Walzer
I’m glad to be here.
jmk
Well, Michael, your newest book is fascinating. It’s called The Struggle for a Decent Politics: On Liberal as an Adjective. In the book, you actually start with a question. You ask, “Is liberalism an ism like all the other isms? I think it once was.” It implies to me that liberalism is no longer an ideology. But if it’s not an ideology, what is it?
Michael Walzer
Well, I think it still has the form of an ideology in some places. It’s not a single or coherent ideology. In Europe, liberalism refers to what we call libertarianism. It’s generally a right-wing doctrine. Sometimes it appears in the anarchist left. In the United States, as I said a minute ago, liberalism is New Deal Liberalism. It’s our version, a very modest version, of social democracy and would be better called social democracy except for the strangeness of American political vocabularies. Neoliberalism is a repudiation of New Deal Liberalism, but not a full repudiation, in some cases more, some cases less.
So, it doesn’t have a fixed character and I think for most people what liberalism means is a mindset that has to do with a respect for human rights and civil liberties, toleration of different religions, and an ability to live with ambiguity. Those qualities are very important, but they don’t add up to a full-scale ideology. They don’t determine your views about the economy, for example. So, I like the idea of liberal as a qualifier on other more specific and coherent commitments.
jmk
As I was reading your book and continued to think of liberalism as an adjective rather than as a noun, it definitely gave me the impression of liberalism as a mindset, almost like an approach rather than being something that’s a form of identity. How does that change the way that we think about liberalism when we think of it more as a mindset or an approach or a way of doing things rather than being something that somebody just is?
Michael Walzer
Well, I think it is possible to be a liberal and sometimes I can’t help using the word that way in the book. I like Lauren Bacall’s definition, one of my favorite actresses. She said, ‘A liberal is someone who doesn’t have a small mind,’ and that is an identity. You can be a liberal in the sense of having a certain kind of generosity in the political world of accepting ambiguity, living with difference, defending the rights and liberties of people you disagree with. That is an identity. But with regard to political commitments like socialism or democracy, that identity functions as a qualifier on the meaning of democracy or socialism or nationalism.
jmk
So, can somebody be liberal in one area and illiberal in others? Like you’ve mentioned democracy and socialism. Can somebody be a liberal democrat but be an illiberal socialist or vice versa?
Michael Walzer
Well, human beings are very, very complicated and I raise it exactly that question in the chapter on liberal professors. I can imagine a professor who holds strongly liberal views on human rights and civil liberties, but is an authoritarian in the classroom. In fact, that’s a fairly common phenomenon. So, yes, I think human beings are capable of remarkable inconsistencies.
jmk
So, to jump over to that chapter about professors, I found it fascinating, because I got the impression that you thought it was necessary to be a liberal professor to really be committed to your profession. That if a professor didn’t have a sense of liberalism, of tolerance for other views of respecting their students, that they somehow didn’t fulfill their professional obligations. Is it possible for somebody to be illiberal in their politics, but a liberal professor. Somebody who’s a good professor that respects their students, respects their colleagues, and contributes to the classroom in that way.
Michael Walzer
There are many ways of relating to young people, to students. I suspect that some of the great teachers have been authoritarian figures and have both inspired a respect for learning, but also a critical response, a response of opposition. I don’t think it’s a necessary feature of being a good teacher, a good professor, to be a liberal. I do think that the most successful classrooms would be those where the teacher is able to insist upon his own authority as an elder and a more learned person and still respect the capacity, the ambition, and sometimes the opposition of his students.
jmk
So, to bring this back to politics, do you believe that there’s specific policies or laws that are really central to what we described as liberal politics? Because a moment ago you mentioned different types of liberal politics, like social democracy and then there’s neoliberalism that almost contradicts it on every single economic policy. Are there any real specific policies or laws that are central to a liberal form of politics in the end?
Michael Walzer
I would think the crucial thing would be any institutional arrangements or laws or constitutions which set limits on power. I think that is probably the clearest injunction of the adjective liberal. It’s especially clear in the case of our democracy where we do believe, most of us do, that there are limits on what a majority can do and those limits are set by our Constitution. Moreover, the institution of the Supreme Court is supposed to enforce those limits on executive and legislative power. I think in different versions that idea of setting of limits is crucial to the work of the adjective.
jmk
How important is democracy for the liberal politics? Like when we talk about liberal socialism, liberal Judaism, liberal feminism, we can talk about in so many different areas of politics, so many different areas of thinking. Is democracy central to all of those or is democracy kind of its own form of politics that’s separate? Is it necessary for liberalism?
Michael Walzer
I don’t think necessary would be the right word, because I don’t believe that the classroom should be democratic. The university is not a democratic institution, although there should be limits on the power of administrators and professors. But it isn’t a democracy and political movements like feminism may or may not be internally democratic. They certainly aren’t democratic in the sense that you are giving a vote to your fellow citizens who aren’t feminists. It is an interesting argument about whether interest groups and political campaigns and organizations engaged in long-term struggle can be or should be fully democratic. But those are questions that I would address only concretely in very specific instances.
For example, I am very critical of socialist vanguards. The role of the vanguard that literally believes it is at the head of a movement and it’s there because it knows the destination. It has acknowledged that the followers don’t have it. That kind of movement organization, I think, if it leads to any kind of democracy, it will lead to an illiberal democracy.
jmk
When you’re talking about a Vanguard, I get the impression you’re talking about Leninism and the form of communism that we saw spring up in places like the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China as well as some other countries. In the book you write, “The adjective liberal means that a socialist society can be achieved only with the consent of the people as they are here and now with all their differences of character, belief, and ability. And it must be fought for democratically.” Does the absence of democracy in those situations, does it turn socialist movements into something else then?
Michael Walzer
I think that Leninist movements are likely to lead to authoritarian regimes if they are successful, precisely because the Vanguard has knowledge of the way things should be, the historical destination of humanity, that the followers don’t have. So, if they win power, they will rule as an authoritarian elite. The struggle for socialism or for social democracy or the struggle for democratization in countries that have had authoritarian regimes, the struggle has to have democratic commitments. I don’t know if you can always rule the movement by a popular vote. The conditions for internal democracy may be difficult, but you want leaders who are somehow accountable even if the institutions don’t yet exist. We want leaders who are committed to those institutions.
jmk
So, to look at the other side of the coin. Instead of something like socialism or even communism to look at Neoliberals, they’re oftentimes described as conservatives in the United States, but conservatism can be kind of its own mindset, its own way of thinking about the world that can be different from liberalism. Is it possible to be a conservative liberal or a liberal conservative?
Michael Walzer
Yes, I think so. Liberal as an adjective can apply in some cases, but maybe not with full consistency. I think those neocons who have become never Trumpers are a kind of a liberal politics. They may not be liberal all the way down, but yes, they are defending liberal democracy against a real threat. I think there have been liberal Republicans. In fact, I describe in the book my closest friend in high school who was the nephew of the local Republican party boss and I tell the story of how the two of us went to listen to Joe McCarthy at a fairground near Johnstown, Pennsylvania where we lived. We both had negative responses. He was disgusted. This was not his kind of republicanism and I was frightened. It certainly was not my idea of democracy or social democracy.
So, yes. We disagreed, but respected each other. So yes, I think that may be a vanishing breed among Republicans today. But it has existed in the past.
jmk
In the book, you also talk about liberal nationalism or liberal nationalists. You write, “The adjective liberal turns nationalism into a universalist doctrine.” What does it mean then to be a liberal nationalist?
Michael Walzer
Well, it means to respect everyone else’s nationalism and it especially means to respect the nationalism that comes next. So, the test of Turkish nationalists is the Kurds. The test of Chinese Han nationalism is the people of Tibet or the Muslims of the Northwest. The test of Israeli Zionism is the Palestinians. So, a liberal nationalist is someone who believes, yes, I have a right. My people have a right to self-determination, but so does every other people. Mazzini, who in some ways is the first ideologist of nationalism, is a perfect example of someone like that who founded Young Italy and then went on to found Young Germany, Young Switzerland, Young Poland. He believed in a multiplicity of national liberation or national self-determination movements.
jmk
You mentioned earlier that one of the books that really influenced your thought was from Yuli Tamir. Can you talk a little bit about how she actually influenced or changed how you thought about liberalism or, on the other hand, maybe did she just confirm some of the thoughts you already had?
Michael Walzer
Well, she was a student in one of my classes, so I hope I had some influence on her. She has had an influence on me. She went on to Oxford and wrote a dissertation with Isaiah Berlin, who is the classic iberal liberal liberal. She defends the idea of cultural, political self-determination, but in a context that recognizes the rights of the others. It’s a nuanced and sustained argument intended to be general, but also obviously, an affirmation of her own liberal Zionism, which puts her right now, I suppose, very much in the opposition in Israel today. But she was for a while, politically engaged and then became a college president of an arts college. But yes, I’d learned from her book and I’ve learned from Isaiah Berlin.
jmk
What did you learn from Isaiah Berlin?
Michael Walzer
Well, I learned the importance of pluralism. The ability without being a relativist or without sinking too deeply into relativism. I learned to acknowledge the possibility of plural truths or at least to acknowledge the legitimacy or the validity of different viewpoints. There is a saying in the Talmud. It’s a description of two different legal opinions, two different schools of legal thought, legal arguments. The comment of the later Talmudic Rabbinic writer is these and those are the words of the living God even though they’re contradictory. That’s one of those lines you have to think about a long time. In fact, the commentator goes on to prefer one of them, but to acknowledge that both of them are, whatever this means, the words of the living God.
I think something like that occurs in Protestant Reformation thought, the notion that God’s house has many mansions. What does that mean? There are many different ways of living within God’s house. That’s a radical idea. It doesn’t have to be a relativist idea. It can still say, ‘I have reasons for living in one of those mansions, but I respect people who live in the others.’ That is Isaiah Berlin. I think that is the central message of his.
jmk
So how do you feel that the meaning of liberalism has changed over time?
Michael Walzer
Well, in the 19th century, it really was something like what we call libertarianism, but in our own time in something like the anti-vaccine movement or the refusal to put on a mask, I guess these people would describe themselves as libertarians. Once they would’ve been called liberals and now liberal means almost the opposite. American liberals, New Deal liberals, believe in the importance of using state power to protect and enhance individual lives. So, New Deal Liberalism is different from every previous idea of what liberalism meant. I prefer to call it social democracy, but that is what American liberals believe, I think.
jmk
Do you feel that the mindset has changed over time, over the centuries, or do you feel like the consequences of that mindset have changed?
Michael Walzer
Well, the consequences are different in every concrete situation. I am sure that the person in 600 of the common era who wrote that line, these, and those are the words of the living God… That’s a liberal. That’s a liberal statement and I’m sure there were people who thought, absolutely not this and not that is the word of the living God. So, yes, I think that the basic ideas of liberalism, the absence of the small mindedness goes way back. It is a universal human possibility.
jmk
So, do you feel that liberalism is something that’s a part of human nature, that all humans are liberals or have the capacity to be liberal in different ways?
Michael Walzer
The second thing, I believe that, yes, the absence of small mindedness, the qualities that I’ve been calling liberal are human possibilities, universal human possibilities and some evidence of that is that they’re under attack everywhere.
jmk
Well, Michael, thank you so much for joining me today. I want to mention the book one more time. It’s called The Struggle for a Decent Politics: On Liberal as an Adjective. I highly recommend everybody to read it. Thank you so much for writing it. Thank you so much for joining me again today.
Michael Walzer
Thank you, Justin. Thank you.
Key Links
The Struggle for a Decent Politics: On “Liberal” as an Adjective by Michael Walzer
Spheres Of Justice: A Defense Of Pluralism And Equality by Michael Walzer
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Michael Ignatieff Warns Against the Politics of Enemies
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