Contrary to Tony Judt’s delusional assertions about
liberal acquiescence to Bush’s ruinous foreign policy designs, I must say that
recent months have demonstrated that liberals are a serious bunch, who are,
once again, thinking big. In my August Prospect essays on the future of
progressive foreign policy, I cited the works of Michael Signer, Madeleine
Albright, Robert Wright, and Peter Beinart in proposing bold alternatives to
neo-isolationism of the ascendant Left and the neo-conservatism of the once-ascendant Right. Most of you are probably already familiar with these contributions.
The last year or so has also marked a renewed liberal
interest in the treasured art of manifesto writing. For starters, Peter
Beinart’s book is a manifesto if not in form then certainly in ambition. When
young Democrats who care about foreign policy meet these days, one of the first
things they presumably ask each other is whether they have dutifully read The
Good Fight. Yes, it’s a damn good book. Beyond that, there is the
Euston Manifesto, authored across the pond by Norman Geras and a reputable
slate of intellectuals, who know moral clarity when they see it, and also when
they write it.
More recently, I read the short-form sort-of-manifesto of
Bruce Ackerman and Todd Gitlin, published in The American Prospect. I
think it’s a bit lacking in the atmospherics that one has come to expect from
manifestos, but I suppose this is the price we pay for living in a somewhat
post-ideological world. Nevertheless, it’s signed by quite a few prominent
people, so it’s certainly worth looking at, if for no other reason than its
serving as a nice rejoinder to the political misanthropy of the almost-too-ubiquitous
Tony Judt.
I suspect there will be more manifestos to come, led by the
curiously titled and already wildly over-appreciated book – Ethical Realism
– by unabashed</
