LETTERS
Editors: Dennis H. Wrong makes a convincing case for his belief that the present decline of liberalism in American politics is more than a normal turn in a cyclical pattern (in "How Critical Is...
...Readers are not told that Plato's statement is the Athenian Stranger's in the Laws or, more to the point, that what is presented here as a complete statement in Dissent is a very partial and tendentious version of the actual speech...
...The example of court-ordered busing for integrated education is too obvious to need repetition...
...But the fact is that in war there is not and will not be by nature either play or, again, an education that is at any time worthy of our discussion...
...The Internal Revenue Office is trying to say this is taxable income because we save money...
...My criticisms imply that liberal programs are only tactics, mechanisms, that may have to be changed in order to bring about liberal goals and values—which do not change...
...People at times give me a blank look when I try to explain how it is possible for people who invest in an enterprise to own it mutually, and what the meaning is of a cooperative business: to section off the business side of it, and the democratic participation by members...
...And once we make this distinction, we will see that millions of Americans who seem to have gone "conservative" have really given up only on our tactics and, ironically enough, not because these tactics were too radical, but because they violated liberal values...
...Although the ultimate goal of these policies (increased welfare, busing for integration, support of unions) was a more equal society, the immediate effects of these policies were, too often, the denial of justice to ordinary wage-earners...
...This may indicate that even on such a small scale as my own co-op, it is not easy to tell people what mutuality is, co-operation, and some kind of alternative that challenges the status quo of doing things...
...If such an alternative results in greater economic security for millions of New Yorkers, without seriously affecting the wages and hours of transport workers, binding arbitration could be considered a step toward a more egalitarian society, certainly a society where workers think of other workers as well as of their own immediate interests...
...Many young adults were paying for retired citizens who were economically better off than those who were paying Social Security taxes...
...Kramnick's conclusion...
...WILLIAM HORVATH a Michigan Bricklayer...
...Too patient at times...
...JERRY W. WARD, JR...
...I used to attend the meetings of the Catholic Worker in New York, and I attended the wake and funeral of Dorothy Day...
...KLEINIAS: How's that...
...Kilson contends that choices between creative and political activity are "particularly acute for black American intellectuals" and posits three strategies for dealing with choice: ignoring politics, total politicization, and marginality...
...I urge those who would know the truth about the myth to consult the photographic archives in the L. Zenobia Coleman Library at Tougaloo...
...In each instance, the intellectual has freely chosen an identity that is by definition one of creative adversity within his society...
...Yet it is rather surprising that Kilson drew his biographical information from Constance Webb's Richard Wright rather than from Michel Fabre's The Unfinished Quest of Richard Wright, generally accepted as the definitive biography...
...Kilson's discussion of Richard Wright as marginal man, focusing on key issues of Wright's public and private life, is delightfully provocative...
...126 The Ideal of Equal Opportunity Editors: I hope it is not too late to make a comment on an article in the Spring 1981 issue of Dissent...
...The Stranger continues by quoting the poet to support the notion that "the demon and god will suggest things to them [these nurslings] regarding sacrifices and choral performances, thus indicating those whom they should offer games and propitiate, and when they should play each game for each, so as to live out their lives in accordance with the way of nature, being puppets, for the most part, but sharing in small portions of truth...
...yet this is what we assert is for us, at least, the most serious thing...
...I would argue the choices are no more acute for black intellectuals than for Jewish or Irish American intellectuals...
...My suspicion is that perhaps Liberal Education does not tell people what business is—how to keep a double entry account, and what all is involved even in running a small shop...
...This is what in fact the Athenian Stranger sasys (the phrases that were amalgamated by Prof...
...Each person should spend the greatest and best part of his life in peace...
...People work two hours a month to help in our co-op store to reduce costs...
...I have just now been able to read Isaac Kramnick's "Equal Opportunity and 'The Race of Life.' " While this essay raises many important and interesting issues, I wish to confine myself to Prof...
...She let me write about co-ops in the paper...
...Megillus, the Spartan, interrupts to complain: "Stranger, you are belittling our human race in every respect...
...Editors: Dennis H. Wrong makes a convincing case for his belief that the present decline of liberalism in American politics is more than a normal turn in a cyclical pattern (in "How Critical Is Our Condition," Fall 1981...
...ATHENIAN: Nowadays, presumably, they suppose the serious things are for the sake of the playful things: for it is held that the affairs pertaining to war, being serious matters, should be run well for the sake of peace...
...When I try to orient new members to understand the basics to this system of enterprise, I find difficulty...
...Where else can you buy wheat germ for 25e a pound...
...And I understand the news on the Bank is that the co-ops themselves now can own it...
...Tougaloo, Miss...
...Strangely enough, some of the people who listen the longest and are able to easily comprehend the meaning of these matters—are what we call conservative people, even good Republicans...
...Not only does Wrong point to the obvious defeats in the elections of 1977 and 1980, but he also brings to our attention that in the Democratic primary in 1976, "the most conventional liberal candidate in the field, Morris Udall, seemed to be carrying all the college and university towns while trailing his opponents everywhere else...
...did about $400 million of business last year...
...LAWRENCE W. HYMAN New York City q Black Intellectuals Editors: I wish to respond to several points raised in Martin Kilson's "Politics and Identity Among Black Intellectuals" (Dissent, Summer 1981...
...In only five years, these people are able to understand things about both commerce and democracy they only read about previously...
...My concern is with this quotation...
...I read that New Wave Co-ops in the U.S.A...
...The same principle can apply to other issues: what may seem like a "conservative" tactic can prove to be more in keeping with liberal values, and it is the liberal values that we want to maintain—not the policies...
...When we hold regional meetings in Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana for our Federation, hundreds of people show up, all ages but mostly the young people,—and we talk about good food, co-ops, and our warehouse workers (over 30 of them) who have their own collective and are represented in the Federation...
...ISAAC KRAMNICK Replies: I prefer Mr...
...Use of the latter book might have led to slightly different conclusions about Wright's marginality...
...Prof...
...Kramnick's Plato is made to be a critic of the "ideal of equal opportunity," which, Prof...
...Kramnick's distortion of the Platonic original...
...People living in poorer neighborhoods had to suffer violent criminals who were out on bail or who were saved from imprisonment by middle-class liberals living in safer neighborhoods...
...My own experience was gained in Sweden, in both 1950 and again in 1965, when I worked there as a bricklayer to learn more about their co-ops, and their Social Democratic party...
...q "New Democrats and New Ideas" Editors: I wish to tell my appreciation for Samuel Hux's story in the Summer 1981 Dissent titled: "The Democrats and New Ideas...
...But it could be that he is subtly giving us an example of how honest people would be under his new "moral economy" regime...
...193-94.] What conclusions are we to draw from Prof...
...Wallingford, Pa...
...Perhaps only that he was using an inferior and abridged translation...
...Laws 803c-804b...
...Hux explains a lot very clearly in a few words...
...Kramnick contends, "envisages life as a war of all against all with persons of worth as victors...
...He ends his defense of a new "moral economy," the economy of "play," which is to replace the "market economy," the economy of freedom (equal opportunity), by quoting "the first great utopian thinker," Plato...
...What then is the correct way...
...Plato is made to endorse Prof...
...I do organizing for co-ops here, mostly food co-ops...
...Our Michigan Federation of Food Co-ops began some 14 years ago in Ann Arbor...
...Finally, Kilson's seventh footnote alludes to the widespread myth of the "blue-vein" clique at Tougaloo College...
...A strong voice for peace is lost to us with her death.—On this, we can somehow survive (?) the national internal problems—but on war and peace, now there is a worry to worry us...
...WILLIAM E. JOHNSTON, JR...
...But Wrong neglects to mention, except indirectly, just why liberalism seems now to be the politics of what he calls "the quiche eaters," rather than the politics of the average American—namely, that liberal policies in the last 20 years have often violated liberal values...
...Pangle trans., pp...
...Thus the recent suggestion by the head of the Transport Workers Union in New York City that his union give up the right to strike in exchange for binding arbitration need not indicate a "conservative" response...
...The American people are cautious, but also very often intelligent and patient...
...Kramnick's proposals by the device of misquotation...
...On a small scale, I want to believe that these kinds of co-op ventures now encompassed in the so-called New Wave Co-ops have a meaning for the potential of democratic socialism...
...One should live out one's days playing at certain games—sacrificing, singing, and dancing—with the result that one can make the gods propitious to oneself and can defend oneself against enemies and be victorious over them in battle...
...Although all of the liberal programs in these areas, like integration, were designed to create greater equality, the effects were often the opposite: hard-working adults were paying a large share of their income to support the children of other adults who were escaping family responsibilities...
...Kramnick appear here in my italics): ATHENIAN: I assert that what is serious should be treated seriously, and what is not serious should not, and that by nature god is worthy of a complete, blessed seriousness, but that what is human, as we said earlier, has been devised as a certain plaything of god, and that this is really the best thing about it...
...For this reason, I think it may be an error to believe only liberals would be interested in democratic socialism as an idea and a practice to examine...
...Now we have over 400 127retail outlet co-ops, and do almost $7 million in sales of whole food a year...
...We now have our Co-op Bank in Washington, D.C.—a sheer Miracle, me thinks...
...Every man and woman should spend life in this way, playing the noblest possible games, and thinking about them in a way that is the opposite of the way they're now thought about...
...Enough said...
...Johnston's first and more charitable conclusion...
...The same principle applies to welfare payments, Social Security, unions, and civil rights for accused criminals...
...However, my hope remains that when a co-op, with even 300 families, manages to do but $1 million of business a year to satisfy their food needs, and people manage it democratically at that, quite usual people, like many housewives,—it is a source of confidence in people...
...When we say that our by-laws are our constitution, it scares people, they think it's too involved...
...But although such a program is no longer an issue, it will take a long time for many Americans who live in the inner cities and whose children had to bear the burden of busing to forget that the children of most "liberals" attended schools that their parents chose...
...I must say they accept me with this, still let me do business with them as a small mason contractor, and we even get to like each other...
...At age 65, last April, I am bolder and come right out and tell people in a conversation, if it drifts to such matters, that I am for democratic socialism...
Vol. 29 • January 1982 • No. 1
