Tributes to Michael Harrington
Barkan, Joanne
I first encountered Michael in 1976 when he spoke at Wesleyan University. The audience was peppered with people like myself who wanted, more than anything else, not to be "social democrats."...
...He inspired people to live that politics...
...Like most DSA activists, I felt heartened whenever I heard him speak...
...By then, I understood not only how thoroughgoing a transformation of capitalism he always demanded, but also how his concept of the transformation evolved in response to a changing world...
...I think outsiders would have been surprised at the degree to which Michael submitted to the guidance, will, opinions, and nagging of DSA committees and staff...
...he returned the respect and affection we felt for him—but perhaps with an even greater measure of compassion...
...he worked with us as peers...
...The socialist project looked more and more difficult, and I came to depend on Michael's optimism—an intelligent optimism...
...That energetic mind was never closed...
...His life itself—that resolute commitment untainted by dogmatism—became an inspiration...
...Didn't I belong to the political generation and gender that distrusted leaders, especially men...
...When the news came last June that there was nothing more the doctors could do, the grief welled up along with a sense of emptiness, abandonment...
...In the years after I heard Michael speak at Wesleyan, I lost my left romanticism...
...Shaping a democratic politics that binds visionary goals and socialist values to immediate struggles was Michael's great contribution...
...How grateful I am to have known him, and how much I will always miss him...
...I found myself saying I felt leaderless—and then I was embarrassed by that feeling...
...But Michael had given us another gift—he taught us to work democratically with a strong leader...
...But he did more than shape an entire politics...
...Years passed before I understood how deeply radical Michael was, and by then I was working closely with him in DSA...
...He combined passionate conviction with such obvious human decency and good sense...
...106 • DISSENT...
...If I obsessed in political debates about the imperatives of capital accumulation as a barrier to radical change, I expected Michael to counter not so much with a ready solution to the problem I posed but with a coherent politics, a stance in life...
...When he changed, he did WINTER • 1990 • 105 Remembering Mike so seriously, within the context of his closely held beliefs...
...And that he did...
...I saw Michael incorporate feminism in an ever more substantial way, and, in the last few years, environmentalism...
...He argued and listened with equal intensity...
...Unable, or unwilling, to comprehend his politics, we badgered Michael with hostile questions...
Vol. 37 • January 1990 • No. 1
