Marriage
Marquardt, Elizabeth
LLTTIRS Marriage Editors: Frank Furstenberg's article Can Marriage Be Saved?" (Summer 2005) is unnecessarily pessimistic about marriage and overly optimistic about the ability of society...
...I don't admit it...
...ELIZABETH MARQUARDT New York, N.Y...
...Grandly dismissing these arguments as having "nothing to do" with the politics of the democratic left," Rule reminds me of the rhetorical habits of Charles Dickens's wealthy man of business, Mr...
...ELIZABETH MARQUARDT New York, N.Y...
...Perhaps it is time we took a far more honest look at ourselves...
...Even Michael Walzer, an opponent of the war, is made to sound like a Bush partisan, given to asserting that "those who recoil at American unilateralism are somehow soft on the evils it targets...
...or that of Norman Geras on "Left Reductionism after 9/11" (Winter 2005...
...Even Michael Walzer, an opponent of the war, is made to sound like a Bush partisan, given to asserting that "those who recoil at American unilateralism are somehow soft on the evils it targets...
...James B. Rule Replies I can't make sense of this vague and rambling letter...
...James B. Rule Replies I can't make sense of this vague and rambling letter...
...He goes on to say that "you can be an enemy of Saddam Hussein even if Donald Rumsfeld is an enemy of Saddam Hussein...
...I don't choose to discuss it...
...But when he turns his attention to the small number of Dissent writers who argued in favor of U.S...
...Grandly dismissing these arguments as having "nothing to do" with the politics of the democratic left," Rule reminds me of the rhetorical habits of Charles Dickens's wealthy man of business, Mr...
...But this does not require abandoning efforts to strengthen marriage, especially at a time when most Americans (including single mothers) still want to make lasting, loving marriages...
...In 1954, in a bad season for the left, knowing at first hand the futility of sectarian dogmatism, the editors called for "rethinking, reformulation, controversy and openness of ideas...
...If we are to have any chance of reversing the current slide to the right, progressives need to stop looking at the world in such an oversimplified, dogmatic manner...
...But because we have a long lead time for each issue, you have to send us your letter within three weeks of getting an issue of Dissent in order to get it into the next issue...
...For all his industrious anathematizing of those he calls "intellectual apologists" for the war—including, oddly, Andrew Sullivan and Thomas L. Friedman, neither one a Dissent writer or, for that matter, particularly left wing—Rule fails to mention the Iraqi writer Kanan Makiya's contributions to the debate ("Symposium: War and Iraq," Winter 2003...
...The kind of political discussion that Dissent has tried to honor sweeps aside no argument, however discomfiting, however minoritarian, with a Podsnappian "rightward flourishing arm"—or a leftward one...
...I don't choose to discuss it...
...Does the left, at this moment—or at any moment—really need something like Rule's Rules for membership or discussion...
...DISSENT / Fall 2005 n I I I LETTERS neoconservatives who started out as either Shachtmanites or Straussians...
...Podsnap's mantra—it forms part of a system Dickens calls "Podsnappery"—is, "I don't want to know about it...
...Mitchell Cohen has "echoed the Washington line," proposing a "never ending agenda for American dominance...
...She writes that the state will never have the capacity to support children at a level equivalent to what they could receive in a low-conflict marriage...
...And at the same time, they can also be arrogant, hypocritical, and highly deceitful...
...Grandly dismissing these arguments as having "nothing to do" with the politics of the democratic left," Rule reminds me of the rhetorical habits of Charles Dickens's wealthy man of business, Mr...
...Perhaps Rule felt some compunction about lecturing the author of Republic of Fear and the head of the Iraq Memory Foundation or the revolutionary, antifascist, anticommunist leader of Solidarity on what "we on the left" and "people like us" define as democratic left politics, or acceptable risk...
...She writes that the state will never have the capacity to support children at a level equivalent to what they could receive in a low-conflict marriage...
...military intervention, he generates considerably more heat than light...
...My objections to the administration's policies are that they rely largely on symbolic gestures that are likely to be ineffectual unless they are combined with substantial material help...
...and) the accumulation of power...
...George Bush's Philosophers Editors: In "George Bush's Philosophers" (Summer 2005), Benjamin Ross rules out the possibility that the Bush administration's foreign policies might be based on anything other than "politics...
...James B. Rule Replies I can't make sense of this vague and rambling letter...
...The fact is that both George W. Bush and his neocon allies, can—and I would argue do—hold deeply felt views based on what they see as a coherent set of ideological principles...
...MAGGIE GALLAGHER, PRESIDENT Institute for Marriage and Public Policy Frank Furstenberg Replies I am delighted to join Elizabeth Marquardt's call for efforts to support children in families headed by married couples, unmarried couples, and single parents...
...It is time for the left to develop a much more nuanced understanding of political reality...
...I would add the apparent continuing failure to provide the most basic security, a problem that threatens not just Iraq's prospects for democracy but that of its people for even a semi-normal life...
...To Letter Writers • We welcome succinct letters from our readers...
...Even Michael Walzer, an opponent of the war, is made to sound like a Bush partisan, given to asserting that "those who recoil at American unilateralism are somehow soft on the evils it targets...
...George Bush's Philosophers Editors: In "George Bush's Philosophers" (Summer 2005), Benjamin Ross rules out the possibility that the Bush administration's foreign policies might be based on anything other than "politics...
...George Bush's Philosophers Editors: In "George Bush's Philosophers" (Summer 2005), Benjamin Ross rules out the possibility that the Bush administration's foreign policies might be based on anything other than "politics...
...A Comment from Mitchell Cohen Since Rule's ire is aimed especially at me, I would invite Dissent readers to return to my "Thought Experiment for the Left," (Dissent, Summer 2004), and also to take a look at my article "In the Murk of It: Iraq Reconsidered," published earlier this year in Thomas Cushman, ed., A Matter of Principle (University of California Press...
...Mitchell Cohen has "echoed the Washington line," proposing a "never ending agenda for American dominance...
...However, she is vague on the kinds of support that she is willing to provide...
...George Bush's Philosophers Editors: In "George Bush's Philosophers" (Summer 2005), Benjamin Ross rules out the possibility that the Bush administration's foreign policies might be based on anything other than "politics...
...She writes that the state will never have the capacity to support children at a level equivalent to what they could receive in a low-conflict marriage...
...Benj DeMott, reviewing Victor Navasky's memoir A Matter of Opinion in the July issue of the upstart radical magazine First of the Month, recounts in detail what the Nation did to Makiya...
...All too often, the left—in adopting this posture— comes across as strident, self-righteous, or mean-spirited...
...But the notion that these people should get a pass for their calamitous political and moral choices is utterly un-Dissentlike...
...The kind of political discussion that Dissent has tried to honor sweeps aside no argument, however discomfiting, however minoritarian, with a Podsnappian "rightward flourishing arm"—or a leftward one...
...Benj DeMott, reviewing Victor Navasky's memoir A Matter of Opinion in the July issue of the upstart radical magazine First of the Month, recounts in detail what the Nation did to Makiya...
...ELIZABETH MARQUARDT New York, N.Y...
...The kind of political discussion that Dissent has tried to honor sweeps aside no argument, however discomfiting, however minoritarian, with a Podsnappian "rightward flourishing arm"—or a leftward one...
...In 1954, in a bad season for the left, knowing at first hand the futility of sectarian dogmatism, the editors called for "rethinking, reformulation, controversy and openness of ideas...
...In 1954, in a bad season for the left, knowing at first hand the futility of sectarian dogmatism, the editors called for "rethinking, reformulation, controversy and openness of ideas...
...I wrote "The Iraq Debacle" in hope that those whose statements originally condoned the American invasion of Iraq would respond, either to step back from their positions, or to defend them and their consequences...
...Is the current administration's policy likely to result in a significantly greater proportion of low-conflict marriages...
...On what evidence is that statement based...
...There are plenty of magazines on the left that squelch dissenting views...
...Benj DeMott, reviewing Victor Navasky's memoir A Matter of Opinion in the July issue of the upstart radical magazine First of the Month, recounts in detail what the Nation did to Makiya...
...In doing so, Ross has adopted the left's standard view of the underlying motives of the American right...
...DeMott's article, "With Friends Like These" can be accessed at www.firstofthemonth.org) But Dissent was founded precisely to break free of sectarianism and rigidly maintained doctrinal purity...
...Does the left, at this moment—or at any moment—really need something like Rule's Rules for membership or discussion...
...The author is an affiliate scholar at the Institute for American Values...
...Does he really hold that the alleged luminaries he names should be immune to challenge for their disastrous political choices...
...I don't admit it...
...Grandly dismissing these arguments as having "nothing to do" with the politics of the democratic left," Rule reminds me of the rhetorical habits of Charles Dickens's wealthy man of business, Mr...
...The bone of contention with Maggie Gallagher rests on how to strengthen and support stable parent unions...
...But this does not require abandoning efforts to strengthen marriage, especially at a time when most Americans (including single mothers) still want to make lasting, loving marriages...
...KEN BROCINER Somerville, Mass...
...Maybe we can create a place beyond conservative and liberal, where false dichotomies do not restrict our choices...
...In 1954, in a bad season for the left, knowing at first hand the futility of sectarian dogmatism, the editors called for "rethinking, reformulation, controversy and openness of ideas...
...She writes that the state will never have the capacity to support children at a level equivalent to what they could receive in a low-conflict marriage...
...Maybe we can create a place beyond conservative and liberal, where false dichotomies do not restrict our choices...
...Instead, all I get is this wimpish letter...
...It is time for the left to develop a much more nuanced understanding of political reality...
...My objections to the administration's policies are that they rely largely on symbolic gestures that are likely to be ineffectual unless they are combined with substantial material help...
...In doing so, Ross has adopted the left's standard view of the underlying motives of the American right...
...One hopes so...
...There is no dichotomy, false or otherwise, if the rhetoric is joined with real aid...
...Living up to that original mission—and resisting demands for unanimity—is as urgent now in our frightened, parlous time as it has ever been...
...military intervention, he generates considerably more heat than light...
...The fact is that both George W. Bush and his neocon allies, can—and I would argue do—hold deeply felt views based on what they see as a coherent set of ideological principles...
...Maybe we can create a place beyond conservative and liberal, where false dichotomies do not restrict our choices...
...Instead, all I get is this wimpish letter...
...My objections to the administration's policies are that they rely largely on symbolic gestures that are likely to be ineffectual unless they are combined with substantial material help...
...Podsnap, in Our Mutual Friend, who "swept away" evDISSENT / Fan 2005 n 109 LETTERS erything he suspected with a "rightward flourishing arm...
...In doing so, Ross has adopted the left's standard view of the underlying motives of the American right...
...Ross discusses the intellectual origins of those I I0 n DISSENT / Fall 2005 LETTERS neoconservatives who started out as either Shachtmanites or Straussians...
...There are plenty of magazines on the left that squelch dissenting views...
...But it makes no sense to throw up our hands and say that the state and society can do nothing to help those couples, while at the same time arguing that once those couples divorce—or if they never marry at all—then there are all kinds of social resources we can and should marshal in support of them and their children...
...We can ensure that our policies help parents to achieve healthy marriages, and we can ensure that our policies support the existing and often pressing needs of children living in all kinds of families...
...I think not...
...But the notion that these people should get a pass for their calamitous political and moral choices is utterly un-Dissentlike...
...OLIVER CONANT New York, N.Y...
...I wrote "The Iraq Debacle" in hope that those whose statements originally condoned the American invasion of Iraq would respond, either to step back from their positions, or to defend them and their consequences...
...I would then invite them to reread Rule's "Reply" here as well as his "Iraq Debacle" in this past summer's Dissent, and to reach their own conclusions...
...MAGGIE GALLAGHER, PRESIDENT Institute for Marriage and Public Policy Frank Furstenberg Replies I am delighted to join Elizabeth Marquardt's call for efforts to support children in families headed by married couples, unmarried couples, and single parents...
...A Comment from Mitchell Cohen Since Rule's ire is aimed especially at me, I would invite Dissent readers to return to my "Thought Experiment for the Left," (Dissent, Summer 2004), and also to take a look at my article "In the Murk of It: Iraq Reconsidered," published earlier this year in Thomas Cushman, ed., A Matter of Principle (University of California Press...
...Apparently, Ross, like so many others on the left, cannot believe that philosophers and/or politicians on the right are just as sincere (however wrong-headed they may be) as we are on the left...
...DeMott's article, "With Friends Like These" can be accessed at www.firstofthemonth.org) But Dissent was founded precisely to break free of sectarianism and rigidly maintained doctrinal purity...
...In the interview, conducted in Warsaw in 2004, Michnik is adamant that "in the conflict between totalitarian regimes and democracy, you must not hesitate to declare which side you are on, even if the democratic countries are ruled by people whom you do not like...
...Perhaps Rule felt some compunction about lecturing the author of Republic of Fear and the head of the Iraq Memory Foundation or the revolutionary, antifascist, anticommunist leader of Solidarity on what "we on the left" and "people like us" define as democratic left politics, or acceptable risk...
...But because we have a long lead time for each issue, you have to send us your letter within three weeks of getting an issue of Dissent in order to get it into the next issue...
...Sadly, the state will never have the resources or ability to provide the level of security for children that parents in a low-conflict marriage can provide...
...But the notion that these people should get a pass for their calamitous political and moral choices is utterly un-Dissentlike...
...To Letter Writers • We welcome succinct letters from our readers...
...or that of Norman Geras on "Left Reductionism after 9/11" (Winter 2005...
...There are plenty of magazines on the left that squelch dissenting views...
...Yet even after presenting the ideological beliefs of each tendency, he concludes that their intellectual successors, today's neocons, don't really believe in anything other than "prevailing interests...
...But when he turns his attention to the small number of Dissent writers who argued in favor of U.S...
...Iraq Debacle Editors: James B. Rule's piece on the "Iraq Debacle" (Summer 2005) touches on a number of terrible realities that thinking people cannot afford to ignore, whatever their positions on the war: the daily carnage, the practice and sanctioning of torture by U.S...
...Paul Berman is accused of taking "a page from the apocalyptic scriptures of the neoconservatives...
...At its best, the magazine has indeed been anti-sectarian, but no one but the author of this letter has ever suggested that its "openness of ideas" means equal openness to any and all ideas...
...Is the current administration's policy likely to result in a significantly greater proportion of low-conflict marriages...
...Their right to their views, and Dissent's right to convey them, have never been in doubt...
...Ross discusses the intellectual origins of those I I0 n DISSENT / Fall 2005 LETTERS erything he suspected with a "rightward flourishing arm...
...Mitchell Cohen has "echoed the Washington line," proposing a "never ending agenda for American dominance...
...I don't choose to discuss it...
...In the interview, conducted in Warsaw in 2004, Michnik is adamant that "in the conflict between totalitarian regimes and democracy, you must not hesitate to declare which side you are on, even if the democratic countries are ruled by people whom you do not like...
...Ross discusses the intellectual origins of those I I0 n DISSENT / Fall 2005 LETTERS erything he suspected with a "rightward flourishing arm...
...But this does not require abandoning efforts to strengthen marriage, especially at a time when most Americans (including single mothers) still want to make lasting, loving marriages...
...On what evidence is that statement based...
...Is the current administration's policy likely to result in a significantly greater proportion of low-conflict marriages...
...or "Antitotalitarianism as a Vocation," Thomas Cushman's interview with Adam Michnik (Spring 2004...
...Living up to that original mission—and resisting demands for unanimity—is as urgent now in our frightened, parlous time as it has ever been...
...Iraq Debacle Editors: James B. Rule's piece on the "Iraq Debacle" (Summer 2005) touches on a number of terrible realities that thinking people cannot afford to ignore, whatever their positions on the war: the daily carnage, the practice and sanctioning of torture by U.S...
...Instead of arguing about whether our society should support married parents or support all kinds of families, here's a radical idea: Why not do both...
...OLIVER CONANT New York, N.Y...
...We can ensure that our policies help parents to achieve healthy marriages, and we can ensure that our policies support the existing and often pressing needs of children living in all kinds of families...
...By constantly portraying our adversaries on the right as consciously malevolent villains, we are not putting our own best foot forward in our outreach to the American public...
...Which is, by the way, a different question than whether the beliefs are sincere...
...DeMott's article, "With Friends Like These" can be accessed at www.firstofthemonth.org) But Dissent was founded precisely to break free of sectarianism and rigidly maintained doctrinal purity...
...military intervention, he generates considerably more heat than light...
...I don't admit it...
...I think not...
...It is true, as Furstenberg points out, that "parents with limited cultural and material resources" face more challenges in attaining a stable marriage...
...Benjamin Ross Replies: Of course I think that right-wingers' actions are sometimes motivated by their beliefs...
...LLTTIRS Marriage Editors: Frank Furstenberg's article Can Marriage Be Saved...
...There is no dichotomy, false or otherwise, if the rhetoric is joined with real aid...
...Sadly, the state will never have the resources or ability to provide the level of security for children that parents in a low-conflict marriage can provide...
...I don't admit it...
...Their right to their views, and Dissent's right to convey them, have never been in doubt...
...Podsnap's mantra—it forms part of a system Dickens calls "Podsnappery"—is, "I don't want to know about it...
...One hopes so...
...I would then invite them to reread Rule's "Reply" here as well as his "Iraq Debacle" in this past summer's Dissent, and to reach their own conclusions...
...But it makes no sense to throw up our hands and say that the state and society can do nothing to help those couples, while at the same time arguing that once those couples divorce—or if they never marry at all—then there are all kinds of social resources we can and should marshal in support of them and their children...
...These are not mutually exclusive traits—especially when it comes to right-wing ideology...
...Living up to that original mission—and resisting demands for unanimity—is as urgent now in our frightened, parlous time as it has ever been...
...No luck...
...DeMott's article, "With Friends Like These" can be accessed at www.firstofthemonth.org) But Dissent was founded precisely to break free of sectarianism and rigidly maintained doctrinal purity...
...Is the writer backing the war, or is he just backing people who back the war...
...Editors: Certainly a good society should support all its children...
...or that of Norman Geras on "Left Reductionism after 9/11" (Winter 2005...
...Benj DeMott, reviewing Victor Navasky's memoir A Matter of Opinion in the July issue of the upstart radical magazine First of the Month, recounts in detail what the Nation did to Makiya...
...Summer 2005) is unnecessarily pessimistic about marriage and overly optimistic about the ability of society to replace the resources that married parents can provide to children...
...Summer 2005) is unnecessarily pessimistic about marriage and overly optimistic about the ability of society to replace the resources that married parents can provide to children...
...OLIVER CONANT New York, N.Y...
...The author is an affiliate scholar at the Institute for American Values...
...Perhaps Rule felt some compunction about lecturing the author of Republic of Fear and the head of the Iraq Memory Foundation or the revolutionary, antifascist, anticommunist leader of Solidarity on what "we on the left" and "people like us" define as democratic left politics, or acceptable risk...
...Kanan Makiya, Adam Michnik, and a host of others are up to their eyes, ears, nose, and throat in shared intellectual responsibility for the Iraq debacle...
...KEN BROCINER Somerville, Mass...
...There are plenty of magazines on the left that squelch dissenting views...
...Iraq Debacle Editors: James B. Rule's piece on the "Iraq Debacle" (Summer 2005) touches on a number of terrible realities that thinking people cannot afford to ignore, whatever their positions on the war: the daily carnage, the practice and sanctioning of torture by U.S...
...Instead of arguing about whether our society should support married parents or support all kinds of families, here's a radical idea: Why not do both...
...He goes on to say that "you can be an enemy of Saddam Hussein even if Donald Rumsfeld is an enemy of Saddam Hussein...
...There is no dichotomy, false or otherwise, if the rhetoric is joined with real aid...
...I would add the apparent continuing failure to provide the most basic security, a problem that threatens not just Iraq's prospects for democracy but that of its people for even a semi-normal life...
...Even Michael Walzer, an opponent of the war, is made to sound like a Bush partisan, given to asserting that "those who recoil at American unilateralism are somehow soft on the evils it targets...
...I don't choose to discuss it...
...Editors: Certainly a good society should support all its children...
...Paul Berman is accused of taking "a page from the apocalyptic scriptures of the neoconservatives...
...There are large questions here...
...intelligence and military, the dispossession of civilian populations...
...No luck...
...Does the left, at this moment—or at any moment—really need something like Rule's Rules for membership or discussion...
...In the interview, conducted in Warsaw in 2004, Michnik is adamant that "in the conflict between totalitarian regimes and democracy, you must not hesitate to declare which side you are on, even if the democratic countries are ruled by people whom you do not like...
...However, she is vague on the kinds of support that she is willing to provide...
...Kanan Makiya, Adam Michnik, and a host of others are up to their eyes, ears, nose, and throat in shared intellectual responsibility for the Iraq debacle...
...He goes on to say that "you can be an enemy of Saddam Hussein even if Donald Rumsfeld is an enemy of Saddam Hussein...
...intelligence and military, the dispossession of civilian populations...
...Benjamin Ross Replies: Of course I think that right-wingers' actions are sometimes motivated by their beliefs...
...Does he really hold that the alleged luminaries he names should be immune to challenge for their disastrous political choices...
...For all his industrious anathematizing of those he calls "intellectual apologists" for the war—including, oddly, Andrew Sullivan and Thomas L. Friedman, neither one a Dissent writer or, for that matter, particularly left wing—Rule fails to mention the Iraqi writer Kanan Makiya's contributions to the debate ("Symposium: War and Iraq," Winter 2003...
...There are large questions here...
...That's why I looked at the evidence about this particular case...
...James B. Rule Replies I can't make sense of this vague and rambling letter...
...Podsnap's mantra—it forms part of a system Dickens calls "Podsnappery"—is, "I don't want to know about it...
...The bone of contention with Maggie Gallagher rests on how to strengthen and support stable parent unions...
...I wrote "The Iraq Debacle" in hope that those whose statements originally condoned the American invasion of Iraq would respond, either to step back from their positions, or to defend them and their consequences...
...My objections to the administration's policies are that they rely largely on symbolic gestures that are likely to be ineffectual unless they are combined with substantial material help...
...Paul Berman is accused of taking "a page from the apocalyptic scriptures of the neoconservatives...
...These are not mutually exclusive traits—especially when it comes to right-wing ideology...
...That's why I looked at the evidence about this particular case...
...ELIZABETH MARQUARDT New York, N.Y...
...Instead of arguing about whether our society should support married parents or support all kinds of families, here's a radical idea: Why not do both...
...For all his industrious anathematizing of those he calls "intellectual apologists" for the war—including, oddly, Andrew Sullivan and Thomas L. Friedman, neither one a Dissent writer or, for that matter, particularly left wing—Rule fails to mention the Iraqi writer Kanan Makiya's contributions to the debate ("Symposium: War and Iraq," Winter 2003...
...But the notion that these people should get a pass for their calamitous political and moral choices is utterly un-Dissentlike...
...For all his industrious anathematizing of those he calls "intellectual apologists" for the war—including, oddly, Andrew Sullivan and Thomas L. Friedman, neither one a Dissent writer or, for that matter, particularly left wing—Rule fails to mention the Iraqi writer Kanan Makiya's contributions to the debate ("Symposium: War and Iraq," Winter 2003...
...But it makes no sense to throw up our hands and say that the state and society can do nothing to help those couples, while at the same time arguing that once those couples divorce—or if they never marry at all—then there are all kinds of social resources we can and should marshal in support of them and their children...
...He goes on to say that "you can be an enemy of Saddam Hussein even if Donald Rumsfeld is an enemy of Saddam Hussein...
...or "Antitotalitarianism as a Vocation," Thomas Cushman's interview with Adam Michnik (Spring 2004...
...A Comment from Mitchell Cohen Since Rule's ire is aimed especially at me, I would invite Dissent readers to return to my "Thought Experiment for the Left," (Dissent, Summer 2004), and also to take a look at my article "In the Murk of It: Iraq Reconsidered," published earlier this year in Thomas Cushman, ed., A Matter of Principle (University of California Press...
...Summer 2005) is unnecessarily pessimistic about marriage and overly optimistic about the ability of society to replace the resources that married parents can provide to children...
...intelligence and military, the dispossession of civilian populations...
...Instead of arguing about whether our society should support married parents or support all kinds of families, here's a radical idea: Why not do both...
...intelligence and military, the dispossession of civilian populations...
...By constantly portraying our adversaries on the right as consciously malevolent villains, we are not putting our own best foot forward in our outreach to the American public...
...Editors: Certainly a good society should support all its children...
...The author is an affiliate scholar at the Institute for American Values...
...Given that the administration often seems incapable or unwilling to acknowledge such realities, Rule is right to emphasize them...
...Is the writer backing the war, or is he just backing people who back the war...
...There are large questions here...
...MAGGIE GALLAGHER, PRESIDENT Institute for Marriage and Public Policy Frank Furstenberg Replies I am delighted to join Elizabeth Marquardt's call for efforts to support children in families headed by married couples, unmarried couples, and single parents...
...Yet even after presenting the ideological beliefs of each tendency, he concludes that their intellectual successors, today's neocons, don't really believe in anything other than "prevailing interests...
...Sadly, the state will never have the resources or ability to provide the level of security for children that parents in a low-conflict marriage can provide...
...All too often, the left—in adopting this posture— comes across as strident, self-righteous, or mean-spirited...
...Mitchell Cohen has "echoed the Washington line," proposing a "never ending agenda for American dominance...
...We can ensure that our policies help parents to achieve healthy marriages, and we can ensure that our policies support the existing and often pressing needs of children living in all kinds of families...
...I would then invite them to reread Rule's "Reply" here as well as his "Iraq Debacle" in this past summer's Dissent, and to reach their own conclusions...
...Iraq Debacle Editors: James B. Rule's piece on the "Iraq Debacle" (Summer 2005) touches on a number of terrible realities that thinking people cannot afford to ignore, whatever their positions on the war: the daily carnage, the practice and sanctioning of torture by U.S...
...military intervention, he generates considerably more heat than light...
...A Comment from Mitchell Cohen Since Rule's ire is aimed especially at me, I would invite Dissent readers to return to my "Thought Experiment for the Left," (Dissent, Summer 2004), and also to take a look at my article "In the Murk of It: Iraq Reconsidered," published earlier this year in Thomas Cushman, ed., A Matter of Principle (University of California Press...
...Given that the administration often seems incapable or unwilling to acknowledge such realities, Rule is right to emphasize them...
...Rule attacks his targets with zeal, with a broad brush—and little nuance...
...Rule attacks his targets with zeal, with a broad brush—and little nuance...
...Given that the administration often seems incapable or unwilling to acknowledge such realities, Rule is right to emphasize them...
...The kind of political discussion that Dissent has tried to honor sweeps aside no argument, however discomfiting, however minoritarian, with a Podsnappian "rightward flourishing arm"—or a leftward one...
...I would add the apparent continuing failure to provide the most basic security, a problem that threatens not just Iraq's prospects for democracy but that of its people for even a semi-normal life...
...I would then invite them to reread Rule's "Reply" here as well as his "Iraq Debacle" in this past summer's Dissent, and to reach their own conclusions...
...Does he really hold that the alleged luminaries he names should be immune to challenge for their disastrous political choices...
...It is true, as Furstenberg points out, that "parents with limited cultural and material resources" face more challenges in attaining a stable marriage...
...But this does not require abandoning efforts to strengthen marriage, especially at a time when most Americans (including single mothers) still want to make lasting, loving marriages...
...Podsnap, in Our Mutual Friend, who "swept away" evDISSENT / Fan 2005 n 109 LLTTIRS Marriage Editors: Frank Furstenberg's article Can Marriage Be Saved...
...Kanan Makiya, Adam Michnik, and a host of others are up to their eyes, ears, nose, and throat in shared intellectual responsibility for the Iraq debacle...
...At its best, the magazine has indeed been anti-sectarian, but no one but the author of this letter has ever suggested that its "openness of ideas" means equal openness to any and all ideas...
...At its best, the magazine has indeed been anti-sectarian, but no one but the author of this letter has ever suggested that its "openness of ideas" means equal openness to any and all ideas...
...It is true, as Furstenberg points out, that "parents with limited cultural and material resources" face more challenges in attaining a stable marriage...
...Is the writer backing the war, or is he just backing people who back the war...
...I think not...
...OLIVER CONANT New York, N.Y...
...And at the same time, they can also be arrogant, hypocritical, and highly deceitful...
...Podsnap, in Our Mutual Friend, who "swept away" evDISSENT / Fan 2005 n 109 LLTTIRS Marriage Editors: Frank Furstenberg's article Can Marriage Be Saved...
...Sadly, the state will never have the resources or ability to provide the level of security for children that parents in a low-conflict marriage can provide...
...But not always...
...However, she is vague on the kinds of support that she is willing to provide...
...There is no dichotomy, false or otherwise, if the rhetoric is joined with real aid...
...Which is, by the way, a different question than whether the beliefs are sincere...
...Their right to their views, and Dissent's right to convey them, have never been in doubt...
...If we are to have any chance of reversing the current slide to the right, progressives need to stop looking at the world in such an oversimplified, dogmatic manner...
...or "Antitotalitarianism as a Vocation," Thomas Cushman's interview with Adam Michnik (Spring 2004...
...Kanan Makiya, Adam Michnik, and a host of others are up to their eyes, ears, nose, and throat in shared intellectual responsibility for the Iraq debacle...
...or that of Norman Geras on "Left Reductionism after 9/11" (Winter 2005...
...Living up to that original mission—and resisting demands for unanimity—is as urgent now in our frightened, parlous time as it has ever been...
...We can ensure that our policies help parents to achieve healthy marriages, and we can ensure that our policies support the existing and often pressing needs of children living in all kinds of families...
...Does the left, at this moment—or at any moment—really need something like Rule's Rules for membership or discussion...
...No luck...
...Instead, all I get is this wimpish letter...
...Paul Berman is accused of taking "a page from the apocalyptic scriptures of the neoconservatives...
...Podsnap's mantra—it forms part of a system Dickens calls "Podsnappery"—is, "I don't want to know about it...
...Summer 2005) is unnecessarily pessimistic about marriage and overly optimistic about the ability of society to replace the resources that married parents can provide to children...
...The author is an affiliate scholar at the Institute for American Values...
...Instead, all I get is this wimpish letter...
...I would add the apparent continuing failure to provide the most basic security, a problem that threatens not just Iraq's prospects for democracy but that of its people for even a semi-normal life...
...But it makes no sense to throw up our hands and say that the state and society can do nothing to help those couples, while at the same time arguing that once those couples divorce—or if they never marry at all—then there are all kinds of social resources we can and should marshal in support of them and their children...
...It is true, as Furstenberg points out, that "parents with limited cultural and material resources" face more challenges in attaining a stable marriage...
...Perhaps Rule felt some compunction about lecturing the author of Republic of Fear and the head of the Iraq Memory Foundation or the revolutionary, antifascist, anticommunist leader of Solidarity on what "we on the left" and "people like us" define as democratic left politics, or acceptable risk...
...But not always...
...Maybe we can create a place beyond conservative and liberal, where false dichotomies do not restrict our choices...
...However, she is vague on the kinds of support that she is willing to provide...
...Rule attacks his targets with zeal, with a broad brush—and little nuance...
...Perhaps it is time we took a far more honest look at ourselves...
...or "Antitotalitarianism as a Vocation," Thomas Cushman's interview with Adam Michnik (Spring 2004...
...At its best, the magazine has indeed been anti-sectarian, but no one but the author of this letter has ever suggested that its "openness of ideas" means equal openness to any and all ideas...
...Is the writer backing the war, or is he just backing people who back the war...
...Ross discusses the intellectual origins of those I I0 n DISSENT / Fall 2005 LETTERS erything he suspected with a "rightward flourishing arm...
...But when he turns his attention to the small number of Dissent writers who argued in favor of U.S...
...Podsnap, in Our Mutual Friend, who "swept away" evDISSENT / Fan 2005 n 109 LLTTIRS Marriage Editors: Frank Furstenberg's article Can Marriage Be Saved...
...No luck...
...On what evidence is that statement based...
...MAGGIE GALLAGHER, PRESIDENT Institute for Marriage and Public Policy Frank Furstenberg Replies I am delighted to join Elizabeth Marquardt's call for efforts to support children in families headed by married couples, unmarried couples, and single parents...
...One hopes so...
...Given that the administration often seems incapable or unwilling to acknowledge such realities, Rule is right to emphasize them...
...The bone of contention with Maggie Gallagher rests on how to strengthen and support stable parent unions...
...One hopes so...
...Does he really hold that the alleged luminaries he names should be immune to challenge for their disastrous political choices...
...Rule attacks his targets with zeal, with a broad brush—and little nuance...
...In the interview, conducted in Warsaw in 2004, Michnik is adamant that "in the conflict between totalitarian regimes and democracy, you must not hesitate to declare which side you are on, even if the democratic countries are ruled by people whom you do not like...
...The bone of contention with Maggie Gallagher rests on how to strengthen and support stable parent unions...
...On what evidence is that statement based...
...Apparently, Ross, like so many others on the left, cannot believe that philosophers and/or politicians on the right are just as sincere (however wrong-headed they may be) as we are on the left...
...and) the accumulation of power...
...Is the current administration's policy likely to result in a significantly greater proportion of low-conflict marriages...
...I think not...
...In doing so, Ross has adopted the left's standard view of the underlying motives of the American right...
...DISSENT / Fall 2005 n I I I...
...There are large questions here...
...Their right to their views, and Dissent's right to convey them, have never been in doubt...
...Editors: Certainly a good society should support all its children...
...I wrote "The Iraq Debacle" in hope that those whose statements originally condoned the American invasion of Iraq would respond, either to step back from their positions, or to defend them and their consequences...
...But when he turns his attention to the small number of Dissent writers who argued in favor of U.S...
Vol. 52 • September 2005 • No. 4
