Popular and prize-winning writer Norman Mailer has advanced a view of American politics and society that he calls “left conservatism.” This paper analyzes elements of Mailer's critique and describes how the parts fit together. Special attention is given to his interpretation of economic history and social psychology, his vision of moral health that he associates with the term “hipster,” and his fear of a new political mentality in the United States that he conveys through a neologism, the “wad.” The paper closes with a sketch of the ways Mailer's left conservatism both dovetails with and departs from the concerns and arguments of other contemporary American conservative thinkers.

In the context of government, what do we mean by the phrase “a learned man”?* I take it we can mean a variety of things. On the one hand, we can have in mind the specialist, the expert, the man with an intensive and specialized background in a particular field of knowledge. On the other hand, we can have in mind the man with general wisdom, with that feeling for the past and the future which enriches a sense for the present, and with that appreciation for wider loyalties which deepens patriotism to one's country and finds bonds between it and Western culture and links with the universal aspirations of mankind.

Prussian Conservatism was not an ideology comparable to those which have breathed into every crevice of twentieth century totalitarian states. It was not really an ideology at all, if that term is understood to mean a system of thought enforced by the state so as to give every human act a political meaning. The Prussian conservatives, conditioned by an aristocratic disdain for a political rationale, were unable to agree on a uniform principle of political conduct. Shades of meaning, based largely on the balance struck between religion and political realism, persisted in coloring the conservative temperament. Yet by the fourth decade of the nineteenth century, Prussian conservatism had become a coherent body of thought distinct from liberalism, democracy, or socialism. Its historical importance became assured, when, at Bismarck's hands, Prussian conservatism entered wholeheartedly into the making of what the liberal historian, Erich Eyck, has called “German constitutionalism,” that is a system of politics respectful of authority, but equally disdainful of democracy and absolutism, in which the practical conduct of government may be guided by moral principles in an irrational world.

In September, 1939, the war caught the French in a state of political uncertainty and intellectual confusion. Considered generally, they were poorly prepared for the terrible trial awaiting them. The approaching war was less a national war with clearly defined territorial or economic objectives than a great ideological crusade. Now, ideologically, it found the French divided and uncertain.

From the political point of view, the normal operation of the governmental processes of the Republic had not functioned since February 6, 1934, the date of the Riots with their Fascist tendencies; the great élan for moral and political as well as social reconstruction, which in June, 1936, had carried the political parties of the Left to power, combined as they were in the Popular Front, soon bogged down into impotence and ended finally in a lamentable failure.

Most people today mean not one but two things, when they speak of “Economic Policy”. Sometimes they mean the attainment of economic ends by means of political techniques: the “economic” concept of economic policy. Or again they mean the attainment of noneconomic, political ends by means of economic techniques: the “political” concept of economic policy. The first concept is the one the professional economist would be likely to use; and it is the only one current in economic theory. The other, the “political” concept, is that of practical politics today. It is not only war economics—whether of the Democracies or of the Nazis—that is based on a “political” economic policy but also many plans for the future such as, for instance, the Beveridge Report. For the “security” to which this and similar plans aspire, is not an economic concept but a political and social one; and it is “economic security” only because its realization is sought through economic means.

Transition to a war economy is, in its very essence, a shift of economic responsibilities from business to government. This shift covers almost all activities: initiative, planning, execution, coordination. Still the change in our capitalistic structure brought about by governmental leadership and numerous diversified controls should not be overstated. The new frontiers drawn between the private and the public sector do not alter the dualistic character of our economy. It is not “the opposite of free enterprise” since successful entrepreneurs are still allowed to reap the profit of their venture, restricted only by taxation and by some of its efficient supplements, particularly renegotiation of contracts and war bond drives. War profits, moreover, have been so substantial in almost all social groups that the stream of private capital-formation flows broader and deeper than it did in peace time, broader and deeper at any rate than in the public sector where the government has been burdened with an unprecedented federal debt. Broadly speaking, our economy is a hybrid with a collectivistic head and an individualistic heart.

Historians have long argued that an intimate connection exists between the failure of Europe's liberal and, in France at least, radical agitation of 1848 and the spread of pessimistic values during the following two decades. György Lukacs, in The Destruction of Reason, has treated this point at some length. He ascribes the rising popularity throughout the 1850's of Arthur Schopenhauer, the most systematic and erudite interpreter of pessimistic thought, to “a purely bourgeois form of irrationalism.” The defeat of the revolutions of 1848 had left many Germans politically frustrated. What resulted was an “ideologically altered situation” in which Schopenhauer “suddenly grew famous and supplanted Feuerbach as the ideological leader of the (German) bourgeoisie.” Moreover, French capitalists, frightened by the workers' revolt that took place in Paris during June, 1848, helped to give pessimism its “international effect.” Indeed they knew its world despair for what it actually was, “an indirect apology” for their own economic interests.

As early as November 1943, in conversations with German refugees at Istanbul, I encountered again and again the question, asked with amazement: how was it possible in Hitler's Germany for me to publish such independent views on historical-political questions, as I had expressed in my writings and addresses, without suffering political persecution? After I was released from prison by the Russians at the end of April 1945, foreigners frequently asked me the same question. I shall attempt to give an answer, based simply on my own personal experience.

In November, 1944, I had been arrested by the Gestapo, not because of any statement I had made in my addresses, university lectures, or writings, but because of my friendship with Dr. Gördeler and my participation in conferences about a political-theological memoir dealing with the future reorganization of German and European politics. The Gestapo officials who arrested me all wore an SD (Security Service) on the sleeves of their uniforms.

On may 8, 1940, some 24 hours before German panzers began their blitzkrieg through the Low Countries, a small group of middle-aged men gathered informally at the Harvard Club in New York City. These men, 9 in all, represented the “old Plattsburg crowd,” the same group which had cooperated with General Leonard Wood in 1915–1917 in organizing the famous Military Instruction Camps for Business and Professional Men at Plattsburg, New York. It was almost 25 years to the day that they had first met following the sinking of the Lusitania in May, 1915, and the present discussion concerned plans for a twenty-fifth anniversary celebration.

One of the most confusing incidents in the history of Roman Catholicism in the United States is the condemnation of Americanism by Pope Leo XIII. In his apostolic letter, Testem Benevolentiae, of January 22, 1899, Pope Leo condemned those methods of apologetics which stressed natural virtues to the neglect of dogmatic teachings and those notions of spiritual direction which insisted on individual inspiration and the active virtues in preference to external guidance and the passive virtues. These doctrines had acquired the name of Americanism in European theological circles, partly as a result of the French adaptation of the biography of Father Isaac Hecker written in English by Father Walter Elliott, and partly as a result of a controversy waged in several European Catholic periodicals. The subsequent denials of most of the American prelates that the heretical Americanism ever existed in the United States, together with the counter-charges of certain conservative prelates and foreign-language groups, only add to the confusion of the historical account. The astute silence of most Catholic historians on the controversy for fear of reawakening the sharp animosities of the time has given rise to many misconceptions about the affair, even causing some suspicion that Pope Leo in some way condemned American national traits or even the loyalty of American Catholics to American political institutions.

The present essay brings together through the technique of illustrative analysis certain reflections on political obligation which seem to be of critical importance if contemporary civil disobedience and widespread erosion of established public authority are to be understood. The attempt is here made to sketch the theoretical and historical context of the current American crisis in political obligation. This context is, however, so vast that a genuinely comprehensive analysis cannot be given within the scope of a brief essay. I have, consequently, resorted to illustration; and rather full notes have been supplied in order to indicate the range of relevant materials and to allay at least some of the misgivings that must inevitably arise from oversimplification.

In the Poetics, Aristotle criticizes Herodotus by claiming that poetry is more philosophical and more serious than history. Aristotle's remark may be understood as a defense of poetry against Herodotus's attempt to supplant the political teaching of the poets and the wise men. Aristotle aligns poetry with philosophy because the poets' political teaching serves the city at the same time that it anticipates political philosophy. In the second section of the article Herodotus's quarrel with the political teaching of the poets, especially Homer, is considered in light of Aristotle's account of the poets. Approaching Herodotus in this manner underscores the significance, for Aristotle, of the politics of Herodotus's History. The third section of the article begins with a discussion of Herodotus's indebtedness to, and difference from, the pre-Socratic philosophers, and goes on to consider Herodotus's quarrel with the wise men. Herodotus's quarrel with the poets and the wise men provides us with a better idea of why Aristotle sought to associate poetry with philosophy, and distinguish them from history.

Plutarch is generally not considered a philosopher in his own right. However, a careful reading of his life of Solon, the Athenian lawgiver, in conjunction with an examination of his philosophical essays, shows that Plutarch is engaged in a debate with Epicureans and Stoics whose misjudgments of the worth and limits of human passions lead them knowingly or unknowingly to draw lines between the happy philosophical life and the life of politics. Through the life of Solon, Plutarch demonstrates how a philosopher would actually engage in politics, and with his proper understanding of human nature, educate that society through wise laws that encourage a moderate and healthy form of erotic life in the city. In doing so, Plutarch makes a case for a substantive contribution of Platonic philosophy to the guidance of the statesman.

Ernst Cassirer's renown is the fame of a philosopher, not of a political theorist. Amongst his voluminous writings only The Myth of the State is regarded as a political treatise and its precise political character is problematic. Nevertheless, the rudiments of a Cassirer political philosophy may be derived from an exposition of his understanding of culture and from an examination of his views of freedom, myth, and the state. Cassirer extolled freedom, and he sought to “combat” myth. His own fulfillment of man's “progressive self-liberation,” however, presents difficulties which are the subject matter of this essay.