Review

Author(s): Thomas I. Cook

Review by: Thomas I. Cook
Source: Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 75, No. 4 (Dec., 1960), pp. 573-574
Published by: Academy of Political Science
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2145805
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 REVIEWS
Politics and Vision: Continuity and Innovation in Western
Political Thought. By SHELDON S. WOLIN. Boston and
Toronto,Little,Brown and Company,1960.-x, 529 pp. $7.50.
Sheldon Wolin, having read widely, carefully,and with an
abilityto note what great thinkerssay, regardlessof established
traditionsof interpretation, has writtena revisionistwork which
constitutesa valuable corrective,even thoughhis positive theses
are not fully convincing. Aftera nicely judicious essay which
explicatesthe nature,and definesthe tasks,of political philoso-
phy,he analyzesthe thoughtabout the political orderof a series
of major thinkersfromPlato to Hobbes; and in everycase he
challenges accepted generalizations and forces the reader to
become aware both of prevalent misconceptionsabout, and of
neglectedyetvitallyimportantstrandsin, theirthinking. That
achievement,however, is not his main purpose which is to
demonstratethe evolution of types of interpretationof the
nature of political institutions;of their role in the pursuit of
human destiny;and of their relation, derivativeor dialectical,
to conceptsof human nature.
The last two chapters,entitled "Liberalism and the Decline
of Political Philosophy"and "The Age of Organizationand the
Sublimation of Politics," do not center on individual thinkers,
but on movements,although in them there are some major
reinterpretations of a number of writers,fromLocke to Lenin.
ProfessorWolin's over-allthemeup to thispoint is that changing
ways of thinkingwere designed to create or to preserve the
centralpublic order of politics,even when other-worldly destiny
was an overridingend and the ordering of this world was
threatenedby allegiance to non-politicalcommunityor by the
anarchismof a search for personal salvation. He argues that,
by contrast,the modern ill is the depoliticizingof politics,and
indeed the verydestructionby abandonmentof a collectiveand
overridingpublic order and interest,whetheras a meaningful
themefor discourseor as a basis for order.
ProfessorWolin lulls his reader into a false sense of security,
by an initial defenseof liberalism: liberalism,as against radical-
ism, is not guilty of the excessive rationalism,the pure indi-
vidualism, and the naive progressivismwhereofit is normally
accused. These excesses,today so emphasizedby the New Con-
servatives,are not its real sins, which consistratherin opening
the way to an emphasis on societyas against state, and thereby
facilitatingthe sinisterworkof thinkersnot liberal in profession.
In the nineteenthcentury,sociologybecame central,fromComte
573

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574 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VOL. LXXV

throughDurkheimand Weber; and thinkingabout men's order-

ing focusedon organization,on the organizersand the organized
masses,a fundamentaltheme of politics today.
In the industrial world organizationswere politicized; but
as very consequence common loyalty and participation in a
properlypolitical order disappeared. Rousseau, Romanticism,
afid Idealism had sought, indeed, a restorationof community,
of human fulfillment by belonging. But this search became a
prop for,and ended in a hypocriticalrationalizationof, orders
planned, controlled,and directed by elites, whereunder men
were speciouslyliberatedby being carefullyadjusted in a process
whose essencewas a political denaturing. To this development
Maistre and Bonald, Fourier and Proudhon, Lenin and the
Americanmanagerialists,unsuspectingallies and brothersunder
the skin by reason of sharing a common frame of reference,
all contributed.
Our need is, then, to returnto tradition,to the correctand
public referentof politics,by depoliticizingthe local, the eco-
nomic, the professional;by overcomingdisruptivepluralism; by
seeing that bureaucracy and expertise are subordinate, and
never sufficient;and by recognizing that there is a general
political good. Lesser units, and nonpolitical functions,must
be subordinated. They are not themselvescentersof true poli-
tics,which is corrupted,and indeed destroyed,when theyfunc-
tion under the illusion thattheyare sufficientas political centers,
or embody and effectuateadequate concepts of man's political
rightsand duties.
It is needless to deny the reality of the excesses in thought
which ProfessorWolin emphasizes. Yet I would argue that he
misconceivestrendsand reasons; and that,were his analysis the
full story-and he indicates his own awareness that it is not-
therewould be no possible solution: the politics he seekswould
have no base, since to plead for a public philosophy alone is
not enough. He neglects,I think,modern federal theory;and
he fails to see that pleas for community,for organization,and
for pluralism, essentiallycriticismsof the state as it operated
in the past, are statementsof the inclusions necessaryfor its
redefiningand reconstruction.The currentproblemof political
obligation, itselfthe classic theme of politics, has in our time
been insistentlyrestated,but at present remains unanswered:
how to relate specificfunctional to over-all public obligation
in the lightof the needs of the ultimateperson,sociallyaffected,
but irreducible.
THOMAS I. COOK
THE, JOEINSHOPKINS UNIVERSITY

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