The Struggle for a Decent Politics: On "Liberal" as an Adjective

Name: The Struggle for a Decent Politics: On "Liberal" as an Adjective
Author: Michael Walzer
ISBN: 9780300267235

by Michael Walzer

176 pages2023Yale University PressISBN 9780300267235

Politics

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About this book

A testament to what it means to be liberal by one of the most prominent political philosophers of our era "Walzer is perhaps our foremost pilot on these rocky shoals. In his preface, he writes that this may be his last book. One hopes not."--James Traub, New York Times There was a time when liberalism was an ism like any other, but that time, writes Michael Walzer, is gone. "Liberal" now conveys not a specific ideology but a moral stance, so the word is best conceived not as a noun but as an adjective--one is a "liberal democrat" or a "liberal nationalist." Walzer itemizes the characteristics described by "liberal" in an inventory of his own deepest political and moral commitments--among other things, to the principle of equality, to the rule of law, and to a pluralism that is both political and cultural. Unabashedly asserting that liberalism comprises a universal set of values ("they must be universal," he writes, "since they are under assault around the world"), Walzer reminds us in this inspiring book why those values are worth fighting for.

Publication Details

Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2023
Pages: 176
ISBN: 9780300267235
Language: en

About Michael Walzer

Michael Laban Walzer (born on March 3, 1935) is a prominent American political theorist and public intellectual. A professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, New Jersey, he is editor emeritus of Dissent, an intellectual magazine that he has been affiliated with since his years as an undergraduate at Brandeis University. He has written books and essays on a wide range of topics—many in political ethics—including just and unjust wars, nationalism, ethnicity, Zionism, economic justice, social criticism, radicalism, tolerance, and political obligation. He is also a contributing editor to *The New Republic*. To date, he has written 27 books and published over 300 articles, essays, and book reviews in *Dissent*, *The New Republic*, *The New York Review of Books*, *The New Yorker*, *The New York Times*, *Harpers*, and many philosophical and political science journals. **Source**: [Michael Walzer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Walzer) on Wikipedia.