The Conflicted Soul of Modern Liberalism

“In the United States at this time,” Lionel Trilling asserted in 1950, “liberalism is not only the dominant but even the sole intellectual tradition.” A few years later, in his highly influential book The Liberal Tradition in America, the political scientist Louis Hartz would suggest that “the reality of atomistic social freedom” is “instinctive in the American mind.” Hartz construed liberalism narrowly as individualism and property rights, and he regarded these as the defining characteristics of American politics and culture. In turn, he took these as signs of an American exceptionalism, stemming from the absence of feudalism, as well as the weakness of both collectivism and a truly reactionary politics, in the nation's history.