Michael Walzer’s The Struggle for a Decent Politics: On “Liberal” as an Adjective is avowedly not a tightly-argued work of political philosophy. “There is nothing systematic here,” announces Walzer in his preface. He developed the book out of an essay called “What it Means to Be a Liberal,” written in 2020 for Dissent (a magazine he co-edited for over 30 years). This extended version gives off the atmosphere of a companionable after-dinner reminiscence from a venerable movement leftist at the end of a long career.
Walzer wrote this slim reflection under strict COVID lockdown, using only those books he had to hand for reference. The result is discursive, readable, even occasionally charming. As a distinguished professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study, Walzer has a breezy facility with his subject matter. As a prolific author of learned volumes on a wide range of subjects, he has little to prove in the way of academic bona fides. So it would be petty and obtuse to insist on strict philosophical rigor from a book like this. All the same, I have some questions.
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