The ideological imagination

The Ideological Imagination strikes at the foundation of the major social controversies of our time. In a quietly reasoned and gracefully written book, Louis J. Halle enables us to view the ideological passions of the day in the perspective of history, as he traces their antecedents from Hobbes and Rousseau through the French Revolution, through Marx and Lenin, and through the apostles of fascism to our own day. Mr. Halle begins by considering the nature of those ideologies that have accompanied the rise of mass democracy. Where liberals have sought to accommodate the diversity of mind among "the people" of the state, totalitarians have tried to make all men of one mind. In our own time, as Mr. Halle demonstrates, the ideological basis of revolt is the individual's refusal to identify himself with the ignoble reality of established society. The consequence is the professional revolutionary, who concentrates on the destruction of society without a serious concern for what will replace it. This is precisely the reason why all the ideological revolutions that have succeeded since the French Revolution have actually failed. Social systems have been overthrown but never replaced by a regime of freedom and justice. As he begins with an historical investigation, so Mr. Halle concludes with a personal statement directed to the mass bigotry that increasingly threatens our freedom and progress, and may entail terrible human suffering. Finally, his own ideal of the intellectual's commitment to noncommitment is contrasted to the now fashionable advocacy of commitment as essential to the "authentic" life.