Politics without Reason The Perfect World and the Liberal Ideal

This book explores the common thread holding together seemingly diverse tendencies in attacks on liberalism. The author argues that ambivalence about the self and about desire as an expression of the self fosters the intense animosity we observe directed toward the liberal ideal. Ambivalence arises because the self is viewed as the locus of a destructive form of desire, one that must be controlled and repressed. The author argues that speaking of ambivalence toward the self is another way of speaking of ambivalence toward freedom, an ambivalence expressed in the impulse toward coercion that plays such a powerful role in the attack on liberalism.

David P. Levine is Professor of Economics in the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver.