American Socialism and American Political Culture: Irving Howe’s Conciliation with (and Dissent from) Individualism

Abstract

Few have written so astutely about the difficulty of being both socialist and American as did Irving Howe. Seeking a “conciliation” between socialism’s solidaristic values and America’s culture of self-reliant individualism, Howe warned that the American democratic Left could not survive unless it made its peace with America’s “Emersonian” mood. Yet he found Emersonianism too “airy” and appreciated the “thicker” teachings of Hawthorne and Melville and of European writers steeped in biblical stories. Although his efforts to reach a conciliation with individualism were problematic, Howe at times suggested a better way to reconcile socialism with American political culture: a solidaristic ethic beyond liberal individualism, drawing on the marginal but persistent fraternal themes in American political culture.