Criticism and Connection: An Interview with Michael Walzer

Abstract

Criticism and Connection:An Interview with Michael Walzer Jeffrey J. Williams (bio) Michael Walzer is a social critic. For over six decades, he has commented on politics, war, and religion in a score of books and in Dissent magazine, which he has had a hand in editing for a good part of that time. A keyword for Walzer is "connection," and he emphasizes the ways in which people form their values in communities—national, religious, political, and intellectual. This view is sometimes called communitarianism; contrary to the standard theory of liberalism, which stresses the rights of individuals, Walzer focuses instead on the way in which rights are formed within the context of their associations Moreover, justice is decided not in an overarching frame but in different "spheres" and through interpretation. This leaning toward interpretation undergirds Walzer's view of war, and he is known for "just war theory." A student of Irving Howe (the New York Intellectual who founded Dissent in 1953), Walzer began publishing in Dissent as an undergraduate, commenting on communism in Europe and the civil rights movement in the US. Thereafter followed a string of books, on the history of revolution and the possibility of social democracy in The Revolution of the Saints: A Study in the Origins of Radical Politics (Harvard UP, 1965); on contemporary politics in Obligations: Essays on Disobedience, War, and Citizenship (Harvard UP, 1970), Political Action (Quadrangle, 1971), Radical Principles: Reflections of an Unreconstructed Democrat (Basic, 1980), and The Politics of Ethnicity (co-author; Harvard, 1980); on war in Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations (Basic, 1977; 4th ed. 2006); and on political theory in Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and Equality (Basic, 1983). Walzer's idea of connection grounds his definition of the intellectual, which he elaborates on in Interpretation and Social Criticism (Harvard UP, 1987) and A Company of Critics: Social Criticism and Political Commitment in the Twentieth Century (Basic, 1988); in the latter he asserts that "criticism follows [End Page 371] from connection" and, "if [the critic] were a stranger, really disinterested, it is hard to see why he would involve himself in their affairs." He again looked at revolution in Exodus and Revolution (Basic, 1985), and continued commenting on contemporary politics in What It Means to Be an American (Marsilio, 1992), Thick and Thin: Moral Argument at Home and Abroad (U of Notre Dame P, 1994), Toward a Global Civil Society (ed.; Berghahn, 1995), On Toleration (Yale UP, 1997), and Politics and Passion: Toward a More Egalitarian Liberalism (Yale UP, 2004). In the past decade, Arguing about War (Yale UP, 2004) and Getting Out: Historical Perspectives on Leaving Iraq (ed. with Nicolaus Mills; U of Pennsylvania P, 2009) apply his ideas about just war to US interventions. On interpretation, he has particularly looked to the Jewish tradition, and he has had a hand in compiling The Jewish Political Tradition (co-ed.; Yale UP; vol. 1, 2000; vol. 2, 2003), and Law, Politics, and Morality in Judaism (ed.; Princeton UP, 2006). 50 Years of Dissent (co-ed.; Yale UP, 2004) selects key essays from the magazine, and Thinking Politically: Essays in Political Theory (Yale, 2007) provides a reader of Walzer's own work. There are several books on Walzer, especially his views of war, as well as communitarianism and political philosophy. Born in 1935 in New York, Walzer attended Brandeis (BA, 1956), taking courses with Howe and Lewis Coser, who provided his introduction to the New York Intellectuals. While writing for Dissent, he took his PhD at Harvard (1961). From there, he taught at Princeton and Harvard until being appointed to the Institute for Advanced Studies in 1980, where he is now professor emeritus. This interview took place on 18 November 2011 in Michael Walzer's apartment in lower Manhattan. It was conducted and edited by Jeffrey J. Williams, Professor of Literary and Cultural Studies at Carnegie Mellon University, and transcribed by Merrill Miller and Jacquie Harris, MA students in the Literary and Cultural Studies program there. Jeffrey J. Williams: To begin, I want to ask how you became a critic. I know you started writing for Dissent as a young man, publishing an...