Freedom, necessity, judgement Trilling, Arendt and '9/11 liberalism'

Abstract

This article examines the thought of Hannah Arendt and Lionel Trilling in order to explore some core ideas crucial to past and present framings of liberal politics. More specifically, their interpretations of Herman Melville's novella Billy Budd are situated in their cold war context and the strengths and limits of each are discussed. This context – and the place of Arendt's and Trilling's Melville-inspired understandings of the notions of 'freedom', 'necessity' and 'judgement' within it – are then finally pressed into the service of an analysis of contemporary political questions. The article closes by arguing that the predicament of contemporary liberalism is, given some of the moral and political issues raised since 9/11, in some ways analogous to that confronted by the 'Cold War liberalism' associated with Arendt and Trilling. The intelligence, perspective and appreciation of complexity that characterize their work provide an example that liberals, whatever their position on the 'war on terror', can ill afford to ignore.