campaign. You consulted with the National ters and ideas of many of those on the right, Security Council during the Carter years. the left seems to be the only place anybody Birnbaum: Yes, but I cannot claim with self-respect could be. But, that apart, I that the foreign policy apparatus was very think probably there is some religious ethnic enthusiastic about it, and any advice I had inheritance, although I don’t go to syna - to give was systematically not followed. And gogue. My grandfather was a member of the I was shuffled out in a remarkably rapid old Yiddish grouping. He was a house and smooth process. painter who came from Poland after having Bowen: You’ve also advised the United served his imperial majesty the tsar in the Auto Workers, and you’ve served on the edi - military service. My father was a New York Partisan Review

W torial board of the and City high school teacher who had studied at A T O V the Nation for a great many years. City College and liked the ideas of John S E L R A Birnbaum: Yes, the Nation for a very Dewey. And, of course, Franklin Roosevelt H C Y B long period. I also think I may be one of was an iconic figure in the family. But I O T O H the oldest living contributors to the Nation think we sensed that our fate depended upon P who is also compos mentis . But I’ve cer - the general installation of a regime of jus - n this interview, Norman Birnbaum, tainly been on the board since the 1970s— tice. And, of course, there was the atmos - one of the country’s foremost public and remain today due to the generosity of phere of American progressivism and then intellectuals, brings to life the history editor and publisher Katrina vanden the New Deal. I think the first big books I of the United States and the European Heuvel’s excellent regime. And, of course, I read were things like the Beards on Ameri - New Left. He takes us through U.S. and began to read the Nation when my father can civilization and Dos Passos’s U.S.A., I British higher education and politics was a New York City school teacher. When which made a great impression on me. And I from the McCarthy era through today, with it came into the house, I began to read it remember when I heard Thomas Mann personal and historical detail that reminds and the New Republic at the age of prob - speak—I think at age twelve—at the last us that the tumult of today has precedent ably twelve. And now the Nation is in rally for the Spanish Republic in New York. and, perhaps, roots in the 1950s and 1960s. some danger, namely, of being in the black. Andre Malraux was also among the speakers. Birnbaum is a founding editor of the New We have got this awful experience and But I remember my father’s astonishment Left Review , was on the editorial board of don’t know what to do with it. when I said that Thomas Mann wasn’t Jew - the Partisan Review , and is on the editorial Bowen: You can thank George Bush. ish. Gradually, there was the discovery that board of the Nation . Birnbaum was born in You were also on the editorial board of the progressivism is at the center of a broad 1926 in New York City and educated at its New Left Review . stream of American history. Being on the left public schools, Williams College, and Har - Birnbaum: Well, I was on the found - was a way to join America, not to distance vard University. He has taught at the London ing editorial board of the New Left Re - oneself from it. School of Economics, Oxford University, the view when it was launched in 1959 as a Bowen: You identified somewhere three University of Strasbourg, and Amherst Col - fusion of the New Reasoner and Univer - values of the left: emancipation, social soli - lege and is University Professor Emeritus at sities and Left Review , which was done by darity, and democracy. I haven’t seen it put Georgetown University Law Center. His most a younger and somewhat more independ - quite that way before. Of those three values, recent book is After Progress: American ent group from Oxford, including the late do you favor one over another? Social Reform and European Socialism Raphael Samuel, Stuart Hall, and Charles Birnbaum: No, I think that a good so - in the Twentieth Century , and he is work - Taylor. I joined Universities and Left Re - ciety would provide for each of these. But, ing on a memoir titled From the Bronx to view with a lot of other people, like Ralph obviously, there are times when pursuing Oxford—and Not Quite Back . AAUP gen - Miliband and Iris Murdoch in 1957, one them involves situations where the context is eral secretary Roger Bowen interviewed year after both journals were founded. unfavorable. After all, we have a long tradi - Birnbaum in May 2006 in Washington, D.C. Bowen: Okay. Let me ask the most ob - tion of social Catholicism, not only in Eu - Bowen: You just turned eighty this year, vious question. You have been on the left rope, but even in this country, which is not and you have had a very distinguished ca - your whole life, your entire career. Why? necessarily conducive to emancipation but is reer. You advised Ted Kennedy’s presidential Birnbaum: When I think of the charac - conducive to a considerable amount of dis -

WWW.AAUP.ORG JANUARY –FEBRUARY 2007 29 tributive justice that would be incon - courts and law faculties after the war. Birnbaum: I think that the ceivable without the social Catholics. In effect, I think the Europeans, with whole European experience was “de - And that’s also true of the European or their notions of social democracy, provincializing.” It made me see postwar welfare states. Emancipation which are widely shared although there were other approaches to the may be the most difficult to achieve of under attack, have an understanding Cold War, which in Europe were closer all these since we’re not quite agreed of a democracy that is not reduced to to what was then the mainstream of on what it means. That depends on formal voting. Their notion of civic politics. I got to know people in the one’s theory of human nature and society clearly entails the social provi - British Labor Party. I got to meet peo - human potential, or how much sion of decent minima of the things ple in France, ex-communists like emancipation a society can stand. necessary for the good life: education Edgar Morin and others, who had a Bowen: Are there moments in and health. different view of the Cold War. And I American history where the value of Bowen: You mentioned you were got to know the people in Germany freedom and the value of equality somewhat insulated from McCarthy - from the Confessional Church who are in direct conflict? ism, because during the years when had resisted Hitler. They felt that the Birnbaum: Suppose there were a it was at its worst, you were at your country could not continue divided, national referendum on civil unions best, teaching in Britain. and that, therefore, efforts to talk with or something like that. The value of Birnbaum: I was insulated also the other side were not treason but democracy would conceivably dictate because I never belonged to the necessary. This gave me a view of the obedience to the majority rule, which American Communist Party. I was crabbed, narrow, anxious anti- I doubt would come out strongly in briefly a member of a Communist communism, which persisted when favor of civil unions. In that case, front group, the American Student McCarthy himself had fallen into dis - democracy needs to be strengthened Union, from 1939, when I entered grace. Also, when I was in England, by certain guarantees or certain insti - high school, until 1940, when I felt the Congress for Cultural Freedom tutional immunizations from major - that the party line on the Soviet and the Central Intelligence Agency ity rule. Anybody who lived through Union’s alliance with Germany was dispatched Irving Kristol to London to the McCarthy period, with its long in - intolerable and left. But I simply felt start Encounter . And I knew him stitutionalized Cold War sequel, and uncomfortable in the early McCarthy and some of his group. who now has to endure tirades about years and didn’t like what I saw. I Bowen: But did you know that how one is not loyal to the West be - had no difficulty when I got to Eu - the CIA was sponsoring Encounter cause one doesn’t support the great rope. When I began to teach in Eng - magazine? struggle against Islamo-fascism, un - land in 1953, it was widely assumed Birnbaum: It got to be an open derstands this. The impoverished de - I must be a political refugee, as there secret. As an eminent American so - fense of the West by persons who know were some, like my late friend Moses cial scientist whom I don’t feel like little about fascism and nothing Finley, the great classicist. I remem - naming pointed out to me, “Given about Islam is grotesque. They may ber that a student who later became the money they’re throwing around, constitute a majority even though a distinguished anthropologist asked it must be from the CIA.” And later, democracy is violated. There must be me how I stayed out of jail in Amer - there was a famous episode in which something else, namely, the dimen - ica. In fact, one of my great early Dwight MacDonald came over to edit sions of emancipation and solidarity. memories in England was having Encounter for a bit with some pro - The other day, I was in Germany to lunch with Mo in his rooms at his posal that he should eventually re - celebrate the hundredth anniversary college at Cambridge University. At place Kristol. But the New York gang of a man long gone, Wolfgang Aben - about 12:30, there was a knock on led by Sidney Hook fought tooth and droth, who was the great leader of the the door, and three servants marched nail against it, since Dwight was un - academic left in the early years of the in with silver platters, put them reliable—that is, an independent Federal Republic. One of the cere - down, poured the wine, and dis - thinker who rowed nobody’s party monies was held at the rather nice, creetly withdrew. And he said, “I sure line. Dwight submitted a piece to new headquarters of the metal work - owe the House Un-American Activi - Encounter that was later published ers’ union. It still has 2.5 million ties Committee a lot.” in Dissent . Encounter didn’t print members. Abendroth was also a lawyer, Bowen: You were first at the it, because it was thought to be too a jurist, as well as a professor of poli - London School of Economics. From critical, and Dwight protested about tics, an adversary of the disciples of that vantage point, what did you this. I took up the protest by writing 30 Carl Schmitt, who dominated the think about McCarthyism? an open letter to the Congress, which JANUARY –FEBRUARY 2007 WWW.AAUP.ORG was printed in Universities and Bowen: So this is a secular liefs and had Left Review, saying, “Come on, tell religion? good contacts us where you get the money.” Birnbaum: Well, the older I get, with continen - Bowen: So you were attacked? the more bewildered and cautious I tal Catholicism. Birnbaum: I was. I think the year get about that term, which is still Bowen: was 1958. I moved to Oxford in 1959. worth investigating. But let’s say that What about Bowen: Did the term “New Left” we subscribed to a secular set of be - Americans? originate around that time? liefs that rest on metahistorical as - Birnbaum: Birnbaum: Yes. The New Left sumptions about human capacity. Certainly, I had many sources in Europe and in Bowen: And who was part of that would say the states. I taught in the summer of group at the time? And who among Christopher 1962 at Harvard and toured the them are still close friends? Lasch, although states. I spoke at different universi - Birnbaum: Well, there are some he later criti - ties. I went to Ann Arbor and met people who are close friends whom I cized it. Christo - Tom Hayden, when he was writing rarely see. Some I see more than oth - pher and I were the Port Huron Statement, the mani - ers. In England, the late Raphael very close. We once collaborated, and festo of Students for a Democratic Samuel. Eric Hobsbawm sympa - we joined Partisan Review at the Society. And I was treated as if I were thized with it. He stayed in the same time. Susan Sontag, too. an emissary from a brotherly cosmos British Communist Party, but he Bowen: Was Norman Podhoretz in Europe. Among the many Euro - probably belonged more to us than part of that movement? peans studying in the United States he did to mainline communism. Birnbaum: Podhoretz helped at the time was an anti-Franco Even though he stayed, Eric didn’t start the American New Left. He took physicist, Javier Solana, who brought like the Soviet Union. But, I would over Commentary in 1961. I re - the ideas back to Spain, to the anti- say in England, there were Raphael member visiting the states in 1961 or fascist turbulence of its sixties. I later Samuel and certainly Stuart Hall. 1962 and being received by the Kris - met him when he was foreign minis - Bowen: Was Hobsbawm involved tols on the west side of Manhattan in ter, and he is now the senior foreign with Past and Present ? You were on their apartment, where I bumped into policy official of the European the editorial board there. Bernard Malamud, who was going Union. Birnbaum: Yes, he was very much out. I remember being told by the Bowen: You wrote that, for a involved with Past and Present . Kristols in one voice, “You’ve come time, the New Left provided you with Bowen: And Victor Kiernan was back at the right time. The whole a spiritual home. How so? also on that board, was he not? country is pointing left. The Podhoret - Birnbaum: Well, it was “home” Birnbaum: Yes, Victor Kiernan zes have just had the most ferocious partly in the sense that I had member - was on the board. Past and Present argument with the Trillings.” The ship in a group; our house in London opened up to people who weren’t quite comment suggests that they had a was one of the meeting points. But it Marxists but were certainly excellent rather village-like view of the country. was my spiritual home in the sense social historians, like Lawrence Stone, Norman Podhoretz was very much at that those in the New Left shared the who later went to Princeton. that time a part of the New Left. He conviction that although the Soviet Bowen: Kiernan, I know, left the published David Reisman and Union had failed, liberal capitalism party, I think in 1957. Michael Maccoby’s article on the was not the only alternative. This was Birnbaum: A lot of them did. American crisis, he published the first a period in which the great French Christopher Hill, who was also on the version of Paul Goodman’s Growing social political scientist Maurice board, did. I knew him well at Ox - Up Absurd , and he published Du verger coined the phrase “fascisme ford. Christopher is another person Staughton Lynd’s arguments against á l’exterior,” meaning external fas - in England from that era who re - the war. He published critiques of the cism was a continuation of imperial - mained a friend. And of course, I Kennedy administration, which dis - ism. The New Left included German knew and greatly respected and liked pleased it very much. Norman’s turn Protestants and French left Catholics, Charles Taylor. Charles moved in to the right was precipitated, I think, as well as important segments of the and out of England. He later came by the New York City school strike British labor movement. I think I was back from Canada and was a profes - and by the conflict with the blacks— particularly aware of the religious tra - sor at Oxford. Charles had a very de - between the Jewish community and ditions, not just dissident Marxism. cided Catholic component in his be - the blacks. When large segments of 31 WWW.AAUP.ORG JANUARY –FEBRUARY 2007 the American non-Jewish left sympa - face of the pressures of the market. heavyweights sued the U.S. govern - thized with the Palestinians after the Liberals concentrate on free space ment over the issue of ideological 1967 war, his New Left period ended. against the state, splendid when we exclusion? Bowen: I want to go back to Ox - think of practices like wiretapping, Birnbaum: Yes. The U.S. govern - ford for a second. You taught class but true individualism requires free ment excluded Mandel, the leader of with Iris Murdoch. space against any number of coer - world Trotskyism, especially because Birnbaum: Yes. cive institutions. There were plenty of the attorney general, John Mitchell, Bowen: You were friendly with liberals I met in England who were said he was responsible for the stu - Isaiah Berlin. in the old Tory Party. McMillan was a dent riots in France. We sued on the Birnbaum: Well, it was Isaiah liberal. Some of them, by the way, very liberal grounds that we were who encouraged me to come to the so-called one-nation Tories, are teaching about these social move - Oxford. quite attentive to social issues. The ments and about Marxist ideas to our Bowen: Yet you two were not Tory Party had that tradition rather students. And whether or not we very close ideologically? like some of the Gaullists and cer - agreed with them, or the government Birnbaum: That was increas - tainly the European Christian demo - agreed with them, the students should ingly and painfully apparent. cratic parties, German and Italian, hear these ideas first hand. We wanted Bowen: But you got along quite which I knew quite well. Mandel to come talk to our students. well, generally? Bowen: Let me move you from Bowen: You make my point Birnbaum: Well, for a while. Let’s Britain to the United States. You left here. Your argument was a classic just say that the left is frequently ac - Oxford, and you took a teaching po - AAUP academic freedom issue. cused of combining high-flying, sition at Amherst College? Birnbaum: It was an academic broad, generous, inclusive notions of Birnbaum: No. When I first left freedom issue. humanity with fallible human behav - Oxford, I consoled myself for eleven Bowen: And you lost. ior. Let us say that in my relations years of British Sundays by teaching Birnbaum: Yes, we lost first. But with Isaiah, I discovered that this for two years at Strasbourg with Henri Mandel later came. I remember him could also apply to liberals. Briefly, Lefebvre. I then came back and taught coming to Amherst and giving a very Isaiah encouraged me to come to Ox - for two years in New York on the grad- good talk in which he quaintly re - ford to start sociology as an under - uate faculty in the New School. And so ferred to the students as “comrades,” graduate discipline, which I did. But I didn’t move to Amherst until 1968. which I hadn’t heard for a long time. when the time came to back me in Bowen: Which is very similar to But that was much later. We lost, yes. certain academic quarrels, he wasn’t your undergraduate college, Williams? Bowen: Well, fast forward to a there. Part of this was my fault. It’s a Birnbaum: Yes, it was for me. I was year ago, with Muslim scholar Tariq very complicated story. very glad to do it, because it was a good Ramadan likewise being excluded, Bowen: If we set aside personality return to my roots; I had a marvelous this time by the Department of Home - differences, what in your judgment experience at Williams. At bottom, I land Security and the State Depart - differentiates a liberal from a leftist, or like very much the notion of broadly ment, which invoked article 411 of a liberal from a progressive? liberal undergraduate education, and the Patriot Act, the ideological exclu - Birnbaum: I think it is clear I was the first sociologist at Amherst. sion clause. And of course, the AAUP is that many liberals emphasize the Well, once Oxford and Cambridge suing, with the American Civil Liber - formal properties of democracy. decided to teach it, Swarthmore, ties Union and other groups, on be - Some of the ideological groups Williams, Wesleyan, and Amherst half of Ramadan. What explains this? around the White House have an ex - decided it was safe to do so—even Have we come full circle, or are we clusive focus on things like voting. though it had been taught at Harvard continuing on a crooked line? (On One hopes they are not just thinking and Yale for a very, very long time. September 21, 2006, Ramadan re - of the electronic machines used and Bowen: So you were at Amherst ceived a letter from the U.S. govern - abused in Ohio in 2004. But I think maybe one year before getting in - ment informing him that his visa had liberalism is certainly contained in volved in a fascinating legal case that, been denied. See the story on page 6 the kind of social democracy I would in some ways, resembles recent events? of this issue of Academe .) identify myself with. But I think we And that was Mandel v. Mitchell in Birnbaum: Let’s go back to some- must go a step further and ask what 1969. You, Robert Heilbroner, Noam thing really interesting. Years ago, the institutions could, in fact, sustain in - Chomsky, Richard Falk, Robert Paul New York Times did a series on 32 dividual freedom, particularly in the Wolfe, and other major intellectual “Middletown,” which was actually JANUARY –FEBRUARY 2007 WWW.AAUP.ORG Muncie, Indiana. Ball State College, of the United States as the achieved Party and its fellow-traveling insti - which later became Ball State Univer - revolution, a religiously founded tutes, research centers, and the like is sity, was there. The Times went and one. But is the American Revolution based on anxiety and fear. Fear of looked at it, and some parent from the achieved, or is it still an open-ended change. These conservatives have pro- vicinity told the newspaper, “There’s project? But Hofstadter went back to fited pretty well from the present nothing I fear so much as the college the sources of the notion of America order. If you think of the recent ten - professor,” in all seriousness. Think as a redemptive nation in the ideas sions between, let’s say, the Jewish about the kids at the University of of the people who fled Cromwell’s community and the black commu - North Carolina at Chapel Hill who England because they thought that nity, certainly, there’s a note of inap - didn’t want, in the first-year introduc - even Cromwell was betraying God’s propriate triumphalism in the Jewish tory program, to read about Islam. cause. And I think the notion of the response, “We made it, why don’t There is a certain tendency among nation as a church means that dis - they?” Of course, if we’re talking of Americans to resist ideas, different sent has very little or no place in it. Jews, we came from two thousand ideas, whether in the form of opposi - Bowen: You wrote, “Democratic years of written culture, and when tion to Marxists, opposition to alleged socialism has suffered from the fail - we came to this country, we weren’t Islamists, or opposition to other things. ure of modern liberalism to achieve brought here as slaves from primi - Ban Mandel, ban readings about its promise.” Let me ask, specifically, tive societies without a written tradi - Islam. David Horowitz, for instance, if modern liberalism had achieved tion. And we weren’t confined to the believes college professors are “remote its promise, what would the United South as agricultural laborers. It from American values,” and higher States look like today? makes a difference, even though education, presumably, is safe only in Birnbaum: Well, if modern liber - Norman Podhoretz and others won’t his hands. So this tendency is there, alism had achieved its promise, the admit it. It does seem that an anx - and shrewd ideological marketers like United States certainly would be a so - ious conservatism may reflect on Horowitz and Daniel Pipes exploit it to ciety in which the differential in in - some people’s sense of the fragility of boost their careers and affirm their vestment of resources between the elite their acquisitions. What is going to own political preferences. I am re - sector of higher education and the happen in America? I’m reminded of minded that the giant John Kenneth kinds of colleges most people go to a professor of economics at Wesleyan Galbraith, who has just died, was fired would certainly be far less. And there who two or three years ago wrote a from Harvard in the thirties for being would also, I think, be a much greater letter to the Times severely criticiz - a Keynesian and a New Dealer. diversity of opinion and cultural re - ing those who didn’t understand that Bowen: Back to the issue of what sources available on television and in outsourcing was an economic good, makes ideas so threatening to the the mass media rather than the anx - that it brought cheaper goods, and American public. What are they ious servility of those awful Washing - asking why people shouldn’t have frightened of? ton journalists when they speak about cheaper goods. And I replied, “Well, Birnbaum: Well, I think this is a political issues. I think more value you know, you can outsource lots of good question. And I think it’s a would also be placed on cosmopolitan, things. With video, why couldn’t the question we ought to ask ourselves, international, innovative experimen - very expensive price of education at because of the campaigns against tation and culture. Wesleyan be reduced by using people the universities. The paradox is, and Bowen: Conservatives today do from India who have very good edu - this was pointed out by Todd Gitlin not like the term “social justice.” The cations, and who, because of the in a review in the Chronicle of term gets them quite upset. Why is that time difference, would also be avail - Higher Education , the only people term so upsetting to conservatives? able to their students at all hours of who take the academic left’s political Birnbaum: I wish I knew, since, the day and night?” Of course, the potential seriously are state legisla - after all, people identify a certain type economists favor free trade: there are tures, which are fighting this phan - of old conservative who thought that no $65-a-week Mexican economists tom. I think really one probably has the order conservatives proposed was to take their jobs. A lot of the anxiety to go back to two things: first, that the only one that would work and that is directly related to the sense of fra- sketched by Richard Hofstadter in it had its quantity of justice. These gility. I think this probably has been the famous book Anti-Intellectual - people were the patrician New Dealers true through much of American his - ism in American Life , that is, the led by Franklin Roosevelt. But it seems tory. There were always challenges, premium on character, the suspicion to me the kinds of conserva tism now there were always dangers, there of abstraction. Second is the notion institutionalized in the Republican were always political polarizations. 33 WWW.AAUP.ORG JANUARY –FEBRUARY 2007 Bowen: Do you think faculty need collective bargaining today, at both public and private institutions? Birnbaum: I would think so, yes. Given the tendency of trustees, state legislatures, and so on to try to decide how and when resources should be al - located. Second, given the ideological pressures, I think collective bargaining can secure tenure and thus academic freedom. It is interesting that those Bowen: Please give me your as - was right. Absolutely right on that. So who would not dream of telling their sessment of the state of higher edu - that you have to ask yourself why this physician what medicines to prescribe cation today and of the primary allegedly left-wing American univer - do not hesitate to tell professors of his - threats that we face. sity has produced Kissinger, George tory, politics, economics, and literature Birnbaum: I think that what we Shultz, Condoleezza Rice, Samuel what they should teach. It does seem have now is a very, very serious threat Huntington, and James Schlesinger. to me that there is a direct connection because of the organized nature of How come this university produces the between the preservation of academic what were previously scattered vigi - technocrats who run American capi - freedom and faculty autonomy. lante responses. The David Horowitz talism and our empire? Wasn’t it Bowen: Do you think, then, that phenomenon and the campaigns and William Buckley who coined the collective bargaining by faculty is the activities of the people around Lynne phrase, “We’d rather be governed by best way to achieve academic freedom Cheney and the American Council of the first two thousand pages of the and protect faculty autonomy? Trustees and Alumni—these represent names in the phone book than by peo - Birnbaum: That is a fair con - an organized danger. At the same ple who came from Harvard”? Well, clusion. It strikes me that probably time, however, they are very explicit in his objection to being governed by fel - in the long run, it is. their ends and therefore, in some low Yale alumni (Ford and two Bowen: Why do you, as a sociol - sense, easy to identify and fight. That’s Bushes) is less. But there is a much ogist, think so many faculty are one thing. Second, there’s another more subtle danger to the university, averse to collective bargaining? kind of danger to academic freedom. and it comes from the inner stratifica - Birnbaum: Well, let me speak Everybody talks about the predomi - tion of American higher education. about my own experiences at nance of liberals in certain fields. Well, That is to say, the stratification and the Amherst. When I arrived, we were what about the predominance of mar - allocation of resources, the fact that 46 quite well paid and had terrific re - ket analysts in economics? A British percent of the people teaching are part sources, but there was tension with thinker said that as long as the world time and without benefits. the board of trustees, some of whom profession of economics looks to Har - Bowen: You referenced the were philistines who believed that the vard and MIT for leadership, we’ll American Counsel of Trustees and communists had a foothold at never get a social democratic revival in Alumni a moment ago. It would like Amherst. The “communists” were me economics. The same might apply to to have a top-down management and my eminent colleague in Ameri - fields like international relations. structure that prevents faculty from can studies, Leo Marx. John J. McCloy When Kissinger left the State Depart - participating in the governance of of Wall Street fame was for a while the ment with such obvious reluctance in institutions. And ACTA does not chair of the board of trustees. McCloy 1976, he was asked in a notable inter - lament the fact that two out of three publicly declared that tenure was very view whether he thought there would appointments today in the academy bad, because it made for deadwood. be new thought on foreign affairs in go to contingent labor. And I said, “Well, the American ruling the universities. And Kissinger laughed Birnbaum: No, because contin - class is characterized by three things: and said derisively, “Don’t be silly. gent faculty have to struggle for exis - one, its murderous hypocrisy; two, its When every assistant professor in in - tence; they haven’t got much time to total incompetence—this was the ternational relations thinks he can be develop broad, socially critical views. time of the last agonies of Vietnam; a deputy assistant secretary of state or They tend to be people with great in - and three, its total absence of style.” defense, why should he think any dif - tegrity, despite being under the most McCloy had insulted the very people 34 ferently than the bureaucrats?” And he obvious kinds of pressures. he wished to behave as servants. He JANUARY –FEBRUARY 2007 WWW.AAUP.ORG shortly thereafter protested to the late saying, “A liberal arts institution is an journals anymore, to which the an - Bill Ward, who was then college presi - institution of learning, not a country swer was, “How many times can you dent, and told him to make me apol - club. This distinction, however, ap - write papers proving that (a) America ogize. Bill said that’s the one thing he pears to have escaped our trustees.” has a class system, and (b) people are was sure he couldn’t do. Shortly Julian Gibb, chair of chemistry at alienated? I have done that.” And I thereafter, McCloy left the board of Brown, got the job. Julian’s distinction was quite interested in things like the trustees. was that he had been chair of chem - Cold War, the critique of the Cold War. Bowen: Is that when you first istry and he was an Amherst graduate I was interested in doing a different joined the AAUP? of 1946. Neil Rudenstine, who was kind of intellectual work that I Birnbaum: Yes, because I think it then provost of Princeton, was turned learned from my Amherst colleague, was the first time I had a full-time down. Neil was later made president Leo Marx. This discovery of America tenured job at an American univer - of Harvard, but he wasn’t thought to and American culture is somewhat sity. There was a little group of us at be quite qualified at Amherst. He reflected in my 1988 book, The Radi - Amherst. One of my dear friends at wasn’t an Amherst man. It was pre - cal Renewal . So there were all kinds Amherst was Tom Yost, who later be - posterous. The faculty would have of reasons at that point, including came AAUP president. He was a great certainly taken Neil, and we’d have personal ones, to make a change. guy, and we had marvelous times to - had a very, very good president. He Bowen: How did a critical social gether at Amherst. But I think that might have even done better at scientist fit in at a law school? some of my colleagues felt socially el - Amherst than at the gigantic factory Birnbaum: In the most famous evated by being allowed to teach the in Cambridge. line of German literature, Faust be - sons of the American upper-middle Bowen: Let me conclude by ask - moans the two souls dwelling in his class, and they felt that we were at the ing one last question. You left breast. Law professors are rigorous apex of the American academic sys - Amherst to go to Georgetown Law. You and dispassionate parsers of statutes tem. It was no problem flying some - were a tenured full professor at and decisions, meticulous in dark body in to talk to our students, and I Amherst and a prolific author. You suits, shirts, and restrained ties. They remember the large parade of great were highly regarded throughout the are also, however, in jeans and sports European left thinkers who visited. academy. Why leave and go to shirts, social thinkers and meta- Bowen: Amherst had incredible Georgetown? historians, Platonic philosopher resources. The faculty were paid well, Birnbaum: There were several kings. I greatly enjoyed the company the students were very bright and reasons. I had already made contact of my hospitable Georgetown Law highly motivated, and the faculty with mainline America, but as I had colleagues and learned a lot from had a voice in governance. Why, mentioned, I was working with the their inner union of opposites. then, would faculty at Amherst even United Auto Workers, which was great Bowen: Has writing your mem - consider collective bargaining? for me. With the presidential bid by oirs been a kind of self-discovery or Birnbaum: Well, that, I think, Ted Kennedy, I felt that if I went to rediscovery? was what certain people thought. On Washington, I could do things of con - Birnbaum: Yes, it’s been very the other hand, there were episodes. sequence for the Democratic Party. much a voyage of self-discovery, of The trustees insisted they would name Too, I had tired of a certain localism reconsideration. For instance, the the president, and there was a conflict at Amherst, which grew after the ex - other night, I talked at the Oxford- with faculty when Bill Ward resigned. citing days of the late 1960s and early Cambridge dinner and actually The trustees advertised that they 1970s. Let’s put it that way. And sec - found benign words about my period wanted, other things being equal, a ond, I greatly treasured my contacts at Oxford, which used to rankle to a graduate of Amherst College to be the among the Jesuits and American certain degree. So it’s a work of not next president, which excluded Catholicism. I went to Georgetown as only self-discovery, but also of recon - women, since no woman graduate of a visitor for a couple of years. My col - sideration and acceptance of one’s Amherst was old enough at that point. leagues at the law school felt that I self. It excluded also any number of col - should do what I had always done, Bowen: But you’re not softening leagues who had served the college general social commentary. I, at this politically, I sense. for twenty or twenty-five years who point, was beginning to detach myself Birnbaum: In brief, no, I am would have been plausible candi - from American sociology, with its dis - not softening politically. How could dates. I remember writing to the ciplinary emphasis. Somebody asked I? After all, I am only eighty years Chronicle of Higher Education, me why I didn’t write in sociological young.
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