Kuhn vs Popper - About James H. Collier

a certain way would have increased the good ofmany and the suffering of few, then your failure toact is tantamount to your having acted badly. Inthis spirit, Sartre blamed the studiously apoliticalbut well-positioned Gustave Flaubert for therepression of the Paris Commune in 1871 becauseFlaubert did nothing to prevent it. Clearly, negativeresponsibility is a burden that especially falls onthose with power and influence, since it is typicallythey who could have made a difference.A price perhaps paid by world-historic victors is amoral coarseness that blinds them to the demandsof negative responsibility, since failure to meet itsdemands corresponds to compliance with thevindicated regime. When the final outcome of theCold War was in doubt, American intellectuals werevery sensitive to the difference that their inactionmight make to their government’s policies. Butwith the fall of the Soviet Union, this sensitivityvirtually disappeared from public representationsof the period. After all, the intellectuals who failedto interfere with US Cold War policy indirectlyfacilitated an outcome that is now seen to be betterthan other possible outcomes. Moreover, had theintellectuals interfered with government policy,they might have prevented this outcome andhelped to bring about a considerably worse state ofaffairs (e.g. Soviet domination). Therefore, with the173