The Freeman 1972 - The Ludwig von Mises Institute

1972 ELIOT AND HIS AGE 703demand what might become wholelibraries of qualification, and sothey become thought-stoppers insteadof thought-liberators.In general, however, Kirk isplain enough. The Burkean tradition,which he exemplifies, cannotbe reconciled with Five-YearPlans, or with centralized controlsand dictated prices. T. S. Eliot'sBurkean common sense implies ageneral defense of the free market,which makes Kirk's latestbook relevant for readers of aneconomic journal. Incidentally, thebook, which is not a biography,contains enough biographical materialto satisfy those who arecurious about one of our greatexiles. In all, it is a most distinguishedwork.~ THE IDEOLOGICAL IMAGINA­TION by Louis J. Halle (Chicago:Quadrangle Books, Inc., 1972) 174pp., $6.95Reviewer: Edmund A. OpitzTHIS COMPACT book is divided intothirty-nine short, pithy chapters;the style is terse, sometimes aphoristic.It reads like good conversation.A dedicated totalitarianmight not get the message, butthese pages will surely help theearnest student of society tracethe "Gadarene progress" of the nationsfrom 1789 to 1984. The politicaldisasters of this period proceedinexorably from a wrongassessment of human nature andthe human condition, and no improvementis possible except as individualpersons reorder their ownpriorities.It is an observed fact that peoplediffer, one from the other, intheir beliefs, their interests, theirtalents. A free society, such as thenation contemplated by the authorsof The Federalist, seeks toaccommodate this diversity, andto profit from it. Most modern nations,however, are under the swayof an ideology which contends thatstate power should be used to imposeuniformity on the masses;those who differ, those who dissentfrom the ideology are reprogramedor liquidated. In whoseminds were conceived the notionthat human nature is to be madeover? What books argued that thisis the task of politics? What is theorigin of the modern outlookwhich persuades so many to perpetrate,or endure, or acquiesce inthe monstrous evils of the TwentiethCentury?The author touches .upon thestraightforward authoritarianismof Hobbes, devotes a couple ofpages to Hegel, but dwells atlength on the contributions ofRousseau and Marx to the mouldingof the ideological imagination.There is more to Rousseau thanHalle allows, but ideas were