The Vital Center
{{Short description|1949 book by Arthur M. Schlesinger jr.}}
{{italic title}}
File:TheVitalCenter.jpg)
Cover design by Samuel Hanks Bryant]]
The Vital Center: The Politics of Freedom is a 1949 book by Harvard historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. It defends liberal democracy and a state-regulated market economy against the totalitarianism of communism and fascism.
Summary
Schlesinger's argument runs as follows: modern man has been detached from his moorings by capitalism and technology. Searching for a new solidarity, he finds this in communism, but it has been really a totalitarian military dictatorship run by the Communist Party since Lenin "exposed Marxist socialism to the play of ... influences which divested it of its libertarian elements."{{cite book|title=The Vital Center: The Politics of Freedom|year=1998|publisher=Transaction Publishers|page=[https://archive.org/details/vitalcenterpolit00schl/page/64 64]|location=New Brunswick|isbn=1-56000-989-6|url=https://archive.org/details/vitalcenterpolit00schl/page/64}} Instead of this totalitarian road, a strong and interventionist liberalism is needed, New Deal-style, in the tradition of American leadership in the liberal world order and of the national reforms of Franklin and Theodore Roosevelt. This would be practical and anti-utopian, and would "restore the balance between individual and community".Richard Seymour, The Liberal Defense of Murder (London 2008), p. 122.
Academic freedom
Schlesinger writes:
The deeper issue is the freedom of the teacher to teach his subject according to his most responsible understanding of it, and not according to the ukase of a board of trustees, a legislature, a political party, or a foreign country.{{cite book
| first = Arthur M.
| last = Schlesinger, Jr.
| authorlink = Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.
| title = The Vital Center: The Politics of Freedom
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=7ttPAQAAIAAJ
| publisher = Houghton Mifflin
| pages = 208
| date = 1949
| isbn = 9780233961972
| accessdate = 2 September 2018}}
He also stated that "unmolested inquiry is essential". He cites Harvard University president James Bryant Conant: "A free society must dedicate itself to the protection of the unpopular view."
Editions
- {{cite book|title=The Vital Center: The Politics of Freedom|url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.506434|year=1949|publisher=Houghton Mifflin|location=Boston}}
- {{cite book|title=The Vital Center: The Politics of Freedom|year=1998|publisher=Transaction Publishers|location=New Brunswick|isbn=1-56000-989-6|url=https://archive.org/details/vitalcenterpolit00schl}}
Sources
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vital Center}}
Category:1949 non-fiction books
Category:Books by Arthur Schlesinger Jr.
Category:Houghton Mifflin books
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