Walk Away

Lee Trepanier is professor of political science at Saginaw Valley State University.Grant Havers is professor of philosophy and political studies at Trinity Western University.

Perhaps not since the Cold War have public debates been conducted with such explicitly ideological terms and clear commitments. After the prevailing centrism of Western politics at the close of the Cold War and the immediate post-9/11 era, political discussion within the West is again concerned with questions regarding Marxism as a social and political theory. As is evident within the United States, these debates have grown increasingly polarized of late within segments of both the Democratic and Republican parties as to how forcefully to adopt or oppose various components or contributions of Marxist analysis. This resurgence of explicit ideology has also contributed to the increase of polarization and extremism. In this fraught moment of concern about political conflicts and polarization towards extreme political positions within both US political parties, it is helpful to remember that history provides examples of countervailing reactions and reconsiderations generated from within extreme ideologies where former partisans abandoned prior commitments and formulations and adjusted their positions as a concession to their lived experience of reality. Lee Trepanier and Grant Havers have provided just such a reminder in Walk Away: When the Political Right Turns Left and perhaps provided examples for future emulation.

• Chapter 1: James Burnham: From Left to RightPaul GottfriedChapter 2: Pondering the People: Willmoore Kendall’s Intellectual Path From Progressive to Conservative PopulismChristopher H. OwenChapter 3: “Mugged by Reality”: The Neoconservative TurnLee TrepanierChapter 4: George Grant and Charles Taylor: Canadian Owls Ron DartChapter 5: Alasdair MacIntyre’s Revolutionary PeripateticismKelvin KnightChapter 6: Benedict Ashley’s Reappraisal of MarxismChristopher S. MorrisseyChapter 7: Christopher Lasch: A ReconsiderationJeremy BeerChapter 8: The Failure of Marxism through the Frankfurt School and Jürgen HabermasPedro Blas GonzálezChapter 9: Analytical Marxism and the Meaning of Historicism: Reflections on Kai Nielsen and G. A. CohenGrant Havers