European History - Seedbed of the Holocaust

Talmon, Jacob

doi:10.1515/9783110970494.185

Cited by 2 publications

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“…For Talmon, the Holocaust could not be reduced to the decisions of Hitler, nor to rising anti-Semitism in Europe. This process was as much a part of the long historical trajectory that lead to the blaming of European Jews for social and political problems – from ‘the Right and the Left’ (Talmon, 2015 [1973]: 193). It was also about European intellectual changes more generally, and particularly the supposed emancipatory effects of Enlightenment thought: thinking that would lead as much to the French Revolution as to the ethnic cleansing of entire peoples in the 20th century.…”

Section: Talmon’s ‘Hermeneutics Of Suspicion’ and The Spectre Of Totamentioning

confidence: 99%

A pessimistic liberalism: Jacob Talmon’s suspicion and the birth of contemporary political thought

Tatum

2019

The British Journal of Politics and International Relations

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Discussions of liberalism as a political ideology often focus on the progressive, civilisational, and triumphalist ideologies of liberal thinkers. Scholarly work on liberal empire situates these issues in the context of colonialism, and contemporary discussions of liberal world order devote much intellectual space to optimism about liberalism. Scholars have spent much less time connecting liberalism to deep cynicism and suspicion. This article, in focusing on what I term a ‘pessimistic liberalism’, fills this gap by examining the ways that the spectre of totalitarianism influenced post-war liberal thought. The mid-20th century was a pivotal moment where both liberalism and its critics proceeded to make arguments about politics that began from similar attitudes about the nature of the political: suspicion, cynicism, resignation, and fear. Specifically, the article analyses historian Jacob Talmon’s genealogy of modern leftist thought to illustrate the shift in liberal thinking from its 19th century optimism to its 20th century pessimism and scepticism. Talmon’s engagement with the issues of political messianism, nationalism, and cosmopolitanism represented a ‘hermeneutics of suspicion’ ( pace Paul Ricoeur) that critiqued the triumphalism of previous political projects. The article concludes by connecting this project to the broader development of ‘contemporary political thought’ and reflects on pessimism’s place in politics.

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Section: Talmon’s ‘Hermeneutics Of Suspicion’ and The Spectre Of Totamentioning

confidence: 99%

A pessimistic liberalism: Jacob Talmon’s suspicion and the birth of contemporary political thought

Tatum

2019

The British Journal of Politics and International Relations

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“…In seeing a world starkly divided between good and evil, and positing the final victory of good over evil, it simplifies reality to the point of caricature -what J. L. Talmon identified as the theoretical 'pencil sketch'. 39 Reliance on such intellectual fallacies leads either to political failure, which Marx and Engels criticized as 'utopianism', or to coercive imposition of a new order, which, like the Soviet Union, will fail in the long term because it ignores basic human realities.…”

Section: Pluralismmentioning

confidence: 99%

The politics of the millennium

Flanagan

1995

Terrorism and Political Violence

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European History - Seedbed of the Holocaust

Cited by 2 publications

References 0 publications

A pessimistic liberalism: Jacob Talmon’s suspicion and the birth of contemporary political thought

A pessimistic liberalism: Jacob Talmon’s suspicion and the birth of contemporary political thought

The politics of the millennium

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