A pessimistic liberalism: Jacob Talmon’s suspicion and the birth of contemporary political thought
| Date | 01 November 2019 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1369148119866086 |
| Author | Dillon Stone Tatum |
| Published date | 01 November 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Original Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1369148119866086
The British Journal of Politics and
International Relations
2019, Vol. 21(4) 650 –666
© The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/1369148119866086
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A pessimistic liberalism:
Jacob Talmon’s suspicion and
the birth of contemporary
political thought
Dillon Stone Tatum
Abstract
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.
Keywords
Cold War, international relations, Jacob Talmon, liberalism, pessimism, political theory
Introduction
The end of World War II brought not only the institutional reconstruction of world
order, but fundamentally altered the way that intellectuals, policymakers, and publics
wrote global politics. Discourses about a triumphant liberalism, civilisational narra-
tives, and myths of empire gave way to new methods of thinking about the world and
the relationship between freedom, liberty, and the duty of Western liberal states: less
triumphant, more pessimistic. Much of the literature on international political thought
has focused on the contributions of modern and pre-modern thinkers in an attempt to
Francis Marion University, Florence, SC, USA
Corresponding author:
Dillon Stone Tatum, Francis Marion University, 4822 E. Palmetto St., Florence, SC 29506, USA.
Email: dtatum@fmarion.edu
866086BPI0010.1177/1369148119866086The British Journal of Politics and International RelationsTatum
research-article2019
Original Article
Tatum 651
show how those theories can lead to a more peaceful, friendly international system, or,
alternatively, the dangers of some of the ideologies emerging from ‘classical theory’
(see, inter alia, Doyle, 1983; Hoffman and Fidler, 1991; Jahn, 2005, 2013). This histori-
cal reconstruction has often neglected to examine the role that 20th-century thinkers
have played in not only constituting contemporary theorising about global politics,1 but
also how mid-century global political thought itself has contributed to the development
of contemporary political theory.
I argue that the work of Jacob Talmon, a 20th century historian, illustrates the emer-
gence of a pessimistic liberalism in the 20th century and highlights its origins, fears, ten-
sions, and ruptures during the Cold War. Talmon’s work has been underappreciated in the
history of political and international thought, leaving one commentator to write, ‘Talmon’s
Origins of Totalitarian Democracy had a “vast influence among historians”, but the larger
impact of his work has been limited and probably has declined since the 1980s, especially
compared to that of Isaiah Berlin and Hannah Arendt’ (Jacoby, 2007: 60). Like the latter
thinkers, Talmon’s thought is fueled by a scepticism of grand narratives, and the danger
such narratives could ravage on the world – particularly narratives of political messian-
ism, cosmopolitanism, and nationalism. Berlin and others were liberals similarly influ-
enced in their thinking by the Holocaust – perhaps the 20th century’s most horrific
reminder of the terrors of ideology. ‘Talmon was well aware of the fact that his heroes’,
argues Arie Dubnov (2008b: 134), ‘instead of being protectors of human dignity and
individual liberty, can provide sophisticated justifications and cruel rationalisations for
oppression and autocracy’. While Talmon was not the only theorist belonging to this tra-
dition of a ‘liberalism of fear’ (Shklar, 1998) or a pessimistic liberalism, his work pro-
vides a look into a notable attempt at tracing the history of a crusading, optimistic,
liberalism – and critiquing its failures, horrors, and legacies.
This article proceeds in three parts. First, I chart the emergence of a pessimistic liberal-
ism, beginning in the immediate aftermath of World War II. This tradition has longer line-
ages in liberal international thought, to be sure, but the spectre of totalitarianism in a
period of great uncertainty brought rise to a new way of thinking about liberal world
order, one that breaks down the boundaries between ‘realist’ understandings of world
politics and decidedly liberal views.2 Second, I look to Jacob Talmon’s genealogy of
political messianism as a representative case of pessimistic liberalism in the post-war era.
Talmon exemplified what philosopher Paul Ricoeur (1970) termed a ‘hermeneutics of
suspicion’, albeit from a perspective firmly rooted in liberalism. I continue this examina-
tion by explicating how this suspicion – originating from Talmon’s personal and intel-
lectual experience with the Holocaust and European totalitarianism – resulted in his
contribution to what might be termed a ‘pessimistic liberalism’. Finally, the article reflects
on what a pessimistic liberalism means for rethinking the lineage(s) of international lib-
eralism in the 20th century. In many ways, pessimistic liberalism is not just constitutive
of contemporary international thought, but helps to define the temporal and methodologi-
cal boundaries of contemporary political theory more generally.
An end to optimism: Liberal pessimism in the 20th century
Mid-20th century liberal pessimism is sandwiched between two sets of liberal dis-
courses that were quite the opposite: resoundingly triumphant. This pessimism repre-
sents two puzzles in understanding the development of international liberal discourse
from the mid-19th century to the present. First, what explains the intellectual turn to
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