phenomenon. The Hartzian thesis is often cited as an exposition offering descriptive
and prescriptive support to America’s Cold War posture. Both the study and its
popular reception were no doubt influenced by the ideological cohesion of the Cold
War and by the need to root American solidarity within a durable historical
continuity.
This is not to deny the existence of alternative and dissenting voices which
subsequently sought to contest the prevalence of this liberal construction. Over the
years, Hartz’s proposition of a socially and ideationally rooted liberal consensus has
been subjected to an array of retrospective critiques. In many ways, it was the
acquired orthodoxy surrounding the Hartzian thesis in the 1950s which prompted
the critical reassessments that emerged after the initial intensity of the Cold War had
passed. Revisionist outlooks suggested that the analytical and interpretive categories
used by Hartz were narrow, misrepresentative and guided by a purposeful drive to
impose a harmonious superstructure upon American development. Many of these
claims possess more than a minimal element of validity. The same phenomena that
Hartz observed as signifying the presence of a fixed and final unity can also be
construed as presenting a quite different picture of American social and political
processes. In place of consensus and continuity, it is possible to perceive American
liberalism as being not only riven with problematic properties but also noted for
elements and episodes of palpably illiberal behaviour. It is even possible to speculate
on whether America’s attachment to liberalism has been, and remains, in reality
provisional and incomplete in nature.^11
It is certainly the case that liberalism in the US has been noted for its internal
tensions and variable priorities – even at times when it has been publicly portrayed
as a permanent and exclusive paradigm. Strains have occurred and continue to persist
over the rightful reach of liberalism; over its precepts and applications; and over the
relationships between its principles and purposes. Notwithstanding the various
claims of contestation or the evidence of disputed legacies, Hartz’s exposition on
liberalism as the originating source and defining account of the United States remains
highly significant as a quintessential depiction of American identity during an
exceptional period of adjustment. Hartz, along with other consensus analysts,
typified a contemporary impulse to minimize internal conceptual strains and to
foreclose social divisions against a backdrop of a compulsive and unifying attachment
to liberalism. This view is noteworthy not merely because of the way that the US
could be plausibly conceived in this era as an extraordinary embodiment of liberal
values, but because liberalism appeared to be the only vehicle capable of evoking a
central core of cultural attachment and communal conformity. And yet in spite of
the significance attached to this ubiquitous liberal presence and despite the emphasis
given to what was asserted to be the extraordinarily assimilative nature of this
narrative, it was notable for one equally conspicuous and self-professed excep-
tion. When it came to the international sphere, and more specifically the position
of the United States within it, American liberalism suffered from a notorious
ambivalence.
38 Waltz and the process of Cold War adjustment