We Americans keep saying we're looking for courage, authenticity and principle in politics. Yet we're very tough on public figures who display such traits. People who are too principled are typically written off as impractical dreamers.
Courage is seen as recklessness, and authenticity as stubbornness and inflexibility.
In politics, we can't always get what we want because we're not sure we really want it. Harrington, a socialist in a country not much taken with socialism, spoke often about the tensions confronting those who knew their ideas might be deemed impractical by the majority, but still sought to be politically effective. If you cling to your ideas with too much integrity, you may render yourself impotent. But if you display too much flexibility, you might betray what you value most. The new book by historian Maurice Isserman can be ranked as a serious political event because Harrington, who died in 1989, was the most important and creative figure on the American left in the last half-century.