Lionel Trilling - Politics

Politics

Trilling's politics have been strongly debated, and like much else in his thought may be described as "complex." A much-quoted summary of Trilling's politics is that he wished to:

" people who prided themselves on being liberals that liberalism was ... a political position which affirmed the value of individual existence in all its variousness, complexity, and difficulty."

Politically, Trilling was a noted member of the anti-Stalinist left, a position that he maintained to the end of his life.