Max Eastman Showed Dangers of Ideology Limiting Creativity

We live in a supposed Age of Tolerance, when we encounter more options for hair colors than a Crayola box contains and choices in genders unimagined just a few years ago. Our binary politics, however, tolerates little beyond prescribed, one-size-fits-all views for each side. Republicans illustrated our age’s paradoxical political intolerance in several primary campaigns this past week, including one in which the president endorsed a challenger in part because the sitting senator proved “very late in backing me” in his January 2024 endorsement. Progressives, who excommunicated Bari Weiss, Joe Rogan, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Elon Musk, and others over small deviations — alas, no deviation is small in the Age of Tolerance — perhaps imparted lessons to the president on how to impart conformity.

One perhaps expects a measure of top-down discipline from a political party. But when ideologues encroach upon arts and letters, they inevitably lose either the artists and writers or the writers and artists lose their art.

About the Author

Daniel J. Flynn

Daniel J. Flynn, the author of The Man Who Invented Conservatism: The Unlikely Life of Frank S. Meyer, is an American Spectator senior editor, visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, and YouTuber @RightWingWilderness.

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We live in a supposed Age of Tolerance, when we encounter more options for hair colors than a Crayola box contains and choices in genders unimagined just a few years ago. Our binary politics, however, tolerates little beyond prescribed, one-size-fits-all views for each side. Republicans illustrated our age’s paradoxical political intolerance in several primary campaigns this past week, including one in which the president endorsed a challenger in part because the sitting senator proved “very late in backing me” in his January 2024 endorsement. Progressives, who excommunicated Bari Weiss, Joe Rogan, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Elon Musk, and others over small deviations — alas, no deviation is small in the Age of Tolerance — perhaps imparted lessons to the president on how to impart conformity.

One perhaps expects a measure of top-down discipline from a political party. But when ideologues encroach upon arts and letters, they inevitably lose either the artists and writers or the writers and artists lose their art.