Irreducible Differences?

Abstract

The hope originally animating this dialogue begins to be realized. Professor van den Haag and I knew we disagreed about the policy of the Reagan administration. We believed that by dialec-tically defending our respective positions, we would end up exposing the values and assumptions from which our differences spring in this and other instances of contemporary American foreign policy. And we were indifferent as to whether the net result would be (1) a demonstration of more common ground than is immediately apparent between the right wing of Western politics, whose views Professor van den Haag accurately reflects, and the center left, represented I hope not too idiosyncratically (as distinguished from eccentrically) by me or, conversely, (2) a demonstration that we have little in common other than mutual good-natured tolerance.