Digital Commons Network^™

Faulty Vision And Political Realism, Quinn F. Lewis

Senior Projects Spring 2019

This project responds to and expands upon Sheldon Wolin’s magnum opus, “Politics and Vision.” It critiques Wolin’s unnecessarily fragile conception of democracy, as being by nature “ephemeral,” and thus fundamentally non-institutional, by comparing it with the more pragmatic, realist approaches of two historical organizers, Saul Alinsky and V.I. Lenin. The project uses Wolin’s insightful analysis of the state of American politics under late capitalism, to ask, “What is to be done?” exploring the possibilities of organizing and political realism for the Left in the current day.