Does liberalism have poems? Are there liberal poets? John Stuart Mill, who loved Shelley and who celebrated “human feeling,” thought so: “Although a philosopher cannot make himself, in the peculiar sense in which we now use the term, a poet, unless at least he have that peculiarity of nature which would probably have made poetry his earliest pursuit; a poet may always, by culture, make himself a philosopher.” But a philosopher of liberalism? Charles Baudelaire, a contemporary of Mill, died in 1867. In 1869, a collection of his prose-poems — a form that he helped to invent — was published under the title Le Spleen de Paris, a phrase that Baudelaire had himself used for a selection of these texts. The title has been translated as Paris Blues. (The original title was much better.) Baudelaire believed that life is a struggle between spleen and ideal, and in his work he studied the former and championed the latter. Among the prose-poems in the posthumous book was one called “Enivrez-vous,” which first appeared, in February1864, in the newspaper Figaro. It has been translated into English by Michael Hamburger as “Be Drunk.” Here it is, in full: One should always be drunk. That’s all that matters; that’s our one imperative need. So as not to feel Time’s horrible burden that breaks your shoulders and bows you down, you must get drunk without ceasing. But what with? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you choose. But get drunk. And if, at some time, on the steps of a palace, in the green grass of a ditch, in the bleak solitude of your room, you are waking up when drunkenness has already abated, ask the wind, the wave, a star, the clock, all that which flees, all that which groans, all that which rolls, all that which sings, all that which speaks, ask them what time it is; and the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock will reply: ‘It is time to get drunk! So that you may not be the martyred slaves of Time, get drunk; get drunk, and never pause for rest! With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you choose!’ Now that’s a liberal poem! “Enivrez-vous” is liberal in its celebration of freedom; profoundly anti-authoritarian, it offers a license to its readers. Getting drunk and so refusing to surrender to drudgery, suffering, or the inevitability of aging and death—to be a martyred slave of Time —is not as sin, an offense, a transgression, or a violation of anything. It is a right. But it is no mere right; it is an “imperative need,” something that counteracts “Time’s horrible burden.” You might object that the poem is not so liberal after all, because what I am calling a license takes the form of an imperative, a kind of mandate: “One must always be drunk.” But this is a poem, not a treatise, and a license would be far too grudging or qualified, and a lot less fun. “One may drink” or “one has the right to drink” would not have the right valence or spirit. (Note well: This is not a poem about, or an essay on, tolerance. It asks you to act, not to tolerate. Its subject is your attitude toward yourself, not your attitude toward others. Anyhow, tolerance is begrudging.) The poem is also liberal in its recognition, at once mischievous and celebratory, of the diversity of preferences and tastes — of what one gets drunk on. In his Autobiography, Mill said that On Liberty was meant as “a kind of philosophic text-book of a single truth,” which is “the importance, to man and society, of a large variety of types of character, and of giving full freedom to human nature to expand itself in innumerable and conflicting directions.” For some, wine is best; for others, poetry; for others, virtue. (For some, it is all three.) The power of the poem comes, of course, from the oddity of the juxtaposition. It is not all that shocking or even interesting for a poet to celebrate getting drunk. It is far more interesting (and far more liberal) for a poet to link wine, poetry, and virtue, and to see them all as sources of inebriation. A part of the merriment, and the clarity, of “Enivrez-vous” is its insistence that poetry and virtue can get you drunk, too. It is not easy, of course, to explain how virtue in particular can make one drunk, without becoming high-minded or sanctimonious, or patting oneself on the back. Sure, many people do get “drunk on power,” and those who act on behalf of causes, including horrific ones, seem to have some kind of erotic attachment to what they do. (Consider O’Brien in Orwell’s 1984. Was he drunk? Maybe.) But that is not what Baudelaire had in mind. Many of those who help other people, and whose life is defined in part by good works, feel thrilled, or excited, or something like that, by what they feel privileged to do. The neuroscience is worth investigating here. Doing good works is associated with the release of oxytocin and the production of dopamine — and that can make you feel intoxicated (and drunk). It is true that, for Mill and many other liberals, some pleasures are higher than others, and those of poetry and virtue are higher than those of wine. In my view, they are right. But let’s not say that too loudly, or with too much earnestness, or with a condemnation of the lower pleasures. Liberals insist on accepting divergent conceptions of the good, and equally important, on acknowledging and celebrating diverse kinds of good. “Enivrez-vous” is quintessentially liberal as well in its insistence on human agency, and on activity rather than passivity. (“As you choose!”) The reader is instructed to get drunk as well as to make the choice about exactly how. Different people can exercise their agency in different ways. If you choose to get drunk on poetry — as
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