Jeffrey Friedman, 1959-2022

I had not heard from Jeffrey Friedman for several years when, last Sunday evening, a mutual friend told me that he suddenly had died. Jeff was a 63-year-old political theorist, academic, author, and editor of the journal Critical Review whose five years as an assistant professor at Barnard College in the early 2000s partially overlapped with my time across the street at Columbia University. For eight months during my senior year at Columbia, Jeff figured prominently in my life as a teacher, mentor, and collaborator. Our friendship was something of an accident—but a happy one.

Jeff was a voracious reader, clear writer, and sharp intellect whose biting wit enlivened any discussion. As I brood over his passing, I am amazed at his continuing influence on a generation of scholars and journalists who, like me, interacted with him only as undergraduate students or as participants in the summer seminar he used to hold. Jeff imparted lessons not easily forgotten. He formed a community where none existed. His intellectual intensity made him a great teacher.

When I was in college, there were two conservatives on campus. Then the other one graduated. It was this older conservative who more than anyone tutored me in journalism and introduced me to the professional networks of intellectual conservatism and the conservative movement. He connected me with the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, which sponsored my internship at National Review and my postgraduate fellowship at the Weekly Standard. And he recommended that I meet Jeff, who invited me to participate in a Critical Review seminar held on the New York University campus in the summer of 2002.

What I remember most clearly about that week 20 years ago was the enormous amount of reading Jeff assigned. He wanted to cover philosophy, politics, economics, and psychology in a few days and, somehow, he did. He would weave together John Rawls with Joseph Schumpeter, Murray Rothbard with Robert Wright, Max Weber with Theda Skocpol. As a rising senior and history major, I was unfamiliar with many of the texts that Jeff referenced and arguments that he rebutted. But I couldn’t help being impressed by his range. In the awkward silences that greeted Jeff whenever he asked a question none of us could answer, I would look down at my papers and underline the titles of books I needed to read and the names I needed to know.

Jeff was a libertarian.