blinkered. This takes the form of ignoring evidence, some of itnobvious and hard to ignore, some of it subtle and easy to miss.nFor a long time, officials ignored the rising rate of violent crimen—the increase in murder, robbery, rape, muggings, and assaultsnnot registering on the Richter scale of liberal sensitivity.nThe reason they ignored the crime rate was simple: the rise inncrime statistics contradicted various liberal presuppositionsnabout the nature of man and the efficacy of social-welfare programs.nThey assumed that men were inherently rational andngood, and driven to crime only out of the direst economicnnecessity; to recognize the rising crime rate was to recognizentheir own misjudgment about the causes of criminal activitynwhich, in turn, would force a re-examination of rehabilitativenpenology. Their ideology, in fact, had a cognitive effect, fornthey literally could not see what was common knowledge to thencitizenry at large.nTo have an open mind means, finally, to be able to perceivencause-and-efifect relationships when we approach certain complexnsocial and political issues. Certainly, it would scandalizenthe liberal judge to be told that his permissiveness on the benchncaused some degree of criminal activity. This is because hisncritics perceive that crime is encouraged when criminals realizenthey can get away with it, whereas the judge cannot. That thenprevailing winds of permissivism have as much as or more to donwith the rising crime rate than poverty is not something ournliberal judge can see. He is locked into another way, anothernmind-set, of seeing crime and its cause, as is the newspaperneditor who exculpates the defendant, and the professor whonwrote the book from which the judge and editor learned theirnsociology. But what the judges could not see, their clerks saw;nwhat the editors were blinded to, the janitors saw; and what thenprofessors ignored, the housewives became expert in.nH, L aving expostulated on the closed-mindedness of liberalismnand the arrogance it produced, the biblical injunctionnabout examining the beam in our own eye rather than the motenin our brother’s comes to mind. Conservatives are often said tonhave closed minds, but, as in the case of academic liberals, Inthink this is because we often fail to meet and argue with peoplenwe disagree with. I also think that power yields arrogance notnonly in the way that Senator Fulbright thought, but epistemologicallynas well. For one who has obtained political power, itnmust be an awfiil temptation to think that it is because his pointnof view enabled him to see The Truth, and that all those othernfolks must be wrong. Power, therefore, can bring about a closednmind, arid that is something for conservatives to watch for nownthat they are enjoying more of it than they used to.n—John CaiazzanDr. Caiazza is an administrator for the University of Massachusettsnat Boston.n’ THE OPEN MIND •nThis year it went to GabrielnGarcia Marquez, the Colombiannnovelist who authored OnenHundred Years of Solituden(1970), an outstanding literarynwork. It is a unique novel innwhich the reality of myths, thenprofound sense of folkloric tradition,nand flashes of warmheartednwisdom are blendedninto an idiosyncratic achievement.nBut while Mr. GarcianMarquez has actually producednone superb book, the rest of hisnoutput proved either dismissible,nor inconspicuous, or repetitious.nTomasi de Lampedusa,nauthor of one novel, ThenLeopard, which has been universallynacclaimed as perhaps thenmost trenchant judgment on thenEuropean civilization in modernnbelles lettres, did not earn thenprize.nBut—Mr. Garcia Marquez,nlike his predecessor from thensame region, Pablo Neruda, is ancelebrated Latin American communist,nand although this circumstancencertainly does notnguarantee the Western world’snIdealisnNobel Prize 1982nhighest literary award, no doubtnit helps. It helps exlpain, for instance,nwhy Jorge Luis Borges—nthe first Latin American to putnhis part of the globe on the contemporarynintellectual map, thensubtle interpreter of the depthsnand tensions of the modernnmind in terms of South America’snidentity, the tianslator ofnphilosophies into the languagenof literature—has never beennhonored by the Nobel Prize. Henis anti-Marxist and has nevernhesitated to admit it. Apparently,nto the Latin American culturalnestablishment whose approvalnis necessary for the Prize, that isnenough to disqualify even angenius. •nLIBERAL CULTURE HnThe Nation, a journal asnMarxist at the bottom of its heartnas any, is beginning to demonstratendangerous lapses intonbourgeois idealism. In an articlenon herpes, one of The Nation’snsexual revolutionaries chides thenpress for alerting the society tonthe perils of the disease. We readnthere:nCancer is a disease that thenstate can inflict on the citizenry,nwhile herpes seemsnmore a disease of choice,nnnthat i.s, a democratic affliction.nFie on you, Nation! Is this thenextent of what you know, at yournage, about how things really arenbetween ladies and gents? Havennone of the editors from your officesnever been to a singles’ bar?nChoice? What idealistic coyness,nor idiocy—if it’s really meant tonbe straight and sincere. It’s certainlynan idea, however, thatnqualifies you for the Playboy, ornPenthouse, Award for PracticalnDemocracy in the category ofnHighest Prize for People’snAfflicrions. Llnf>nDecember 198Sn