right-wing wits have been pointing outnthat at least the Times is consistent:nthey are simply applying their positionnon arms control to the streets of NewnYork.nEven Mr. Goetz’s defenders arenalarmed by the implications of his act.nSelf-defense, they suggest, is only onenstep away from the jungle. What wenneed is more police, tougher laws, andnstricter judges. With a better system ofncriminal justice no one will need toncarry a gun. Perhaps, but it is interestingnto consider that in the Westernnmining towns described by RogernMcGrath {Gunfighters, Highwaymenn& Vigilantes; University of California;nBerkeley), there was little or no mugging,nrape, or burglary. The knowledgenthat every man went armednserved as an excellent deterrent toncrime. Conservatives like to speak ofn1984 is safely laid to rest in the placenreserved for last year’s Christmas cardsnand embarrassing love letters. The oldncalendar did not depart a day too soon.nWith it go all the allusions to BignBrother and Newspeak that kept poppingnout of magazine copy with all thennovelty and effectiveness of a child’snnew jack-in-the-box the day afternChristmas. Stale customs and forgottennwriters will no longer be “down thenmemory hole” and assistant professorsnof English may feel free to give upntheir research on “Rodent Imagery innthe Novels of George Orwell: A SemioticnApproach.” Among the strangestnmanifestations of 1984 was the conservatives’nunqualified praise for the oldnsocialist-turned-social democrat. It isnas if the American right is boundntogether more by what it hatesn—communism—than by any sharednvision of the common good. To- thenextent that Orwell had a vision; it wasnthe familiar dream of the brotherhoodnof man, the pink cloud of Utopiannsocialism. At some point in his career.nX/CHRONICLES Of CULTUREnpeace through strength in matters ofnnational defense; perhaps it is time tonapply that reasoning on the personalnlevel. The founding fathers considerednan armed citizenry the best guaranteenagainst tyranny. If that is so, then wenhave a right to be disturbed by all thosenforces in our society who are hell-bentnon disarming ordinary citizens.nThe media reaction to the Goetzncase involves more than just politics ornimbecility (not that the two are easy tondistinguish). The inability to grasp thenreal fear in the belly of urban Americanis a symptom of a disturbing mentalndeficiency. These people, remember,nhave all the answers to the problems ofnthe human flesh: social injustice, inequality,nthe threat of war; but confrontednwith the facts of urban violence,nthey can only take refuge in thensafe old platitudes of more money fornCULTURAL REVOLUTIONSnOrwell probably managed to attacknnearly every precept of traditional conservatism.nHis break with the Stalinistnleft was unquestionably a principledndecision with almost incalculable goodneffects, but it is also true that Orwell’snrealization of what his comrades werenup to had been helped along by anskeptical and rebellious temperamentnwhich destined him to be a man alwaysnin opposition. It is our goodnfortune that he came to regard the leftnas the establishment. As a critic of thentotalitarian left and the myth of progress,nhe was superb, but there is littlenin 1984 or Animal Farm that can benapplied to Western, much less American,ncircumstances. A prophet he wasnnot; and as a novelist, perhaps the lessnsaid of Orwell the better.nThe 1984 Jubilee had worse effectsnthan the endless round of conferencesn(state-sponsored) on Reagan as BignBrother. It also served to eclipse, atnleast temporarily, Aldous Huxley’sngenuinely prophetic Brave New World.nHuxley realized that it was not Lenin­nnnwelfare and education, treating thenalleged causes of crime rather than thensymptoms, the need for more love andnsympathy rather than violence. It wasnno time before they began sniffing outnsigns of instability in Goetz—a lonernwith a father who molested children,nan excitable man who talked incessantlynabout crime in the streets. Littlenby little the image of one frightenednman defending his life against fournvicious hoodlums was effaced, andnthere developed, in its place, a picturenof four underprivileged youths attackednby a rich white paranoid wavingna pistol. Perhaps they are right to benupset. If a vigilante movement everndoes get going, the first necks to benstretched may belong to the anchormennand editorialists who are so busynslandering Mr. Goetz.nccnism that would transform our world,nbut a devotion to technological efficiency;nthat we would be more easilyndistracted from the serious business ofnliving by the refined hedonism of passionlessnsex and psychedelic gastronomynthan by the intrusions of a coercivenstate. Huxley even foresaw the divorcenof sex and procreation through in vitronfertilization and the system of statedirectednchild-rearing toward whichnwe are now making the first stepsnthrough tax-assisted day care and thenbizarre Swedish notion of children’snrights. (Anyone who does not know innwhat direction the language of rightsntakes us must have slept through thenlast 30 years.)nWhen Huxley wrote his Utopiannfantasy (1932), he set it some six centuriesninto the future, but by the 1960’snhe had come to believe that we werenalready on the threshold of his BravenNew World. It seems odd that, in thisnCalifornian age of no-fault divorcesnand coke-impacted sinuses, we shouldnworry so much about bureaucraticn