One of the more curious features of our time is the inordinate attention given by the Reagan administration and the American media to Libya and its mercurial dictator, Muammar Qaddafi. Sporadic outbursts in Washington, echoed in the press, have served to elevate the unstable ruler of a weak. Third World police state to almost superhuman proportions. In the process, American...
South Africa—Yesterday and Today
“The trouble with people is not their ignorance. It is the number of things they know that ain’t so.” —Mark Twain During 1986, the fury of the left’s outrage with human rights in Chile abated globally and was redirected against South Africa. The reasons given were the vestiges of the apartheid system and an alleged absence of democracy. In this...
Music of the Peers
I recently attended a performance by the quartet known as Montreux, a group which, as you may know, records for Windham Hill. I had first seen Montreux perform a couple years back during Detroit’s international jazz festival that’s called, coincidentally enough, Montreux/Detroit. Those whose sensibilities were shaped by rock and roll may know Montreux-the-city only through the reference to it...
Criticism Lite
Any reader familiar with Martin Amis’ novels—especially his most recent, Money: A Suicide Note (1984)—will not be surprised by the relentlessly contemptuous tone of The Moronic Inferno and Other Visits to America, a collection of his essays and articles on America and Americans. While Amis confesses at the outset that he “feel[s] fractionally American” (his wife, we are told, is...
Pluralism in Miniature
Science was a sacred cow in the United States in the 1950’s. The words “Science says . . . ” came with all the force of an imperial command. Pluralism has taken on the same status in the late 1980’s. As soon as the words “Our pluralistic society will not permit . . . ” are uttered, Nativity scenes are...
Under Attack
Western civilization is under attack at American colleges and universities. The most publicized series of incidents is the willingness of the Stanford University faculty to introduce a replacement for Western civilization that includes equal time for minority contributions and women authors. Presumably what the Stanford faculty has responded to is the charge that the reading list reflects a Euro-centered, male...
Going Home
The taxi ride to Manhattan after the first shuttle flight of the day from Washington puzzled me. Why did scenes that should have been familiar from 30-odd years before seem so new and strange? I was the Brooklynite who had grown up on the buses (and before them the trolleys) and the subways of the city—and at the same time...
The Rubble of Reconstruction
“The mind of the bigot is like the pupil of the eye; the more light you pour upon it, the more it will contract.” —O.W. Holmes Jr. In July 1865 John R. Dennett, a Massachusetts journalist and recent graduate of Harvard College, arrived in Norfolk, Virginia, the first stop on an eight-month journey that would take him from Virginia to...
Revolution in Technology, the Arts, and Politics
“In the end physics will replace ethics just as metaphysics displaced theology. The modern statistical view of ethics contributes toward that.” —Soren Kierkegaard When the historical sequence of men, of societies, of time and thought failed Henry Adams—sequences that might have yielded him some meaning about life—he remarked in The Education that he found himself in the Paris Gallery of...
Bleary-Eyed for Christ
Anxious to be liked, mainstream Churches roll over and piddle on the floor regularly these days, and seem to do so with the greatest vigor in the spring, when the pasqueflowers sprout on virgin soil and the “renewal” comes to town. Fundamentalist Protestants have had “renewals” for ages and call them “revivals.” Neophyte Catholics and mainstream Protestants make up the...
The Wheel of Fortune
On the morning after Election Day, the front-page headline of the Philadelphia Daily News said it all, not just about the events of the day, but about the possible future of Philadelphia: Goode Squeaks In Rizzo Won’t Quit Incumbent Mayor W. Wilson Goode won, by unofficial count, by about 14,000 votes (2 percent of the total) in a bitterly divided...
Still Fighting the Civil War
The influx of Northern migrants to these parts continues to produce misunderstanding. Some time ago, the good people of Hillsborough, North Carolina, gave up their right to shoot marauding vermin in their own backyards to an official municipal squirrel-shooter. Citizens whose nut trees were being sacked, gardens despoiled, or houses chewed up (it happens) could call police officer William King,...
American Sentinel
Those of us who have helped to found conservative campus journals envy The American Spectator. Born in 1967 into modest circumstances—as upstart samizdat published out of a farmhouse by four Indiana University students—it has gone on to achieve nationwide distribution, a distinguished list of subscribers, and a 500-page anniversary collection of its work from a major publisher (Harper & Row)....
Genderless Society Just Around the Corner
The genderless society is just around the corner. Eager to oblige, the Pentagon has ordered a series of “reforms” that will admit women to some 4,000 military positions previously reserved to men. The only restriction remaining is the congressionally mandated ban on women in direct combat, and even that barrier is increasingly porous (“we will now go as far as...
A Dirge For Bosnia
“Whom I served—by him I was buried!” —14th-Century Bosnian Inscription “For now I began to get the news from Croatia,” wrote Mrs. Ruth Mitchell, an American in Dubrovnik, in May of 1941. “I could not believe a quarter of them. Unfortunately, I was soon to know that they were a weak understatement of the truth. Men were soon to arrive...
Burying the Hatchet
What now are called “the Indian wars” ended about a century ago, and the participants in those battles are dead without exception. After 1886, when Geronimo and his band surrendered, there were no more off-reservation wild Indians. Native Americans had become an administrative, not a military problem. The reservations would become a policing system where the Indians were fed and...
The Cult of Dr. King
The third annual observance of the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. passed happily enough in the nation’s capital, with the local merchants unloading their assorted junk into the hands of an eager public. It is hardly surprising that “King Day,” observed as a federal legal public holiday since 1986, has already become part of the cycle of mass indulgence...
The Color of Culture
As an observer of the educational scene at Stanford University during the last 14 years, I am taking the liberty of offering some comments on the proposed reforms in the course on Western culture. Among my professional interests has been a prolonged concern with the philosophy of education and with the philosophy of the curriculum. I greeted with approval the...
“Decrying Racism”
In the recent firing of “Jimmy the Greek,” CBS explained its action in a “terse statement,” decrying racism. (What they meant by this is anyone’s guess. I ban the word racism in my introductory sociology class, not because there are no barriers to black advancement but because the word itself is a barrier to the serious thought that is required...
Avoiding Democracy
Does America exist anymore, or is the nation only a fantasy concocted out of old Frank Capra movies, civics classes, and pamphlets from the Department of Education? The weight of the evidence suggests the latter. Twenty years ago—ancient history by the standards of the press—a considerable number of young men who refused to fight in Vietnam were willing to riot...
Better War Than Troubles
The Irish have a word—as they are supposed to—for this sort of book: blather. The author could be described as one of those fellows who “does go on,” to the point of being, eventually, barred from the pub for boring everyone to tears. The Gun in Politics bears the subtitle “An Analysis of Irish Political Conflict, 1916-1986.” If we are...
Whose Man in Haiti?
Whose man is in Haiti? He was 40ish, of medium height, powerfully built on the way to being stout, and with an obvious gift of speech—he overrode his listeners, particularly since they were in their early and late 20’s. He was Leslie Manigat, the place was Caracas, and I was a guest lecturer and full-time participant at the two-week conference...
The Writer as a Young Liar
Recently, someone asked me to review Selected Letters of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, but so far nothing has come of it. The book, published by Rutgers University Press, is the fruit of many years’ work under the direction of Joseph Frank, author of the voluminous Dostoyevsky biography. It contains a selection of 152 letters, culled from the four-volume Soviet edition of 935....
Shadows in the Limelight
An American television viewer will witness more violence in a single evening than an Athenian would have seen during a lifetime of theatergoing. Acts of violence were virtually prohibited in Greek drama, and Aristotle goes so far as to argue against the use of “mere spectacle” to produce the desired catharsis of pity and fear: “Those who employ spectacular means...
Humanism as a Fine Art
It is a common fact of our century—appreciated most by George Orwell—that men who lust after power will distort words to gain their own ends. In 1933, a significant distortion took place. A group of men, John Dewey among them, drafted and published a now famous document, the Humanist Manifesto I, in which they declared their allegiance to a world...
Cui Bono?
Cui bono? That is the question to ask now that the fur and feathers have settled from the celebrated January match between gamecock Vice President Bush and wildcat Dan Rather. Clearly the answer is George Bush. Before the encounter Bush had two serious liabilities: a general impression of wimpishness and a lingering taint (at least among grass roots conservatives) of...
The Discovery
The old saw tells us that all things come to those who wait. And what a joy it is to find Andrew Lytle, in his vigorous 80’s, receiving his just due, however late. The Richard Weaver Award by The Ingersoll Foundation, a generous grant by the Lyndhurst Foundation for his contribution to his Southern culture, honorary degrees from colleges hither...
Limited By Bias
Yale Scholar’s articles found in Nazi paper, read the headline in the New York Times for December 1, 1987. Paul de Man was a prolific member of the Yale Hermeneutical Mafia, which made the term “deconstructionism” an academic byword. By the time he passed away in December 1984, he was Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale. Now a young Belgian...
In Thrall
American professors of literature (or a large number of them) have been in thrall for some time to a body of “literary theory” exported from Europe in the late 60’s. The basic masters are Marx and Freud, followed by de Saussure and Levi-Strauss, and the developers of this property now most in vogue seem to be the philosopher Derrida and...
Jerry-Built America
“By their fruits, so shall ye know them.” —Jesus of Nazareth The year 1986 marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ludwig Mies, the man who, under the name of Mies van der Rohe, did the most to shape modern American architecture. Of the numerous books that marked Fred Butzen is a technical writer for a publisher of computer...
Paz
“Amazed at the moment’s peak, flesh became word—and the word fell.” —Octavio Paz, A Draft of Shadows Upon a confirmed gringo like me, contemporary Spanish language poetry makes much the same impression as contemporary Spanish or Latin American concert music. Broad prairies of cadenza enclose a garden patch of melodic theme, an orotund thunder of flourish results in a brief...
The Scandal in T.S. Eliot’s Life
T.S. Eliot (1888-1965), dead now for more than 20 years, continues to vex those for whom his poetry is not complete—or is not completely to be understood—without an intimate knowledge of his biography. At the time of his death, of course, Eliot’s reputation was somewhat in decline, despite the Nobel Prize of 1948, the Order of Merit, and many other...
Auguries of the End of Innocence
My first-grade son was recently bitten in the arm by an exuberant classmate. Luckily (said his principal) my son was wearing a heavy jacket, and the boy’s teeth didn’t puncture his skin: “Human bites are even more dangerous than dogs’, you know,” she reminded me. Yes, I’d read that, and agreed that we were lucky—and then promptly translated the incident...
Ora Pro Nobis
Last summer, on the 10th anniversary of Elvis’ death, a reporter called to ask the usual question: What does it all mean? Ah, that took me back. To be precise, it took me back to August of 1977. We were living in England when Elvis died, and I noticed at the time that the BBC didn’t ring up the local...
On Clarity
The following is the text of Dr. Pieper’s address at the 1987 Ingersoll Prizes Awards Banquet. It seems to be rather easy to translate “Scholarly Letters” adequately into German. Every year the German Academy for Language and Poetry awards a prize for “wissenschaftliche prosa,” and what this phrase means is precisely identical with the meaning of “Scholarly Letters.” Nevertheless, there...
Siren Song
I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing written and directed by Patricia Rozema Vos Productions Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me. “My theory,” says Patricia...
Who Was Vladimir Nabokov?
Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977) is not one of my most favorite writers, but then my most favorite writers are Pope and Swift, Dante and Corneille, Goethe and Tolstoy (not mentioning Theocritus, Vergil, and Marcus Aurelius) compared to whom any modern writer looks rather like a peculiarly dressed dwarf; however, when Nabokov is accused of some artistic or human sin, I always...
Execution
Vukota Vlahovic said to his mother, “I am a grown man.” But his mother just smiled. “You are a boy until you marry. Even then you will be my son.” “God be with you,” she said, as he walked away without looking back. His pouch filled with bread and cheese, Vukota Vlahovic went down Trmanje, watching the birds and the...
Ceremonies in the Catacombs
The following is the text of Mr. Paz’s address at the 1987 Ingersoll Prizes Awards Banquet. It moves me to be the recipient of the T.S. Eliot Award, established by The IngersoU Foundation to honor poets and writers of different languages. The emotion I feel is only natural. Primarily because of the award itself and what it signifies in the...
Ages in Chaos
“In history the way of annihilation is invariably prepared by inward degeneration. . . . Only then can a shock from the outside put an end to the whole.” —Burkhardt Discussion of treason has become almost impossible without quoting Sir John Harington’s famous couplet, “Treason doth never prosper, what’s the reason? / For if it prosper, none dare call it...
Homage To T.S. Eliot
Nineteen eighty-eight is the centennial year of T.S. Eliot’s birth, and there is sure to be a flood of tributes to a writer that has changed the course of poetry and criticism and whose reactionary pronouncements on politics and religion have been an inspiration to conservatives of every description. Instead of offering to Mr. Eliot a series of analytical essays...
Reinterpreting Philosophy
To paraphrase a well-known saying, We are all revisionists now! Yet somehow even our revisionists are timid—they wait for favorable winds before they “revise” history, economics, philosophy, and science, then write books about “how it really started,” “how it really happened.” I suspect that revisionism is a branch of popularized hermeneutics whose self-assigned function is to place under suspicion every...
U.S.—Staying in Business
“He that fails in his endeavors after wealth and power will not long retain either honesty or courage.” Not all change is progress. This simple statement is one of the dividing lines between right and left. An element of common sense to the conservative, it is denounced as timidity or a lame defense of vested interests by liberals and radicals....
A Week in the Life: A TV Diary
You are what you eat. Up to a point, I tend to believe that maxim. Because I am unwilling to apply it to my own life, I also tend to resent it. The food police are everywhere, and the harder they work, the less there is to eat. For instance, if you should eat an ordinary hot dog, you could...
The Fear of Crisis
In the November 1986 Encounter, the Princeton University economist Harold James sets out to tell us “Why We Should Learn to Love a Crisis.” His explanation is not quite what we would expect from a champion of a market economy. In that economy, he says, crises serve a necessary function; states should not try to avoid them out of a...
It’s Time for (Yawn) Another Election
It hasn’t escaped attention down here that it’s an election year. My buddy Eugene, who cares about these things more than is good for him, explained to me the other day why George Bush is going to be our next President. “Well,” he said, “first we had Jimmy doing his Woodrow Wilson impression, right? Upright Christian soul, square dealing among...
The First Ring of Hostility
Cows sacred, evil, and venal are shot by Vladimir Voinovich in this satiric look at the Soviet Union that reads like a combination “Ivan in Wonderland” and Zamiatin’s WE. The hero of Moscow 2042, like Voinovich, is a Soviet émigré writer living in West Germany. Our protagonist, Vitaly Kartsev, takes a 30-day trip by airplane back to a Moscow 60...
Color-Coding the Pennsylvania Pension Fund
Representative Ron Gamble’s speech on the floor of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives against legislation to divest Pennsylvania pension funds from South Africa: I oppose this legislation wholeheartedly because state government has no business dealing with foreign policy. However, if we are going to initiate a foreign policy based on compassion for our fellow man, let’s do it fairly and...
Let’s Go Poland
Conversations with those who have traveled throughout the Eastern Bloc reveal that group tours, not solo travel, are the rule rather than the exception. For a hefty fee, vacation moguls will relieve the prospective tourist of three major brain drains: consular relations (visas), hotel accommodations, and transportation. Group tour-guides will provide the serious history enthusiast with spectacular points of reference,...
Who’s In Charge Here?
America, in case you haven’t noticed, is lost in the throes of celebrating the writing of its Constitution, which is now two centuries old. The somewhat labored efforts to fix public attention on the historic document are largely the work of former Chief Justice Warren Burger and his own private bureaucracy in the Commission on the Bicentennial of the U.S....