bourgeois family by being plunged for anrnhorn or two into an ice-cold bath ofrnpiiilosopliical erudition.rnNietzsche, with little doubt the mostrnspontaneous of great modern philosophers,rnspent much of his life trying torncombat the volcanic impetuosity of hisrnintellectual “eruptions.” And the conclusionrnhe reached, beautifully expressed inrnthe preface he wrote for Morgenrotern(“Morning Glow” or “Daybreak,” dependingrnon whose translation one uses),rnwas that profound thinking is above allrnslow thinking. He even suggested, in anotherrnof his books, that hast}’ and abovernall strident thinking was a sign of intellectualrnimmaturity’.rnFor an intellectual phenomenon likernBernard-Henri Levy, whose thoughts arernso rapid that they keep outstripping thernwords needed to express them, it will notrnbe easy to reach this higher level of slow,rnprofound thinking. It may prove impossiblernfor a man of such an effervescent temperament.rnIn this sense, one can say thatrnit was inevitable that he should one dayrnpay his personal tribute to the brilliant,rntirelcssK’ talkative, and incessantly writingrn”pope” of French existentialism,rnJean-Paul Sartre, who to the end of hisrndays remained an intellectual adolescentrnand enfant terrible (his description ofrnhimself in the autobiographical LesrnMots), forever on the lookout for conventionsrnto flay, stolid readers to shock, causesrnto espouse that were “heretical” tornmost hien-pensant members of his ownrnmiddle class.rnYears ago, in one of the most devastatingrnessays written about Sartre (“ThernVoid of Sartre,” published in 1957 in thernsecond number ofThe Anchor Review),rnthe wise Swiss historian and critic HerbertrnLiithy noted: “In essays or polemics arngifted dialectician like Sartre can go onrndefending a vicious circle for years withoutrnbeing budged from the convenientrnperimeter. He is far too busy proving hisrnpoints to have time to think about them.”rnIs this perhaps why, toward the end ofrnhis life, Jean-Paul Sartre decided to abandonrnhis all-too-fashionable expatiationsrnand, in an extraordinary act of intellectualrnsubordination, to adopt the more seriouslyrnand slowly elaborated philosophyrnof Emmanuel Levinas? Perhaps. But thernprice that France —more exactly twornphilosophically “lost generations” —hadrnto pay for the privilege of being so brillianriyrnmisled was assuredly a heavy one.rnWith devastating consequences, particularlyrnin the field of French education.rnAs Claude Imbert, the editor of thernweekly Le Point (to which Bernard-HenrirnLevy contributes a weekly commentary),rnobserved, describing French intellectualsrnwho go on believing that it isrntheir sacred duty to indoctrinate the public:rnBlinded by the Idea and systems,rnthey see nothing of the changingrnreality of the world. Our luminaries,rnas is well known, before the warrnbetrayed their duty of fair examinationrnin favor of a more or less extremernright wing, then, after thernwar, in f;ivor of a more or less extremernleft wing. In truth, extremismrnis their vade-mecum. Convinced,rnever since the romanticrnage, that genius unfurls itself onlyrnin revolt, and human progress inrnthe one and only Revolution, theyrnpractice an abasement of the Egornand the love of a certain idea of thernPeople —in which the people nornlonger recognizes itself.rnSartre, precociously blind, anrnaged Oedipus in a centur) of thernAtrides, ends up extolling Mao andrnadoring Castro. He ends up, finally,rnfalling back on the Bible, as onerntumbles back into second childhood.rnWliatalife! A torch of libertyrndrowned in the great error of therncentnr)’!rnHow many readers of Bernard-HenrirnLey”s incredible apologia of this philosophicalrninasochist will reach a similarrnconclusion is anybody’s guess. Beguiledrnb’ BHL’s superlatives, dazzled by the verbalrnpanache, they may well feel flatteredrnthat France, during the recendy endedrncentury, was after all able to bring forthrnsuch a polymathie genius.rnAs I write these lines, a large crowd ofrnhowlers, many of them sporting “ContrernHaider” badges (for spontaneous demonstrationsrnof this kind need careful preparation),rnhave gathered in the Abbeyrnsquare of Saint-Germain-des-Pres to denouncernthe governor of AustrianrnCarinthia, as though his jackbootedrnstormtroopers were about to cross thernDanube and march on Munich. ClaudernImbert, I feel sure, was not one of them.rnNor, for that matter, was Bernard-HenrirnLevy. Forever on the move, forever onrnthe breach, he was once again “uprnfront”—this Hme in Vienna. Accompanied,rnno doubt, by several of his gaucherncaviar friends, not all of whom, alas, arernrich enough to own a palace in Marrakesh.rnAnd widi them too was France’srnformer Grand Master of Pop Culture andrnnow chairman of the National Assembly’srnforeign-affairs committee, JackrnLang, who after briefly touching down atrnHuntsville, Alabama, to put in a plea forrna condemned criminal and to deliver anrnanathema against the barbarism of capitalrnpunishment, managed to jet-race hisrnway back to Vienna in time to take part inrnthe anti-Haider jamboree. But what, afterrnall, could be more natural, more predictable,rnmore “inevitable”? F’or there isrnnothing that these restless egalitariansrnmore enjoy doing than publicly showingrnoff their moral as well as intellectual superiority.rnCurtis Gate in the author of biographiesrnofAntoine de Saint-Exupery, GeorgernSand, and Andre Malraux.rnLetter FromrnTown Linernby Richard DavisrnCopperhead RoadrnI grew up in Alden, New York, a smallrntown about 20 miles east of Buffalo. Myrnparents still live there, and they (especiallyrnmy mother) are verv- active in the townrnhistorical society and its museum.rnIn that museum is a worn old woodenrndesk, unremarkable except for the signrnthat explains that it was used, in latern1861, to count the votes (85 to 40) wherebyrnTown Line seceded from the Union.rn(Town Line is a small, unincorporatedrncollection of homes and stores at therncrossroads of what is now U.S. 20 andrnTownline Road, which separates therntowns of Alden and Lancaster. In 1861, itrnwas a farming hamlet of around 300 peopie.)rnThe reasons for the secession are notrnclear. According to newspaper clippingsrnfrom much later, the area was settled byrnVermonters and Germans with no ties tornthe South. One house was an UndergroundrnRailway station, and there is men-rnHon of an undocumented legend of somernviolent act or acts by escaping slaves passlUNErn2000/37rnrnrn