The device of acknowledging thenpull of another point of view but consigningnit, a tad regretfully, to the dustbinnof history, supports the authornthrough an astonishing amount of conservativenreading. And her interpretationsnof what she reads are often faultynand reductionist; consider, for instance,nthis doubly erroneous summary:nWestern Christianity hasnalways had a tendency, wellnexemplified in Saint Augustine,nto believe that sins should beneradicated and judged at thenroot—in the imagination. Butnit has also had another, bestnexemplified in the Jesuits, thatnthe sinner should be judged notnby the intention (which isnintrinsic to the inherently sinfulnhuman condition) but by thenact.nI am impressed—and a bit bewilderedn—by her effort. She does not read tonexcoriate. Her description of The Politicsnof Human Nature, written by theneditor of this magazine, demonstratesnenough good will, and some emotion Inmight almost call nostalgia, to suggest angenuine difference between the authornand those feminists who shudder atnnovels written in the bad old days ofnblatant female oppression. She hasneven read Richard Weaver on rhetoric,nand values him. “If only we were allndead or better,” as the narrator innPictures From an Institution says.nMs. Fox-Genovese tackles at greatnlength the hot topic of what may bencalled the Stanford question: should wenradically alter or abolish the canon ofnWestern literature? Though she favorsnits revision, she also damns it v/ith morenfaint praise than many of her colleaguesnwould accord it: “In one waynor another, women or the representationnof gender figured centrally in thenthought of Machiavelli, Hobbes,nLocke, and Hume. . . . Contemporarynfeminists reject their answersnbut recognize that they sketched thencontours of the problem. Even thosenwho, like Karl Marx, did not especiallynconcern himself with women, invitenscrutiny for their silences.”nShe avoids the onerous work ofnproving or disproving the superiority ornthe timelessness of the great works ofnWestern literature by reducing them tona kind of personality profile of then38/CHRONICLESnWestern world itself She most clearlyntips her hand when she comes closestnto praising great thinkers of the past:n”Nor need we reject in toto the conservatives’nargument that the truly greatnwriters conveyed transcendent, timeless,nand universal values. Even thosenwho reject such absolutes ought to benable to recognize the world-historicalnpower and continued relevance of thenideas of a Plato or Aristotle or Shakespeare.”n”Even those who reject suchnabsolutes.” . . . But an awful lot hingesnon whether or not you reject suchnabsolutes. Ms. Fox-Genovese’s readingnof the conservative tradition and hernpartial attraction toward pre-modernncommunities is no more than romanticnnostalgia if she persists in accepting, asnenduring and necessary accompanimentsnof Progress, every alteration inntraditional cultural values and familynrelationships.nEllen Wilson Fielding is anneditor-at-large for The Human LifenReview and a columnist for Crisisnmagazine. She lives in Davidsonville,nMaryland.nThe Dethronementnof Reasonnby Tow BethellnThe Long Pretense: Soviet TreatynDiplomacy from Lenin tonGorbachevnby Arnold BeichmannNew Brunswick: Transaction Books;n303 pp., $32.95nThe other day, according to a NewnYork Times editorial, Gorbachevnand Yeltsin were trying to put togetherna “reform coalition that offers newnhope for Soviet politics and policy.”nSuch a coalition might counter “thenthreat of a hard-line dictatorship,” thenpaper added. Arnold Beichman probablynread it, too, and I can imagine hownhe reacted: “Offers new hope for Sovietnpolitics? You mean there was hopenin the past?! There’s no such thing asnSoviet politics!!!”nThe nice thing about Arnold is that,nat the age of 78, he has not lost thennncapacity for indignation. No doubtnthat’s what keeps him so spry. Beichmannis the author of Nine Lies AboutnAmerica and a regular columnist fornthe Washington Times. He grew up onnNew York’s Lower East Side, went tonColumbia University, and worked asncity editor of the New York daily papernPM during World War II. He seems tonhave been one of the few people of hisngeneration and background who was atnno point a socialist sympathizer—notneven during the Spanish Civil War.nNow he has written a book aboutnthe history of U.S.-Soviet treaty-makingnover the years — a most useful andnreadable compendium. As he shows,nthat history is one of absurdity fromnbeginning to end. Beichman’s thesis isnthat nothing fundamental has changednin the Soviet Union, and that nothingncan change as long as it adheres tonMarxist-Leninist dogma. A Leninistnstate, he writes, is not reformable unlessnit abandons its police power, politicalnmonopoly, economic control, andn”sense of world mission,” none ofnwhich Soviet rulers have done.nBeichman copiously faults Westernnintellectuals in general (and the NewnYork Times in particular) for acceptingnPresident Gorbachev’s “virtuous profession”nat face value. Simultaneously,nhe points out, German unification wasntreated as something that we should benvery cautious about. He asks: if skepticismnabout a Western democracyn”which has no continuity with its shortlivedn(twelve-year) Nazi past is regardednas prudential, why isn’t it prudentialnto be all the more skeptical aboutnRussia, a tottering totalitarian dictatorshipnwith unrepudiated ties to itsnbloody Stalinist past?”nAs they say, future historians willncertainly marvel. They will marvel thatnthe United States just went on negotiatingntreaties with the Soviets, signingnthem, seeing the Soviets violate them,nand then planning the next round ofntalks. Kenneth Adelman, Reagan’snarms control director, said in 1988:n”We never really found anything muchnto do about Soviet cheating. That’s thensad truth. Those outside governmentnmay well wonder why, year after year,nwe reported a pattern of Soviet violationsnand did nothing about it. . . . Wentried—oh! how we tried—to come upnwith effective countermeasures, butnthere didn’t seem to be any.” Congressn