48 I CHRONICLESnweek, we witness the same miracle:nthat God is so mighty he can stifle hisnown laughter.”nAnd, to be honest, I glean hopenfrom the belief that all this will pass,nthat it’s a fad, albeit a tenacious one.nThe verticality, the up-and-downnsense, of worship and our relationshipnwith God will return, perhaps evennstronger than it was before we learnednwe could lose it; and meanwhile,nmaybe, we’ll learn to love each othernbetter. Maybe.nBut I’m still worried, because sud­nA Private PublicistnFor more than four decades WalternLippmann preached to America onnpolitics and catechized Presidents,nSupreme Court justices. Harvardnprofessors, and ordinary readers ofnThe New Republic, the New YorknWorld, and the New York HeraldnTribune in the fundamental doctrinesnof his “public philosophy.” Itnis symptomatic of much that isnwrong with modern America thatnwhile no 20th-century Americanncommentator has exerted more politicalninfluence, few have been sonalienated from the perceptions of itsnordinary citizens. To help us understandnLippmann’s opinion of MiddlenAmerica, we now have PublicnPhilosopher: Selected Letters of WalternLippmann, with an excellentnintroduction by the editor, JohnnMorton Blum (New York; Ticknorn& Fields; $29.95).nIn 1925, Lippmann conceded inna letter to Learned Hand that “mynown mind has been getting steadilynantidemocratic” because of “thenfierce ignorance of these millions ofnsemi-literate priestridden and parsonriddennpeople” called Americans.nJust how antidemocraticnLippmann’s mind had become isnrevealed by his comments on thenScopes trial:nBryan has, as you know,nbased his case on the rightnof the majority of anlegislature to determine thencharacter of teaching in thendenly I’m going to be a mother, and itnoccurred to me, as my husband and Inknelt one Sunday morning and tried tonraise our thoughts above the surroundingnchaos, that today’s children havenhad no chance to develop a “taste fornthe sublime.” If they meet it, will theynlike it? When the old way comesnback—and it will, because sooner ornlater we’ll rediscover that to focus onnthis life is prodigal—will it seem aliennand constrictive to young folk whongrew up having fun in church? Whatnwill the priesthood mean to them, thenREVISIONSnschools for which it votesnthe money. This is andifficult principle toncontrovert. Personally, I amnpretty well persuaded thatnit’s necessary to controvertnit. But in doing so, it will bennecessary to invent somensort of constitutional theorynunder which publicneducation is rendered rathernmore independent.nNow we also understand why Lippmannnhad to keep the inner workingsnof his public philosophynprivate: He feared “an outcry innthe South that New York is tryingnto run things.” If Lippmannnhadn’t existed, Leo Strauss mightnhave invented him as a modernnMaimonides.nLippmann came by his antipathynfor populists like Bryan predictablynenough. Early in his life, he repudiatednthe Jewish faith of his parents.nWhile he subsequentlynclaimed “the classical and Christiannheritage” as his own, he never converted.nAs Lippmann explained innA Preface to Morals (1929), modernnthinkers like him could maintainnmoral order without religious doctrinenif they practiced the intellectualnhabits of “detachment, understanding,nand disinterestedness.”nThe educated and cultivated fewnwho master this outlook deservenpositions as an administrative elite,nmanaging the growing productivitynof industry and directing a powerfulnexecutive branch in the govern­nnnrelinquishing of this world? If a childnlearns to expect disorder in worshipnand clatter where there might be peacen— if he knows hand-clasping and absolutenfamiliarity (a friend of mine callsnthis the “Jesus is my pal” syndrome)nbut nothing of terrible grandeur or thensweet relief of true, if momentary,nhumility, of saying Thy will be done—nwhat will he make of Chartres or NotrenDame, of St. Thomas and Belloc, ofnmost of Western civilization?nDorothy L, Sayers writes of beingn”filled with the solemn intoxicationnment. Perhaps even more pointednthan the contrast with Bryan is thencontrast with another 20th-centurynpolitical commentator, JamesnBurnham, who warned in ThenManagerial Revolution (1941) thatnthe movement toward elitist controlnof the American economy was “innthe same direction as Stalinism andnNazism” and who argued in Congressnand the American Traditionnthat the ascendency of the executivenbranch posed a threat to Americannfreedom.nTo his credit, Lippmann becamenincreasingly skeptical of thenplanned society in his later years, asnhe moved toward a secularized appreciationnfor natural law and historicalntraditions. America mightnhave avoided a great deal of sufferingnif more of us had listened tonLippmann’s criticisms of Wilsoniannidealism after World War I and tonhis analysis of Cold War “containment”nafter World War II. But tonthe end there remained a fatal abstractnessnin Lippmann’s work, andisturbing aloofness from the interestsnof most Americans, whose politicalnlives he was eager to direct.nAs wrong as the radical John Reednmay have been about most matters,nhe never saw clearer than when henplayfully satirized his Harvard classmatenas a man “Who dreams anfragrant gorgeous infinite, / Andnthen leaves all the color out of it—n/ Who wants to make the humannrace, and me, / March to a geometricnQ.E.D.”n