by Nietzsche, Sorel, and even terrorists.nHe seems to assume that the Christiannethic is both nonviolent and an acceptednmodel for all mankind. However, thenscriptures of the New Testament are—nat best—^uiconclusive. All that John thenBaptist required of soldiers was thatnthey refrain from extortion. Some earlynChristians did find the Gospel incompatiblenwith a military profession, butnthere is no sign that Cornelius the centurionnleft the service. One thing is clear:nScripture is uniformly gainst civil disobedience.nWives, children, slaves, andnsubjects are all told to obey those thatnhave authority over them. Even if Christianityndid justify civil disobedience,nmost of mankind are not Christian. Innfeet, Childress does not himself write asna believer. His arguments rely little onnscriptural quotation and betray only thenslightest familiarity with Augustine,nThomas, Luther—^indeed, with any ofnthe doctors of the church, reformed ornunreformed.nOf the “just war” criteria cited bynChildress, the only one not subject tonquestion is the legitimate authority ofnthe state. The validity of the others mustnbe proved and the burden of proof in allnsuch cases is not (as Childress seems tonsuppose) on those who would upholdnthe order of the state, but on those whonwould deny it. The state, as an instrumentnof social unity, exists primarily fornthe purpose of defense. To challengenthat right is not merely a threat to thenstate’s existence: it is a threat to all civilnorder. The problem with books likenChildress’s—and of far better books likenRawls’s A Theory of Justice or Locke’snTreatises—^is that they start with annabsurd assumption: that mankind isnmade up of individuals who, from timento time, have freely banded togetherninto societies. The truth is that such freenand isolated individuals only come intonexistence in the latest and most decadentnstages of a civilization. The ferthernwe look back iuto history and into simplernphases of social organization, thenless visible is the individual. A communitynS8inChronicles of Cttlturen—2i state—^is not made up of individualsnbut of femilies, communities, tribes, andncorporate groups. A refiisal to defendnthe state is, as Socrates realized, evennmore serious than an attack upon parents.nIt is interesting that Childress, followingnHannah Arendt, cites Socrates—^inncompany with Ring Lardner, Jr.—^as ancase of appeal to conscience. Considernthese two men: the one, a Hollywoodnscriptwriter who joined a politicalnmovement aimed at the destruction ofnhis own society and who refiised to testifynagainst his Stalinist friends on thengrounds of conscience; the other, a philosophernwho refused to escape from annunjust sentence of death on the groundsnthat he owed everything to his state. Onnthis subject of conscientious objection,nwe might take Socrates’ admonition innthe Crito as our guide:nIf you cannot persuade your country,nyou must do whatever it orders, andnpatiently submit to any punishmentnthat it imposes … and if it leads younout to war, to be wounded or killed,nyou must comply, and it is right thatnyou should do so.nFor Socrates, as for most loyal Americansntoday, there were only two choices:nobedience or exile. All his life he hadnbeen guided by the inner voice of conscience,nbut it never told him to betraynfriends and femily to the ravages of anmerciless enemy. He knew—^as JudasnIscariot must have known—^that allntreason is a form of suicide. DnWatching the Pillars CrumblenSusan Cheever: The Cage; HoughtonnMifQin; Boston.nAnne Rice: Cry to Heaven; Alfred A.nKnopf; New York.nby Dennis Q. MclnemynIf the long-heralded death of the novelnever takes place, the event will benbrought about, as was the fell of Rome,nby the slow, sure, insidious processes ofninternal decay. Activities in Americannfiction today are not conducive to optimismnabout the vital signs. To be sure,nwe do have some first-rate novelists atnwork, turning out books worthy of seriousnresponse, but the major portion ofnthe novels published each year in thenU.S. leaves much to be desired. It is notnsimply a matter of thefr lacking distinction,nof their being close to the mark butnnot quite on it; rather, what one is regularlynconfronted with are novels, ornwould-be novels, whose quality is deplorablynbad. They simply do not mea-nDr. Mclnemy is associate professor ofnEnglish at Bradley University.nnnsure up as literature.nThey are bad by reason of their subjectnmatter, which is characterized bynintellectual and emotional vacuity, alwaysntedious, but at times well-nighnoppressive. Pessimism hangs over contemporarynAmerican fiction like a LosnAngeles smog: varying in intensity, butnalways there. If it were only a matter ofnpessiriiism things would not be so degenerate.nUnderneath the pall of pessimism,nhowever, lies an unreal city of almostnutter hopelessness. Many Americannwriters have lost heart, with the resultnthat the act of writing becomes an exercisenin futility. The best that some ofnthese writers can do, by way of feigningna vitality they no longer possess, is to attemptnto outdo one another in sordidnand grotesque exhibitionism. As despairnis a bona fide human condition, novelistsnwho write from and about it would benworth listening to—were they capablenof writing about it interestingly, withnsome display of craftsmanship. The sadnfeet is that most of them are unable to articulatentheir dark vision in anything approachingna commanding feshion. TTius,nwhat exists is a plethora of works thatn