the artists who created this one. so thenstory finally results in inarticulateness.nEven the skill of intimation is. in thisnmovie, sleazily deficient and ineffective:nthe audience does not know exactly whvnthe hybrid monsters gestated by the invadingnpods sometimes talk and at otherntimes can utter nothing but a savagenhowl, or why San Francisco is totallvndevoid of the premier power of Americannreality—the ubiquitous media—nwhich would notice what, from the firstncredit lines, so obviously happens tonpeople and their right to know.nWhat’s perhaps more interesting arenthe personal opinions propounded bvnthe director. Air. Kaufman, who in anpress interview. e.x.plicated what kindnof metaphor he had in mind in his opus.nThe product of the pods, he savs, isn”conforming to the faceless society,”nand he adds: “Nixon is a pod . . .” Hencompounds this article of faith with annallocution by the protagonist of Invasion,nwho certainly plays the partenparole to iVIr. Kaufman. At one point.nwhile describing something freakishnInsights bv LeadersnA curious remark by Dr. Brzezinski.nPresident Carter’s National SecuritynAdvisor, a scholar and man of piercingnintelligence, according to the pressnwhich is inclined to probe this side ofnhis personality:n”I think that there has been somengenuine progress worldwide with regardnto human rights —in part, becausenof what we (the Carter administration!nhave been doing —in part,nbecause it is the genuine historicalninevitability of our time. ” (Emphasisnadded).nThis seems a startling persuasion.nMontesquieu and Jefferson, Garibaldi,nMarx and Comte, then Zola, and ofn24inChronicles of CulturenThe American Scenenthat might have happened to someone,nhe says: “Did he turn homosexual.-‘nHas he become Republican . . .?” —nthus we know who we have the honor ofndealing with. We may aiso assume thatnMr. Kaufman is unfamiliar with Tolstoy’snwords in War ana Peace aboutnthe “infinite variety of human minds”nand “that there are no two men in thenworld who would perceive the truthnidentically.” Which makes me thinknthat, to my mind. Mr. Kaufman’s outernspace pods have achieved perfection onnearth in his own comrades of the ’60s.nwho so facelessly and with the samenblank stare in their soulless eyes usednto chant: “Peace Now! Ho Chi Minh!nPower to the people! Make lovei …”nIt may be that the movie has beennconceived as a protest against totalitarianncollectivism and uniformity, butnMr. Kaufman is not lonesco. Invasionndid not turn out to be the Rhinoceros.nand the overall effect is a film aboutnboring automatons who neither sing norndance but nonetheless pretend to benentertainment. Dnlate, Bertrand Russell, all assured usnthat human rights were the genuinenhistorical inevita’bility of their time.nConcurrently, we had Catherine thenGreat, the genocide of Armenians, Lenin,nHitler, Stalin. Gulags, Auschwitz.nMao, Castro, Reverend Jones —to mentionnonly the better-known cases. Sonmuch for inevitability.nMyths Die LastnIn the New York Review of Books,nProfessor Graham Hughes, New YorknUniversity, reviews Criminal Violence.nCriminal Justice, by Mr. Charles E.nSilberman. The book has attracted attentionnand was praised in the liberalnpress for its antidogmatism, althoughnwe found that it diverged unconvincing-nnniv from the old liberal schematics.nGrounded m a heavy and costly research,nMr. Silberman’s work concludesnwith a sigh of apathy and incertitude:nconsidering all sociocuitural variables,nnot very much can be done to removen:he scourge of violent crime from ournreality. This conclusion is not enoughnfor Professor Hughes’ conscience: hensomehow resents Mr. Silberman’s inadequatenuse of cliches and would prefernmore accentuation of racism, social inequality,nirresponsiveness to the needy,netc., as the main factor in exegesis.nHe writes:n•’. . . No verv dramatic reduction innviolent crime is likely until the psychicntrauma created by social inequity andnthe broader neurosis-generating characterofnAmerican life are significantlynmodified . . . We must dynamicallynseek to bring about basic social reformsnthat might dilute the sour bilenof nihilistic anger. Such serious andnfar-reaching changes hardly seemnUkelv.”nMessrs. Silberman and Hughes, whateverntheir differences, complement onenanother. They both conveniently disregardnmoral attitudes—in this case, thenliberal ones —as components in formingnsociocuitural climates conducive toncrime. Mr. Silberman notes that thendecades between 1930 and I960 witnessedna dramatic dechne in violentncrime as a part of social reality atnlarge, while the ’60s and “70s observedna catastrophic and frightening proliferationnof the most senseless criminal acts.nThe former period was one in whichnchildren were trained by an Americannprimary educational system which stillninsisted on the values of morality andnconduct. These allegedly corny andnpedestrian ethics were unanimously andnunflinchingly supported during thensame period by both the high andnpopular culture: philosophy extollednsocial pragmatism: books, plays andnmovies insisted that crime was heinous,nwhile its pursuit in the name of lawwasnnoble and rewarding. In the ’60s.n