poet’s sense of the real life around himnrather than in a firmly airy metaphysics.nThis habit of thought made him,nduring the 1930s, the ideal critic ofnthe killing contradictions of Marxistntheory, just as it made him, duringnthe 1950s and ’60s, a classic victimnof capitalism’s more vulgar claims tonTightness. And O’Neill’s book finallynis revealing not only about the...

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Editor’s Commentn”Conscience, however. ;^ not innate, i^utnacquired; and vanes with eeoaraphv . . . ‘n— SpinozanTo Dostoyevski. and to the Russians in lotn. consciencenmeans aoodness and sinlessness. Someone ‘,vho lust killednsomebody is accused of lack ot conscience. It we acceptnSpinozas aeographic theory, the American varietv ‘.vouldnbe rather socially oriented. Pragmatism and pracncalitv seemnto have been...

ism. but It certainly becomes a victim ot elitism. The LiberalnCulture, which for so long has claimed a monopolv on conscience,nobviously turns into its most destructive wrecker.nTo the “relativists.” as Rabbi Schiller calls the libculturalnactivists and gurus in his book (reviewed in this issue),nconscience is a matter of stimulating incoherence, whichnin itself is the yeast...

opinions & ViewsnThe Reviewer as Cultural CriticnDiana Trilling: Reviewing the Forties;nHarcourt Brace Jovanovich;nNew York.nby Charles MosernIf this compilation were nothingnmore than a collection of reviews, onenmight feel uncomfortable in discussingnit. rather as if one were writing aboutnwriting about writing. Although mechanicallynit is a gathering of some ofnthe regular columns which iV’Irs. Trillingnwrote as a working...

as an individual. But srv’le must be genuine,nand no imitation: in the coursenof assessing Herman Wouk’s AuroranDawn Mrs. Trilling properly points outnthat “stylization is never style, and . . .nthere is something wrong with a societynwhich thinks it is.” Moreover, as stylenis to an individual, so is culture to ansociety: as important as the valuesnwhich...

that fact bodes ill for the future ofnAmerican and Western culture. “Anarchynno longer has the power to jolt us.”nshe wrote in May of 1949. “whichnmeans that we should perhaps take heednof our condition.” The degradation ofnWestern culture so evident 30 vearsnlater has proved her words prophetic.nixeviewing the Forties, then, is anpartial record of a discriminating,...

teres: and God, convinced that realnUte and a life of faith cannot be livednsimultaneously. “The Church frightensnher.” Love is no solution to the humannproblem: onlv duty can sustain one. Innan age characterized bv the failure oinall “Grand Ideas.” small works ot personalnconscience are the sole alternative.nAll ritual and symbol are false, standingnfor nothing. The good...

the real meaning, the soul of the wordnor phrase or thought, that must be uncoverednor one winds up with . . . jargon.”nSince translation points towardnan infinite goal, “much along the waynis veiled or hidden, as on the wrongnside of a tapestry.” Hence, the translatornlearns humility by seeking obscuritynin the graceful doing of his work.nThe...

is not so indignant with sin ihe knowsnits origins and its wiles) as witl:! errornand foolishness, so he tends to turn hisntexts into catechisms, as a way of rectifyingnsloppy thinking, psychologicalnmisconceptions, vision deflected by appetites,nand erratic behavior.nIn a number of essays, Sayers succumbsnto the catechetic style. In onenof them. “The Dogma is the Drama.”nshe outlines...

American MacArthurnWilliam Manchester: AmericannCaesar: Little, Brown and Co.;nBoston.nby Alan LevinenWilliam Manchester has writtennwhat is probably the best one-volumenbiography of General Douglas MacArthur.nThough not unflawed. it offersnconsiderable insights into MacArthur sncomplex personalitv and relationships.nAmerican Caesar is well-written in spitenof occasional lapses mto a dialect similarnto “Timese,” and attempts to be cutesyn—Manchester frequently refers to thenJapanese as...

the Emperor’s white horse. MacArthurnnever said anything nearly as outrageous.nA possible e.xpianation is that the ordinarynGI (unlike the people at home)nwas acutely conscious that MacArthurnhad suffered a defeat in the Philippinesnfrom which only he and a few othersnhad escaped. The fact that MacArthurnnever visited the front at Bataan ornduring the first campaign in NewnGuinea was...

Theodore and Mrs. Natalie Augden.nclose friends of Lionel’s parents and hisnhosts in Debrakot. live in the shadownof their pan British ancestry and whollynBritish upbringing. The venerable “tornnbetween two cultures” theme is noisilynraised and then allowed to drift awav.n’A short first novel of unusual and exquisite quality.”nent juvenile. For example. Mrs. Xatalien.•ugden’s monotonous girlhood remmiscencesnare rendered...

vertentlv wins the “Miss Rhode Island”ntitle and thus becomes a contender forn”Miss America.”‘ The supposed sensibilitynof a Seven Sisters college girl is tonbe brought down upon the undoubtednvulgarity of the beauty pageant world.nA condescending recent movie aboutna beauty pageant. Smile, now oftennappears in the television listings, alongnwith a few made-for-TV imitations. Forntelevision programmers the appeal...

principles can be expected to triumphnm a nonpartisan political svstem. ThenAmerican Wav has been tor principlesnto become synonvmous with a partv,nand for those principles to be imposednduring that party’s period of dominance.nUnder the present circumstances conservativesnare entitled to wondernwhether their principles have anv futurenin American politics: Republicansnare right to wring their hands over theirnparty’s gloomy...

“From these statistics it becomes apparentnthat the American citizenrv isnstill verv much committed to whatnmay be described as a conser’ativenposition on the so-called social issues.nAmericans believe in God. Judeo-nChristian morality, and traditionalnconcepts of crime control. Thev willnlisten to legitimate calls for justice.nSadlv. due to the leftist dommation ofnthe media, these facts are mostlvnoverlooked.”nThe problem is...

in my heart I suspect Schiller is probablynright. When one considers the swollennranks of middle-class socialists andnGucci liberals, then mavbe there’s noth­nYouth’s Labors LostnDavid Holbrook: A Play of Passion;nW. H. Allen: London.nby Gordon Pradinrlas there ever been an adult whonat first blush did not wax nostalaic overnadolescence.’ We seem to have an endlessncapacity for such...

the relationships with his parents andnwith Annie. This antihuman positionnHolbrook is attaclcine is embodied innRoy Short, an older school-friend ofnPaul’s who IS already up at Cambridgenspouting ail the “correct” left-wingnslogans.n”Short seized the opportunity to persuadenIPauil towards nihilism. A newnorthodoxy took over now his beliefnhadfailed —the metaphysics of chemicalnand physical laws, and the FinalnCause of Ultimate...

Feds & Narcs in a Comparative ScholarshipnJames Q. Wilson: The Investigators:nBasic Books: New York.nby Charles E. RicenOince the death of J. Edgar Hoovernin 1972, the Federal Bureau of Investigationnhas been subjected to extensivenscrutiny and criticism. In the process,nthe realities of what the Bureau actuallyndoes have been obscured. We havenneeded a balanced look at those realities.nFortunately,...

“He utterly transformed a disgracetulnbureau into a modern investigativenagencv in which personnel were selectednon merit alone, held to the mostnexacting standards of behavior, ruthlesslynpunished at the first sign ofnimproper or partisan behavior, andnsupported with a remarkable svstemnof files, fingerprmt records, and scientificnlaboratories.”nHoover’s administrative system “wasnbrilliantly successful in eliminating thenobvious abuses of power and in cultivatingnfavorable...

plays, a huge body of short stories, manynof them first-rate. Yet rejection of ailnhe achieved, the basic meaninglessnessnof worldly success and recognition, isnnot so puzzling when one realizes thatnescape from the world is a motive appearingnfrequently in his work. An artistnescapes to the South Seas (The Moonnand Sixpence), a young man escapesnthe world, via Eastern...

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...

philosophers and balladeers perceivednin crime the impulse of righteous protest—benit against injustice, or boredom.nor the constraints of civilization. Nationalnmagazines began to speculatenthat there must be some justification innequating past centuries of racial andnethnic abuses with the current robberynand murder in the streets. The sensationalisticnvoyeurism of the media conferredna celebrity badge on any act ofneven the...

of the past, lately cured bv history snpainful experiences. We are thus quitendisturbed to find it again in a writernof Mr. Grass’ caliber and influence.nEspeaaily in the light ot the latest, quitenalarmina. news from Germanv aboutnthe sinister revival oi Nazi mystiquenamong German youth—which wouldnindicate that the “psychologicallv” victoriousnGerman writers of Mr. Grass’nstripe are not as...

JournalismnNew Times’nTimely DemisenISeiv Times died not long ago. andnwe have little reason to mourn it. It wasna sequel to the ’60s journalism of socialnconscience tor instant sale, and its endnreads like the dispersal of the acid fumesnthat beclouded the American mind fornmore than a decade. The ’70s provednnot to be exactly the new times whichnNew...

ton students, as if thev had nothing tondo with all those dementet: antics bvntadical Ivy League faculties ‘.hen theynnonneaotiably clamored for revolutionarynconscience as curriculum. Bv thatntime education was seen bv the liberalsnas a process of full equalization iinnrights and value) of the educator andneducated, and those who insisted thatnmoral training was inseparable fromnknowledge were branded...

modish nymphomaniacal criticism,nhiahiy appreciated among the liberalncommissars of V’oi^ue and The NewnYorker. Her reasoning has the gracefulnessnot disco dancing, and it runs intonpeculiar mental arpeggios, as the followingnconclusion of her review of ThenDeer Hunter, an obviously masculinenmovie, demonstrates:n”… but Michael, the transcendentnhero, is a hollow figure. There isnnever a moment when we feel. Oh mynGod....

Editor^s CommentnWe have completed the first full year of the Chroniclesnof Culture and it’s time for a bit of summing up and soulsearching.nWe e are most often accused of two venial sins: liberalbaitingnand negativism. Of course, both charges have thencommon rockbottom. We concentrate on Liberal Culturenbecause it is the reigning sociocultural sovereign whosenwisdom and morality...

the political totalitarianism of the left, they somehow, oddly,nsee in it not evil, but aberration. But they do perceive wickednessnand horror in the totalitarian movements of the right.nWe do not quarrel with that, but we must vehemently rejectnthe special moral tariff accorded the ideological thugs andnhoodlums whom the marxian sacraments exempt, in the eyesnof a...

opinions & ViewsnSelling Darkness & BloodnPeter Collier: Downriver; Holt,nRinehart & Winston; New York.nby Edward J. WalshnIn this, an age of cultural brutalitynand obscenity, brutal and obscene literaturenbecomes numbingly routine, muchnlike the bleak rows of motion picturenmarquees along New York’s 42nd Streetnfrom Seventh Avenue to Times Square.nBut occasionally one display is so singularlynvile that it forges...

the possibility of any subtle blending ofnemotions, and leave the reader againnsickened and bored.nX he upshot, then, is that Cabell Hartnis alone in the world, but for his sisternCharley, who has moved to the NorthernnCalifornia town of Halcyon to beginnher. life anew with her illegitimate son,nwho suffers from a clubfoot, his sharenof the Hart family...

About the War and the CampsnMilovan Djilas: Wartime; translatednby Michael B. Petrovich; HarcourtnBrace Jovanovich; New York andnLondon.nJ. K. Zawodny: Nothing butnHonour: The Story of the WarsawnUprising, 1944; Hoover InstitutionnPress; Stanford, California.nAbram Tertz (Andrei Sinyavsky):nA Voice from the Chorus; translatednby Kyril Fitzlyon and Max Hayward;nFarrar, Straus & Giroux; New York.nRobert Conquest: Kolyma: The ArcticnDeath Camps; Viking...

was not so. In the midst of battle or justnbefore it he can behold the mountains,nor the glowing slowness of light in thenearly dawn, with the eyes of the newborn.nIn one terrible moment he looksnupon a scene of unheard-of beauty andnknows in his head it is beautiful butncannot feel it in his breast and guts:nhe...

was to be any hope of an independentnPoland. People understood that they hadnto do something for themselves, if theninternational promise of the independencenof Poland was to have any bite.nBut something deeper than politicalnconsideration showed itself in thenfighting—something much like the experiencenDjilas describes but withoutnhis guilt: the insurgents themselves didnnot expect the strength that came overnthem...

method was delay—and entanglingnGreat Britain and the United States inncomplicity with that delay.nIf there was ambiguity about Stalin’snactions, there was none about his attitudes.nHe was contemptuous and suspicious.nHarriman saw Stalin in a furynat a Polish underground pamphlet (fromnthe area of Poland already conquerednby the Red Army) declaring there wasnno difference between Stalin and Hitler.nStalin had...

does not exhort, it is fearful. And maybenit also teaches that the Odyssey is anfearful work.nSinyavsky’s silence about camp detailsnmeans: we all know what it is likenby now—you know what it is like. Itnmeans, this has now become j)^o«r worldnas much as ours:n”Notions like ‘human dignity’ or ‘theninviolability of the person’ are to mynmind a...

terrible to know but dangerous to forget:n”Of the three million—or more—ndead whose bones now lie in thenPensioners’ PowernJeremy Rifkin and Randy Barber:nThe North Will Rise Again: Pensions,nPolitics and Power in then1980s; Beacon Press; Boston.nby Harold C. GordonnIn the mid-1920s, when Russia’sntriumphant Bolsheviks realized thatnworld revolution was not forthcoming,nthey settled down to the grim businessnof building...

poor. This was the plaintive cry of thosenwho wanted to bail out New York City.nIn fact, as then-Secretary of the TreasurynWilliam Simon has observed, New Yorknwas systematically looted by its municipalnunions.nBecause of their vast power, the city’snunions were able to secure salaries,nfringe benefits, and pension rights farnin excess of those accorded workersndoing comparable jobs in...

regions become competitive with NorthnCarolina, Mississippi, or Taiwan. Youncan bet your bottom dollar that privatenindustry will then come knocking at thendoor again.” They overstate the case.nActually, if tax-cut fever were to hitnthe Gray belt, if public spending couldnbe reduced, and if unions could be persuadednto moderate their wage demandsnand give up the antiquated work rulesnthat...

Sweden, or as if it did not exist even innhereditary monarchies or the medievalnCatholic Church. Bureaucracy, peoplenlike Katz contend, is instituted in modernnAmerica specifically to reinforcenclass attitudes and racial discriminationnthrough a forced regimentation vifhichnimposes mandatory education on a reluctantnproletariat.nThe facts are just the opposite of thisncontention. The immigrant and the nativenworking man have always correctlynseen...

Harvard’s DegringoladenJohn LeBoutillier: Harvard HatesnAmerica: The Odyssey of a Born-nAgain American; Gateway Editions;nSouth Bend, Indiana.nby Walter TrohannvJurs is a society in which high esteemnwas once given to the search forntruth in our institutions of higher learning.nThis search was conducted in annatmosphere as dedicated as t^at ofnPlato’s groved academy, but one hallowednby the measurement of socialnvalues...

did not mean physically. As an undergraduate,nMr. LeBoutillier was startlednat how the general condemnation ofnthe American system was combinednwith the remnants of snobbery he foundnsurviving in the old line campus clubs.nAs a graduate student he was appallednby the reverse side of the coin in thenhighly-regarded Harvard BusinessnSchool, where he found instruction andndiscussion geared to the...

worthy person was the British ForeignnSecretary, Anthony Eden.”nWe do not think that Anthony Edennis more to blame than the liberal press,nwhich was so infatuated with the Sovietsnimmediately after the war (and neverncompletely shook off this infatuation)nthat it saw fit not to report on everythingnthe Soviets did, not to reviewnbooks which brought to light crucialnevidence of...

that a novelist who tries to convince hisnreaders that fools die is a cheap pub raconteur.nHis place on the bestseller listnis thus assured by fools. And that’snabout everything that can and shouldnbe said about a piece of fiction whichnbrings things sexual to the status ofnpunctuation.nMr. Puzo produced The Godfather,nan honorable pulp, a poorly written epicnof...

Nashville was about the ugliness ofnAmerica. A pigheaded obstinacy innportraying America as ugly is as nonsensicalnand repulsive as presenting hernas an unassailable happy-ending paradise,nbut Altman appears not to noticenthis elementary equation. A Weddingnis about the ugliness of affluence andnsocial custom, about the hideousnessnof the comfortable Middle-Americannstratum. There is no attempt to structurena parable here, every...

and a meager jazz combo in the background.nThis is why Ain ‘t Misbehavin ‘isnsomething more than a routine musical,nthough—as with everything that is simplenand modest but nonetheless impressive—itnis difficult to explain why it isnso. Why does a spectacle devoid of plot,ndialogue, structured scenes, or dramaticntension, make us wait for what followsnwith that inner anticipation which...

counterbalance Russia and thereby actnwith a general sense of the nature ofnthings. President Carter took over theirnideas and, characteristically, has botchedneverything.nSupporting the weaker and less oppressivenin the conflict between two ofnour foes is pragmatic, commonsensicalnand is called Realpolitik in the lingo ofnpolitical scientists. A century ago, itnmeant foreign policies with an adherencento the most practical...

In earlier epochs,na critic tormented only the writers…nOf all the cants which are canted in this canting world—nthough the cant of hypocrites may be the worst—nthe cant of criticism is the most tormenting. Laurence StemenIn ours, he torments everybody.nRegardless of what we wish to knownor ignore, we live with cultural eventsnand their consequences.nThese events reappear...

later, all The New Yorker’s ideologistsnhave to do is to look at the map to discovernthat the spheres of influence haventurned into a pure Bishop Berkeley construct,nand a new, hard reality. And wendo not only have in mind the outrightnconquests through arms or subversionnin the Western hemisphere, Africa andnAsia; we are thinking also of what...

A Voice We RespectnIt is that of Irving Howe, a distinguishednProfessor of Enghsh at the CitynUniversity of New York, editor ofnDissent, one of the most respectablensocial-democrats to walk the streets ofnManhattan. Dr. Howe, liberal as he is,nhas never hesitated to speak out againstnthe Liberal Culture, as if he were awarenof the discrepancy between his ideologicalnheritage...