Author: The Archive (The Archive)

19 9 6 in R e V irnj^ fp?rnTHEORY AGAINST LIFE—January 1996—GeorgernWatson on literary theory in England, Jeremy Black onrnthe Whig approach to history, E. Christian Kopff onrndeconstructionism, and Irving Louis 1 lorowitz onrnThomas Szasz and the theory of mental illness.rnPlus Samuel Francis’s review of Michael Lind’s ThernNext American Nation.rn^•^’Pr^i^rnPRtlTl,rn•’ •’Irn””•CUMi,,’,rn”ii/.’i,,rn•^’lift’.,;,,.rnOTTK^rn—^••’*£*^£5£rnTiVOX% es’rn”V**rnW OTWTrnPRAVDA USA: PROPAGANDA...

transactionrnNew and Recent Books on Family and PolicyrnTHE SWEDISH EXPERIMENTrnIN FAMILY POLITICSrnTHE MYRDALS AND THE INTERWARrnPOPULATION CRISISrnAllan CarlsonrnThis devastating account of the work ofrnGunnar and Alva Myrdal portrays how twornyoung scholars used the power of ideas tornhelp engineer a new domestic order in Sweden.rnIt offers the general reader remarkablerninsight into the nature of Scandinavian socialrnlife,...

EDITORrnThomas FlemingrnMANAGING EDITORrnTheodore PappasrnSENIOR EDITOR. BOOKSrnChilton Williamson, ]r.rnASSISTANT EDITORrnMichael WashburnrnART DIRECTORrnAnna Mycek-WodeckirnCONTRIBUTING EDITORSrnHarold O.]. Brown, Katherine Dalton,rnSamuel Francis, George Garrett, PaulrnGottfried, Christine Haynes,rnE. Christian Kopff, ].0. Tate,rnClyde WilsonrnCORRESPONDING EDITORSrnBill Kauffman, William Mills,rnJacob Neusner, John Shelton Reed,rnMomcilo SelicrnEDITORIAL SECRETARYrnLeann DobbsrnPUBLISHERrnAllan C. CarlsonrnPUBLICATION DIRECTORrnGuy C. ReffettrnPRODUCTION SECRETARYrnAnita CandyrnCIRCULATION MANAGERrnRochelle FrankrnA publication of The Rockford Institute.rnEditorial and Advertising...

tional (Ninth Amendment) rights. Indeed,rnthe Court has become the instrumentrnbv which minority interests rulernthe majority. The Congress would be arnmore logical institution to provide thernmechanism. Since its members also takernthe oath to uphold the Constitution,rnCongress could enact legislation establishingrnthe national initiative and referendumrnto define Ninth Amendmentrnrights. The result of such a processrnwould be binding, and...

of high tariffs. Repubhcan Presidentsrnfrom Abraham Lincoln to Ronald Reaganrnhave supported protectionism, whilernDemocrats from Woodrow Wilson tornBill Clinton have opposed it. On this issue,rnas on most important ones, there isrnno substantial difference between Clintonrnand Dole. Under either man thernUnited States faces a future of increasedrndownsizing and consequent debt. Evenrna slight economic downturn will sendrnour country...

and Wesleyan University.rnHis first volume of verse, The BeautifulrnChanges, which appeared in 1947, wonrnthe poet early respect from critics as demandingrnas T.S. Eliot. Since that time,rnhis poetry has received many majorrnawards: two Pulitzer Prizes, a NationalrnBook Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship,rnand the Prix de Rome. His translationsrnof French drama into rhymed couplets,rnacclaimed throughout the Englishspeakingrnworld, have...

PERSPECTIVErnThe Sacraments of Anti-Christrnby Thomas FlemingrnCC said a French actress of the ARepubhean marriage,”rn18th century, “is the sacrament of adultery.” This bonrnmot is recorded by Sir Walter Scott in the description of thernFrench Revolution with which he begins his Life of Napoleon.rnIn passing the first no-fault divorce law in Christendom, hernconcludes, the Jacobinsrnhad reduced the...

thest in seeing a supernatural dimension. Marriage is of “holyrnestate” and the marriage ceremony, for some Christians atrnleast, has a sacramental character. In rearing their children,rnChristian parents also bear responsibility for seeing to their religiousrninstruction, whether they carry it out themselves or turnrnsome part of this task over to churches that provide instructionsrnfor confirmation. For...

mon cause with them except in the sense that we can join togetherrnwith anyone, even people who hate and despise us, to accomplishrnsome good thing—to teach mathematics or sweeprnthe streets. What we cannot expect of government is to teachrnChristian theology or repress sodomy, any more than we canrnask the IRS to collect tithes for the...

Reformation, maintained a nominal authority over marriage.rnA commonwealth’s principal interest in marriage was in determiningrnthe legitimacy of children. This concern was particularlyrnacute, wherever (as was common) there were rules restrictingrnthe rights of bastards to inherit property or exercise thernrights of citizens. What possible claim could be made by arnmodern commonwealth, where kept women may sue...

and wilderness regions with which few of them will ever havernany direct contact—”the swaying tall pines among the litter ofrncones on the forest floor,” real places which remain for themrnwhat they are for Muriel Spark’s self-destroying modern heroinernin The Driver’s Seat (1970)—a mental construct, a countryrnof the mind. So, too, with the traditional belief in...

and Christian faith as “a religion of little things.” Not surprisingly,rnhe describes the complexities of modern life as a kind ofrnmadness, a “final divorce” from such realities as what he callsrn”liberty in small nations and poor families” and “the rights ofrnman as including the rights of property; especially the propertyrnof the poor.” hi a sermon...

to the problem of solipsistie isolation is the recovery of whatrnthev eall a saeramental sense, hi principle, both authors aeknowlcdgcrnthat the dualistie separation of the material and thernspiritual has already been overcome by the coming of Christ.rnBut their writings demonstrate the difficulty with which thernlost unit’ can be recovered in human lives which arc supposedrnto...

brated, even to an extent enforced by Sunday closings—now allrnbut abolished in the United States and beginning to be abandonedrnin Europe. Christmas, celebrating the birth of the Sonrnof God, reminded all adults and children of the wonder of humanrnbirth and at the same time alluded to the fulfillment ofrnour deepest hopes in the second coming:...

friend” is some sort of a sentimental beautification of what is inrnreality an ordeal.rnIt is worth remembering that in the Christian story, even Jesusrnhimself prayed, “If it be possible, let this cup pass from me”rn(Matthew 26:39). Even the Apostle Paul, who wrote, “To die isrngain . . . and to be with Christ, which is...

ing jobs continue to flee the country. In the 1950’s, 33 percentrnof jobs in the United States were in manufacturing. In 1996,rnthe figure is 16 percent. Much of this job loss is due to our recklessrnleap into the global marketplace, but some of it, as the Motorolarnexample shows, is due to the implosion of our...

conspiracies, the work of Satanic mills, loose morality. Wernhardly take them—as yet—seriously or investigate their roots.rnWe are in a state of astonishment, as the last Greco-Roman pagansrnmust have been when their temples were closed in favor ofrnChristian churches, and the administration of provincesrnslipped out of the hands of imperial officials into the hands ofrna new...

symbolized by the physical construction of the chapel at myrnown university, Penn State, in which the architects militantlyrnrefused to include any specifically religious symbol, preferringrninstead a series of abstract designs equally incomprehensible tornall, creating a state of ecumenical bafflement. We seemed tornbe practicing an “absolute separation of campus and state.”rnSomewhere down the road,rnwe need to...

likely to encounter is an introduction to world religions, whichrnin various forms is a fixture of many large universities. Thernproblems here can be summarized in the cynical description ofrnthis class, as “If it’s Tuesday, it must be Buddhism.” A sessionrnon Hinduism will generally lead to one on Buddhism, and onernon “other Indian traditions,” before moving...

mendation, or even a sine qua non, for courses on Christianity?rnOne facile answer to this question is that Christianity, unlikernthe other religions, is associated with those dominant culturalrnand political trends that have become so unfashionable underrnstigmatizing terms like the “West,” “imperialism,” “hegemonic”rnculture, and so on. The argument always was weak, but isrnnow essentially obliterated: Africa...

ly based on the pioneering research donernby others (such as the American historianrnChristopher Browning).rnRudolf Augstein, the highly opinionatedrneditor of Germany’s most influentialrnweekly, Der Spiegel, dismissed Goldhagenrnout of hand as a “nonhistorian,”rnadding that “the end result is meager,rnone can even say, it is simply ‘Nil.'” Inrnthe Berliner Morgenpost, ProfessorrnMichael Wolffsohn (who was born in Israel)rnwas no...

was more likely to win the new “totalrnwar” for which he prayed than arnreligion of love. He was convertedrnby his bluestocking wife Mathilde,rnwho wrote Redemption from ]esusrnChrist. Most Nazis consider themselvesrnsufficiently subtle when theyrn”discover” that all foes are tools ofrnJudaism. Mathilde goes them onernbetter in subtlety: even the Jews arerntools. At a Nazi party congress...

(b) he therefore never betrays the slightestrninkling that the power of the overclassrnis rooted, as Burnham understood, in therncentralized managerial state constructedrnb- the very “national liberals” whomrnLind takes as his heroes. The overclass orrnmanagerial elite could not exist as arndominant group apart from its dependencernon the federal governmentrn(and mini-leviathans at the state andrnmetropolitan levels), the...

merely regurgitating left-wing efforts tornsmear it as “pseudo-science” and “neo-rnNazi.” In any case, it is hard to see anythingrn”Darwinian” about books thatrnnever invoke biology or genetics; whilerntheir timid reception by neoconservatism,rnonce the left denounced them,rndemonstrates how neoconservatives continuernto slobber when the left rings itsrnbells, not how hell-bent they are on reversingrnall that the left has...

CORRESPONDENCErnLetter FromrnInner Israelrnby Jacob NeusnerrnJews on Abortionrn”Mommy let me live!” screams the tastelessrnheadline of a pro-life ad, completernwith scary pictures of a baby’s diary;rn”May 1; Today my parents gave me therngift of life… . One week has passed andrnlook, I’m no longer a single cell,” and sornon through the year. Here are the concludingrnentries:rnJuly 24:...

contradictory facts? First, not everybodyrnwho identifies himself as ethnically Jewishrnpractices the religion, and in thernUnited States many do not. Second, justrnas there are many Christianities, whichrnintersect in a few things but part companyrnin manv, so there arc diverse Judaisms,rneach with its own account of what thernTorah rcc[uircs of holy Israel, God’s firstrnlove. Some of the...

der Sixto to control inflation, which hadrnbeen 60 percent. It was brought to 25rnpercent in 1995 and was predicted to bern26 percent in 1996. This kind of austerityrndid not permit the social programsrnthat people thought they ought to get,rnand Bucaram, from the opposition, filledrnthis vacuum. He out-promised Nebot.rnMy contact in Quito, FernandornSanchez, suggested we take...

Free enterprise in Sasquisili, Kcuador.rna pre’ious election and a university professor,rnlie told me that in his opinionrnthere was no real difference in Nebot andrnAbdala Buearam. He had been Abdala’srnteacher. As to the promise of housing,rnsome of it could be done, he thought—rnhe had written a long article explainingrnhow. I le remarked that Abdala had arngreat...

that the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Buildingrnwas bombed. Just as most Americansrnalive at the time of President JohnrnF. Kennedy’s assassination rememberrnwhere they were when they heard thernnews, so almost every person living inrnOklahoma City or its suburbs can tellrnyou what he was doing when he felt andrnheard the explosion.rnI was teaching English to foreign studentsrnat...

that we are suffering when we are not,rnthat we are compassionate when we arernnot, leaving us proud participants in virtualrnmorality.rnChildren are also subject to the vagariesrnof these philosophical inconsistencies.rnAfter horrifying our children byrnshowing them gruesome pictures ofrnbleeding toddlers and babies on television,rnthe community and the nationrnthen proceeded to “comfort” them. Inrnan effort to ensure that...

Letter FromrnChicagornby David A. GoiakrnReal Daily NewsrnThose who work for what today pass asrnnewspapers often deserve the criticismrndirected at them for their lack of objectivity,rnsloppy reporting, and elitism.rnHaving long abandoned the singularrnmission of informing their readers sornthat they may be able to make informedrndecisions about complex issues, these papersrnhave degenerated into nothing morernthan corporate profit...

VITAL SIGNSrnThe New Southrnby Michael WashburnrnA Time to KillrnProduced by Arnon Milchan,rnMichael Nathanson, Hunt Lowry,rnand ]ohn GrishamrnDirected by ]oel SchumacherrnBased on a novel by ]ohn GrishamrnScreenplay by Akiva GoldsmanrnReleased by Warner Brothers ATime to Kill, Joel Schumacher’s newrnfilm about race relations in thernSouth, has drawn plaudits from manyrncritics. Stanley Kauffmann, writing inrnthe New Republic, hails...

tim so luridly described in the closingrnscene is in fact too commonplace to bernvery shocking.rnTo Hollywood the South is no longerrnthe irredeemable backwater of MississippirnBurning, but a place like South Africa,rnwhich is successfully overturning its oldrnorder and shedding its evil heritage. Butrnthe New South is admirable only insofarrnas it has ceased to be Southern. JakernBrigantz...

Richard M. Weaver, M.E. Bradford,rnClyde Wilson, and Grady McWhiney,rnamong others. They believe that if therernis any hope of restoring ordered libertyrnand self-government, it will spring fromrnthis intellectual tradition. What seemsrnto them equallv evident is that the renewalrnof American civilization will notrnemerge from the Contract With Americarnor from any half-measure cooked uprninside the Beltway. Our forefathers...

ologists often view social problemsrnthrough an ideological prism. RutgersrnUniversity sociologist Irving Louis Horowitzrnargues that sociologists promoternoutdated and questionable theories ofrncrime. A once promising academic discipline,rnthe demise of sociology exemplifiesrnthe toll of political correctness.rnMost social critics will never recognizernthe value of behavior genetic research forrnthe simple reason that it challenges therndeeply held egalitarian beliefs of socialrnscientists....

thing other than a literal reading of arnline—either adding to or in some casesrnundercutting their spoken words. She isrnnot a realist; she thinks art should explodernlife and is always dragging subtextrnand subconscious out for an airing. Shernis a very bright woman and fun to hearrnlecture, and certainly her plays shake arnperson up. But in this...

(moved, seconded, carried and minuted)rnin clean, carpeted, warmed, andrnwell-lighted offices, by quiet men withrnwhite collars and cut fingernails andrnsmooth-shaven cheeks who do not needrnto raise their voice.”rnTo mask this subtlety, heroic-lookingrnfigures adorn several of the buildingsrncomprising the plaza. In their Art Decornforms, with square features and a plethorarnof muscles, they represent either godsrnor goddesses, or...

The Hundredth Meridianrnby Chilton Williamson, Jr.rnIn MexicornThe man and the bull stood facing onernanother across the yellow sand midwayrnbetween the center of the ring and thernbarrera. The bull was smaller and less ferociousrnthan the big fighting bulls; thernman was young, not out of his teens, andrninstead of the matador’s costume of embroideredrnsilk he wore a...

ing to the train station. The driver wasrnnutbrown, as wide as he was tall. Hisrnsteel gray hair had been slicked straightrnback from the temples, and his face wasrncovered by wens. “Si, sefior. Y en Hermosillorntambien.”rnIn the early morning light filtered byrnthe dust and smoke of the city the drabrnpublic architecture of the estaeionrnloomed like a...

“First rate”rn— Pat Buchananrn’One of the most important Catholic pubhcations since Vatican II.” — Michael DaviesrnAt one U.S. seminary, the dean discoveredrna stray Latin Mass magazine in therncommon room. He blew up, ordered itrnthrown out, and strictly warned seminarians:rn”1 never want to see this herernagain!” At another seminary, the liturgyrnprofessor discovered a gift subscriptionrnto The...