Category: Imported

returned to traditional standards of family life and morality.nWriting in 1954, Danish sociologist Kaare Svalastoga describednthe typical Swedish family as consisting of husband,nwife, and two children, with the husband as the onlynbreadwinner and a “patricentral” distribution of power.nOther evidence of triumphant Leave-It-To-Beaverism camenfrom a contemporary Gallup Poll which found that 90npercent of Swedes considered absolute...

fullest and most rational manner possible.” The Cold Warnfamily, in this view, was merely one variant of the fullynsocialized family, part of and dependent on the kinder,ngender Leviathan state.nIndeed, both the Swedish and American experiments innthe state defense of tradition have recently turned againstnfamily life. In Sweden, the shift came in the 1960’s, asnfeminist critics...

is mostly a creation of much laterntimes — the New Deal era especiallyn— when politicians have found his ambiguousnand protean Constitutionnamenable to their purposes.nMadison was not in any sense angreat thinker. In JefiFerson’s letters andnwritings we can find hundreds of quotablenand striking thoughts; in all ofnMadison’s vast squibblings, very litde.nOf all the Founding Fathers, he,...

recently-deceased member of the JewishnTheological Seminary’s faculty.nThe other relevant observationnabout Neusner’s scholarship is thatnmuch of it is impenetrable except to anTalmud student with extensive knowledgenof German social thought. Innalmost all his commentaries on Talmudicnliterature, Neusner emphasizesnthat the texts are governed by theirnown intrinsic logic, an assumption henapplies especially to the two redactionsnof the Talmud, one...

lessness; unlike Christianity, Islam, andneven biblical Judaism, it never maintainedna self-sufficient imperium.nNeusner may be justified in exploringn”ecologically” within a communalncontext such as Judaism, but it isndoubtful whether the term “politicalneconomy” describes the object of hisnstudy. It is ironic that Neusner himselfnhas exposed the many flaws in Weber’snAncient Judaism, including its faultynuse of categories in analyzing...

Even so, at least part of Neusner’s heartnremains with Aphrahat’s rabbinic opponentsnand with all Jewish apologistsnengaged in a holding action against annalready triumphant Christianity. Turningnto a coded polemic in order tonexpress themselves against Christiannpersecutions, the rabbis moved towardnan increasingly veiled and esoteric relationshipnto the outside world. Thenclosed hermeneutic was the necessarynprice of Jewish national existence...

grounded in scientific understanding,nshe dealt with ethics in its relations tonpsychology and social science, to lawnand education, and to the larger socialnand intellectual context. Her courses innthe history of ethics preserved historicalninsights and approaches at a time whennAmerican philosophers had largelynabandoned historical perspectives.”nEdel’s own contribution, the first in thenvolume, can be considered a finelynrendered amplification...

civilizations elsewhere (in Rome,nFrance, England) there was “a continuousnsuccession of manners, whichnapply not only to the fine arts but,nperhaps, more essentially, to the arts ofnliving.” These arts of living, what criticsnsince have called manners andnmorals, gave Bishop and the writers ofnhis generation in the South a valuablenlode to mine and countermine. That isnespecially true of...

two decades his out-of-print books havenbeen reissued in various editions. Andnnow we have the first two of the fournvolumes of his collected poetry, beautifullynprinted and bound; they are, innfact, models of the art of bookmaking.nCertainly no other American poetnhas approached Jeffers in his ability tonendow character with life; his people,ntormented and tormenting creatures,nhaunt the memory...

Letter From thenLower Rightnby John Shelton ReednFunny BusinessnCleaning out my drawers, I findnregional news items (some newer thannothers) from the worids of religion andnbusiness, with some miscellaneous statisticsnfor garnish. Beginning withnreligion (of a sort):nIn Tupelo, Mississippi (where Elvisnwas born in 1935), two brothers wentnon trial last year for attempting tonmurder Judge Tommy Gardner—bynhexing him. Leroy...

dom in Dirty Dancing, but he is surelynbetter known to Chronicles readers fornhis role in the anticommunist classic,nRed Dawn. (Wolverines!)nAn interesting fact: the Journal reportednthat Mountain Dew tickles innardsnwith greater than average frequencynin a “curving swath of geographynthat starts high in the Dakotas,nbends down through rural Illinois andnIndiana and whips around into thenCarolinas.” Strange, but...

willfully choose to misread the past tondisplay any marked ability to diagnosenthe immediate future.nLet us refresh our memories for anmoment by going back to the criticalnsummer of 1948, when Stalinnlaunched his blockade of West Berlin.nStrobe Talbott may have chosen tonforget (or possibly he may never havenknown) that when the crisis broke anmajority of Harry Truman’s...

which Mikhail Gorbachev’s future isncertain to depend.nThorn distinguishes two essentiallyndifferent periods. The first (1985-n1986), essentially a prolongation of thenprevious “Andropovian” period, wasncharacterized primarily by a massivendrive against corruption and alcoholism;nthe second phase, now entering itsnfourth year, has been one of franticnimprovisation, intended to improve andeteriorating economic situation.nThe drive against alcoholism, as wennow know, boomeranged dramatically.nBecause...

resumption of the Stalinist campaignnagainst the kulaks. One result has beennthe present catastrophic situation innfood supplies all over the Soviet Union.nAs one of Radio Liberty’s Munichnanalysts recently observed, “Sugar isnrationed in Moscow, and the onlynreason that many other goods such asnsoap, cooking oil, and meat are notnrationed is that there is not enoughnavailable to ration.”nThe...

ing” of the West was dominated by thenKissingerian notion that the essentialnaim of our diplomacy should be not ton”rock the boat” lest a “provocative”nattitude on our part exacerbate thenpent-up grievances of one or anothern”satellite” country, encouraging newneruptions — like that of Budapest inn1956 or of Prague in 1968. This madenus in effect the diplomatic accomplicesnof...

COMMONWEALnWomen in Armsnby Brian MitchellnWhat Happened in PanamanLies can’t live forever, as we havenseen recently in Eastern Europe.nOne result of the American invasion ofnPanama may be that, despite the bestnefforts of the United States Army,nAmericans will finally learn the truthnabout women in the military.nIt didn’t take long for the truth toncome out of Panama, First...

Such willingness to overlook evidencencontrary to prevailing opinionnabout women in combat was just whatnthe Army was counting on. All it hadnto do was wrap the evidence in cellophanenand the press would pretend itncouldn’t see a thing. No one would letnon that the Army’s story about thenwomen being too tired to drive wasnludicrous on the surface....

$500 million. Another facet of the plannto “democratize” the Evil Empire isnrelaxing and even eliminating exportncontrols on technology even our DefensenDepartment hasn’t incorporatedninto the most advanced Americannweapons systems.nWhile these hastily-made policiesnare aimed primarily at Eastern Europenfor now, they will soon be applied tonthe Soviet Union, if the administration’snrhetoric and recent congressionalnhearings are any indication. The...

evidence of the failure to maintainnadvanced systems in the field;n*”Clear indications of the decline innSoviet military prestige.”nBut it wasn’t long before the SIGlEPnwas tossed overboard in a dramaticncoup (see sidebar) that led to theneventual enthronement of WilliamnVerity, a veteran rope salesman, asnchief of the Commerce Department.nIn trips to the Soviet Union and in ansecret meeting...

Combustion Engineering also signed anjoint venture in 1987 to provide “designnengineering, production, and installationnof automated controls systemsnfor the oil, petrochemical, andnchemical industries.” Joint venture advocatesnsay oil and gas technology isn’tnstrategically useful. Yet Roger Robinson,nthe only businessman who spokenout against increased trade and subsidiesnduring January’s congressionalnhearings, notes that “80-90 percent ofnSoviet annual hard currency earningsnstem from...

Announcing.n”One of the most successfulnsummertime activities.”nNational ReviewnThe 12th AnnualnNATIONAL CONSERVATIVE STUDENT CONFERENCEnThe National Conservative Student Conference is yournopportunity to meet with other active conservative studentsnfrom all over the United States, to meet with members ofncongress and the administration, and to discuss strategiesnfor preserving the university as a place for free inquiry andnopen discussion.nFor information call...

FIGHTING for SURVIVMnof the famila and humanitunDisputes over the family nownrage with strange intensity.nMany social workers and governmentnplanners regard the traditionalnfamily as an anachronism,nan obstacle to the fulfillment of politicalnambitions. Utopia Againstnthe Family clarifies the culturalnand spiritual significance of currentndebates over family questions.nBryce Christensen identifiesnthe underlying causes of ournnational retreat from family life,nwhile exposing the...

EDITORnThomas FlemingnMANAGING EDITORnKatherine DaltonnSENIOR EDITOR, BOOKSnChilton Williamson, Jr.nASSISTANT EDITORnTheodore PappasnART DIRECTORnAnna Mycek-WodeckinCONTRIBUTING EDITORSn]ohn W. Aldridge, Harold O.J.nBrown, Samuel Francis, GeorgenGarrett, Russell Kirk, E. ChristiannKopff, Clyde WilsonnCORRESPONDING EDITORSnJanet Scott Barlow, Odie Faulk,nJane Greer, John Shelton Reed,nGary VasilashnEDITORIAL SECRETARYnLeann DobbsnPUBLISHERnAllan C. CarlsonnASSOCIATE PUBLISHERnMichael WardernPUBLICATION DIRECTORnGuy C. ReffettnCOMPOSITION MANAGERnAnita FedoranCIRCULATION MANAGERnRochelle FranknA Publication ofnThe Rockford InstitutenEditorial and Advertising...

and divine nature, have been clearlynseen, being understood through whatnhas been made.n— Clark CassellnAlexandria, VAnOn ‘Whose Wealthnof Whose Nation?’nWilliam Hawkins (January 1990) isnright on target when he states, “Americannsociety is far more interested innpresent consumption than futurengrowth.” I am not sure, however, thatn”intervention to curtail imports” (whatevernthat means) is necessarily the answer.nSurely dollar devaluation was...

MANUEL ANTONIO NORIEga,nPanama’s crater-faced ex-dictator,nmay or may not wind up in a gringoncalaboose for the rest of his life. Afternthe first blush of the US victory overnGen. Noriega’s Panamanian DefensenForce began to wear a bit gray, legalnauthorities in the United States suddenlynrealized they might not havenmuch of a case against the caudillonafter all. Nevertheless, the...

“globalism,” whether economic, political,nor cultural.nThe globalization of law enforcementnthat the Justice Department hasnrationalized and that the Bush administrationnhas at least implicitly adoptednby putting Gen. Noriega in the dock isnsimply the most recent instance of thencontinuing globalist effort to transcendnnational sovereignty and identity andndiminish the very concept of nationality.nWhen nationality and its institutionsnhave been sufficiently worn...

nizing the protective environment ofnintact homes; and protecting childrennfrom abuse by government-paid therapistsnand social workers.nThe state, in truth, always has anninterest in disrupting and displacing thenfamily. The “child abuse crisis” merelynrepresents another splendid opportunitynfor this sort of mischief If the farcenof the McMartin trial can be seennas the logical consequence of statismnrun amok, some good...

no certainty. … we can’t be surenabout anything.” Another film, about anGerman soldier who refused to shootninnocent Yugoslavs during the war,nelicited this response from a student:n”The film asks the question: ‘How farnshould we go in defense of our morals?’nI don’t know if we can or shouldngo all the way all the time. What goodnare one’s...

torical and cultural questions in a waynthat advances the agenda of minorityngroups, his own especially; he wouldnresign and boycott the organization ifnthe idea were accepted. With only anfew dissenters the committee immediatelynturned down the proposal.nThis trivial incident provokes annumber of reflections. Whatever happenednto the pursuit of truth? to academicnfreedom? to scholarly courtesynand tolerance? Another reflection:nanyone...

into tenured chairs and the editorialnoffices of newspapers and magazinesndespised the bourgeois class that hadncreated and subsidized it, and the newnsavants knit their brows to devise ways tonhumiliate, subvert, and overthrow thenbourgeois order. All that was reallynnecessary to accomplish that goal wasnfor the new elites in the economy, state,nand culture to meet, marry, and set...

PERSPECTIVEnScience, Wisdom, and Moral JudgmentnQuis custodiet ipsos custodes? Juvenal’s admonition tonhusbands has often been applied to government, butnrarely with the full force of the original: “Go ahead and locknher up,” the Roman satirist warned, “but who will watch thenwatchmen themselves? She’s put on her guard and startsnwith them.” Once a large number of frail mortals...

his living as a parson. His Watergate experience stands himnin good stead in Columbus, Ohio, where the mayor—onnthe theory “set a thief to catch a thief” — has appointed himnchairman of an ethics panel. Columbus has its share ofnethical dilemmas, and Magruder’s appointment was sparkednby a well-publicized local incident: when a million dollarsnworth of bills...

Kohlberg’s feminist colleague Carol Gilligan has providednthe best refutation of his and Erikson’s schemes: it’s justnlike a man, she argues, to make a hero of Gandhi, an abstractnuniversalist who mistreated his wife. Mothers know better,nor at least they used to, and women in general never make itnto the moral stratosphere. They are stuck down in...

Berlitz AnnouncesnA Breakthroughn(Literally)nin Self-StudynLanguagenLearning^nIntroducing ThenBerlitz Think andnTalk^^ Program…nwith a 30-daynrisk-free trial.nAvailable inn• Frenchn• Spanish • Germann• ItaliannIt’s new. It’s totally unique. It’s the first self-study languagenprogram based on the world-famous Berlitz Method.nWhat is the Berlitz Method?nFor years, the Berlitz Language Centers have been teachingnforeign languages, with amazing speed, without usingnany English translation. Berlitz teachers immerse...

But back in the late 1970’s, as the ideological battlenheated up, it became increasingly clear that what distressednthe critics of Science for the People, when you cut throughnall the verbiage about racism and social justice, was thenthreat perceived to the core precept of their belief system —nnamely, that there is no human nature, that human...

gold” — that other part of me which I had rather call thenreal, the true self, is, at this moment, reminded most of thenfirst words of Queen Elizabeth upon being told that hernsister Mary was dead and gone aiid that she, Elizabeth, lastnof the Tudors, was now Queen of England, Ireland, France,nDefender of the Faith,...

each other to the death. Fortunately for one and all thenbattles are almost exclusively on what Kierkegaard called thenaesthetic level of reality. They very seldom rise to the next,nthe ethical level. Because their hearts are turned towards thenburied treasure of aesthetics, they are all too often ethicallyn— that is, socially and politically — primitive and...

ed words, whose one face is weak and whose other is strong,nand a reasonably rule-governed way of using them.nIn the Oriental martial arts there is a fine practicalnvocabulary of concepts for dealing with such matters. Ankarate expert will view his opponent with “soft eyes,”nmeaning that the attention is global rather than concentrated,nand will achieve by...

least need to be registered as such by some other event ornobject that has the selective sensitivity to do so. Many eventsnand objects can be registered by very crude “observers,” thatnneed only be made of matter to do their job. Others,nthough — and here things get interesting — do need rathernsophisticated observers; and there are...

self-organizing iterative feedback of our own consciousness,nmust also be subtly guided and conditioned by futurenobservers. Our own wave function is being collapsed bynfuture awarenesses that we will help to bring into being andnthat will in turn ratify our existence and help us to fall into andefinitive shape.nI know perfectly well that my own mind is...

Why should not the whole human race be given thencapacity to experience and use that intensely individualngenius that we reverence in just a few? Let us not comfortnourselves in our present condihon by false and vulgarnprejudices: that genius is necessarily unhappy, that geniusesnare all the same, that the greatly talented are necessarilynunstable or lopsided in...

and it would be hard to see how we could have survived as anspecies if it were not, for otherwise it would always be wrongnabout the world and thus have led us into extinction — thennthe universe itself must be such a part-whole, top-down/nbottom-up feedback system, too.nBut it is also clear that the wholeness of...

more clearly not only what Chambersnhad to tell the West about its enemiesnin Moscow and their agents in Washington,nbut also what he wanted to tellnthe West about itself. That message,nwhatever happens to communism andnthe West in the hature, is likely to provenmore enduring than the facts about thenWoodstock typewriter, the prothonotarynwarbler, and the vapid youngntraitor...

in a nation that has only justnbecome conscious ofnCommunism and still rejectsnsocialism. So, at every movenagainst Communism, liberalnviews come unglued, and liberalnvoices go shrill, fearing that, byndesign or error, the move maynbe against themselves.nYet if Chambers rejected 20thcenturynliberalism, he was not muchnmore sympathetic to the conservativesnof the 1950’s. He declined to attachnhimself in any way...

technology are with us.nChambers’s belief, expressed as early asn1944, that “the land-owning farmer, bignand little, is the conservative base ofnevery healthy society, no matter hownmany miles of factories may be requirednto keep the average city dweller in anstate of civilized neurosis,” reflects annapparent sympathy for agrarianism andnthe American South. But his recognitionnof the self-destructive dynamic...

designate ethnic groups. But Mencken’sndesignations of Jews in the diarynare purely descriptive, or even favorable.nFor example, Fecher damnsnMencken as anti-Semitic because hennotes in his dairy that a woman he metnwas a “French Jewess.” But wasn32/CHRONICLESnMillion-Dollar Dandruffnby John W. Little IInI’m keening and mooningnBecause my de KooningnIs fading and falling apart.nMy Pollock is poppingnIts drips keep...

this and similar issues. It was only whennhe shifted his dazzling and witty invectivento the new and more sanctifiedndespotism of the New Deal thatnMencken has been cast down as a nastynreactionary. Mencken once wrote thatnhis basic method was to “heave the deadncat into the temple” of social idols, tondemonstrate to the faithful that lightningnwould not...

cerned with distance and poweriessness,nthe difficulties that people encounternin trying to act charitably.nStraight Cut (1986) is a fairiy straightforwardnsuspense novel; the motivationnfor the drug smuggling it treats is greedncomplicated by some perfunctory existentialistnposturing. In 1987 Bell publishednThe Year of Silence, a novel thatntakes his reliance upon mystery to whatnmay be an ultimate limit. In this...

Vance the interests of a Great Power;nand thus a nation whose economic,ntechnological, and military strengthnrelative to the rest of the world dwarfednthat of the Roman and British Empiresnat their zenith, found itself constantlynon the defensive, unable finally to turnnaside even the challenge of,a minornstate like North Vietnam. America’sn”best and brightest” were not onlynunable effectively to...

Letter From thenLower Rightnby John Shelton ReednThe Last Round-upnChronicles has a leisurely — almostnSouthern — production schedule,nwhich means that you should be readingnthis just about the time the dogwoodsnblossom. I’m writing it, though,nas 1989 draws to a close, ending andecade that, all things considered,ncould have been worse. But lest wenwax too smug about the success...