Category: Imported

16 / CHRONICLESnIn the rise and fall of families and neighborhoods, muchnbeauty is destroyed, but the ugliness is not permanent.nEugene Morgan builds his own mansion five miles beyondnthe ruins of the Amberson mansion. At the end of ThenMidlander, Dan Oliphant’s aristocratic mother reflects onnthe neighborhood her son has created, pronounces the townneven more pleasant than...

execution of foreign policy. In this, the American peoplenseemed to be saying to the President that while they likenhim personally, they are anxious about the current standoffnin bilateral negotiations with the Soviet Union at thenReykjavik summit and with potential involvement militarilynin Latin America, especially Nicaragua. In this, the resultsnreflect many pre-electoral polls which show that...

20 / CHRONICLESnis apparently sorry. As a parochialnschool student, a young Andy wasn”obnoxious” about displaying his intelligence;nbut darned if he wasn’t “toonbehaved” to permit himself the pleasurenof tormenting his teachers. Thosensame teachers, we soon learn, werenunder no similar psychological restrictions.nGreeley’s father, the son records,ntried to teach his sole malenoilspring just how to handle allnwomen. Nuns,...

obvious. One need read no furthernthan this pubhshed, but as yet unranked,nmemoir.nEnvy is another matter. Greeleynclaims to be able to live quite comfortablynwith the realization that he is nonGraham Greene. He attributes hisnworldly success to talent, hard work—nand celibacy. And he distrusts thenBerrigans and other troubadours of then1960’s. Does he again protest toonmuch? Would a...

formers, the progressives, the U.S.nOffice of Education (now elevated tonthe status of Department), and othersnstill trying to reinvent the wheel. In hisnforeword to this volume, William J.nBennett as Chairman of the NationalnEndowment for the Humanitiesnwrites: “The educahonal role of NEH,nand indeed of the entire federal government,nis important, but it is supporhvenat best. We can prod,...

ology. Hence the title, Gentlemen innEngland, though hterally derived fromnShakespeare’s Henry the Fifth, seemsnmore hke an echo of Sir Leshe Stephen’snVictorian dictum of thenBloomsbury enlightenment: “I nownbelieve in nothing, but I do not thenless believe in morality. … I meannto live and die like a gendeman ifnpossible.”nTo the extent that A.N. Wilson hasncaught the major...

28 / CHRONICLESnlustrative of something or other, theynare reluctant to identify any one ofnthem as great. Brodsky’s poems do notnappear in anthologies of American poetry,nnot even Helen Vendler’s Harvardn(1985), which strives to be ancompendium of received opinion.nI know of only one American poetncolleague who reads his work withnpleasure and have thus concluded thatnit ultimately is...

tions. As Ortega y Gasset’s revolt of thenmasses enters its final phase, the bioregionalistsnstress local self-determination,nfreedom from the tyranny ofnmass institutions, and human-scalenactivities such as potlucks, workbees,nand barn dances. In a roodess age, thenbioregionalists work toward “reinhabitation,”nthe recovery of a sense ofnliving-in-place, the restoration of communitynby force of will, the creation ofn”new natives.” Movement leadersneven...

30 / CHRONICLESnLetter FromnMinneapolisnby Elliot C. RotbenbergnCriminal ChicnThe gap between Middle Americansnand our cultural elite is nowhere widernthan on questions of crime and punishment.nWhile activists on the benchnand in academia have crafted evernmore rights and privileges for thosenaccused and even convicted of crimes,nthey have given short shrift to thenrights and welfare of current and potentialnvictims....

defendants could not be barred fromnexercising what it called their constitutionalnright to make political appeals tonjuries and judges. As a result, juriesnhave acquitted many if not most of thenHoneywell blockaders even thoughnvirtually none have denied encroachingnon the company’s property andnharassing its employees. Those notnabsolved by juries generally were releasednwith “suspended sentences” bynjudges.nThe arrogation of a...

32 / CHRONICLESnstudents a politically tolerant “environmentnthat is supportive of theirncoming to decisions about life-stylesnand political views and religious viewsnthat are best suited to them.” Despitenthe profession of these commendablenideals, no action at all was ever takennon behalf of the terrorized conservatives,neven after Professor Foley carriednout her threat of assault. In that leftistnnever-never land of...

sive, as well. It is also believed to benwhere “most of the people who runnthings” live. Fair enough. The MiddlenWest is regarded as middle-of-theroad—nneither best nor worst—innmost respects; it does get the “leastnexciting” title, making it sound morenand more attractive the older I get.nThe South gets credit for the bestnweather (although last summer we justnabout...

34 / CHRONICLESnMontana to reduce the fine for speedingn(up to 75 mph) to $1.00, thusntechnically complying with the Federales’nsilly 55 mph speed limit whilenensuring that no one will be inconveniencednby it.nUnfortunately, it probably won’tnwork. The Feds are making it plainnthat they intend to cut off highwaynfunds to states that post limits andnignore them. Florida recently...

earned at a prestigious institution innthe northern Midwest. However,nwhen she arrived on campus to assumenher duties, she stunned the administrationnby announcing that she had noninterest in directing minority studies.nRather, she demanded to profess in thendepartment of history.nThe administrators at this A&Mncollege already were smarting undernchastisement by bureaucrats fromnWashington because this rural aggienschool had too few...

SCREENnThe Glory and thenMyth of John Fordnby Arthur M. EcksteinnJohn Ford: A Biography by AndrewnSinclair, New York: Ungar; $10.95.nJohn Ford: The Man and His Filmsnby Tag Gallagher, Berkeley: Universitynof California Press; $35.00.nA year ago, the University of Marylandnheld a special screening of John Ford’snThe Searchers (1956), followed by antwo-hour discussion of the film led bynrepresentatives...

38 / CHRONICLESntechnical film jargon. The reader mustnrepeatedly endure sentences like these:n”The Gary and Marty scenes arenplayed on a high level of spontaneousningenuousness typical of Ford’s experimentalnrepresentationalism. . . .nNaturally this comedic style seemsnmore artificial than the grim, sculpturalnverismo.” (Would anyone care tondefine “representationalism,” let alonen”experimental representationalism”?nGallagher does not. As for “sculpturalnverismo”—I won’t even ask.)nSecond,...

less beautiful) and socially more acridnand unaccepting. That Ford’s word innthe postwar period was a collectiveneffort has long been accepted in thensense that he created a “John Fordnstock company” of actors with whomnhe was totally comfortable and whomnhe constantly used: John Wayne,nWard Bond, Victor McLaglen, MaureennO’Hara, Ben Johnson, HarrynCarey Jr. Nugent should be added, inna...

MUSICnBach at thenBarricadesnby Dale Volberg ReednReprise: The Extraordinary Revivalnof Early Music by Joel Cohen andnHerb Snitzer, Boston and New York:nLittle, Brown; $25.00.nIn the Middle Ages and Renaissance,nas far as 1 can tell, people played onlyncontemporary music. Since then, itnseems, there has been a completenturnaround, and only contemporarynmusic is not stylish. Beginning in then18th century, interest...

42 / CHRONICLESnReprise: The Extraordinary Revivalnof Early Music is an odd, hybrid booknwith the admirable goal of “showingnreal people making music.” The firstnhalf is text, general chapters on thenhistory and development of the movementnand chapters devoted to specificnheroes: Arnold Dolmetsch, NoahnGreenberg, Thomas Binkley, thenHarnoncourts, the Kuijken brothers,nFrans Briiggen, and Gustav Leonhardt.nThe second half is photographsn(some...

ARTnShaker Designnby Caroline MorgannIn 1935 the Whitney Museum mountednthe first comprehensive exhibit ofnShaker artifacts, celebrating the simplicitynand harmony of the Shakernartistic vision. This past summer, thenWhitney opened a much more ambitiousnshow of “Shaker Design,”nlater shown at The Corcoran Gallery ofnArt in Washington, DC, from Octobernthrough January.nUnited Technologies Corporation,nwhich is sponsoring “Shaker Design,”nhas become an increasingly...

Restores the original meaning ofnour Constitutionn—^just in time for the BicentennialnProfessor Forrest McDonald of the University ofnAlabama is conservatism’s foremost Constitutionalnauthority, and perhaps America’s. The Pulitzer Prizencommittee generally sticks to safe, respectable liberalnauthors. But they couldn’t ignore this major book. Thenpraise is pouring in from conservative heavyweights —nand also from historians with imposing credentials:nRUSSELL KIRK,...

grants. We could call it “Hands AcrossnSouth Texas.”)nWhat about that teenaged mothernthe Ford Foundation is worried about?nAnd my wife reminds me that there arenother people—ballet dancers, forninstance — who really can’t spare anyear at age 18. That’s easy. They cannget deferments. But they’ll be deferments.nAnd for each year they putntheir service off, they’ll serve an...

40 / CHRONICLESnnot more than 12 or 15 homes, thentypical village presents an eye-catchingnvariety of Chinese roofs, each made ofngreen tiles or blue, yellow or black, rednor brown, adding color patches to thengreen of the paddies. Work on thenfields continues until 9:00 or 10:00nbut—this too is typically Chinese-Japanese-Korean—thenmen andnwomen always seem to be taking itneasy,...

ideal base for subversion, since thenrioting Marxist teachers and studentsnwill have a safe, First Amendmenttype,nshelter. At public meetings, studentsnalready preach from North Koreanntextbooks, as they praise Kim IInSung as the shining unifier of thennation and idolize the northern “socialistnman.” In my nightmare, I seenthis lovely, happy, hardworking peoplenOn Tulling thenPlugs’nMay I be permitted to make...

42 / CHRONICLESnSCREENnThe MythologicalnSouthnby Katherine DaltonnDown By Law, written and directednby Jim Jarmusch; produced by BlacknSnake/Grokenberger Film; releasednby Island Pictures.nSherman’s March, written and directednby Ross McElwee.nJim Jarmusch’s Down By Law opensnwith rolling shots of New Orleans—ntownhouses, tenements, the down andnout on a crummy side-street. Fromnthere we enter into two variations onnthe theme of domestic disharmony,nJack’s...

did to Atlanta or its environs.nSherman’s March is a form of cinemanverite, where nothing is rehearsednor scripted—which just goes to shownthat real life is weirder and funniernthan anything you or I could possiblynmake up. McElwee’s characters are allnreal—from his sister and her plasticnsurgery, to Claudia’s survivalistnfriends, to McElwee’s former girlfriend,nto Karen’s new boyfriend Camnand his...

44 / CHRONICLESnplaced at such distance from one another,nlook like so many distant parishchurchesnin a great town.” AtopnBurghley House is a small stone forestnconsisting of columns, obehsks, lions,nand even a watehtower.nBurghley House benefited from thenefforts of successive generations of Cecils.nThe grounds are the work ofnCapability Brown. Using the amplengrounds. Capability Brown left an enduringnbridge in...

on its author also pronounced thatn”after decades of acclaims as a craftsman,nNeil Simon may finally come tonbe regarded as an artist.” If nothingnelse, the very fact that Time has declarednBroadway Bound the best playnof the 1980’s makes it so. Time is, afternall, not in the dubious business ofnreporting on history, but creating it asnwell. Still,...

46 I CHRONICLESnseem imminent. Within a year or two,nRobert K. Johnson’s critical study—nNeil Simon, published in 1983—willnnot be the only serious investigationnon the bookshelf. (Parenthetically,nJohnson’s first chapter is calledn”Broadway Bound”—it’s difficult notnto construe some “bemused borrowing”nby Simon.)nNow that he is finally being takennseriously, what, after all, has Simonnreally done to bring about this “bountifulnbelated breakthrough”...

mother, here realized by Linda Lavin’snbravura performance as Kate. If Kate’snalready famous monologue in Act II isnprovoked by Eugene, still Eugene,nwho is sitting at the dining-room table,nrecedes along with the present whilenshe relives the one glorious moment ofnher life when she danced with GeorgenRaft. This moment is destined to benrecalled in the annals of theater...

“”The most complete and without doubtnthe most satisfying historynof the USSR now available”n—he MondenCommunism in Russia: eire you weak on the details of its brutal 70 years? Have younbeen looking for a good history, reliably anti-Communist? Then seek no farther. In thenwords of the great anti-Communist scholar, Robert Conquest of the HoovernInstitution:n”Conveys more of the...

6 / CHRONICLESnDissertations, not diapers, are commandingnthe attention of an increasingnnumber of young American women.nAccording to The Chronicle of HighernEducation, “women are flocking tongraduate school in record numbers,nand many are speciahzing in fields thatnwere dominated by men a dozen yearsnago. Today, women are earning onethirdnof all the doctoral degrees awarded.”nWhat The Chronicle did not report,nhowever,...

a very, very religious place.nReligion, he observed, is everywherenin American culture — onnAmerican coins, on American television,nand in American politics. ThisnFrenchman found that religion plays ansignificant role in the American purpose,nas expressed in the Declarationnof Independence. A self-evident truthnof the Declaration, it will be remembered,nis “that all men are creatednequal.” American politics begins withnthe presupposition...

8 / CHRONICLESnPERSPECTIVEnTHE BUSINESS OF BUSINESS by Thomas FlemingnJefferson was of the opinion that the tree of liberty was notna hardy perennial that could be safely neglected. Oncenplanted by a revolution, it needed to be periodicallyn”refreshed by the blood of patriots and tyrants.” Jefferson’snradical vision of revolutionary violence was muted, in laternyears, by his conservative...

It was a time in American history bounded by thenadministrations of Grant and Harding, from the great silvernconspiracy described by Henry Adams to the Teapot DomenScandal chronicled by Upton Sinclair. Mark Twain (withnCharles Dudley Warner) caught the tone in The Gilded Age:nspeculation, decephons, and a reckless willingness to sacrificeneverything for the chance to make millions....

There are a few complications I hadn’t anticipated.nGoing up a shallow tidal creek on a hot and windless Julynday exposes you to more than the chance of heat prostration:nmosquitoes, gnats, big brown cowflies that sting likenbumblebees, and the taste of rotting fish dumped accidentallyninto your mouth. There is also this affair of pulling,ndumping, and replacing...

penetrate the right on the grounds of intellectual consistency.nAs a result, many conservatives have forgotten that theynwere the enemies of Rousseau and Paine before they werenenemies of Marx.nThese distortions took effect in the U.S. mainly as anresult of the “New Deal-Great Society” era, interpretednprimarily as an economic victory for socialism in America.nDuring the decades when...

but liberal in everything else. And both components arendangerous.nThe American coalition between conservatives and classicalnliberals has never been more comfortable than thencoalition between the West and the USSR during WorldnWar II. The battles between “traditionalists” and “libertarians”nhave been long, loud, and well-documented. Nownthat victory over the American left seems within reach, thendiverse and incompatible “war...

14 / CHRONICLESnArab traders and the merchants of Genoa and Venice.nEnglish capitahsts and merchant adventurers (with thensupport of a sympathetic government) won the globalnstruggle for wealth and power during the mercantilist era.nExamples such as these abound. Economic historians donnot confine capitalism to merely the last two centuries. Thisnhistorical record should strengthen the ease for capitalism,nbut...

16 / CHRONICLESnADAM AND LILITHnby Thomas FlemingnIt was in a place for lunch last week—nOh potted plants, oh bentwood chair—nI saw her there, I did not speaknbut watched to see if she would stare.nShe did, and with just those lowered eyesnI knew, tried to make up her mind,n(the waitress waved aside the fliesnand cleared the...

Hell With Culture, in the democratic civilization of thenfuture all workers will be artists, because “the artist is notna special kind of man, but every man is a special kind ofnartist.”nBecause it makes “the finer things in life” accessible tonthe many, the affluence of the advanced industrial countriesnin the West seems further to aggravate this...

18/CHRONICLESnShowing that pohtics has no place in art, however, isnonly half of our problem. The complementary and muchnmore difficult task is to show that art has no place in politicsneither. People readily grasp that art free from politics isnpossible only in a society in which politics, too, is in somensense free. But what even some...

theory is often held up to ridicule and dismissed as aimingnat something completely different from the aspirations ofndemocratic politics. That, however, may be a seriousnmistake. For whatever else may be wrong with Plato’sntheory, it is not inconceivable that both elected leaders andnthose who elect them could adopt attitudes approximatingnmore or less exactly the prescribed behavior...

20 / CHRONICLESnadvantage of their position; on the contrary, they wilHnglynsurrender their own happiness for the good of the wholencommunity. And yet in both cases, the result is a humanndisaster. For, as Tocqueville puts it, such governmentn”every day renders the exercise of the free agency of mannless useful and less frequent; it circumscribes the will...

22 / CHRONICLESnon the cross.” But having more moneynthan God means two things: To be richnas Croesus is also to mistake mammonnfor God. The proverbial saw is literallyndouble-edged—to believe in moneynmore than God is to have no god at all.nFinance, meaning the banking thatnconcludes a transaction, comes fromnthe French for end, and when financenbecomes an...

making $367 million a year. By 1984nhe was making enough money to viewnthe $50,000 a day fine levied on hisncompanies as a nuisance fee aiding hisnsuccessful delaying tactics in the largestnindividual tax evasion case ever.nRich settled with the government forn$210 million, while safe from personalnprosecution in Zug. But the arrogancenthat comes with more money thannGod...

24 / CHRONICLESnAuletta: “We were making money. Allnthe people cared about was theirnmoney. Greed.” Another remarkednthat “Lehman was held together strictlynby money, blood money.”nBut despite the money pouring intonthe firm, the Lehman partners “didnnot think of themselves as wealthy,ndespite annual earnings ranging fromn$500,000 to more than $2 million, innaddition to owning millions of dollarsnin Lehman...

Auchincloss is that he does not providenfor them an order of inquiry whichnsimulates the rigors of the scientificnmethod. Serious Critics, of course,nhave to justify their own existence in anpredominantly scientific age and in anuniversity atmosphere which heavilynfavors the latest and most ponderous ofnpedantries (whatever they may be), asnin, for example, the current ascendancynof the so-called...

28 / CHRONICLESnBy the 1950’s, when the Hungariannrevolution and Milovan Djilas’ ThenNew Class generated renewed interestnin the social and pohtical evolution ofnCommunist systems, Rizzi had generallynbeen forgotten. In 1958 an articlenappeared in France that cited Rizzi,nthen believed to be dead, as the sourcenof Djilas’ theory. To the astonishmentnof many, Rizzi turned out to be alive,nand...

Burnham’s originality consisted inntwo daring ideas. First, by adapting thenidea of Berle and Means that thenmodern corporation effects a “separationnof ownership and control,” a separationnbetween the stockholders (thenlegal owners of a corporate firm) andnits managers, Burnham redefinednmanagement to mean those who performnthe technical functions of productionnrather than (as in Berle andnMeans’s theory) those who have...