Intellectual andnmoral elegancenare notnout of fashion…nDuring these times, Chronicles ofnCulture remains based on the propositionnthat ideas, attitudes, morals andnmanners still matter—even in anworld that takes itself too serious] >•nat one moment and reduces everythingnto trivialities the next.nAt this juncture of history.nChronicles of Culture still insistsnthat civilizations are built upon a spencific vision of order and...

tages to such a program. Conservativesnhave been notoriously unsuccessful inntrying to convince the public thatnunemployment compensation or socialnsecurity programs are threats to freedom.nApparent indifference to massnunemployment during the Great Depressionnsent the right into eclipse for half ancentury. There is a large number of hardworking,npatriotic citizens with conservativensocial values who are politicallynalienated from the right purely...

Doing Less with MorenBarbara Matusow: The EveningnStars: The Making of ti/e NetworknNews Anchor; Houghton MiflQin;nBoston.nby Gordon M. Pradln1 uming on the tube at seven o’clockneach weekday evening may be the mostnmassive act of collective delusion evernpracticed by a culture. Lusting after thisngoddess of immediacy, aptly called thennews, viewers sit glazed and numbedneach and every night...

style in New York City.nThe power of the network anchor isndirectly related to the direction of thencash flow. Today, the anchor is not unlikena sports “star.” The economics of sportsnentertainment has totally inverted die directionnof satisfaction in competition.nWith eyes always on the fan, not the opponent,nthe success of sports business isnmeasured in terms of the...

The FHght of KiwisnPaul C. Nagel: Descent from Glory:nFour Generations oftijejohn AdamsnFamily; Oxford University Press;nNew York.nby Clyde WilsonnJohn Adams was descended from anlong line of Puritan yeomanry who werenamong the earliest settlers of Massachusetts.nThough his father never achievednanything more than a modest local distinction,nJohn Adams became a key figurenin the revolution in New England, leadingnmember...

fastidiously picked up their skirts and retirednto carp that things had not turnednout as they expected. Henry and Brooksnspent their talents blaming their ownnand their country’s degradation onnSoutherners, Jews, the predeterminednforces of history, uncouth new men likenGrant (who were but the natural outcomenof their own vision)—on everythingnexcept themselves. By contrast,nthe Southerners staked all on their...

protection of the sinking Chrysler Corporationnfrom the onslaught of creditorsnas it attempted to satisfy the requirementsnof its Federally guaranteed loans, of thendefense of IBM against the Federal government’sn13-year antitrust suit, and ofnthe implementation of Nelson Rockefeller’snproblematic last will and testament,ncannot fell to inspire interest, admiration,nand perhaps even awe. Yet in facilitatingnthe resolution of such disputes,...

prolonged, if not a life, sentence on anperson still widely thought of as a dangerousncriminal. The sentence is, in effect,none of incarceration, not of treatment.nIn this instance, however, the shamnof the mental-illness treatment facilitynwas exposed, and the ensuing scandalnpermitted the young man to seek genuinenpsychiatric help. Psychiatry, briefly outnfrom under the looming shadow of thencriminal...

aided and abetted by the witness of one’snforefathers—^in this instance Mr. Brooksnhimself talking about theme, character,nplot in selected stories and novels of angreat novelist. It is our good fortune (andnFaulkner’s) that Mr. Brooks is himselfnSouthern; he knows firsthand the languagenand customs Faulkner draws uponnand often assumes common to hisnreader. Given the inevitable lapse fromnold ways...

these middle-aged waife inheriting fromnModernists a principle “codified by thenNew Criticism,… the rigid separation ofnart from life.” “If Lowell hadn’t existed,nsurely the New Criticism would havenhad to invent him.” Of Lowell, whonturned the personal to poetry regardlessnof its violations of persons, Miss Perloflfnmimics his self-justification: “For wasn’tnpoetry, as Ransom and Tate had taughtnhim, wholly unrelated...

The Name GamenJack Matthews: Sassafras;nHoughton Mifflin; Boston.nThere are certain figures, bothnreal and fictional, whose namesnseem directly related to onendescriptive word or phrase.nVincent Price, after decades ofnplaying the most despicable ofnvillains, has come to personifyn”evil.” Huck Finn means “mischievousness”nand “boyhood.”nAnd John Wayne, of course,nevokes “grit.”nJack Matthews uses a w^ord tondescribe his protagonist: Sassafl:^.nNot to be confused...

PerceptiblesnJames Leasor: WJO Killed SirnHarry Oakes? Houghton Mifflin;nBoston.nTo say that life imitates art is tonput too fine a point on things.nConsider, for example, the casenof Sir Harry Oakes. Oakes, a selfmadenmillionaire who gained hisnwealth by sinking a gold minenbeneath a Canadian lake, wasnfound murdered in his lavishnestate on the Bahamas in 1943.nThe murder was performed...

wife to suicide, is always thrown up innArkady’s face as an example of what henshould have become—if only he wasnman enough to do so; Arkady’s wife,nwho is thoroughly collectivized, willnbecome intimate with him only on anregularly scheduled basis and only fornthe sake of the Party. Such are enough tonmake any man bitter. But in the...

them a new pattern. Armstrong wasnone such person.nCollier’s musicology, while not asnclinically precise as the benchmarknchapter on Armstrong in Gunther Schuller’snEarly Jazz (Oxford UniversitynPress; New York; 1968), is helpful innreaching enlightenment on the genius ofnhis inventiveness and the workings of hisnimagination. Collier occasionally createsnjust the right metaphor to explain annelement of Armstrong’s music-makingnprocess, as in...

eulogy at Annstrong’s funeral in 1971:nHe was truly the only one of his kind, antitanic figure of his and our time anPicasso, a Stravinsky, a Casals, a LouisnArmstrong.nYet, after the early 1930’s, this titanntook to showboating, highnoting, clowning,nand singing to please his widernaudience. There were moments ofnmusical brilliance in his final fourndecades, but his magical...

Hendricks says in the story, speaks outn”very, very strongly against the inhuman,nillegal, barbaric action of the UnitednStates government against Nicaragua.”nHendricks, who is apparently enamourednof useless flourishes, goes on to exclaim,n”What the government is doing there is anvery negative thing. It’s destructive; it’sndestroying the possibility of a freenculture. The United States governmentnhas a very, very bad...

a site for which he painted Triptych.nRothko wanted the lighting to be basednon the skylight that he had in his NewnYork studio. Johnson thought otherwise,nand eventually withdrew from thenproject. Even Ashton thinks thatnJohnson’s plan was superior to thatnwhich was put into place. Lightingnwasn’t his only concern: Rothko wantednthe walls and the floor of the chapel...

I HI: AMIKK N I’KOSC IMIMnThe Center on Religion andSocietynOn March 5 and 6, 1984, ThenRockford Institute hosted three receptionsnin New York City to announce anmajor new cultural initiative, the foundingnof The Center on Religion andnSociety. Addressing the foundationnexecutives, media representatives, andnreligious leaders in attendance, InstitutenPresident John Howard explained thatnthe new Center, based in New...

modern econometric and statisticalngadgetry notwithstanding. That is, it cannbe used as a means to sway uncomplicatednhuman perceptions and inclinations,nand as such it is already used to thenhilt against Reagan by all the “objective”ncommentators in journals from the NewnYork Times to Rolling Stone and fromnTime to Mother Jones.nWe wish Mr. Reagan well—^after all, henremains a frail...

OnDecemberS, 1983,James Bumham waspresentednnth thenfirst Richard M. Weaver Award for Scholarly Letters by ThenIngersollFoundation Mr. Bumham ‘s address to those assemblednat Chicago’s RitzCarlton hotel follows:nI want to begin with a word of thanks to the sponsors of thisnaward, the trustees of the Ingersoll Foundation. It is an honornto be honored in such a fashion, and...

‘P^.s^ms^-^’ ^ln”.J *-*’>fn• TO SEE THE WORLD AND MAN <n•’.^’TnJ_pens to be thenauthor’s fether-in-law.nThe New Yorker was once synonymous with terms includingnelegancy refinement, urbanity, and sophistication. Nowadays,nhowever, simplemindedness is becoming operative, as evidencednin the social sciences by Jonathan Schell’s The Fate of the Earth andnin belles lettres by At the Bottom of the River. Ms....

discovery of what appeared to be a compellingnreason to die, and hence to live.nSomehow Madrid and Barcelona werennot like Verdun and the Somme.nAt a distance of almost half a century,nit is not difficult to forgive contemporaryndefenders of the Republic for theirnnaivete—if only because they producednsuch splendid novels as For Whom thenBell Tolls and Man’s Hope....

sian literature. On a personal •-vei,nAkhmatova maintained contact withnsome of the finest writers among herncontemporaries—including Mandelstam,nBulgakov, and Pasternak. They, like her,nbecause of their literary independence,nwere persecuted by the regime even tondeath. She saw herself very much as onenwho stood in the great tradition ofnRussian poetry, in which the poet sharesnthe suffering of his people.n1 hough...

S^b^n’1 \^ ii-iirrKii »>t i.piiii.mni«. iviii^ ‘nri’MiilU in yniin\ TIK- K-vklnrJ Inxiiuuc.nII ‘.!’U jrt. tiltv.iJ .1 Miliscrihi-r,nviiu aic .iw.iiv iliai \v,’ siiin*! lii ii’dj’.s Uhcral fiihurcn,i\ IIK- passiw pul’li.shiiiii cult nt mfi.iui^m.nII ihis i> ymir ir>[ i>Mii. i Chnmicica ofnCullutv (nr ^lUi’w liv.-cn borrowing A ^.opvn.iiui w.iiii liii yuui own), and you JLTK: inirii;iiL-Jnh whai...

child culture.” The birth rate in the U.S.nhas declined dramatically since the laten50’s, while the number of deliberatelyn”childfree” couples has skyrocketed.nCalifornians have more cars than children,nMr. Packard explains, because “carsnpromise freedom and mobility; youngnchildren don’t.”nFor Californians, as well as residentsnof other states, the means of producingnchildren, sex, still ranks somewherenabove cars as a means of...

puter hardware and software are seen asnideal products—especially if they’renbetter than those offered by anyone else.nMITI organized the Institute for NewnGeneration Computer Technologyn(ICOT) which is backed by Fujitsu,nHitachi, Nippon Electric Corporation,nMitsubishi, Oki, Sharp, and Toshiba; NipponnTelephone and Telegraph andnMlTI’s Electrotechnical Laboratory arenalso cooperating. The effort at ICOT is tonbuild that better computer for then1990’s.nVjonventional computers...

puters are for technologists. So for, that’sncorrect (excepting, of course, thosenrogues who use their home models ), butnthen the objective of ICOT must be considered.nCertainly, it will have to furtherndevelop existing equipment and creatensome si2able innovations, but given thenproject participants, the track record ofnthe Japanese in the various before-mentionednfields, and the fact that Japan willnrequire...

evil creature in a Marvel comic. Althoughncomputer &gfiTes in the title of his booknand is sprinkled throughout the pagesnlike shards of glass that are meant to shrednthe feet of the barefoot innocents whonbeing adopted that make it easier andneasier for the NSA to dominate our societynshould it ever decide such action isnnecessary.” Tacit is that...

COMMENDABLESnFacing the Mystery of FaithnBrian Moore: Cold Heaven;nHolt, Rinehart & Winston; New York.nby Carson DalynThat the supernatural is alivenand well is the animating principlenof Brian Moore’s tour denforce Cold Heaven He makes nonattempt to rob this idea of itsnforce by invoking the mantic artsnor the favorite occult ploys of thenhorror movie (ESP, poltergeists,nwerewolves), nor does...

opens with “We good Americans,”nthe reader can only wishnthat more Americans deservednto be included with James in hisnpronoun. DnRaraAvisninTerrisnMax Black: The Prevalence ofnHumbug and Other Essays;nCornell Univeisity Press; Ithaca, NY.nOne of the moderately interesting—andnultimately mostnannoying—things that one canndo with a home computer is tonput it into a GOTO loop. That is,na program is a series...

knocking im^es about as if theynare subatomic quarks. Qoyce tonthe world, the word remains.)nAlas. Counterfeit echoes, unheard,nof a silent man who sits inna room and writes. DnPerceptiblesnJames Atkinson: MartinnLuther: Prophet to Ote ChurchnCatholic; Patemoster/WiUiam B.nEerdmans; Grand Rapids, MI.nDuring the past year, Catholicnscholars and writers have spokennwith unwonted warmth andnapprobation of the Germannmonk who initiated the...

feature-length film that deliberately aijnednat educating the viewers, people wouldnstay away in droves. Thus, documentarynfilms end up being screened in schoolnauditoriums, union halls, church basements,nand the like; given the audiences,nideology undercuts the education.nhs Documentary shows, people shouldnnot underestimate the significance andnpower of documentary films, for theynhelp shape the views and opinions ofnthose hearty few who...

Video ClonesnTelevision created a subgenre ofnmusic a few years ago that can be designatednas “artificial, nonexistent, technopop,”nwhich must be differentiated fi-omnthe succeeding, garden variety ofntechno-pop aired today by the human/nmachine combinations known as thenEurythmics, Flock of Seagulls, etc. Thenoriginal includes the music of ThenMonkees, that group of well-scrubbednfeces that was put together on the basisnof...

which, for almost a century, define NewnYork in mankind’s imagination. Harrisnwas also an employee of The New YorknTimes, which proves that little can benmore boring than a native journalist whonattempts to render justice to a fascinatingncity. We closed the resplendentnalbum with an impression that by concentratingnon bars and Rolls Royces, thenauthors have left the truly...

about what it means to be human.nWith bigoted arrogance, some ofnthese essayists implausibly positnthat the muteness of science onnmetaphysical issues constitutesnan objective proof for materialisticnnaturalism. Fortunately, anfew of the contributors, morenhonest and humble in victory,nconcede that as an explanationnof the hows of life, science cannsay nothing about the whys, notnnecessarily because there arennone, but rather...

S( KIINnThe Fog EffectnScarface; Directed by Brian DenPalma; Written by Oliver Stone;nUniversal.nby Stephen MacaulaynOne of the consequences of thenmedium of mass communication is thatnthey have a tendency to deaden people’snsensitivities to the existences of good andnevil and so leave them perceiving justngrey areas that take an all-important rolenas people drift into moral and spiritualnambivalence. Consult...

true to each other) dies of cancer. Thenconsequences: the mother is still-neurotic,nthough she gains custody of the threenchildren; the ex-astronaut may flourishnwith the neurotic mother (two peas inna pod, so to speak); the banker, presumablyncontinues unchanged; the son isnsurly; New York never changes. Thenwidower, as far as 1 can determine, isnthe only one who will...

back into it. For example, the coverofthenSticky Fingers album shows a life-sizednphoto of the top quarter of an averagesizednpair of Levis. A bona fide zipper wasnplaced on thefly.Peekandyou see underwear.nThose who are interested in suchnthings must be in ecstasy when they visitnthe clothing department of their localnK-Mart. The jacket oiUndercover showsna less than life-sized pinup...

than the one that existed in 1938. Thus,nit’s not surprising that The New OxfordnCompanion to Music is a two-volumenset whereas its predecessor is a singlenvolume. While the New Oxford Companionnisn’t exhaustive in the sense that,nsay, the OED is considered to be, it isnnonetheless a marvelously detailed encyclopedia;nas general editor DenisnKInArdess MerchandizingnKenneth Clark: The Art of...

to be.”Not only are Clark’sadjectives flippantnhere but so is his escalation of an adjnective for a certain kind of intellectual inadequacyninto the putative name of an intellectuainclass (that, need we say, cannotnbe found on Earth).nWhat is the “average reader” to makenof passing references such as this aboutnBotticelli’s illustrations to Dante? “Sincenthe war the drawings have...

Looking Trouble?nSoutherners have been challenging the national orthodoxies since the days of Calhoun.nHere at The Southerner we are still making trouble with articles and reviews thatnrange the length and breadth of Southern and American life — from Henry Clay tonHank Williams. Above all, a social and political perspective that is so old-fashionednit seems radical. Discover...

Illl MI,KI( N PK()S( I.Ml MnTwo Nations?nIn 1969, after race riots that shooknAmerica, the National Commission onnCivil Disorders, or the Kemer Commission,nissued a report. The most ominousnconclusion of the report stated that ifnracial divisiveness persists “our nationnwill be moving toward two societies,none black, one white—separate and unequal.”nIn the decade-and-a-half sincenthe report was issued, nothing seems...

testing facilities, and factories; as communists,nthey are so moral and honestnthat there’s no reason to allow our inspectorsnto monitor their compliancenwith formal agreements. In other words,nour standards of objectivity and theirsnare so qualitatively different (oursnneferious and vile, theirs impeccably just)nThe Smell of Leftist VenomnConfusion reigns supreme, incoherentngrievances and demands abound,nand they are voiced every day...

the Church?” and answered,n”We have no need for curiositynsince Jesus Christ, nor Ibr inquirynsince the Evangel.” Certainlynthose who have followed Tertulliannin the tradition of Christiannanti-intellectuaUsm have notnlacked for scriptural justification,nmost of it, ironically, from thenpen of the most learned of thenApostles, Paul, who insisted thatn”feith should not stand in thenwisdom of men, but in the...

generations to come.nWalt Whitman is a trinity of the man who was bom onnLong Island in 1819 and died in 1892 in New Jersey, of hisnimage bom in all places and immortal, and of the reader whonasks him: What do you see Walt Whitman? and who is thusnalso a part of the poem.nWalt Whitman’s voice...

OPINIONS & ‘ii:\s |n’Dear Diary…’nThe lUustrated Pepys: Extracts fromnthe Diary; Edited by Robert Latham;nUniversity of California Press;nBerkeley.nby Ronald BermannSamuel Pepys, Clerk of the Acts tonthe Navy Board, began a diary on thenfirst of January 1660 and continued itnuntil the 31st of May 1669. The originalnmanuscript was, so far as we know,nhardly noticed for the next...

Castlemaine, for instance, or even thenQueen, Catherine of Braganza, werenthe objects of Pepys’ cerebral lust, issuingnsometimes in dreams of ecstasy.nRobert Latham, the editor of The IllustratednPepys, says that its author showsn”a sort of innocence, a love of truth forntruth’s sake.” That seems true enough,nbut the complexities perceived by Ollardnare also there. They seem to be...

TAKE ANY 3 FOR 99<: EACHn(values up to $94.95 with trial membership)n(First price is publishers’ list.nBolitface stiows members’ price)nEMPIRFJs AND TilLIK l.L( W :ihSn5504. The Early Greeks. By R.J. Hopper.n$25.00/$13.OOn6585. The First Urban Christians. By Wayne A.nMeeks. $19.95/$13.95n7401. History Of Rome. By Michael Grant.n$17.50/511.50n2840. Byzantium. By Cyril Mango. $1750/$12.95n8284. The Devil’s Horsemen: The MongolnInvasion Of...

by those who determine the usable termsnof discourse, permit only authorizedndesires and such. So, through the applicationnof semiotics to psychoanalysis, ornvice versa, one should be able to seenthrough the artificial walls of what mostnconsider to be civility and thus becomena fuller, more whole individual—^unlessnthat person goes mad trying to makensense of the “deliberately a-systematic”nschema of...

comes contempt. For example, during anseminar given in 1972-73, when his lamenwas fixed, he su^ests that his studentsnlook up the etymologies of two words inna particular dictionary “which I delightnin and which, I am sure, none of you evennhave in your libraries.” Later, he draws andiagram and then says, “After what I havenjust put up...