the “order of being,” on whicli ‘ocgi.’lin places the wliolenweight of his speculation, could be lost and found again, andntherefore we do not continually approach it.nThis is the Voegelinian dilemma, a source of ambiguity innhis thinking that is visible in The Ecumenic Age. Voegelinnspeaks there of Paul’s and the disciples’ experience of Jesus,nnot of Jesus...

OlMMONS & IIWS InPrefabricated Self-Irony & Pneumatic PraisenWoody Allen: Side Effects; RandomnHouse; New York.nJerome Charyn: Darlin’Bill: ALovenStory of the Wild West; ArbornHouse; New York.nby Gary S. VasilashnWo ‘oody Allen is a very engagingncharacter. I suspect that upon meetingnhim for the first time, even the mostnardent admirer wouldn’t address him asnMr. Allen, but, rather, knowingly nudgenhim...

of the Woody Allen that you don’t payn13.75 to see or $8.95 to read sound justnas brisk as the celluloid and printed ones.nWhen the Academy Awards are presented,nthe nominees are typically there,nbreathlessly awaiting the announcement,nor else they are on-location innsome godforsaken spot filming stillnanother Hollywood masterpiece. Regrets,nnaturally, are extended to thenAcademy. (This scenario depicts onlynthe...

new suspense thriller, Hitchcock rotatesna few degrees in his grave as his name isncited; by now, he’s completed a circuit.nTyro director Michael Cimino is hailednfor his work on The Deer Hunter, sonhe’s given Carte Blanche, AmericannExpress and Diners’ Club on Heaven’snGate, amasses a tremendous debt, andncreates a film that is pulled from distributionnthe day after...

cably dressed, nerveless.. . .”* Hickok’snactual exploits make puffery superfluous.nCharyn can’t leave well enoughnalone. He may be using Hickok to hisnown ends, but what those ends are isnnever made clear, and the means whichnhe employs are childish, pointlessnramblings.nxJarlin’ Bill is a tale told by SallynOvenshine, who meets Hickok in Galveston,nTexas, where he was serving asn*The...

furter, because they were always tryingnto convince others on the Court to gonalong with them. Apparently Frankfurternbelieved that the purpose of judicialnpositions was to elicit the truth ofnthe law rather than to affirm the prejudicesnof the judges. Douglas used hisnopinions to assert his reading of thenConstitution and the laws, and carednlittle about discussing how his...

i *’ * 1-..nTWO CULTURESnflf»:nI ‘” V ‘• t’ii’in^r t;ln’ s’.’.’nc.nii ‘^nrf 9 -I,n• i’^ • is • * « -^n’MvW -..-ivV.,.’n::-^VnJ t vnTHE PEOPLEn• • ;i !n’I’n5^:, »• • <•:n* . .!n’». ‘nuv?^n.-.rn•,i’, A^’h-J.’^n*• P ” >S ..’P- nTHE THIRD PARTYn•> ynNORMALCY—OUR SIXTH SENSEn'”^ Normalcy-Our Sixth Sense ^nClirwiidcsn^•1nHOUR OF TRIALnTOWARD CONSERVATISMnWITH A HUMAN FACEnVf’^...

might violate the principles of equalitynthat sustain the democratic form ofnour government.nJJouglas emerges as a truly paradoxicalnjurist. Intensely devoted to the ideanthat freedom of “expression” is essentialnto American society, he wound up contributingnto the conditions that diminishnrespect for political speech. Intenselyndevoted to the democratic impulse tonprotect the little man, he wound up subvertingnthe principle of...

by Sokolov’s obsequious descriptions ofnLiebling’s political leftism, which arenrather ineptly concealed praise. He tellsnus that Liebling in his “Wayward Press”ncolumns “wrote more freely and pointedlynabout the evils of monopolisticnnewspaper publishers and of right-wingnwitch-hunting anti-communists [a recordnfor consecutive hyphenated nouns,nI think], of anti-labor reactionaries andnof threats from all sides to freedom ofnthe press and other First...

he was an admirer of Cardinal Gibbon,nprelate of Maryland. Was there somethingnin his personal constitution, andneven in his writing, that suggested hendid not mean what he said—at leastnwhen he sounded malicious? He wasnnever spiteful or small-minded or deliberatelyncruel. Carl Bode, a contributornto On Mencken and founder of thenMencken Society, calls him an Aristotelian:nhe admired moderation...

She Who Can’t Stop TalkingnSusan Sontag: Under the Sign ofnSaturn; Farrar, Straus & Giroux;nNew York.nby Joseph SchwartznIt was a happy accident to havenConstance Folger do the jacket designnfor this latest collection of Susan Sontag’snessays. Her inspired drawing ofna baobab tree is a wickedly accuratenimage of Sontag’s work. Everyone whonhas read Saint Exupery’s The LittlenPrince knows...

enough to let his reading interferenwith his writing.” Maybe that is whynArtaud so fascinates her; he is “relevantnand understandable as long as onenmainly refers to his ideas without readingnmuch of his work.”nAnother rhetorical abuse characterizesnher prose: the grandiose commentnon the relatively minor figure, the commentndefying debate since it is utterednso confidently as fixed dogma. Fornexample,...

despised. Veneration of the family isnpart of fascist aesthetics. Therefore,nveneration of the family is to benfeared and despised.nThe cautionary enthymeme becomes:nbe suspicious of those who veneratenfamily, since they are probably fascistsnat heart.nJixamining, even briefly, why PaulnGoodman and Walter Benjamin are thentwo greatest influences on her can sufficenfor a summary. Goodman is thenonly American writer, she...

son to support the rampant collectivismnof 1950. Instead, Chodorov suggested,nindependent lecturers should be broughtnto the campus from outside. They wouldnnot indoctrinate, he thought; insteadnthey would truly “educate for liberty.”nSince, Chodorov had concluded, libertariansnand socialists were born withninclinations toward their respectivencreeds, “the libertarian teaches not ton’make’ libertarians, but to find them.”nISI has existed since the 1950’s,...

Most Businessmen Have a Fairly Accurate Reading of Their CompetitionnHow About Their Opposition?nThe magazines and activist groups which mold and manipulate public opinion toward anticapitalistngoals are now big business. Their impact in recent years has grown more potentnthrough a network of multinational support groups. The last election has given this activity anvibrant new impetus, with...

Chodorov’s thought is not pious at all,nbut rather tinnily rationalistic when hendefines the state as “a number of personsnwho are up to no good.” If onenlooks at the state in this light, one isnjustified in seeing the solution of ourncurrent difficulties in its abolition.nIhe Libertarian Party program ofn1980 embraces just such an anarchistnprescription. For example,...

mination of all American military alliancesneverywhere, and to “condemn thengrowing alliance between the UnitednStates government and the People’snRepublic of China, just as we condemnnthe previous alliance with the Republicnof China on Taiwan.”nA political philosophy which generatesnfaulty positions must have somenbasic flaws. Two of these may be worthndwelling upon.nThe first is what might be termedn”atomism,” or...

Solzhenitsyn at LargenEdward E. Ericson, Jr.: Solzhenitsyn:nThe Moral Vision; Wm. B.nEerdmans; Grand Rapids, Michigan.nVladimir Lakshin: Solzhenitsyn,nTvardovsky and ‘Novy Mir’; MITnPress; Cambridge, Massachusetts.nby John W. CoopernWh en the pagan Mongols sweptninto Russia in the 13th century, RussiannChristianity already had a three-hundred-year-oldnheritage rich in piety,nmonastic charity and missionary spirit.nInstead of discouraging the faith, thenMongol conquest deepened the...

lished One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,nlashed out at Solzhenitsyn forninsulting “the memory of a man whonwas very dear to me,” AleksandrnTvardovsky.nTvardovsky, the talented editor whon”discovered” Solzhenitsyn, died in 1971nwithout telling his own story. Lakshinnis cut to the quick by Solzhenitsyn’sn”accusations and reproaches” directednat Tvardovsky. In fact, Solzhenitsyn hasnexplained his reasons for criticizing...

bravely and sensibly, a life of exceptionalndifficulty.nCord Meyer lost his twin brother,nand an eye, in the Pacific War. Notnsurprisingly, he was even more franticallynconcerned than most people aboutnpreventing another world war. Servingnas an assistant to the United States delegationnat the San Francisco Conferencenin 1945, he sensed much earlier thanndid most the futility of the Unitedn•”....

both the left and the right. Only briefly,nin 1970, as a result of an “hysterical”ndecision by Nixon (whose attention tonthe Chilean problem was erratic) did thenCIA ever become involved in a plot tonoverthrow the Chilean government.nMeyer’s account is similar to thosenwritten by such Chile experts as PaulnSigmund and Robert J. Alexander, albeitnmore favorable to the...

Era, its main issues seem to be rathernastonishingly like those of 20th-centurynAmerica. To see why this is so incongruousnit is necessary to know somethingnof the novel’s setting.nThe Clan of the Cave Bear is an attemptnto reconstruct what might haventranspired when some of the earliestnmodern people came in contact withnthe last survivors of an earlier groupnof...

hunters and gatherers) and mysteryn(there is still not complete agreementneven among experts about their evolutionarynfate, whether they became extinctnor were gradually transformed byngenetic changes into the modern formsnwho succeeded them). Although somenof the facts noted here are used in thensetting provided by Auel, they are rarelynused persuasively. The net result is verynmuch as if the...

being fashioned from Adam’s rib,nMethuselah living for nine hundrednsixty-nine years, and so on. This latternalternative is not required even for thosenwho are religious in the conventionalnsense; witness, for example, the intelligentlynwritten entry on evolution innthe Catholic Encyclopedia. With Neanderthalsnneither on the theological blacklistnnor implausible as a link to stillnearlier ancestors, on what grounds doesnAuel relegate...

acters, plots and themes have incisivelyndiagnosed the 20th-century spiritualnmalaise and its symptoms: crime, totalitarianism,nrevolution, corruption. Hisnfiction describes a world that wants tonbelieve that God is dead and tries tonfunction without aspirations or values,nall the while complaining about the unfairnessnof it all. Most of his charactersnare caught in a cosmic tragedy they arentoo spiritually blind to...

painful and hung around with associations,nlike the cobwebs in a room whosenoccupant left many years ago.” His fictionnderives from his experience; henspeaks of a restlessness “which hasnnever been quite allayed: a desire to bena spectator of history, history in whichnI found I was concerned myself.”nGreene’s vision of a corrupted humanitynwill never comfort the romancersnand sentimentalists...

my Christian friends didn’t believe innJewish valor. . . . But I also knew, innmy heart, that they were wrong.” Indeednthey were. When the nazis triednto destroy the Warsaw ghetto in 1943,nEisner was there. They “entered thenghetto in their usual way, firing gunsnin the air and screaming for all Jews toncome out of their buildings.”...

Living Within Our MeansnDavid Kennedy: Over Here: ThenFirst World War and AmericannSociety; Oxford University Press;nNew York.nby Gordon M. Pradlnxhe existential dilemma characteristicnof “modernism” is not so muchnthe disruptive desire immediately tonhave it all, outwardly to experience allnthings simultaneously, gallivantingnthrough yet-unimagined boundaries ofncultural space; rather, it is the fact that,nseemingly, everyone in our “advanced”nsociety has finally...

liberty was sacrificed. But the real issuenwas initiative, not liberty. The “emergency”nreplacement of the “schoolndistrict-county-state-federal” decisionmakingnpyramid by the widening cobwebnof federal agencies not only representedna real shift in power and authority,nbut it also came to mean that sourcesnoutside the immediate experience ofnthe citizen began their gradual strangleholdnon his life. America’s view ofnEurope at this time...

Real Romance and Bogus TheologynJudith Rossner: Emmeline; Simonn& Schuster; New York.nby Becki KlutenAlthough God was pronounced deadnsomewhere in the 1960’s, He has recentlynbeen making a rather remarkablencomeback. Various concepts of God, ornreligion, are more and more in thenpublic eye, and a phenomenon callednthe “religious right” is sometimesncredited with having political influence.nChurches of all denominations are...

and the rooming-house landlady isncoarse and snoopy. Bereft, Emmelinenturns to the only obvious, easy sourcenof comfort—a supervisor in the mill.nAt this point Ms. Rossner temporarilynabandons her religious theme innfavor of the tried-and-true combinationnof the country innocent and the dastardlynrake. A pregnant, disgracednEmmeline is banished, and the implicationnis that the supervisor suffers onlyna little censure and...

more—a pariah.nMs. Rossner gives the reader goodncause to despise the behavior of thenGod-fearing New Englanders as they trynto force Emmeline to leave town. Butnshe cannot, will not, and one wondersnif it is a 19th-century version of thenwoman who was stoned, whom Christnforgave, saying, “Go, and sin no more.”nIndeed, Emmeline Mosher Gurneynseems to become more saintly...

recent Presidents do not receive.nAfter flying over Nevada inn1955, he grumbled that it wasna “great gambling and marriagendestruction hell,” and that itnIN FOCUSnshould never have become anstate, as it was a “hell-hole ofniniquity.” He would probablynhave been a great hero of commonnsense in our day. (AJL) DnEconomics of Elitist Fine-TuningnRonald E. Mtiller: RevitalizingnAmerica: Politics fornProsperity;...

there was hardly a single happynmarriage in all of France. Suchnis the impression given by Ms.nSullerot. We can feel her greatnenthusiasm for women whon”burn with passion,” and we endurenher disdain for any restraint:n”. . . rigorous self-disciplinenwill torture and cripplenPhillips’s PhilternDebora Phillips with RobertnJudd: Sexual Confidence:nDiscovering the Joys of Intimacy;nHoughton Mifflin Co.;nBoston.nThe dust-jacket picture ofnDr....

SCRtl-NnThe Profundity of Crossness and Pretentiousness as ArtnRaging Bull; Based on the book bynJake La Motta; Directed by MartinnScorsese; United Artists.nHeaven’s Gate; Written and directednby Michael Cimino; United Artists.nby Eric ShapearonRaging Bull IS a display of somethingnvery special—it could be called a movienstyle of Italian-American verismo. Andnas style, in this case, is also substance,nthe effect...

Heaven’s Gate. Once again he makesnAmerican pluralism his subject matter.nHe proclaims loudly that its historynand its vicissitudes were written innblood, not ink—a veracity which is allntoo easily converted into a cliche. Henseems not to know that only sin, crimenand personal wickedness can be uni-nVocal, while all social dilemmas suffernfrom a chronic ambivalence. Cimino’sndepiction of the...

NEXTnin The Kockford PapersnSurveying the American politicalnlandscape after the 1980 elections,none finds a decimated DemocraticnParty, internally dominated by its liberalnwing, yet incapable of recapturingnnational majorities with thatnagenda. On the Republicannside one finds a party dominatednby conservatives, yetnuncertain of its heritage andnunwilling to articulate a unifyingntheme that would explainnthe purpose behind itsnpursuit of political office. Evennas...

other than through machines. A jazznlibrary is thus a stack of discs or tapes;nthe fact that both Edison and KingnOliver belonged to the same generationnproves that Giarnbattista Vico was rightnabout the metaphysics of history. “Jazznteems with legendary geniuses who . . .nplayed better, than any of the giants,”nremarks Frank Kappler in his introductionnto Bechet, and...

to mankind by way of a blues tonality.nUnfortunately this album proves thatnthe current representatives of the Chicagonblues genre have lost that sublimenquality. The musicians seem to exertnthemselves to express show-biz demandsnrather than basic human concerns andnafflictions. Their instrumental paucityn—woefully influenced by rock, a bastardizednform of jazz music in itself—nsubstitutes primitive harmonic improvisationnfor the mastery of...

That Western civilization grew andnflourished under Christianity is notndebatable. There is the West, and therenare nations trying to westernize. UntilnLenin, no Western nation, whatevernits moral stance or its achievements (ornlack of same), disavowed its Christianity.nI include even Hitlerite Germany,nand I qualify the observation in thenunique case of the United States, evennthough de Tocqueville found Americanto...

THI: AiVlKRICAN PROSCLMUMnAn Active DiseasenIs insanity amoral? Is there no correlationnbetween a demented human actnand its moral significance? Those considerationsnwere somehow absent fromnthe avalanche of commentary and interpretationnof what happened on Marchn30 in front of the Washington, D.C.nHilton, when Ronald Reagan’s “newnblue suit was ruined” (in his own words)nby a bullet from the gun of...

pro, a century ago, a woman of ill repute,nand, even further back in time,nshe would have been a strumpet, a slut.nThis gradation attests not only to thenbreakdown of mores, but to the breakdownnof semantics as well, indicatingnhow precise language has evaporatednfrom our communication process. Ms.nWilliams is not a giddy youngstern—she’s 29, thus a cynical caterer...

Editor*s Co tmnIt is in everyone’s interest for libraries to make available thenwidest diversity of views and expressions, including thosenwhich are extreme, distasteful . . .n-Kathy Russell*nWhat do librarians have in common with fascism? Aren’tnthe words jarringly at odds with each other? Unless we makenit clear that they are opposites in our perception—as a matternof...

an essay, “The Growing Battle of the Books,” based on vintagenTime-Life selections of half-evidence, demi-truths andndiscount-priced reasoning. According to Time’s author,na new populist mood in America is partial to a kind of censorshipnthat keeps “troubling ideas out of . . . books and minds,”nand is hostile to “open traffic in ideas that not only nourishesna...

pinioiis ec V m-inInnate Depravity & the Nature of MannJames R. Mellow: Nathaniel Hawthornenin His Times; Houghton MifflinnCo.; Boston.nby Stephen L. TannernWh ile I was reading a historicalnmarker near Harvard University recently,na young man in the uniform of youthncult—that is, in calculated dishabille andndisplaying a conspicuous lack of personalnhygiene—stepped to the marker and,nseemingly oblivious of...

itself in the pursuit of image patterns,nconsidering the detection of such patternsnas an end in itself rather than asna means Hawthorne used to explore thenproblem of moral growth.nMellow often highlights biographicalninformation that is closely connectednwith the novels and stories. Such informationncould serve as a salutary remedynfor overly ingenious formalistic interpretation.nWe must never discount thenresourcefulness and...

“apocalypse” and “postrealist economy.”nWhat touched him off, I suppose, wasnHawthorne’s phrase “Outcase of thenUniverse.” This immediately set contemporarynexistentialist chords vibrating.nBut what a limited response to annauthor who devoted a career to exploringnthe large issues of good and evil.nAlfred Kazin’s review for the NewnYork Times Book Review provides anothernexample. Kazin praises Hawthornenfor having “a literary imaginationndelicately...

Compute with menComputerized she prints out menCommingling with me she becomes menComing she is coming is shenComing she is a comrade of minenComrades come all over comradesnCommunists come upon communistsnHi. Hi.nWe are here to complete our fusionnWe are here to create confusionnDo you confuse coming with confession.’nDo you fuel for nuclear compression.’nI’m for funicular ascension.nEither...

temporary literature that populates itsnfictional world with freaks and grotesquesnand their nonhero victimizers.nThe fat lady dies from the violation,nthe carny owner’s wife and Joe run offnwith the proceeds collected at the event,nJoe decides the wife is fat and ugly too,nsexually brutalizes her (but the old bagnloves it), abandons her, then takes thenmoney and scatters it...

Choices & Self-DefinitionnLinda Gray Sexton: Between TwonWorlds: Young Women in Crisis;nWilliam Morrow & Co.; New York.nRobert May: Sex and Fantasy: Patternsnof Male and Female Development;nW. W. Norton & Co.; NewnYork.nby Christina Murphyn1 hat sex roles form the parametersnof individual identity and the nexus betweennprivate and public selves is anpremise to which both Linda Gray Sextonnin...