The Follies of SelfnChristopher Lasch: The Culture ofnNarcissism: American Life in an Agenof Diminishing Expectations; W. W.nNorton & Co.; New York.nby Charles A. MosernXTistorian Christopher Lasch, wellknownnfor some time as a radical commentatornon American life, in his latestnbook has come up with a statement ofnmovement away from certain formernpredilections. It is unlikely that ThenCulture of...

to the decomposition of society and culture.nBeset by a fear of death, the narcissistnseeks, above all, individual survival,nto which any other ideals must bensacrificed. “People no longer dream ofnovercoming difficulties,” Lasch writes,n”but merely of surviving them.” Tonthat it might be added that an excessivenpreoccupation with survival often resultsnin destruction. As Lasch himselfncomments in discussing the...

tural phenomena, and Marxism cropsnup often enough: for instance, Laschnasserts that one of the difficulties withncontemporary education is that it is regardednas a “commodity” to be consumed;nhe attempts to blame industrialismnin part for the breakdown of thenfamily; and he indulges in ritual denunciationsnof capitalist advertising. In thenfinal analysis, though, Lasch’s culturalncritique is usually separable from...

detests are very much like Americannlandlords or superintendents, worriednabove all about the safeguarding ofnproperty, such as Allende’s house. However,nin the spirit of The Adventuresnof Huckleberry Finn, a soldier finds anbox of old bullets in the house. Henthreatens to report the box unless Evenyields to his lust. This gives ProfessornRichards a chance to write a series...

Trotsky, Stalin or Castro: that is totalitarianism.nOnly a totalitarian regimencan “liquidate the bourgeoisie as a class”nand thus break down its resistance tonthe “expropriation.” What does thisnmean: to “liquidate the bourgeoisie asna class.”” It means not necessarily tonexterminate it down to the last person,nbut to decimate, deport, torture, scatter,nreduce its members to pariahs, in ordernto break...

zeal of Professor Richards would benastonishing even for Soviet literaturentoday. After the fall of AUende, ancertain lady “gasped at her bill for oilnand sugar.” This resembles Sovietnnovels about Nazi Germany, accordingnto which all Germans, except for andwindling handful of “moneybags,”nwere starving paupers. Soviet propagandancould not admit that an evilnregime may be quite prosperous. In annevil...

has held that the media can be heldnliable for defamation to public officialsnand public figures only if the defamationnwas published with actual malice, thatnis, with knowledge of its falsehood ornwith reckless disregard as to its truthnor falsity. Even a private person defamednby the media must show somenfault, as determined by state law, innorder to recover....

not follow.”n1 his reviewer is not a devotee ofnRichard Nixon. It makes him feel goodnthat this should not be regarded as anpro-Nixon book, despite the author’snFoolish ConsistencynAryeh Neier: Defending My Enemy:nAmericanNazis, the Skokie Case, andnthe Risks of Freedom; E. P. Dutton &nCo.; New York.nby Clarence CarsonnA. foolish consistency,” Emersonnsaid, “is the hobgoblin of little minds.”nThe...

most obvious one. The relevant portionnof the First Amendment reads this way:n”Congress shall make no law .. . abridgingn… the right of the people peaceablynto assemble, and to petition the governmentnfor a redress of grievances.” Justnwhat grievance the Nazis had whichnnecessitated their assembling in Skokie,nIllinois (on the streets) in order to getnthe government to redress...

responsible press is a worthy undertaking.nPeaceable assemblies are no propernconcern of anyone. Unfortunately, liberalsnwant freedom without responsibilitynto prevail in the arena of intellectualnactivity. The ACLU has been theirnhandmaiden in establishing the legalnconditions for this. Those who defendnfreedom without responsibility arenfinally responsible for the loss of freedom.nOnly little minds should be capablenof such a foolish inconsistency....

great American painter”)—is it possiblenthat he reads Playboy? (Is the PopenPoHsh?)n”Yes, of course I read Playboy. Insay ‘of course’ because I’ve beennreading it for so long. It, morenthan any other magazine I knownof is involved in the mainstreamnof our culture and values. It’s alsona way of keeping up with the peoplenwho are shaping and changingnthings...

there was, of course, pornography. Wenused to get it at the newsstand from thenold man with the black cigar who wouldnproduce it, literally, from “under-thecounter.”nSometimes it would circulatenthrough the boys’ locker room—usuallynpictures of grotesque Fellini-type whoresnwith missing teeth and billowing rollsnof flab. It was available, all right, butnone came by it furtively. We knew whatnwe...

Slaight’s Israeli (Israeli?) girlfriend,nand, of course, the victim are heavednat the reader. Great gobs of verbiagenabout the “power structure” of “WoonPoo” are generated, bemoaning then”system” that builds men like GeneralnHedges and his accomplices, who rangenfrom the sadistic Major Grimshaw tonthe omnipotent Pentagon bureaucratnWilliam Beatty. Like all cover-ups lately,nthis one extends to the heart of ourngovernment,...

ment” of the United States MilitarynAcademy. That, by hook or by crook,nis what the author intended.nX he one utterly amazing, or disturbing,nthing-about Truscott’s book hasnbeen the response to it by the weightynjournals. Even after he says he wrotenit for the money and the dust covernsays that “he writes fiction for a living,”nthe most prestigious literary...

to place herself. Sometimes she says hernname aloud to be sure she exists. Emptiednof meaning, each day lives her.nUnable to accept her childhood faith ornto believe in her past radical enthusiasms,nshe feels only the luxurious memorynof having had beliefs and regretnfor her lost “condition of simple faith.”nThe litanous recital of her radical credonhas no more...

insisting on forcing humanistic paradigmsnof conduct on the experience ofnlife. In other words, values can bendefined through politics. On the othernhand, the liberal mentality, fearful andncontemptuous of any dogma transcendingnthe individual’s capacity for invention,ndenies the fact of law in thenessential realm. Thus, values cannot bendefined through religion, the sacred—nthe transcendent. Errors with respect tonthe order...

worker has the highest standard ofnliving yet experienced in the globe.nAffluence and contentment seem tonhave paralyzed its survival sense.”nA general mood of “antiestablishmentarianism,”noceans of vague rhetoricnabout liberation and neo-Marxist ideologynsubmerged parts of the Americannacademic community. Few had the nervento ask, as one teacher at Columbia did,n”Liberation? Liberation from what?”nAn overemphasis on the end of the...

spiritual Awareness in the PrairiesnRuth Beebe Hill: Hanta Yo; Doubledayn& Co.; Garden City, New York.nby Maxine Steinmann11 anta Yo is a saga about a band ofnDakotah (Sioux) Indians, and an evocationnof their way of life in the late 18thnand early 19th centuries, before thenwhite man took possession of the Americannplains. As a work of fiction,...

choose to drink or not, to trade with thenwhite man or not, to unite with othernIndians against the white intruder ornnot. Nevertheless, it is unhkely thatnthese “choices” ultimately determinednwhat ensued. Time, as well as the whiteninvasion, conspired against the Indian’snway of life, and doomed it. Regret overnits disappearance understandably permeatesnthe pages of Hanta Yo. DnDrucker’s...

sisting on his conservative instincts andnunderwriting, in broad strokes, everynliberal sentiment, Mr. Wills can restnScreennLet’s Get RomancenManhattan; Directed by Woody Allen;nWritten by Woody Allen andnMarshall Brickman; United Artists.nSame Time, Next Year; Directed bynRobert Mulligan; Written by BernardnSlade; Universal.nby Eric ShapearonSuddenly, there’s an outcry amongnthe hacks who daily squeeze their mindsnfor a drop of opinion. After...

antihistamine.nAllen wishes to visualize the poetrynof city lore, but those who remembernRenoir, Rene Clair, Capra or DeSica,nquickly realize the charmlessness of hisnefforts. He has no knack for telling anstory visually; he needs words, a delugenof words—in fact, in all of Manhattan,nthere’s only one sequence that relies onnwordlessness.nThe New York libcultural lobby toutsnhim as a major...

mind you of Rembrandt, earnest andndreamlike; in Derain; in a Vlamincknlandscape (1909) with cypress treesnwhich move like flames into the sky.nAmong the propaganda posters (therenis one of Lenin standing on a globensweeping away monarchs, judges andnbusinessmen) rises Naum Gabo’s wonderousnColumn (1917), strong butntransparent (you can see through it, unlikenancient columns), fearless but soft,ntrue to the...

the most vivid sign of life in the wholenfilm. An emptiness invades everyonenexcept the youngest sister, who had beenna baby in 1939, and the man’s aunt andnuncle who have the sturdiness, goodwillnand skeptical good sense that can comenfrom having lived longer than a regime.nThe film treats time as if it had stoodnstill, but also denies...

even existence, of memory, of thenknowledge of creation, of everythingnexcept the little that it takes to survivenwithout knowing it. Because of the insatiablenniggardliness of this emptinessnin which the absence of the knowledgenof creation—the creation that was destroyednin Moscow after 1917—rendersnthe individuals in Wajda’s film apparentlynunable to say meaningful words.nNo longer able to rertiember themselves,nthe individuals...

JoumalistnnThe Villager Anno 1979nVillage Voice, a Manhattan publication,nis an advertising organ for mattressesnand stereos. In fact, in its pages,nthese two devices stand for much more:ntogether they form an ideological symbol—justnlike the fasces of ancientnRome, the eagle and arrows of Americanand the hammer and sickle of Communism.nUsing a mattress to the sound ofna stereo is to...

Polemics & ExchangesnLove of Vivaldinby Tom BethellnI don’t know how your Mr. CraignWyatt got the idea that my book onnGeorge Lewis “haughtily dismissesnMr. Bethell is the Washington, D.C.ncorrespondent for Harper’s magazine.nEditor’s Comment continued from page 3nimbued with this same persuasion produced what was perhapsnthe largest abuse of peacetime normalcy in history.nIt may be difficult to...

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Editor^s CommentnToday, the ugly beautiful people have become an ideologicalnoccurrence. When Governor Brown semi-officially travelsnabroad with sexual service personnel in lieu of a spouse, thisnis not nonconformism but an ideological statement. It isncalculated to attract favor from trendsetters whom he deemsnmore important than ordinary constituents. A very privatenaide to a governor is nothing new in...

journalistic renditions of history, contemporary affairs, behavioralnissues and artistic creativity time and again havenbecome multimillion dollar enterprises is a crucial question.nThe answer probably is: Because the greedy and unscrupulousnliberal publisher strikes an alliance with the liberal medianmanipulator, and together they set out to boost at any pricena conformist liberal critic, or a liberal intellectual bigot,nthereby...

opinions & ViewsnScenes de la Vie in ProvincenSusan Sontag: I etcetera; Farrar,nStraus & Giroux; New York. OnnPhotography; Farrar, Straus & Giroux;nNew York. Illness as Metaphor;nFarrar, Straus & Giroux; NewnYork.nby Leo F. RaditsanM iss Sontag lives off her talent thenway some of the rich live off their capital—becausenthey fear the pleasure, andnthe responsibility, of work and...

against distinctions in quality, Sontagntakes average photographs for photography.nShe does not want standards. Innfact she thinks she is fascinated bynphotography because it appears to denynall standards. This desire to deny standards,nto deny judgments of quality isnat the heart of much of her work. It isnas if she wants to deny what she hasnmissed, as if...

Other stories scrape at real themes:nthe suicide of a close friend, parenthood.nOthers parody them—for instance,nmarriage. But Sontag nevernlets anything happen: in the end shenalways has the better of herself. Thisnis because with all her braggadocio,nSontag is guarded, terribly guarded,nabout what really matters to her. Nondiscretion could match the hesitationnof her indiscretion.nAbove all, these stories have...

amateurish and generally atrocious thennovel is, the truer it is to life, or atnleast to the literary stereotype of annAmerican salesman.nI have no alternative, therefore, exceptnto refer to the author of the booknunder review as Price-Becker. Obviously,nit is unfair even to single out Price-nBecker’s book for a separate review.nThe narrative is a microscopic dot innthe...

The owner of a New York stationerynstore I know scrimped and saved all hisnlife to give his children a liberal artsneducation. His children hate and despisentheir father’s work, for they are surenthey are destined to be Mozarts. Thenfact is that they have no more abilitynto be Mozarts than their father, theirneducated airs and graces notwithstanding.nThe...

Culture Parasitesn(and Others Who Still Try to Ask Questions)nTheodore Roszak: Person/Planet;nAnchor Press, Doubleday & Co.;nGarden City, New York.nRobert Jastrow: Godandthe Astronomers;nW. W. Norton & Co.; NewnYork.nby Thomas MolnarnIs Theodore Roszak a critic of culture.”nIt is like asking whether Jim Jonesnwas a “reverend” and his sect in Guyanana religion. My question and my parallelnare not out...

that a whole is only the sum of its partsn(a nation: juxtaposed individuals; man:na combination of physico-chemical elements).nIn other words, he pointed tonthe danger of scientism as an ideology.nHowever, in other books, and in hisnnew Janus: A Summing Up, he tacklesnthe next favorite theme, the alleged disharmonynbetween our “old” and “new”nbrain, and the alarming result,...

walking as a spontaneous self-expression,nshe decided to put certain constraintsnon her bodily and leg movements.nIt also does not occur to him thatnan eventual return to the good savagenis now blocked by ethnography whichnshows that primitives, too, play rolesnand put on masks (and tribe-imposednbehavior) in all of life’s important situations:ninitiation rites, worship, hunting,nmarriage. Do the women’s...

since Einstein (don’t go back further,nwe don’t want a history); I shall supplynthe photographs, of nebulae and men,nand the print will be large, with widenspace between chapters. We shall callnit a book and price it accordingly!nSo the ambiguous project to whichnJastrow has now contributed, continues:nproving God’s existence throughnscience. But since science, in the lastntwo, three,...

surprising comfort. Low-ranking policenare heroes, but those.in charge are jerks.nAnyone who watches a considerablenamount of television can confirm thesengeneralizations. In his interviews, Steinnfound that the great majority of thosenresponsible for putting these views onnthe air genuinely believed them. Thoughnquite rich themselves, they did not perceiventhemselves as wealthy, and werendecidedly hostile to those who were.nThey were...

same forces exist, and are in fact lessnrestrained, in other branches of the entertainmentnindustry, and in fact in ournwhole culture. This problem cannot benattributed just to the characteristics ofna small clique, as Stein argues.niN evertheless, Stein’s book certainlynprovides food for thought about somenaspects of television, though his attemptnto explain everything on the basis ofnthe characteristics...

dike’s African novel. But bad ideas haventurned into great novels. In subjectnmatter and treatment The Coup parallelsnEvelyn Waugh’s African novels,nBlack Mischief And Scoop. Waugh evenndisplays less knowledge of the regionnthan Updike and seems more preoccupiednwith home subjects—EmperornSeth’s “Oxford progressive” side is hisnmost ludicrous —yet his African novelsnare masterpieces.nWaugh’s satire has the great advantagenof being funny....

essentially it is a self-indulgent exercise:ntrivial in conception and a glitterynmess in execution. But, as with manyncontemporary novels, beneath ThenCoup’s surface badness, there is a profoundnbadness.nJ: aul Elmer More’s image of “an explosionnin a cesspool” is an effective onenfor the state of literary fiction in thenperiod since Lady Chatterley’s Lovernhas been legal merchandise and a...

Washington and Albany, more dollarsnto be put in the reach of outright crooksnand incompetents.nIncompetents, the very word to describenJohn Vliet Lindsay and AbrahamnD. Beame, the two mayors who presidednover New York’s demise. Lindsay, thenbright hope of 1960s liberalism, wasnaptly described by Robert Moses when hensaid: “If you elect a matinee idol mayor,nyou’re going to get...

Anticolonialism of a Liberated LeftistnJames Morris: Farewell the Trumpets:nAn Imperial Retreat; HarcourtnBrace Jovanovich; New York.nby Paul GottfriednAn Imperial Retreat is the third andnlast part of James Morris’ widely praisedntrilogy on the British Empire, Farewellnthe Trumpets. While the earlier volumesndescribed the process of imperialnconsolidation, the final book focusesnon the end of the Pax Britannica. Althoughnthe author...

promised interest of expropriated CanalnCompany stockholders and the alreadynviolated right of all vessels to passnthrough the Suez, Morris scorns, withoutnconsidering, these arguments. Theninvasion is judged to have been no morenthan “the last display of imperialistnmachismo.”nIt may, perhaps, be a sign of the timesnthat members of Eden’s own Tory partynmade even shriller attacks on his SueznA...

been there a generation longer, and thenestablished society whose roots werenover 200 years old.nBen Sakmar, the fictional minernwhose steps we follow around the peripherynof the tragedy, bears the sobriquetnof Professor Novak’s maternal grandfather;nand throughout the book we seenthe escalating series of events throughnthe eyes of the miners, the sheriff, andnthe townspeople, some of whom wouldnlater...

the foes of American capitalism, then”new class” of intellectuals whose expertisenis control, not production, andnwhose sympathies lie with the statistnmentality, prevail upon officials to removenfirst one, then another, freedomnfrom the realm of individual action tonthe realm of government control.nEspecially by means of the communicationsnmedia and the “knowledge industry,”nAmericans are encouraged to allowntheir acquisitive passions—the easiestnto...

In FocusnA Fashionable Steel-and-Glass Jacobin ClubnDaniel Patrick Moynihan with SuzannenWeaver: A Dangerous Place;nAtlantic-Little, Brown Books; Boston.nby Kenneth KolsonnWe all know what Senator DanielnPatrick Moynihan has to say. And wenknow to expect him to say it in hisninimitable way. Like Lyndon Johnson’sn”Treatment A,” which rarely failed himnin one-on-one arm-twisting situations,nthe Moynihan Treatment, which is performednonly in...

accomplishes is to reduce them to a fewnsentences. These lives seem not so muchnlittle as small. Of one woman, for instance,nwe are told that the only notablenthing she ever did was to go for Koshernmeat every Friday. Whether she lovednher husband, if she had children, wasna good cook, whether she was talentednin any way—all that...

nist henchman in a Vietcong uniformntosses a grenade into a primitive groundnshelter full of screaming Vietnamesenpeasants, a new perspective opens. ThenVietnamese ordeal of communist makingnsuddenly becomes a reality, no lessncompelling than My Lai. The linkagenwith the current suffering of the boatnpeople immediately becomes obvious,nregardless of the manipulations ofnAmerican TV, an antiwar medium. Andnin one’s post-show...