Angels From the Time to ComenCertain moments in a good story possess a quality that isnlogically very strange indeed, and that renders themnoften haunting and unforgettable. Consider Dorothea’snchoice of Ladislaw as her lover in Middlemarch: the logic ofnfiction would dictate that Dorothea should pair up withnLydgate, who is a heavyweight like her, and if after...

The discussion of “the end of history” by FrancisnFukuyama in The National Interest (Summer 1989)nhas led to comment by numerous publicists. Among othersnCharies Krauthammer, George Will, Richard Bernstein,nand a feature writer for Time have evaluated Fukuyama’snhypothetical arguments that the wodd may be movingntoward a democratic capitalist final age: a world without warnand therefore without serious...

The Agony of GorbachevnMikhail Gorbachev has evidently imagined that angovernment turned virtuous would elicit a generousnresponse from a naturally virtuous people. It is an “immaculatenmisconception” because the Russian people, alwaysnlethargic in the face of their leviathan government, havenendured in the Soviet experiment a unique erosion ofnEdward Gibbon’s old Greco-Roman ideal of civic virtue.nLord Acton suggested...

Character and Nuclear Anxietynby John P. Sisknteft:i^^rf inAmerican society is widely recognized as youth-oriented,nbut it has been a long time since any authoritativensource has given us really good news about the young.nRecent reports from the American Medical Association, thenNational Research Council, and the Council of PhysicalnFitness have been especially discouraging: the young exercisentoo little, eat...

Whose Wealth of Whose Nation?nThe Case Against Unfettered Tradenby William R. Hawkinsn’Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew,nAnd the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to beheve it was truenThat All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four—nAnd the Gods of the Copybook Headings...

Put Money in Thy PursenIn 1967, The American Challenge by Jean-JacquesnServan-Schreiber predicted that by the 1980’s Americannmultinationals would have virtually bought up Europeannindustry. A decade later, there was another big scare — thenArabs were going to buy up all the US farmland (somenfarmers now wish this had been true, since the price ofnfarmland subsequently collapsed)....

VIEWSn^ ^’ I ‘he Lyric of Tradition” is an essay written nearlynJ. twenty-five years ago by the late Donald Davidson,ncelebrated American poet, critic, and philosopher of culturalnchange who developed, out of his own artistic practice, ancomprehensive theory of the role of literature in a healthynsociety. It was a view not at all like those of...

Thomas Jefferson believed that virtue was to be found innthe Spartan simplicity of ancient Greece rather than innthe decadent cities of Caesar’s Rome. Agriculture, Jeffersonnwrote, was what developed moral and political virtue. Bigncities corrupted people, he thought, and neither city men ofncommerce and capital nor city men who labored could bentrusted to preserve democracy. He...

The (Unexpected) Comebacknof the Small FarmnThe word’s been out for some time: they’re all gone, notna functioning one left. Statistics coming down from onnhigh in the 1970’s “proved” that the small farm — definednas that with a total income of less than $20,000 annually —nwas about shot. This came as something of a surprise tonthose...

Those Deadly, Depressing, SyncopatednSemiautomatic Assault Rifle BluesnThe semiautomatic rifle has been part of the Americannscene for nearly a century. In 1903 the WinchesternRepeating Arms Company marketed the first commerciallynsuccessful semiautomatic rifle. It was not designed as anmilitary arm, and no sales were made to the US Army. Thennew rifle was marketed among sportsmen and touted...

When the Schoolhouse Is Our HousenSomebody recently did a “study” purporting to discovernthat at-home mothers spend hardly any more time dailynwith their children than mothers who work full-time outsidenthe home. This is a neat trick on the part of the at-homenmoms surveyed, and I would like to know how they managenit. They must have superb...

When my novella, which I was writing obsessively allnmy senior year at the Academy and a year after that,nwas accepted by a publisher and I was given a modestnadvance, I decided to buy myself an apartment. I, of course,ndidn’t have the money for a big or expensive place, so Inbought a small, one-room flat in...

PERSPECTIVEnThe Closing of the Conservative MindnWhy do we call it liberal education? When anneighteen-year-old graduates from high school andngoes off to college to pick up a smattering of history andnliterature, why should we describe his course of study as thenliberal arts? Educators once knew the answers to thesenquestions, but it has been many years since...

VIEWSnThe Spiritual Meaning of Philosophynby Stephen R.L. ClarknIn 525 A.D. the Lady Philosophy reminded Boethius, innhis death-cell, that true philosophers must think body,nrank, and estate of less importance than their understandingnof what was truly their own. This understanding of philosophy,nwhich is also Epictetus’s and Aurelius’s, as somethingnmore than a pleasant enough word game, has been...

Taking the King’s ShillingnHistorically, the primary function of schooling has beennto teach the young how to live responsibly andnproductively in their own society. In our day, the notions ofncivic, familial, and vocational obligations have been virtuallynbanished from pedagogy. Today’s ethically and morallynbarren system of education has not only failed to fortify itsnstudents against perverse conduct...

”^.yfy^-WnnVIEWSnI^fe^ •:;•-©^^^,n’timii^^BI^^^^^^^^^ ! r r) ‘ <* ‘ » rlifn.’J^Hi^^HBHMI^^^^^^^nThe BuU’s-Eye of DisasternFor over a decade now, it’s been commonplace for ournleaders to urge us to put Vietnam behind us. My wife,nSybil, and I were face to face with our good friend GeorgenBush when he said it again at his Inauguration in January.nThe Congressional Medal...

VIEWSnLiberalism: CoUectivist and ConservativenInever exchanged a word with RichardnWeaver. I knew him because henwas a figure at the University of Chicago.nI heard that he was a teacher whonexpected his students to meet a highnstandard of intellectual probity andnrigor; I think that he expected the samenof his colleagues. I was told, with anmixture of admiration and...

Buchenwald’s Second LifenEven in an age oiglasnost, hardly anyone troubles tonrecall that when the Soviet Union occupied EastnGermany in 1945 it kept two Nazi concentration camps innfull use for nearly five years, till February 1950, and at theirnold task of death.nSoviet Buchenwald comes as a surprise, and that surprisenis perhaps a tribute to the power...

She was a handsome woman, Raylene Thomason, notnwhat you’d call beautiful, but with Cherokee blood thatngave her a broad pleasant face with a clean jawline andnsteady dark eyes. She took her looks so much for grantednthat it seemed she paid no attention, and maybe she didn’t.nHer appearance was useful for getting men interested in her,nthough...

VIEWSn”’•^iif/?-^;^;^. ^•^’WiP 1 ‘•n^nThe New Eschatology of PeacenThe relations of religious faith with political life in thenmodern world are riddled with paradoxes. In thenMiddle East, rapid secularization has provoked a fundamentalistnrevulsion, which seeks vainly to stem the tide ofnmodernity that, at the same time, gives it all its strength.nMiddle Eastern fundamentalism is little more than...

“The” PatriarchynNotes on the Underground Life of LanguagenMany words current in our culture carry within them anwhole buried world of political assumptions andnpsychological payoffs. Just to use these words is to submitnyourself to a powerful attempt by the words’ coiners ornredefiners to shape reality and to impose a view of it thatnthey consider advantageous to...

Dead Souls in the Classroomn^^’ I ‘hanatology” or “death education” now competesnA with driver’s ed and “social problems” for thenattention of the nation’s high schoolers. First introduced onnAmerica’s college campuses in the 1960’s by such luminariesnas Edgar Jackson, Richard Kalish, Robert Kastenbaum,nand Herman Feifel, death education has, like many otherndubious pedagogical experiments, trickled down to...

1^ will’nVIEWSn'”;i , ((IIu.n( li, f (“” HitnI, / ‘It””” ‘u,nli’aiu,. y,. Hi”nThe Celtic Heritage of the Old SouthnSoutherners are not like other Americans. Significantncultural differences have always separated them fromnthe North. Even today cultural variations between Southernnblack and white people are fewer than those between whitenSoutherners and white Northerners. In other words, thenpopulation of...

Unsere Leutenby Jean Bethke Elshtainn’>fr*nA* in^ – « AnThe familiar lane is rutted with two deep truck tracks.n”This always happens when it rains,” I think, andnworry about getting stuck until I remember that the rain wasntwo days ago and the ruts would have hardened by now,nforming a two-lane trail to the farmhouse, Grandma’snhouse, “Grandma in...

Education for a Conquered NationnInuetcnq ux patanq u^.nby John Chodesnleui XBDT’ixxod aqj_ ‘pjnsqe •:n’MBx aqi qSnojqa ‘aiaTJs :npaaanbuoo aq-^ jaAo icjaofj srnTJTds aq^i puB pajQ,Bq ja’iiq.iqn’saiixensBO snotajou-^ •uot’in[ooqos piB 01 asxnduii XBI^TnJuxiJB’is aqi ^x^3Exa sx sxqn^oosopi ^-^^M?!.n•cixjxds 3jnDeclining test scores. Illiterate, spiritless, and passivengraduates who have little motivation to find a job ornsucceed. Youngsters with...

Last summer I was standing next to a great bull buffalo innwestern Kansas. He was mad and had a right to be. Mynbuddy Joe Kramer, along with other men from Kansas Fishn& Game, had this great American bison in an animalnsqueeze while they took a blood sample and gave him a shot.nAll this activity was...

Decline of the WestnA Western View on the Fall of the American CivilizationnImagine yourself going ahead in time — 60 years ahead.nImagine yourself in the People’s Republic of NorthnAmerica, in the year 2050.nby Richard D. Lammn-t^^–:;n^8i:^0nIn discussing the rise and fall of the American civilization,nit will be necessary to examine the situation at the last...

Out of thin air—or of mythic consciousness — a Texasngovernor once plucked unhesitatingly the mot juste.nThe governor, Allan Shivers, who served back in the 1950’s,nwas indignant over some piece or other of legislativentomfoolery. As he saw it, the whole enterprise was downrightn”un-Texan.”n”Un-Texan.” Right there we had the nub of the matter.nNo deeper truth, no higher...

The misadventures of James Joyce’s Ulysses at the handsnof pubhshers and editors has recently been in the news.nMany of the commentators seem to believe that what Joycensuffered was unusual, and that most contemporary authorsnare treated better. Listen to Thomas Marc Parrott (writingnin 1934) on George Bernard Shaw:nMr. Shaw, for instance, when he is ready to...

Books and Book Reviewing, ornWhy All Press Is Good PressnWhen Bob Woodward published Veil: The Secret Warsnof the CIA, in October of 1987, two things madenthat book news. One was his assertion that William Casey,nthe late director of the CIA, had admitted to knowing aboutnthe transfer of funds in the Iran-contra deal. The other wasnthe...

^^”DEN international is working for your release,” myn± lawyer told me. In the bare, mean interview room ofnthe Belgrade District Prison he smiled at me, and I smilednback, because the mikes could not pick that up. There werenno TV cameras there, yet, to monitor our winks andnnods — the language of slaves, as Karl Marx...

Don’t Quit Your Job to Raise a Litmagnby Jane Greern”Poetry is the most overproduced commodity on the market, next to zucchini.”n— Judson Jerome, Writer’s Digestnpoetry columnist since 1960nfLJn^^^^^SnfflM^glnfin^^=^^^^11^;^—–^nKm^Mif^mnll^KM^IrftltM^C^nr^j^oâ„¢nAccording to a 1985 study cited by Writer’s DigestnBooks, 23.3 percent of all people who think ofnthemselves as writers — or “more than two million people”n— write poetry...

101 CHRONICLESnVIEWSnOUR STUMBLING GIANT by Robert NisbetnWhatever the number of pluses in the portrait ofnReagan that is beginning to take shape in the finalnmonths of his two-term presidency, there will be minusesnalso, and most of these will stem from his conduct of foreignnpolicy and national defense. At first thought, this is almostnbizarre. Wasn’t Reagan the...

141 CHRONICLESnON LIBERTY AND THE GRAND IDEAnby Negovan RajicnFor a long time I thought I knew how to evade thendiscourse of the Grand Idea. It began when I was in thenYugoslav People’s Army. The war was barely over, butnvictory brought no greater liberty to those who had sufferednthe Nazi occupation, and the brainwashing in the...

accept the swap; they will find their soup watery and theirnbeds hard. The scoffers also claim that liberty is a merenformality in the West, and authentic only in the East. If younbelieve Them, then people here are slaves who imaginenthemselves to be free, while people there are free andnbelieve themselves to be slaves.nThere is a...

UTOPIAS AND IDEOLOGIESnby Erik von Kuehnelt-LeddihnnPeople who “think ahead,” like Prometheus, have alwaysnconstructed Utopias which are the outflow of theirnreflections and ideas — in other words, of their ideologies.nOn the other hand, most Americans who call themselvesn”conservatives” manifest a hostility towards ideologies andneven more towards Utopias.n”Ideology” as a term was invented by Count Destutt denTracy,...

VIEWSnAMERICAN MANNERS by John Lukacsn^ *• “V othing, at first sight, seems less important than then1 1 external formalities of human behavior,” wrotenAlexis de Tocqueville in Democracy in America, “yet therenis nothing to which men attach more importance. They cannget used to anything except living in a society which doesnnot share their manners. The influence...

THE IRON ROD OFnAMERICAN LIBERALISM’ by Erik von Kuehnelt-LeddihnnIn America, as in Britain, institutions, movements, politicalnphenomena, historic events and geographic features havenbeen given names and labels that bewilder and startle thenrest of the world: the German “Westwall” of World War IInbecame the “Siegfried Line” (in World War I that lay innnorthern France), the Near East...

THE IRON MAN OF HUMAN RIGHTSnby Gary KernnRemembering Anatoly Marchenkon\J^ don’t like it when someone from outsidenVV teaches us how to live.” Thus spake Sovietnspokesman Gennady Gerasimov in reaction to PresidentnReagan’s emphasis on human rights this summer in Moscow.nThe Soviet leaders were displeased by Reagan’sndecision to meet with dissidents during his free time awaynfrom the...

221 CHRONICLESntheir choice. Marchenko refused, although his wife isnJewish. First, because he himself was not Jewish, andnsecond, because he regarded Jewish emigration as a meansnof inspiring envy and anti-Semitic feelings in other Sovietnnationalities. Everyone should be free to emigrate, was hisnnonnegotiable position. For himself, he wanted a passport tonthe United States. Not granted. When friends...

241 CHRONICLESnNEITHER LAW NOR JUSTICE by Arnold BeichmannAfew weeks ago, I was listening to Radio Moscow’s JoenAdamov answering mail-in questions from his NorthnAmerican audience. One query came from somebody innNova Scotia: How important was Stalin to the Soviet victorynin World War II? Adamov’s answer went like this:nStalin’s contribution to the war effort had been nil....

Their eyes opened. That is, they were no longer innocent,nthey took on the body of flesh and then, the garden ofninnocence, they were out of it. They were then wayfarers innthe world, you see. So my feeling is — it seems so ridiculousnthat the beginning of the world is based on disobedience. Itnjust doesn’t make...

linguistic movement in philosophy early on was deeplynpositivistic and anti-Christian; it has changed and grownnsince.nI am an optimist philosophically, a Christian in Faith, andnthe two meet, and I rejoice. One of our tasks is to make ournlanguage more adequate by thought, distinction, reflection,ncaring, love.nHere is a poem: “Each Day,” by Sister Maura.nHer face thins almostnas...

W’-s^^’Qn18/CHROIVICLESnTIME by Jocelyn Tomkinn”I wanna go back and do it all overnBut I can’t go back I knownI wanna go back ’cause I’m feeling so muchnoldernBut I can’t go back I know”n— Popular song by Eddie Moneyn(1986, CBS Inc.)nMostly we take space for granted so long as we havenenough of it. But what about time?...

12 / CHRONICLESnVIEWSnCHARITY BEGINS AT HOMEnby Allan CarlsonnAlice Roosevelt Longworth, when she was asked hernopinion of her cousin Franklin D. Roosevelt, describednhim as “One third mush and two thirds Eleanor.” The samencould be said of FDR’s creation, the welfare state: one thirdnmush; two thirds Eleanor. The New Deal was revolutionarynin its scope, and like every...

family, it appears, is to defend natural, voluntary patterns ofndependency that are unrelated to, but threatened by, thenstate. At a deeper level, “social biology” reveals the family asnnatural, innate, and biologically derived—an institution thatncan generate powerful emotional and economic forces thatndefy the social engineers. Indeed, the family still survivesntoday because of that power: through its...

20 / CHRONICLESnAN OBSOLETE CONGRESSnby Stan Langland and Fred Westn^ ^ T T ere, sir, the people govern,” said Alexander Hamil-nJL JL ton in 1788, as he argued for the direct election ofnmembers to the proposed U.S. House of Representatives.n”Here they act by their immediate representatives.” Anworking democratic republic was not a new idea, but...

22 / CHRONICLESnwell as policies have consequences.nBut how well have we learned? After 200 years we mightndo well to remind ourselves that we still are engaged in thengreat democratic experiment and that there is no guaranteenof success. Our present perception of domestic disarray andnforeign policy confusion can lead to loss of public faith andnthen failure...

VIEWSnLEARNING GOODNESS by James Bond StockdalenWhy ]bstern Civ Is the Best Refuge innAdversitynIf is ironic that the thoughts of this essay, extracted from ancommencement address I gave at Claremont McKennanCollege in the spring of 1987, celebrate an old StanfordnUniversity tradition of submerging all students in thenclassical thought of the West as a precondition to graduation,nno...

121 CHRONICLESndoor—that sole point of contact we had with our civilization,nthat lovely intricate human thing we had nevernseen — in terms of love in the highest sense. By laterncomparing notes with others, I found I was not alone innbecoming so noble and righteous in that solitude that I couldnhardly stand myself. People would willingly absorb...