in Sand County Almanac to think of the land not as ancommodity but as a community, he intended to remind usnthat there were other hves than the human at stake. Just asnour predecessors were slowly brought to think that “natives”nwere not only more or less valuable resources, but fellownmembers of the community of rational decision-makers,...

Morality or ethics requires free will and a standard ofnvalue. Philosophers have debated these issues for as long asnwe have been aware of them, and they will continue to donso. But this does not mean there is no answer, only thatnanswers are not easy or uncontroversial.nAs far as the issue of free will is concerned,...

but an effort to provoke further deliberation and a highernconsensus. It trusted in the consent of the governed, that is,nin the people, to find the right answers, provided the actionnof a mere majority, which might be a temporary manifestationnof selfish combinations, could be suspendednlong enough to bring into play the higher consensus ofncommunities.nReflect upon the...

Always and eeryvhere, even among the braestnpeoples, the majority are spiritual cowards. . . .nGovernment by suffrage, however, is possible onlynwhen the conictions of men have ceased to benital to them. As long as there is a minoritynwhich would rather die than continue in a lie,nthere is a further court from which there is nonappeal....

racy in a speech made in Paris five years ago: “I thereforenthink that the present dialog about a future democracy innRussia is simply idle dispute; and that freedom will come tonour country before democracy; if we will be able to achievenfreedom we will then decide which system we will have innthe future, but that time...

the gratification of certain human appetites (the desire tonhave unhmited sexual fun without any of the responsibihtiesnnature has imposed). Bernhard Goetz, whatever hisnlawyers may tell us, was probably less mohvated by fear fornhis wallet or dread of the pain of being beaten up again thannby a desire to reassert his own dignity by standing up...

his expense, but Burgess will be able tonproduce entertaining books almost atnwill simply by shuttling this flatulentnfigure about the globe and allowingnhim to say what he sees. Not thengrandest of ambitions, but Burgess isnconserving his ambition for othernbooks.nIf Burgess treats his literary typesnwith something less than full Christiannsympathy, William Golding, in ThenPaper Men, is positively...

and saved Poland from foreign domination.nDecorated by the Polish government,nde Gaulle evidently regardednPoland as an exception to the perfidiousngeneral run of foreign countries.nHe condemned the Yalta settlementnfrom the beginning and, as late asn1967, visited Gdansk and said, “Thenobstacles that you think are insurmountablentoday, you will without anyndoubt surmount them. You know whatnI mean.” Poland too...

ary” for obtusely assuming that farmersnare invariably “yokels and provincialnboors.” Later he asserts that he has “nondesire to be one of the elect draggingnthe masses by force to Utopia”; and hensuggests—quite daringly, given hisnresidence in Berkeley and the tempernof those times—that “youth broughtnup in affluence, masquerading in beggars’nclothing and revolutionary ideas,ncommands less of my respect...

Ardrey or Desmond Morris. A fewnyears back a prominent conservativenorganization held a discussion of “thennew synthesis.” Few people in thenaudience seemed to understand thensocial and political relevance of thendebate.nTwo recent books illustrate bothnwhat sociobiology is and why it makesnso many academics see red: The ExtendednPhenotype by Oxford zoologistnRichard Dawkins; and Not in OurnGenes by geneticist...

equations are made there is a quality of understandingnreserved for the Soviet side and a respectful appreciation ofnthe Soviet concern with security.nOn closer inspection the equation of the Superpowersnreveals peculiar double standards. Peace activists and leftwingnintellectuals who are extremely judgmental aboutnAmerican policy claim that they expect more of the U.S.nBut, one may ask, if they...

To crawl in her own blood, and gonscot-free;nThe night can sweat with terror as beforenWe pieced our thoughts intonphilosophy,nAnd planned to bring the world underna rule,nVf^o are but weasels fighting inahole.nThis is much less decorous than “ThenSecond Coming,” and much less likely tonappear in the Times as an authorizedncommentary on the human self. It isnmuch...

idealism and good deeds that saw blaclisnfreed, poverty rediscovered, womennawakened, sexual inhibitions cast oflF, anwar machine foiled, and an evil presidentntoppled.nIt profits one little to decry thenmythmaking process; the left will havenits myths and the flood of memoirs,nnovels, journalistic accounts, andnpseudo-histories of the 60’s will notnrecede until the left has either exhaustednitself in an orgy...

does become pregnant and the novelnends with an explosion ofblood from thenSorcerer’s bed which presumably signalsnthe birth.n1 he Sorcerer is not simply a run-ofthe-millnvillain. His gustatory pleasuresninclude eating newborn infants servednwith apples in their mouths and havingnhis eunuch aide urinate in his mouth. Henhas a penchant for dismemberment. Hensaves a sawed-ofif foot as a trophy,...

the way that he is pure invention and hernchoices of incident and characterizationnare sometimes arbitrary. And by thensame token, it is difficult to take seriouslynthe love interest in the story or the plightnof the victimized people and their hopesnforthefiiture.nIn short, Valenzuela tries to have itnboth ways. Under the guise of seriousnliterary treatment of the social-politicalnproblems...

him. He is certain that his file blocked hisnappointment as a Foreign Service officernwhen he sought such a position on onenoccasion after his initial refusal; hensuspects strongly that it prevented himnfrom obtaining a position as FCC commissionernunder John Kennedy, and maynhave contributed to his Mure to obtainnFulbright appointments in 1974 andn1978; and he believes that...

seem no more egregious than the liesnand distortions made by the RooseveltnAdministration during and just prior tonWorld War II. Finally, it was not the elannof the North Vietnamese that in the endnenabled them to prevail, but the fact thatnthey were heavily armed by the SovietnUnion.n1 he lesson drawn from Vietnam,nwhich serves as the guiding light...

While at this juncture of history,nAmerican power has declined dramaticallynto the point where survival itself isnnow in question, it is not apparent thatnthis calamity has been unwelcome to thenideological agenda of the European andnAmerican Left. This is not to say that theynconsciously desire the destruction of thenWest: one of their main problems is thenfailure to...

no more “complicated.” It is mereh^ thenCinderella ston’ retooled to accommodatena radicall)- feminist—W’alker wouldnsay “womanisf—slant. Celie. its centr;ilnfigure, is a poor black housevvtfe li”ing innrtiral Georgia during the 1930’s who isnsurrounded not b}- ugly, invidiousnsisters, but by :issorted “no-count” mdesnwho are utterly devoid of intelligencenand sensitivity. Her stepson, for example,nlikes to say “tlie wife spose...

writes that literature “values man byndescribing him”—a remark that smoothlynmediates berw’een literan’ realism andnconcern for morality. The men andnwomen described here inhabit life’snmargins. Retired, poor, grieving, theyn”suffer from [their] health,” as one ofnthem puts it, aphr-ase tliat makes “health”nsynonymous with being sick. Their ‘ulnerabilit)’nallows xMalamud to illustratenthe moral themes that fascinate him:ncharity, guilt, love, and...

rians—H.A.L. Fisher and Alan Bullocknalso espoused it. Its logical implication isnthat there is no meaning in histor)- andnno purpose in stud}-ing it. There isnneither progress nor decline, neither anpattern of lessons nor a tradition ofnconduct, and human thought and actionnhave no significant consequences. “Entertainment”nis the only intelhgiblenjustification for studying history sonconceived, although most normalnpeople would...

3.r6 notnout of fashion,nDuring these times, Chronicles ofnCulture remains based on the proposintion that ideas, attitudes, morals andnmanners still matter—even in anworld that takes itself too seriouslynat 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 virtuenAnd that...

fused to perform abortions! Tlie messagenis clear; the rights of some peoplendesen-e both protection and extention.nAs for others…nin effect, what emerges is an Orwelliannconcept of freedom; language isndistorted to give meanings to words thatncould not be found in any dictionary. Fornexample, there is a long tale about thenwoes homosexuals have experienced.nSurely they should be given...

commands attention. For years now.nGreene has been promoting a simplenidea: replace all categorical incomentransfer programs with lump-sum pa)-mentsnin cold, h:ird cash. In this book, hencalls the payment a Guaranteed IncomenSupplement. It resembles Friedman’snnegative income tax and the ill-starrednNixon Family Assistance Plan, Greenenthinks that by cashing-out and adjustingnbenefit amounts, we (the body politic)ncould eliminate the morass...

Mayne’s liberal slant is also apparent innhis analysis of the cause of WesternnEtirope’s brilliant postwar economicnachievement. He attributes this successnto go-ernment planning and welfarenpolicies, i-idh’ contrasting theneconomic stagnation of the allegedlynlaissez-faire interwar economics s’ithnthe prosperit}- of the postwar plannednwelfare states. This comparison, however,nis specious since the interwarnEuropean economies were tar from free.nThe cartelized economies of...

the Gulf Coast of Florida with drugs innthe holds of their ships. That is wherenthe similarities cease. Walker, through angritty story, proves himself to be sensitivenand sensible, aware of the little thingsnthat make up quotidian existence and ofnthe values that help give that existencenspirit and reason. Norman, for all that henoflfers in prose that is...

biographies that lie in the creations ofnthe artists themselves, intellectual andnspiritual records of their physical andnexistential histories. The best formalnbiographies, as well, must try to illuminatenthat more profound life with thenconflicts and often humdrum details ofnday-to-day existence. If the spate of recentnliterary biographies is any indication,nthe taking stock has begun.nIn that pantheon mentioned above,nfew major...

Albee, most critics—^with what oftennamounts to reverential unanimity—agree,nis a writer very much concerned withnlanguage. This can be discerned fromnEdward Albee: An Interview and Essays,nedited by Julian N. Wasserman. Furthermore,nthe consensus seems to be thatnAlbee’s concern for things linguistic andnepistemological is happily redoundingnto the benefit of us all, if not alwaysnaesthetically, then at least ethically. Albee,namong...

courageous woman” and her poetry asn”a triumphant event in our literature.”nStill, the spectacle of Sexton’s emotionalnbreakdown and suicide is not an attractivenone. Because the artists who formulatednOates’s credo envisioned only “thisnworld … rendered in all its detail, withnno more revulsion for the contradictory,nthe obscene, the vulgar, the unspeakable,nthan any anthropologist or chemist mightnfeel confronted with...

Vidal has been running away from thenworld for some time, as evidenced bynhis historical fantasies. This retreat fromnreality is symptomatic of something it isnhard to put a name to, a sort of rottennessnand bad faith that afflicts too many writersnand intellectuals. Never mind theirnmediocre talents and inadequate education—^thosenare remediable deficiencies.nWhat cannot be remedied is their...

entrapment sap the human spirit. Perhapsna sign of the hunger for truth, peoplenavidly buy and carry the newspaper, yetnnobody reads the Trybuna Ludu, thenofficial Party organ and a conduit of programmaticnunreality. More serious is thengnawing sense of futility surroundingnopposition to the regime. Such resistance,na moral necessity, enjoys some obscurendegree of toleration; indeed, an oppositionnof some...

in broad strokes. First, he insists thatnthere are no historical inevitabilities.nFor example, he argues that the collapsenof the British Empire was not preordained.nRather, it fell primarily becausenthere was no longer “the will to keepnthis elaborate structure functioning.”nSimilarly, in surveying the “watershednyear” of 1941—“From which mankindnhas descended into its present predicament”—Johnsonnemphasizes the decisivenrole played by individual...

serve the naturalness of his cutting hencuts erratically. Likewise, art is life in thenmoment of creation and must resist thenpull of the intellect if it is to maintain itsngrasp of life.nTo reach and then hold that level ofnpurity in art is nearly impossible. It wouldnmean that each artistic creation couldnbe observed only once, for on...

Lenin and Stalin. His posture was notnunlike that of John Foster Dulles, whonused to boast of keeping a copy ofnStalin’s Problems of Leninism on hisndesk, as though that were a key to whatnwas happening in Moscow. I mustnconfess that I have never read Problemsnof Leninism and never expectnto.nIf Salisbury had bothered to readPra&lemsnof Leninism, he...

maiden,” he danced “the cha-cha-chanwith a muscular Capriot.”nThe passengers on Narcisst4s representna circle of fools who embody the collectivenfollies of mankind, a technique Sagannhas clumsily borrowed from a long traditionnbeginning with Sebastian Brant’snDas Natrenschiff (The Ship of Fools,n1494) down to Katherine Anne Porter’snShip of Fools (1962). There is an agingnconductor for wiiom sex is just...