philosophers and balladeers perceivednin crime the impulse of righteous protest—benit against injustice, or boredom.nor the constraints of civilization. Nationalnmagazines began to speculatenthat there must be some justification innequating past centuries of racial andnethnic abuses with the current robberynand murder in the streets. The sensationalisticnvoyeurism of the media conferredna celebrity badge on any act ofneven the cruelest bestiality: if a teenagengirl’s forcible defloration with a bottlenis shown to an audience of millions,neven with a “didactic ” purpose, one cannbe certain that the event will be reproducednsomewhere, sometime, by someone.nLiberalism reveled in an orgy ofnacceptable permission, but instead ofnbreeding virtue, it disintegrated society’snnatural propensity to condemn, punish,nand combat evildoing by every moralnand legal means at its disposal. But ournfeelings about this liberal ethos seemntrite to Mr. Silberman and his critic;nthey both suspire in unison: Each societynhas the crime it deserves, and oursnis a very, very, very bad society. Butneven Professor Hughes mentions thatnSaiazar’s Portugal was virtually crimeless.nWas it a better society than ours.’nIt certainly was poorer, and not liberalnat all.nIs it true, therefore, that somennoniiberal social moods and attitudesnmay bring better solutions than thenliberal regulatory recipes.’ And please,ngentlemen, don’t give us your usualnbombast about how it is better to benfree than to purify Central Park bynforce! At least not before you confrontnyour freedom principle with the revenantsnof those stabbed to death becausenthey had no more than a dollar billnduring the neighborhood’s routine mugging.nWe do not pretend to know thenall-encompassing solution, but it seemsnto us unlikely that there’s no linkagenbetween the crime wave and such cheapnliberal homilies as the one expressednby a certain Mr. Philip Kaufman, anradical film director, who. recentlyninterviewed in the Chicago Tribune.nmoralizes:nin some cases, when vou researchnthe legendarv outlaws, you find thatnthey were tighting against an unfeelingnsocietv . . . .Movie criminals typicallynhave more life than the townspeoplenwho usually have had the lifendrained out of them bv conforming tona faceless society … I think peoplenwant to escape from normality. Everyonenrecognizes the growing stagnancynthat’s around.”nand then proceeds with making moviesnthat carry this “morality” to the generationalnsurplus of teenagers. While thenChicago Tribune goes into raptures:n’It is refreshing to talk to a sociallyncommitted filmmaker like Kaufman.”nThe Virtue of ModestynNot long ago, the New York Timesn—a fussy organ when it comes to printingnletters to the editor—demurelynprinted the following missive from ancertain Arthur C. Holden, of Washington,nConnecticut.n”To the Editor:nDuring the long period when thenTimes went unpublished, it seemednthat the character of public opinionnsuffered a decline. Perhaps we havennot adequately recognized how thisnwhole nation depends upon the intellectualnstimulus that is furnished bynNew York’s leading newspaper.nThe weakness of the thinking that hasnbeen bandied about while the Timesnwas muzzled is typified by the growingnconfusion and apparent helplessnessnrespecting inflation.”nHow strange! We always suspectednthat it was the overwhelming power ofnthe New York Times’ socioeconomicnthought which was among the mainncauses of inflation. And we would considernit in poor taste, if not an epistemologicalnembarrassment to depend uponnthe rme.r’ intellectual stimulus innforming our opinions. Which probablynnnmakes us. in the eyes of the gentlemannfrom Connecticut, not a part of then”whole” nation.nA Too Easy EquationnGunther Grass, a ponderous Germannwriter who. in his prose, practices morosengrotesqueries and believes them to benexercises in irony (the overall effect isnquite boring), gave an interview to ThenNew Republic, which listened to hisnwords with awe. We read there:n”Why is no one (in Amencal discussingnVietnam anvmoreP The dangernis vou Will lose this war a second timen—once militarily, then psycholoaical-nIv. After a lost war. vou have a chancento win it again in another way if younhave courage enough to be sad aboutnit, to be pushed by it, and not to hidenit after a short while. Germany afternWorld ‘War II wanted to forget too.nBut whenever the wound tried tonclose, the writers opened it —too earlynto forget, we said.”nIt’s preposterous to say there’s nondiscussion of Vietnam in America: itnobviously still goes on. but, what’snmore important, it went on with a fiercenpassion during the war—a political andncultural phenomenon that may appearnmythical in its libertarian spirit to anGerman. Furthermore, Mr. Grass seemsnto be saying here that what Americansndid in ‘Vietnam should be put into thensame category of moral and psychologicalninterpretation as the German coldbloodednmurder (not killing in action)nof circa 15 million people in WorldnWar II. In other words: that the Americansnwant to forget the same thing thatnthe Germans wanted to forget, butnconscience-stricken authors like Grassnhave not let them. This, to our mind,nis a pretty insolent statement, one whichntransfers Mr. Grass from a category ofnsensitivity of mind and soul into thencategory of particular obtuseness ofnmind and soul. Once upon a time, thisnspiritual tactlessness used to be callednTeutonic, and we thought it an attributeniS5nChronicles of Culturen