the methodological debates in which Inhad grown up as a student. In brief,nthere was a world in which this othernworld in which I had grown up wasnintellectually, morally, and spirituallynirrelevant.”nOne can see that Voegelin had angenuine affection for the America thatnuniquely reflected this Christian andnclassical culture: the commonsensenAmerica unpolluted by ideology. Fornthis reason, he was far more at home innthe South than the Northeast. Indeed,nduring his teaching stint at Bennington,nshortly after his emigration to thenUnited States in 1938, he observednthat the “leftist element” — “Communistsnamong the faculty and still morenamong the students” — had created ann”environment … no more to myntaste than the National Socialist environmentnthat I just had left.” He isnoutspoken about “the ideological corruptionnof the East Coast” that henobserved; a corruption so profoundnthat some students would on occasionn”betray the behavioral characteristics ofntotalitarian aggressiveness.” By contrast,nhe found the students at LSU,nwhere he taught from 1942 to 1958, tonbe refreshingly “open-minded.” Theyn”did not have the knowledge onenwould expect of European students,”nbut they nevertheless “had . . . somethingnthat the European, especially thenGerman, students usually lack — a traditionnof common-sense culture.”nVoegelin’s contempt for ideologynand ideologists is manifest in thesenpages, and therefore it seems the heightnof irony that various critics have accusednhim of being an ideologue, ancaptive of one “ism” or another—nfrom communism to Nazism and justnabout everything in between. Thencharges, of course, are absurd. Theynare mindless retaliations leveled againstnhim, we may surmise, because he wasnsuch an articulate and trenchant criticnof the dominant intellectual climate innthe academic world, particularly at ournmost prestigious universities. He speaksnof “a massive social force of aggressive,nintellectual dishonesty that penetratesnthe academic world”; of a “willfulndivorce from reality” that pervades ourninstitutions of higher learning andnposes a potential threat to democraticngovernment.nVoegelin, at the end of the Vietnamnera, could speak of a “contemporarynspiritual turmoil” that produced a “dividednsociety” that would, in duencourse, heal. This division, he felt,ncould be traced to influences on thenintellectual community alien to thenAmerican political tradition. In thisnvein, he remarks upon the animosity ofnFrench and German intellectuals towardsnAmerica: “such a revolution [asnAmerica’s] should not be successfulnbecause the intellectuals want to makena revolution of their own in the traditionnof the French destruction ofncultural order.”nReflections, viewed as a whole, suggestsnthat the distance between thencommonsense America and its intellectualncommunity is much wider andndeeper than even Voegelin pictures it.nThat perhaps the most profound thinkernof this century was, on the onenhand, treated in a manner rangingnfrom indifference to hostility by thenmajor part of the intellectual communitynand, on the other, so much admirednand appreciated by his studentsnat LSU — the products of a tradition asnyet uncorrupted by ideology —is oneninteresting measure of that gulf.nGeorge Carey is a professor ofngovernment at Georgetown University.nLost Horizonnby Mark FalcoffnFriends of Promise:nCyril Connollynand the World of Horizonnby Michael SeldennNew York: Harper & Row;n254 pp., $24.95nThe 50th anniversary of the outbreaknof World War II has occasionednan outpouring of nostalgic literaturenin Great Britain. The elegiac notenmay be appropriate: the year 1939 was,nafter all, a great point of rupture. Outnwent big houses, servants, elegant restaurants,nand high fashion; in camenuniversal military service, rationing,ngovernment canteens (euphemisticallynnamed “British restaurants”), and angeneral leveling-down of all personal,neconomic, and cultural styles. This wasnexactly the moment that two determinednEnglishmen chose for launchingnnna highbrow review of arts and letters.nThe magazine was Horizon, and MichaelnSelden, a professor of English atnIndiana State University, tells its storynin Friends of Promise.nThe men were Cyril Connolly, antalented literary journalist who up tillnthen had never quite discovered hisnmetier, and Peter Watson, a wealthy artncollector and patron now separatednfrom his beloved Paris and lookingnaround for a way to recapture the spiritnof Bohemia. Horizon was obviouslynthe ideal vehicle for both. There wasnno competition for what they set out tondo — indeed, several major literary reviews,nincluding T.S. Eliot’s Criterion,nclosed down in the first weeks of thenwar. Nor could the challenge havenbeen greater: to justify high culture innwartime, at a time when anythingn”highbrow” ran the risk of being labeledn”escapist.” As Selden puts itncompactly, “At Horizon it was Connolly’snself-appointed duty to remindnthe country that the survival of itsnculture was threatened as much bynphilistines at home as by hostile armiesnoverseas.”nWhat an unlikely pair. The onlynthing Connolly and Watson had inncommon was self-indulgence. Connollynpreferred beautiful women, expensivenfood and wine, and when hentraveled, first-class accommodations.nHe continually lived beyond hisnmeans, usually by collecting advancesnon books he never wrote. (The Americannpublisher Cass Canfield oncencalled him “one of the most charminglyndevious literary genflemen not actuallynbehind bars.”) Watson’s taste wasnfor a luxury wholly prohibited in thosendays by British law — young men. Henliked them American, predatory, andnself-destructive, and he was rarely disappointednin his finds. Around thesentwo characters revolved a group ofndevoted, self-effacing women litterateurs,nincluding Sonia Browning (“thenEuston Road Venus”), who marriednGeorge Orwell on his deathbed, andnLys Lubbock, who shared Connolly’snflat, bed, and eventually his name (shenchanged it by deed poll, a futile gesturenwhich did not lead to marriage). WithoutnBrowning and Lubbock/Connollynthere would have been no Horizon atnall, since the editor had a tendency tonfritter away his time, often outside thenoffice.nFEBRUARY 1990/37n