34 I CHRONICLESntheir culture — their food, their JohnnDeere caps, their pickups. But theirntrucks are made in Japan and thosencaps come from Taiwan.” Paul Hogan’snsuccess in “Crocodile” Dundeenwas anomalous and perhaps portentous:nthe American public reached tonthe Antipodes for a retread of GarynCooper, once so close to home.nI will surrender the books of Kirbyn(even Reed) in exchange for a parolento the reality one distorts and the otherndescribes. I take with me the reassuranceninspired by Reed’s quotationnfrom a New York intellectual: “I cannnever encounter a white Southernernwithout feeling a murderousness passnbetween us. As though, whatever hisnpersonal instincts, his ethnic historynpredisposes him to regard castrationnand rape as his prerogatives.” This innturn will forever remind me of anothernquotation of Reed’s — from JuniornSamples: “I don’t know nothin’, but Insuspect a lot of things.”nHeroes Wantednby Allan C. CarlsonnA World Without Heroes: ThenModern Tragedy by GeorgenRoche, Hillsdale, MI: HillsdalenGoUege Press; $12.95.nIn that bloated morass called Americannhigher education, only a few institutionsnremain that are committed to thenclassical virtues and to learning as anninduction into Western civilization.nHillsdale College is counted amongnthat number.nCredit for holding that course goesnto George Roche, who as the institution’snpresident has labored to defendnthe heritage of the Western world outnof an unlikely corner of Michigan, in andeeply troubled time. While most ofnhis college peers have been transformedninto “chief executive officers”nmanaging bureaucratic empires andnbuying off faculty favorites, Roche hasnheld to an older model of academicnleadership. Assuming the mantle ofnmoral philosopher, Roche speaks to hisncommunity of scholars and his nationnas learned analyst and wise prophet.nHis new book, A World WithoutnHeroes, is that rarest of late-20thcenturynphenomena: a moral essay.nWhere Allan Bloom’s The Closing ofnthe American Mind looks to the corruptionnof philosophy as the cause ofnour woes, Roche digs deeper andnchronicles the disease of the modernnsoul. The result is not for the faint ofnheart. The author describes our timenas a war of the withered and sicknagainst all that is whole and beautiful.nWhile the Soviet Union celebrates thenmailed fist, Roche sees the UnitednStates worshiping the raised phallus.nMoral relativity has swept over ourncivilization, he continues, leaving in itsnwake a desperate struggle betweennChristianity and secularity. Indeed, thenlatter seems to be winning. America’snmawkish “pursuit of happiness,”nRoche concludes, has led to a searchnfor cheap thrills, an egoistic materialismnthat combines corruption of ournlanguage, ruin of our art, and generalnfailure of our educational structures.nRoche even dismisses the “phantom”nof relatively high church attendance,nnoting that many denominations arenrun by and for those who do notnworship.nAbove all, the author laments thenmodern loss of the heroic, the absencenof individuals nurtured by a healthyncommunity within an objective moralnorder, the disappearance of personsnwho at risk of pain or death commitnselfless acts in the name of truth.nToday, he says, America is dominatednby the antiheroic and its great transmitters:nthe electronic media, the post-nChristian churches, and the schools.nWhile it is possible to quibble on thenmargins of his argument, Roche’snoverall indictment is powerful and unnerving.nInto our veil of tears, though, Rochendoes deliver hope. In crafting his argument,nfor example, he utilizes theninsights of a fairly impressive numbernof 20th-century thinkers — Orwell,nLewis, Chambers, Muggeridge, Weaver,nChesterton — suggesting that, atnleast in brilliant dissent, the WesternnChristian legacy survives. He takesnheart from the growing recognitionnthat true physical science is a creaturenborn out of Christianity, not against it,nand that religion and scientific truthnclaims show signs of again being one,nthrough a rediscovery of the naturalnlaw. Roche also describes a great seanchange happening in America, as newngenerations commit themselves to thenrevivification of a civilization.nnnThe author labels this volume ann”enchiridion,” a small “moral” daggernbequeathed to his own children tonprotect them “from the swarmingnnight.” We are fortunate that he hasnchosen to share it beyond his family,nfor George Roche’s own example testifiesnthat our land has not yet fullynsuccumbed to the dismal forces of thenantiheroic.nAllan C. Carlson is president of ThenRockford Institute.nThe First Ring ofnHostilitynby Michael WardernMoscow 2042 by Vladimir Voinovich,nNew York: Harcourt BracenJovanovich; $16.95.nCows sacred, evil, and venal are shotnby Vladimir Voinovich in this satiricnlook at the Soviet Union that reads likena combination “Ivan in Wonderland”nand Zamiatin’s WE. The hero ofnMoscow 2042, like Voinovich, is anSoviet emigre writer living in WestnGermany. Our protagonist, VitalynKartsev, takes a 30-day trip by airplanenback to a Moscow 60 years in thenfuture.nUpon landing at the airport he seesnthe familiar huge portraits of Marx,nEngels, and Lenin, but a Jesus in anbusiness suit has joined this pantheonnof gods. We gradually learn that thenCommunist Reformed Church hasntaken a prominent role in the regimenin return for switching to straightforwardnatheism — ceremonies, rituals,nand religious garb are all retained.nKartsev is given all the respect anliterary “classic” deserves even thoughnhis books are not published, their titlesnare never mentioned, and passages arennever quoted. Past and future, fictionnand fact begin to blur as we learn ofnthe intense interest the all-powerfulnEditorial Commission has in convincingnthe “living classic” Kartsev to revisenone of his previous works, Moscown2042.nAfter reading his book, which he hasnnot yet written, Vitaly Kartsev is askednto delete all references to Sim SimychnKarnavalov. Sim — a devastating caricaturenof Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn —ndesires to return to Moscow from then
January 1975July 26, 2022By The Archive
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