Author: Thomas Fleming

Each generation does what it can in its own time and in its own way.  Fundamental principles—political as well as moral—do not change, but the challenges that require a political response are always changing.  There is little point in quarreling with the conservatives who defined themselves almost exclusively by their opposition to Communism, an entirely evil political doctrine implemented and reinforced by actions and policies that were equally evil.  Nonetheless, whatever their virtues might have been, those defenders of the New Deal status quo had little to say of any use to people of the year 1990, and their attitudes, in...

From almost the day of Reagan’s election, many self-described conservatives were having serious doubts about the usefulness—and sincerity—of the so-called movement and the institutions and publications that were its most public face. Skepticism developed into cynicism and disgust as a set of leftist opportunists—“so-called neoconservatives”—waged a blitzkrieg campaign to take over the movement.  When conservative writers and activists welcomed the newcomers as sincere and talented, the reaction of sensible people should have been amused incredulity.  

I finished rereading The Man in the High Castle.  I found the character development and plotting a bit muddled and, while I had remembered a subtle metaphysic that would justify and make interesting the alternate time track, it was not worked out in the book, though, judging from Dick’s other books, he had developed a coherent theory in his mind.  My verdict:  Enjoyable, far from a waste of time, but needed a second or third revision. We’re continuing our rather spotty reading of Gibbon, but it is as great a pleasure as the previous times, perhaps even more because reading Gibbon’s...

Rochester was a Restoration rake, suicidal in his excesses, and excessive in his cynicism.  Much of his thought consists of the fag-ends of the French literature he picked up during the nightmare years of the regicidal commonwealth.  His deathbed conversion has done little to improve his general reputation, but I am tempted to compare him with other poets of despairing disbelief, Baudelaire and Lou Reed.  John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, might have said of himself, one of Lou Reed’s lines: “Some kinds of love are mistaken for vision.”  Please don’t go looking for the source of the line, because decent people should be offended.