Frank Brownlow’s post of a few days ago has made me want to continue the discussion it began, but the truth is, it ain’t simple. I’m at a disadvantage, because Dr. Brownlow’s is an eagle’s eye view of the paradox of culture under totalitarianism, whereas what I want to respond with is a worm’s eye view of the underlying evidentiary base
In the 50s and 60s both sides, left and right offered some resistance to the triumph of what we can call, in contrast to the true, the good, and the beautiful, the untrue, the bad, and the ugly. Oddly enough, the liberal-left put up a surprisingly good fight, something hard to believe these days when NPR punctuates its news broadcasts with rap music.
It took a confluence of two lies, the capitalist lie and the Marxist lie, to produce the total mendacity we know that neither system achieved by itself.
If any of Trump’s supporters thought they were voting to restore they old American Republic, this is a time for bitter repentance. If they merely hoped they would get someone to play the man, they still have reason to hope that on balance they did the right thing.
Early specialization has eliminated the common culture that could produce a D’ Arcy Thompson or an Anthony Powell or a Douglas Young, and we are left with an intellectual life dominated by trained savages who can do their job, understand (perhaps) some little corner of the universe (and, in the case, of cosmologists, that corner is very tiny, indeed!), but they cannot integrate what they have learned into a larger picture. Read popular books by scientists, and whenever they step outside their field of specialization, they either fall back on the platitudes of the Durants or, what is worse, rely...
The folly of opinions–and the people who have them. This is a revised version of the original essay that was published in somewhat truncated form in September, 2006.
The late Charley Reese got the gun issue right: “Some might say the Second Amendment is obsolete. Our own century shows us that it is not. Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Fidel Castro, Pol Pot and Mao all saw to it that people were disarmed prior to commencing their reigns of terror and tyranny. God forbid, but Americans, too, could find themselves some day having to choose between submission or resistance to a tyrant.”
California remains a land of increasing contradictions. Consider how California’s dominant Democratic politicians are resisting federal immigration laws.
Ave Maria! maiden mild!
Listen to a maiden’s prayer!
Thou canst hear though from the wild,
Thou canst save amid despair.
At morn — at noon — at twilight dim —
Maria! thou hast heard my hymn!
In joy and woe — in good and ill —
Mother of God, be with me still!
