"Writing is a skill, not a talent, and thus one's ability as a writer can be improved by thoughtful effort. The problem with some people is that they graduate college as good writers, experience early success on account of that, and thus never devote themselves diligently to the relentless quest for improvement that could make them great writers."
While those around him scrupulously obey the superficial social conventions of the age, Rhett scoffs at his own disrepute and brashly invites scandal, as when he shocks Atlanta society by bidding $150 for the honor of dancing with the recently widowed Scarlett. And while Ashley is torn by doubt, Rhett is the embodiment of decisive certainty. He has a way with the ladies, but Rhett is indisputably a man's man. When his blunt skepticism toward the South's prospects in the impending war enrages the touchy pride of his hosts in the drawing room at Twelve Oaks, Rhett is insulted by young Charles Hamilton, but declines the challenge. "I apologize again for all my shortcomings," Rhett says as he excuses himself. The hot-tempered Hamilton imputes this to cowardice -- "He refused to fight!" -- only to be informed by Ashley that Butler is a notoriously deadly duelist, "one of the best shots in the country." In an agrarian antebellum society obsessed with the noble ideals of ancient chivalry, Rhett's attitudes are shockingly modern. He is a calculating capitalist, shamelessly professing his pursuit of self-interest. When Scarlett reproaches him for doubting the Confederate cause, Butler memorably retorts, "I believe in Rhett Butler. He's the only cause I know." . . .
Read the whole scandalous thing, which doesn't shy away from the accusations of raaaaacism that plague Gone With The Wind today -- the 70th anniversary of the film's premiere in my native Atlanta.
"Some people see the film and see an independent woman's struggle and her ultimate resilience and another person sitting next to them will see a terrible story about sexual subjugation."
Although you need subjugating badly, Professor Verhoeven. That's what's wrong with you. You should be subjugated, and often, and by someone who knows how.
Rhett Butler's offenses to feminism are extreme -- and extremely ironic, considering that he was created by a quite modern career woman, Margaret Mitchell, who remains the best-selling female writer of all time. It's easy to imagine Rhett laughing at feminist accusations of misogyny, just as he would laugh at the accusation of racism.
I knew that there was fear out there, but I didn't comprehend the breadth of it.
As I told Juliette, there are both practical and emotional motives for this widespread fear. Practically, in the age of affirmative action and equal-opportunity employment law, the mere suspicion of "racism" can be a career-killer for anyone with ambitions of climbing the corporate ladder. Look at how Larry Summers' academic career was destroyed after he offended the feminists at Harvard, and then try to imagine what would have happened if he had similarly offended the racial grievance-mongers.
Vicious race hustlers who plague America's universities are a major reason an absurd flinch-reaction to the "racist" label is so commonplace among our educated elite. Just ask Sergio Gor what it was like when left-wingers at George Washington University perpetrated an anti-Muslim hate hoax against the campus chapter of Young America's Foundation. Or ask YAF's Jason Mattera about the reaction to his "whites-only scholarship" protest at Roger Williams University.
The cringing fearfulness Shelby Steele describes in his book White Guilt has to be "carefully taught" -- to borrow with obvious irony the famous lyrics from South Pacific -- and our educational system now teaches white guilt as fanatically as Nazi schools taught Aryan superiority in the 1930s.
Acknowledgement of racial guilt is now de rigueur among white bien-pensants who, if we may continue this impromptu French lesson, are required to prove themselves amis des noirs if they wish to preserve their amour propre.
Terrorized by the very real risk of denunciation and ostracism if they dispute the regnant racial orthodoxy, whites internalize this politically correct fear. As is often the case when fear is hidden in the heart, however, they seek to resolve the inevitable cognitive dissonance by projecting their inner angst onto scapegoats.
Whited Sepulchres In recent years I've noticed that those who most relentlessly charge others with racism are white people who, by pointing the accusing finger, seek to make a public display of their own colorblind virtue:
Not only am I not a racist, but I am such an enlightened and courageous crusader against racism as to be able to detect the hidden hate of my fellow whites and to expose and fearlessly denounce it. Admire me!
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.
"Whited sepulchres," indeed. They tithe the mint and cumin of racial self-righteousness, and when they make a proselyte, he is "twofold more the child of hell." (Sharmuta and Killgore Trout come to mind here.) They react with predictable fury toward anyone who calls them out for their pharisaical fraudulence, as the ugly reality of their dishonest hypocrisy contradicts the virtuous reputation they covet.
Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools
Speaking of making the most of such things, I once more wish to thank readers who have already hit the tip jar to help send me to Pasadena for Alabama's Jan. 7 national championship game. (Howdy, Texas A&M fans. Go Aggies!) Remember, we need to average $70 a day for the next three weeks to do this, so that perhaps I can pay chivalrous respect to Baldilocks (and also Little Miss Attila) in person.
Late Sunday, I was searching for a blog post that Jennifer Rubin wrote at Commentary about the Van Jones resignation. I had seen it at Ed Driscoll's blog and quoted it early Sunday morning. Then one of the commenters noted that the link had gone dead. Apparently -- for reasons unknown -- the Rubin post had been deleted.
Maybe I’m too touchy about this, but I’m profoundly disturbed by the idea of relocating intellectuals, especially Jewish intellectuals, so they can learn about real values. Isn’t that exactly what Stalin and Mao did? Is there any Maoist/Stalinist/Leninist idea that the American right hasn’t embraced.
This is the most perverse possible reading of my post, which had observed merely that:
Modern liberalism is predominantly an urban phenomenon;
American Jews are more likely to reside in urban areas; and
Therefore, if conservative Jews wish to ameliorate the prevalence of liberalism among Jews, they should think about ways to encourage more Jews to live in small towns in the Heartland.
Exactly how Balloon Juice views this mild suggestion as "Maoist/Stalinist/Leninist" defies explanation. Then again, the liberal thought-process generally defies explanation. By contrast, conservatiive thought is easily explained:
The simplest way to define conservatism is this: The belief that liberalism is wrong.
The great truths are simple truths. And the great errors are liberal errors. Speaking of liberals and errors, via Memeorandum, I find that the Balloon Juice thread is linked with a Newshoggers post about Max Blumenthal's new book, quoting this from a BuzzFlash review:
"Inspired by the work of psychologist Erich Fromm, who analyzed how the fear of freedom propels anxiety-ridden people into authoritarian settings, Blumenthal explains in a compelling narrative how a culture of personal crisis has defined the radical right."
'Cultural Marxism' and 'critical theory' are concepts developed by a group of German intellectuals, who, in 1923 in Germany, founded the Institute of Social Research at Frankfurt University. The Institute, modeled after the Marx-Engels Institute in Moscow, became known as the Frankfurt School. In 1933, when the Nazis came to power in Germany, the members of the Frankfurt School fled to the United States. . . . [Frankfurt School theorists sought a] 'revolution' [that] would be accomplished by fomenting a very quiet, subtle and slowly spreading 'cultural Marxism' which would apply to culture the principles of Karl Marx bolstered by the modern psychological tools of Sigmund Freud. Thus, 'cultural Marxism' became a marriage of Marx and Freud aimed at producing a 'quiet' revolution in the United States of America . . . The counter-culture revolution of the 1960s was set in motion and guided intellectually by the 'cultural Marxists' of the Frankfurt School -- Herbert Marcuse, Eric Fromm, Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Wilhelm Reich, and others.
Thus the discredited Marxist theories of the past are made the ideological template through which 21st-century "progressives" misunderstand the present. From atop my desk, I retrieve my yellowed and tattered old paperback edition of William F. Buckley Jr.'s Up From Liberalism (1961), from pages 78-79 of which I quote, in reference to the Frankfurt School's grandest project:
[O]ne needs no advanced degrees in clinical psychology and psychoanalytical theory in order to penetrate the fallacy of The Authoritarian Personality. Its thesis is very simply this: American conservatives (primarily members of the lower middle class) are the way they are politically because of marked tendencies to authoritarianism. The authors of the project began with the assumption that anyone who is opposed to the welfare state is likely to be "unenlightened" in his attitudes . . . These postulates are fed into a mill . . . to produce the stereotype: "the authoritarian personality."
Which is to say that Adorno, Fromm, Marcuse, et al., were recognized as transparent frauds 50 years ago, and yet we find that Fromm's smug little theory is made the inspirational basis for a "compelling narrative" -- compelling to whom? liberals, of course -- in 2009!
Remarkable, really, how the Left's erroneous presumptions haven't changed at all: If the social welfare state is synonymous with enlightenment, opponents of the welfare state must therefore be unenlightened. The only question remaining for the liberal theorist is to identify the variety of psychopathology that explains this (presumably irrational) opposition.
So it is that Max Blumenthal, who no doubt favors putting the federal government in control of America's health-care system, effectively nationalizing 1/7th of the economy, presumes to diagnose opponents of such policies as suffering from "the fear of freedom."
Well, two can play the armchair psychoanalyst game, and I hereby diagnose Max as suffering from diminished self-awareness and an underdeveloped appreciation for irony.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. When you point out how idiotically circular are the "intellectual" arguments that beguile liberals, their response is the same as it was a half-century ago. The finger is pointed at you and the furious shrieking is heard: "Fascist!"
Talk about your triumph of Western imperialism! Once the youth of the Islamic world discover the joys of hot-rodding, it's only a matter of time before they're chilling with some 40s, cranking up the subwoofers and telling the radical clerics, "Jihad? Dude, that's like so 2001."
What next? Mud-bogging in Yemen? Motocross in Damascus? Jet-skis in the Persian Gulf? Right now, there's probably some Iranian teenagers risking the wrath of the mullahs by skating a half-pipe in the suburbs of Tehran and sharing bootleg Tony Hawk videos with their homies.
It rotates. It has blinking lights, a disco ball, and a pole. And it's probably one of the wrongest toys you can give to any girl.
"Probably"? One hesitates to ask what could possibly be worse. I'm sure the manufacturers will soon be offering a stripper accessory kit -- tramp-stamp tattoo stickers, clip-on belly-button ring, garter with play-money, mint-flavored candy Newports -- but then again, there's always the nipple-tassle T-shirt for girls.
It is so sad society is going down the toilet and dragging the innocence of our youth along with it.
This story's getting a "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot" reaction on Twitter. Last night I blogged about evidence for the existence of God. And that's about the only hope left.
UPDATE II: Fisherville Mike says, "Glad I have boys." Yeah, Mike, but what if your son brings one of these tramps home? Meanwhile, Cranky Cons says:
Despite having breast implants, both Kendra Wilkinson and Kourtney Kardashian still want to breastfeed, the moms-to-be tell the new issue of Us Weekly . . .
Hi everyone! Check out my Us Weekly cover and feature with Kourtney Kardashian. Find out all the details about our pregnancies . . . from cravings, to body changes to feelings about our deliveries!!!!! It was such a fun shoot to do, especially since Kourtney is going through all the same changes as I am. We’re due only two days apart!
What do we call this genre? "Trashosphere"? "Bimbosphere"? At any rate, in addition to the grammatical evidence of mental deficiency -- five, count 'em, five exclamation marks -- Kendra also ends her blog post with a smiley face :D
"I definitely thought about it long and hard, about if I wanted to keep the baby or not . . . I do think every woman should have the right to do what they want, but I don't think it's talked through enough. I can't even tell you how many people just say, 'Oh, get an abortion.' Like it's not a big deal." Scott Disick, the baby's 26-year-old father, was supportive either way. . . . "He said, 'I really want you to keep it, but I will support you whatever you decide to do.'"
Some advice for Courtney:
If you're hanging out with people who casually recommend abortion, you're hanging around bad people.
Speaking of bad people, the kind of guy who considers it a coin toss whether you abort his child (a) is a scumbag and (b) doesn't actually love you anyway.
Please see the Koestler quote at the top of the page.
That's just it. you see. I'm always afraid to say, "It can't get worse than that," because it always does. Because, as you see, "Girls Gone Wild" grow up to be trashy "Moms Gone Wild," and their daughters aspire to follow mom's 4-inch-heeled footsteps down the strip-club runway. (Q. What does a trailer-trash girl get for her 18th birthday? A:Chlamydia!)
In 1998, when Kendra Wilkinson was in eighth grade, parents were being forced to explain the Monica Lewinsky news to their children. And now . . .
Once the Hugh Hefner lifestyle becomes a reality-TV series, and once every no-talent bimbo in the world is trying to get her own reality-TV series . . . well, we're probably just a few years away from Nickelodeon spinning off its own "adult" cable channel featuring the hit series, "The Girls of North Las Vegas Middle School."
UPDATE V: Thanks to commenter Tate for reading far enough into that People magazine interview with Courtney Kardashian to find that the mother-to-be would have been another woman victimized by abortion if she hadn't found some pro-life Web sites:
"I was just sitting there crying, thinking, 'I can’t do that,'" she says. "And I felt in my body, this is meant to be. God does things for a reason, and I just felt like it was the right thing that was happening in my life." (Emphasis added.)
OK, that's enough to soften the heart of McCain The Merciless. And Ms. Kardashian is entirely correct. There are no accidents. And, despite the odds, it's possible that God may even be able to do something with that scumbag boyfriend. (After all, I used to be a Democrat.)
Remember what Jesus said to the women caught in adultery, after he'd saved her life from the accusers who would have stoned her: "Go, and sin no more." Some people, eager to lecture us about not being "judgmental," always seem to forget that last part.
"If you want to send a message, call Western Union." -- MGM movie mogul Sam Goldwyn (1879-1974)
"What is the message we see in Julie & Julia? The wedding scene shows us that Republicans are inappropriate and obnoxious. The scene with Julie confronted by her boss shows that Republicans are mean-spirited and vindictive. The Joseph McCarthy inquisition scene displays Republicans as bigoted and homophobic." -- Howard Towt, Aug. 11, 2009
Last week, I called the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to press ["science czar" John] Holdren on his views about forced abortions and mass sterilizations; his purported disavowal of Ecoscience, the 1977 book he co-authored with population control zealots Paul and Anne Ehrlich; and his continued embrace of forced-abortion advocate and eugenics guru Harrison Brown, whom he credits with inspiring him to become a scientist. After investigative bloggers and this column reprinted extensive excerpts from Ecoscience, which mused openly about putting sterilants in the water supply to make women infertile and engineering society by taking away babies from undesirables and subjecting them to government-mandated abortions, the White House issued a statement from Holdren last week denying he embraced those proposals. The Ehrlichs challenged critics to read their and Holdren’s more recent research and works. . . . In 2007, he addressed the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference. Holdren served as AAAS president; the organization posted his full slide presentation on its website. In the opening slide, Holdren admitted that his “preoccupation” with apocalyptic matters such as “the rates at which people breed” was a lifelong obsession spurred by scientist Harrison Brown’s work. . . .
Insurance plans that force everyone in the plan to pay for everyone else's Viagra and anti-anxiety pills are already completely unfair to people who rarely go to the doctor. It's like being forced to share gas bills with a long-haul trucker or a restaurant bill with Michael Moore. On the other hand, it's a great deal for any lonely hypochondriacs in the plan.
Read the whole thing, because she's exactly right. I hate going to the doctor. I hate taking medicine. If my aortic valve blows out tomorrow, don't mourn this as "tragic" or "senseless." Such a mercifully sudden departure from this vale of tears would to me be infinitely preferable to the ordeal of filing out an insurance form and spending 15 minutes in the waiting room of a doctor's office, to say nothing of idling around a drugstore while I wait for the pharmacist to fill my prescription.
Think about this: The percentage of your life spent leafing through a three-week-old copy of Newsweek in a doctor's waiting room -- is that really "life" at all? We're all gonna die some day, but some of us actually try to live first. And that otherwise healthy idiot who chooses to waste his life shuttling back and forth between MRI screenings, cardiac stress tests, colonoscopy appointments and the Rite Aid prescription counter isn't practicing "preventive medicine." He's just running up the bill at someone else's expense, like when I go to a Reason happy hour and tell the bartender to put everything on Matt Welch's tab.
Have you ever known one of those "lonely hypochondriacs" of whom Coulter speaks? Talk about your persuasive arguments for euthanasia! Feeble neurasthenics who run to the doctor every time they get an ache or pain should be sent directly to the Soylent Green factory.
Honestly, I knew America was doomed when they announced that Medicare would pay for Viagra. Oh, just great: The Federal Bureau of Boners.
Patriots died of frostbite at Valley Forge so that we could tax nurses to pay for their geriatric patients to get aroused. Ask the staff at the "retirement center" about the septuagenarian whose idea of a joke is to take his little blue pill and hit the nurse-call button.
Nurse: "Is there a problem?" Patient: (Exposing himself) "Yes, ma'am, I had this sudden swelling . . ."
But why bring John McCain into this? My point was that health care is not a right, no matter what Ted Kennedy says. "Health care as a right, not a privilege," says Ted. (Mary Jo Kopechne could not be reached for comment.)
UPDATE: Speaking of The Rules, how about ObamaCare bashing from a sexy redhead in her underwear? Say what you will about Rule 5, if sexy chicks can save us from socialized medicine . . . well, it's a sacrifice we'll have to make. Freedom is never free!
From the Department of Lousy Timing: New Playboy magazine CEO Scott Flanders told the Chicago Tribune, "I don't think Playboy is broken in any respect." His interview was published on the very day that the Playboy empire, which made a fortune exploiting women for decades, finally crossed an ethical line -- and then retreated. It all started when Playboy.com decided to publish a hate piece by rape-fantasist Guy Cimbalo that envisioned sexual attacks on leading conservative women, including Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly and bloggers Amanda Carpenter, Pamela Geller, Mary Katharine Ham and Michelle Malkin. The writing and the entire concept of the piece were so vile that the AOL News publication Politics Daily wouldn't leave a liberal writer's criticism of it online. . . .
Fans of novelist Tito Perdue are intimately familiar with the eccentric protagonist of his books, Lee Pefley. In his most recent work, Fields of Asphodel, the reader sees the afterlife through Pefley's eyes. It seems Pefley must atone for his sins -- or rather, for his virtues -- and Fields of Asphodel is sort of like Dante's Inferno updated to account for Satan's modernized methods:
Just now they were running through a neighborhood of superb homes, structures of four and five stories with balconies and fountains with sculptures in them. The youngest of the men noted his amazement. "You approve of these homes, Dr. Pefley?" Lee admitted it. "Gosh," he said. "And just look at that one! Why, it must be the post-mortem residence of some great philosopher or composer? Melville's house, is it? Poe's?" "Who? No, actually it's the summer place of one of the finest strong side tackles in the country. Hell of a nice guy, too." "And that one! Moses!" "I can see you have good taste. That one belongs to a really great man, doctor. He picked just the right time to unload half a million contracts of orange juice futures. Two lovely children, too." "And there! Happy the man or woman who dwells in that!" "Lottery winner." "And yonder!" "Rock singer." Lee gaped at it. He had subscribed all his life to the meritocracy theory, and now he was being vouchsafed a look at one of the meritocrats himself, a fat man in an undershirt snoozing by the pool.
I've known Tito for about 15 years. He never ceases to denounce me as a "philistine," mainly due to my abhorrence of opera, and I return the compiment by calling him a "pagan," to which he never objects. To anyone who enjoys a fine novel, I heartily recommend all of Tito Perdue's books.
At least 133 Brit servicewomen have been sent home from Afghanistan and Iraq after getting pregnant. The Daily Star Sunday has learned 102 of Our Girls returned early from Iraq between January 1, 2003 and February 28 of this year because they were expecting. And at least 31 female squaddies were fl own home from Afghanistan for the same reason. Of those, 50 returned early from Iraq or Afghanistan between April 1, 2007 and February 28, 2009. A total of 5,600 women have been sent to war so far and the Ministry of Defence admitted there may be even more cases which have not been recorded.
Shocker! Send women to war and they'll be women, not warriors. And lads will be lads, after all . . .
So mamas, go git yurself some Westerns fur yur young 'uns to watch this weekend. Ah'm right parshull to the television series The Rifleman. In addition to the qualities above, Lucas McCain and the folks in North Fork believe in personal responsibility, risk-taking, hard work, and no cussin' in front of the womenfolk.
Ah, The Rifleman! Arguably (and yes, I know this will inspire fierce arguments from fans of "Gunsmoke") the best television Western ever. It debuted the year before I was born, ran for five seasons, played in re-runs forever, and the delightful coincidence of the protagonist's surname meant that I spent years answering to, "Hey, Lucas!" For those too young to remember, here is the famous opening sequence, followed by the closing credits:
Like other frontier icons of that era -- Fess Parker as Davy Crockett, for example -- Lucas McCain was an ideal role model, a paragon of virtue. His actions were always just. His words were always wise. And the Rifleman was utterly fearless. Manly courage was the essence of Lucas McCain. It didn't matter how numerous the bad guys were, Lucas was never going to be intimidated. Why? Because he knew he was fighting on the side of right. Lucas McCain was always the friend of the helpless, always a defender of the weak, always the righteous avenger of those done wrong by the selfish and vicious. And the series took pains to show that Lucas was, by nature, peaceful and amiable. He had a cheerful sense of humor, and could always smile at the mischief of his boy, Mark. There was a poignant nostalgia in his heart for his late wife. That Lucas was a widower -- a key scriptwriter's convenience he shared with many another fatherly protagonist of the 1950s and '60s -- allowed for the development of romantic subplots. There frequently seemed to be some lovestruck schoolmarm in need of rescue, and you could be sure that in his conduct toward her, Lucas McCain would be impeccably honorable, the embodiment of medieval courtliness transposed to the rustic terms of the 19th-century American frontier. He was loved by women because Lucas was a man's man. This aspect of the Rifleman's character expresses a great truth that I would advise any young man to contemplate: If you wish to be admired by women, conduct yourself in such a way as to win the respect of men. You will always notice that the man who is genuinely popular with women is not a selfish, dishonest, cowardly loner, but is the sort of frank, generous and cheerful comrade who is always a welcome companion to his fellow man. He is a team player, always ready in the hour of crisis, and modest enough not to care whether he receives public credit for his good deeds. He does what is right because it is right, confident that his true merit will be known among those courageous souls who shared the burden of his labors. Lucas McCain was not a show-off, not a braggart, not a bully. He never lied, he never quit. His quiet confidence inspired others to hope that humble virtue must ultimately triumph over arrogant evil. He never started a fight, and always sought to avert violence, so long as it could be averted without dishonor or injustice. But when it was time to fight, he was never afraid, and when the fight was over, the bad guys were always vanquished. The good, the true and the right were vindicated. And Lucas was standing tall.
Which is to say, he was not remotely like David Brooks. Having just completed the celebration of National Offend A Feminist Week, I should point out that I often fall woefully short of the high mark set by Lucas McCain. Yet I alway know where the mark is set, you see. Therefore, I agree wholeheartedly with Pundette. If you want your sons or grandsons to have a role model of old-fashioned manly virtue, The Riflemanis the man for the job.
Woke up this morning at 8:30 a.m. after staying up until 3 a.m. talking to my old friend Tito Perdue. The morning sun is streaming down on the lakefront here about 10 miles north of Wetumpka, Alabama. It's beautiful, although I thought the midnight stars were more beautiful.
We watched opera last night, and Tito reminded me how we met. I'd written a column for the Rome (Ga.) News-Tribune which (humorously, I thought) explained why I couldn't stand the caterwauling of an operatic soprano. Tito, who was then living in Cave Spring, Ga., wrote a letter to the editor denouncing me as a philistine. This was the start of a long and eventful friendship. More after this operatic interlude featuring the Russian soprano Netrebko:
Among other things, I'm semi-responsible for Tito's "outing" as something other than a liberal. (Don't ever call him a "conservative"; he'll reply, "No, I'm a reactionary!") Tito's first two novels were published to critical acclaim and he looked to be well on his way to being the next Winston Groom (who is, in fact, a cousin of his). Critics thought his Faulkneresque style was "postmodern," and he was favorably reviewed in the New York Times, etc.
Then, after we met, I wrote a feature profile about Tito, describing his library full of classics, his enjoyment of Wagner, his admiration of Nietzsche, his general loathing of all things new or even recent. Among other things, he mentioned in the interview that, if there were ever to be a film made of his books, the only director he'd want would be Elia Kazan -- who, you may recall, "named names" for the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
Tito thought the article was splendid, and copies of the article were distributed by his agent. At which point, the game was up. His book contract was cancelled and it was a couple of years before he published his next novel, which the New York Times didn't review. Difficult as is the life of a literary novelist in the Age of Illiteracy, imagine what it's like for Tito being marked as an antagonist of the liberal culture -- really, an antagonist of the entirety of contemporary society. And, doggone it, Elia Kazan is dead!
Tito is a fine storyteller and his first novel,Lee, is great, even if the critics agree. The book introduces the protagonist Lee Pefley, who is featured in his other novels. His second book, The New Austerities, was actually better, I thought. More recently, he's published a wonderful tale of Lee Pefley's romantic youth, The Sweet Scented Manuscript. This is a roman a clef of Tito's own wild experience at Ohio's Antioch College, where he met, wooed and married his wife Judy.
Their love affair was scandalous enough to get them both kicked out of school in 1957. They've now been married 51 years, and I think young readers -- who have zero idea of what the 1950s were really like, much less the kind of love that causes two kids to get married at 18 -- would get a thrill out of The Sweet Scented Manuscript. Of course, this postulates the hypothetical existence of young people who read literary novels for any reason other than being assigned to do so by their teachers. Sigh.
At any rate, I'm sitting barefoot in Tito's living room, which has a magnificent view of the lake. Last night, as we stood out on the deck underneath a star-filled sky, I said I wished my friends up in D.C. had any inkling of how wonderful Alabama is. This horrified Judy, who expressed the fear that such a revelation might result in an influx that would ruin the place.
So whatever you do, don't tell anyone that the nearest place to heaven on earth is 10 miles north of Wetumpka on Alabama Highway 111, just off County Road 23. Take a right turn at Martin's Bait & Tackle and keep going until you find the end of Muscadine Lane.
Of course, you'll never find the place. You probably won't even bother to try. And isn't that sad?
"I don’t look at myself as a sex symbol. I see it as a job, and I'm working for a company that I really love and enjoy working for," the brunette beauty told In Touch at the launch of the new Dream Angels Push-up Bra for Victoria’s Secret in New York on April 7.
In less than six months of publication, Culture 11 burned through a stack of start-up capital rumored to be north of $1 million. . . . "I never even heard of this Culture11 site until I read that it was gone," said veteran conservative blogger Dan Riehl. "If someone wants to know why it failed, extrapolate that out to other bloggers and web surfers, that was it. Having never seen it, all I can conclude is that it really must have sucked." Charles Homan of the liberal Washington Monthly naturally pursues the theme that there is some ideological flaw in conservatism that accounts for the failure of Culture11. . . . Homan has got it all wrong. The problem at Culture11 was that personnel is policy.
"I never even heard of this Culture11 site until I read that it was gone. If someone wants to know why it failed, extrapolate that out to other bloggers and web surfers, that was it. Having never seen it, all I can conclude is that it really must have sucked." -- Dan Riehl
Logical assumption, Dan. Donald Douglas has more. I might eventually decide to heap a bit more opprobrium on the wretchedness that was Culture 11, but I'm not feeling it now. I saw the Washington Monthly story right before I had to leave my house Tuesday, en route to (a) pay the water bill and (b) attend an important conference. The Monthly comes at the story from the wrong angle.
What was really wrong with Culture 11 was . . . well, everything. And I am not going to write everything this morning.
Individualism and egalitarianism may seem an odd pair, since liberty in any degree produces inequality, while equality of outcomes requires coercion that destroys liberty. If they are to operate simultaneously, radical egalitarianism and radical individualism, where they do not complement one another, must operate in different areas of life, and that is precisely what we see in today's culture. Radical egalitarianism advances, on the one hand, in areas of life and society where superior achievement is possible and would be rewarded but for coerced equality: quotas, affirmative action, income redistribution through progressive taxation for some, entitlement programs for others, and the tyranny of political correctness spreading through universities, primary and secondary schools, government, and even the private sector. Radical individualism, on the other hand, is demanded when there is no danger that achievement will produce inequality and people wish to be unhindered in the pursuit of pleasure. This finds expression particularly in the areas of sexuality and violence, and their vicarious enjoyment in popular entertainment.
Given a standard normal distribution of talent, egalitarianism must try to regress everyone to the mean where there are any "materialistic" side-effects. The modern liberal overlords will trumpet radical individualism as both a distractor, and a means of enslavement. Break down families, desensitize people to the violence of abortion, etc. in the name of guiltless "freedom".
Individualism and egalitarianism do not always divide the labor of producing cultural decay. Often enough they collaborate. When egalitarianism reinforces individualism, denying the possibility that one culture or moral view can be superior to another, the result is cultural and moral relativism, whose end products include multiculturalism, sexual license, obscenity in the popular arts, an unwillingness to punish crime adequately and, sometimes, even to convict the obviously guilty. Both the individualist and the egalitarian (usually in the same skin) are antagonistic to society's traditional hierarchies or lines of authority-the one because his pleasures can be maximized only by freedom from authority, the other because he resents any distinction among people or forms of behavior that suggests superiority in one or the other.
This thought is developed and expanded with great wit by Mr. Sayet.
Modern liberalism employs the rhetoric of "rights" incessantly to delegitimize restraints on individuals by communities. It is a pernicious rhetoric because it asserts a right without giving reasons. If there is to be anything that can be called a community, the case for previously unrecognized individual freedoms must be thought through, and "rights" cannot win every time.
And do note the Federal government championing new rights (sans responsibilities) which always seem to trade freedom of action for freedom from fear. "Hush now baby, baby, don't you cry..." as Roger Waters put it.
Are there any other such nuggets as this piece out there?
Update: Commenter TomM alludes to an outing on martinis.
Rich is certainly correct that, with Citibank trading for less than the cost of an ATM fee, the primary "value" voters are interested in now is the value of their 401Ks. If there is any encouragement for traditionalists it is this: Just as there is little public appetite for conservative alarums over cultural issues, neither is there any appetite for liberal alarums. If the Obama administration makes a point of pushing liberal social policies, a backlash is possible, recession or no recession.
Thanks to Smitty for the hard-hitting expose about Jesus and Elvis, plus moderating the comments, while I was out of pocket Tuesday evening. The man is owed cheeseburgers and beers for his labors, so hit the tip jar, people. (Second rarest sentence in the English language: "Thanks for picking up the tab, McCain." Because of extremely low wages, newspapermen are cheapskate moochers, and I've eaten enough free food to alleviate Third World famine.)
Uh, I wasn't going to blog about this, but "The Fight for Big Sexy" (with strawberry Jello) is being planned. I think I know one blog commenter who's cheering for Monique.
Tuesday, I concluded the video-editing job I've been working part-time for several months. The job was great, and I'm now experienced with FinalCutPro, a skill that is sure to come in handy in the New Media age. The owner of the video company is a magnificent Christian lady, who was extremely gracious when I explained that the blogging/freelancing/consulting has now become so demanding that I felt I needed to concentrate on those tasks.
With the help of my good friend, investigative journalist Matthew Vadum, I subsequently attended a splendid reception at Top of the Town in Arlington, and then consulted by phone with clients and sources. It was, all in all, a delightful evening.
As is my wont (and Miss Yockey can ask commenter Victor about this), I will avoid engaging the specifics of her critique, and instead focus strategically on holding more defensible terrain. To wit, refuting the routine slander that alleges that Bible believers:
Hate gay people.
Are ignorant of the reality of gayness.
Suffer from twisted sexual "repression."
Lack familiarity with scientific evidence.
Wish to deprive gay people of their rights.
These are lies, Miss Yockey. And who is called "the father of lies"? ( Church Lady voice.) Satan!
Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. -- John 8:44 KJV
Miss Yockey, if you will read that chapter, you will find that Jesus spoke those words prophetically. The scribes and Pharisees, jealous of Jesus' influence, were indeed already plotting his death. They kept questioning him, trying to trip him up so he would say something that would either justify his religious condemnation as a heretic, or else that would be seen as subversive of Roman authority and justify his condemnation for sedition.
John 8 begins with one of the most famous of these incidents, "the woman caught in adultery." As everyone knows, Christ challenged the woman's accusers, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her" (John 8:7), and all of them walked away.
This woman quite literally owed Jesus her life. What transpired next?
When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more. -- Romans 8:10-11
Jesus did not condemn the woman, but he nonetheless commanded her to "sin no more."
Now, Miss Yockey, do not read that passage and think of yourself. Think of me. You have no idea how often I have cheated death. One night when I was 19, I consumed the better part of a half-gallon of psilocybin mushroom tea and tooted up a goodly amount of Bolivian flake cocaine.
Having started smoking pot as a 14-year-old, I'd done (and dealt) many drugs by the time I was 19. But psilocybin and cocaine I'd never tried and, as I did not realize at that time, I was under tremendous stress. My mother died when I was 16, I'd barely graduated high school, I'd goofed off so badly in college that I was on the verge of flunking out and -- this was the real heavy one -- my conscience was burdened with knowledge of my own sins.
By the time the psilocybin really kicked in, I had practically forgotten about that half-gallon of magic mushroom tea, whose effects I'd never before experienced. And as anyone who has ever done a lot of coke will tell you, that stuff makes you feel smarter than Einstein, a euphoria that borders on a sense of omniscience.
To say that I freaked completely out is to understate the case. I've always been about half-crazy, but for about 10 days there, I was 110% crazy, and when my older brother finally got me to the emergency room -- oh, that was a wild ride -- the doctor didn't need to examine me much before he spoke those three fateful words: Nurse, Thorazine, please.
Recovering from that experience was a long, hard road, and I went so low that many doubted I'd ever recover, period. All that splendid talent, such once-promising genius, seemed destined to either institutionalization or else slumping along as a dim shadow of his former self.
However, people were praying for me, and people were willing to help me. I returned to college a year later, with only one last chance to make good or flunk out, and thus forfeit the full-tuition scholarship that the state of Alabama granted to the children of disabled veterans. My father had been quite nearly killed by German shrapnel while serving in France in 1944. (His Purple Heart and other medals hang on the wall beside my desk as I type this.) The merit of my father's service had been rewarded with a scholarship for me -- an opportunity I was on the verge of wasting.
I made Dean's List that semester, my still-unstable psychological condition compelling me for the first time in my life to develop systematic study habits. It happened that one of my classes that semester was Introduction to Psychology, where I learned that long-term treatment with anti-psychotic drugs produces a debilitating side-effect known as tardic dyskinesia. So I weaned myself off the meds and, slowly, fought my way back to something like my old half-crazy self.
Now, Miss Yockey, I could elaborate at length all the miracles that God has wrought in my life over the past three decades. If you should ever see me write about angels, trust that there are angels, sent in answer to prayer, and "some have entertained angels unawares" (Hebrews 13:2).
"Go thou and sin no more," Jesus said to the woman who owed him her life. Miss Yockey, if you think I've spent the past 30 years without sinning, you're crazier than me. The apostle Paul once said, "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief" (I Timothy 1:15), but if Paul was chief of sinners, I'm definitely part of the tribe. The only one of the Seven Deadly Sins at which I have not excelled is gluttony, being skinny by nature. (On the other hand, I've gained 25 pounds since my Speedo glory, and can't resist a buffet, so I guess I'm a perfect 7-for-7 in the deadly sins.)
Last fall, I got an Instalanche for a post titled, "Is babe-blogging a sin?" And in all good conscience, I contend it is not. One of the happy blessings of advancing age is that my appreciation of beauty steadily becomes more aesthetic than erotic. (My extremely beautiful wife is skeptical of such assertions, with ample reason given the fact that she is the mother of our six children. The main reason we don't have seven is that I manage to keep myself almost constantly in the doghouse.)
Make no mistake: Lust remains a real temptation, and quite dangerous, and I would hate to think that I was leading others to perdition by such silliness as "Sarah Palin bikini pics" or "Old School upskirt." But if you think about it for two seconds, this is the Internet. Everybody reading this is one quick Google search away from as much raw porn as they want.
So if there are recovering pornoholics out there who need a little methadone to help them get off the heroin, a little Christina Hendricks is relatively benign. (Don't you agree, Dr. Vodka?) If by happy accident that random porn-Googler finds himself reading a right-wing blog run by a homophobic hillbilly holy roller . . .
Miss Yockey, I don't believe in accidents. I've been involved in too many conspiracies, and have been the recipient of too many prayed-for blessings (e.g., Mrs. Other McCain) to think that things "just happen." The person who is reading this is no more reading it by accident than I am writing it by accident.
BTW, did I ever tell you about the time my 1973 VW Beetle went head-on into a pickup truck, and I walked away with nothing worse than a headache? One of many potentially deadly encounters I've survived. If you believe in accidents, how is it that I'm even here to be writing this?
Richard Spencer recently paid me the fine compliment of noting that, in my Taki's Magazine columns, I have shown an ability to write about sex in a funny, engaging way that is not preachy or boring, as is most conservative writing about sex. Such is the tragic dimension of human nature and the decadent situation of contemporary culture that, it seems to me, we must learn to laugh about sex or else it will drive us to despair. Ted Haggard, Jim McGreevey, Mark Foley, Eliot Spitzer, the Big Sexy -- oh, wait a minute. Never mind. Failure to send a promised box of Godiva chocolate isn't all that scandalous.
My point is that sexual sin seems nowadays so widespread that even the most respected and eminent persons might appear in the tabloid sex-scandal headlines tomorrow. And whatever your sins are, or my sins are, or the Big Sexy's sins are, the fact that they're not splashed in 96-point type on the front of the New York Post doesn't mean our sins are unknown. You know your sins, and I know my sins. And if we have sinned against others (which I most certainly have), then those against whom we have sinned are also aware of our sins.
Is there a God who is aware of all our sins? I believe there is, and I believe His judgment is far more to be feared -- because it is eternal and righteous -- than any judgment man can make. We are sinners in the hands of an angry God.
Now, at last, the gay thing. As I look at the clock just now, it's 3:50 a.m. ET, and a couple of guys somewhere in Atlanta are strolling out of an after-hours disco, arm in arm, on their way to an eagerly anticipated carnal satisfaction. Sinners.
Simultaneously, however, it is 12:50 a.m. in Modesto, California, where a pimply teenage boy -- with the assistance of a 4-pack of wine coolers -- has finally gotten to third base with his girlfriend. Sinners.
Will you accuse me of "ignorance" or "hate"? You haven't the slightest idea what I've known or who I've loved. (Or what I've loved and who I've known.) As for the charge that I am unfamiliar with scientific evidence, that can be easily refuted, if necessary. Everybody knows I'm not "sexually repressed." More like irrepressible.
Ask my friend Michael Petrelis how much I hate gay men. Ask Tammy Bruce how much I hate lesbians. Ask Lynn Conway or Dierdre McCloskey how much I hate transsexuals. Far from wishing to deprive them of their rights, I will stand up for their rights -- especially their First Amendment right to tell meddling politicians to go straight to hell, or their Second Amendment right to defend themselves against assault.
Miss Yockey, you have yourself said that I am irresistible, and you may have thought you were joking. But ask anyone who's met my wife . . . well, she's gotten better at resisting me, but it's a difficult feat to accomplish. My late mother said that I could accomplish anything, if I ever put my mind to it, and please don't tell me my mother lied.
The question of resistance, however, brings me to a conundrum that long contemplation has not resolved in my mind: Are "gay" and "straight" mutually exclusive categories? Would a Venn diagram show them as non-intersecting circles? Is Andrew Sullivan utterly incapable of erotic interest in a woman? Could Camille Paglia ever feel attraction toward a man?
I answer: "No," "no," "maybe," and "it would certainly be nice to think so." I do not doubt, Miss Yockey, that you and your partner are happy together. But if somehow you were to become so unhappy as to split up, or if by misfortune you were widowed (as it were), I would not automatically rule out the possibility that your next partner could be male. More amazing things have certainly happened.
Teenage dopehead psycho becomes notorious right-wing journalist with beautiful wife and six kids? Impossible.
My dear grandmother used to say that I missed my calling, and should have been a preacher. Well, if you miss one calling, you never know what the next calling will be. And if you ignore that one, and are called again . . . But God keeps calling and calling, like the finance company wanting to have a friendly discussion about my 2004 Kia Optima. And by the time you finally answer the call, maybe you're so messed up that the only use God has for you is as a perpetually impoverished blogger. (Hey, it's not His fault that I didn't answer the first call.)
Well, it's 5 a.m. now, and Mrs. Other McCain's alarm clock is set for 5:30 a.m., so we'll see how irresistible I am when I bring her a fresh hot cup of coffee. But if I'm not entirely irresistible, what about God? Can I resist God, Miss Yockey? Can you?
You did not read this by accident, did you? My original career goal was to be a rock star. I been bloggin' all night, my hands are wet on the keys . . .
UPDATE 6 a.m. ET: OK, so it turns out I am resistible. But I did bring her the coffee and thought of something: Am I privileging patriarchal heteronormativity, or whatever they call it in Women's Studies course nowadays?
Do I appear an arrogant chauvinist, to suppose that if Cynthia Yockey and her partner woke up this morning to find Brad Pitt standing there with two fresh hot cups of coffee, that they'd decide to have a Brad sandwich for breakfast?
Excuse me while I leave you to contemplate that scenario. As an old football junkie, my bet is that Brad would put it in the end zone, even if he didn't make the two-point conversion.
UPDATE 6:10 a.m.: Just talked to Mrs. Other McCain again. Sly humor: "I don't know!" Trying hard to maintain family values while talking about baseball. Which reminds me that today the Braves play the Phillies in spring training. Who's pitching and who's catching? No, who's on first! I don't know! Third base!
UPDATE 7:15 a.m.: Professor Glenn Reynolds: "It figures this would come from a lesbian." Ah, so two can play the old double-entendre game, eh? Well, back at ya, Professor! Nothing says "family values" like ZZ Top . . .
I'm going to have to ask blogospheric neologian William Jacobson what to call it when the Professor sends me traffic via a carom shot off a lesbian blogger. Or perhaps Gunnery Sergeant Hartman will have some suggestions.
We Evangelicals have failed to pass on to our young people an orthodox form of faith that can take root and survive the secular onslaught. Ironically, the billions of dollars we've spent on youth ministers, Christian music, publishing, and media has produced a culture of young Christians who know next to nothing about their own faith except how they feel about it. Our young people have deep beliefs about the culture war, but do not know why they should obey scripture, the essentials of theology, or the experience of spiritual discipline and community. Coming generations of Christians are going to be monumentally ignorant and unprepared for culture-wide pressures.
Spencer does not mention Julia Duin's important new book, Quitting Church: Why the Faithful Are Fleeing and What to Do about It, but it seems clear to me -- if to no one else -- that he's read it. So I'll begin by putting a mark against Spencer for failure to acknowledge his source.
There are many sources of the problems that Spencer (and Julia Duin) discuss, and the failure of churches to rigorously teach the Bible to kids is the nut of the whole thing. When I was a kid growing up in the Baptist church, "Sword Drill" was a big event.
"Sword Drill" took its name from Ephesians 6:17, where Christians are commanded to employ "the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." So us kids were literally drilled in Bible memorization. I was by no means a good student, but some of it took, and the constant repetition of Bible study engrained in my mind -- as I am sure it did with others -- a solid core of biblical knowledge. It also developed a mindset that the Bible was an authoritative source.
This was reinforced during the sermons preached by Pastor Marion Beavers. If there are any others out there who grew up in Lithia Springs (Ga.) First Baptist Church back in the '60s and '70s, you know that "Preacher Beavers" (which was how he was addressed) was a first-class Bible preacher.
By the term "Bible preacher," I refer to a sermon style that seems to have faded in the past three decades. The preacher kept the Bible in his hand, or open on the lectern, throughout the sermon. However he organized his sermon, it began with a reference to a specific biblical passage -- the Verse of the Day, which was listed in the program -- and was further elaborated with references to other verses.
"Turn with me now . . ." was a phrase repeated endlessly during the sermon. The people in the pews were expected to have their own Bibles and, as the preacher proceeded to cite "chapter and verse," the people would turn the pages to follow his references and read for themselves. So, whatever the preacher's eloquence contributed to the sermon, the people in the pews could see directly that his preaching was built firmly on a scriptural foundation.
He wasn't just telling you his opinion, he was preaching the Word of God. The reliance was not on the preacher, but on the Bible, so if you subtracted the preacher from the equation, you still had the Bible to guide you. Bible preaching encouraged an autodidactic attitude in the congregation, so that the believer had a proprietary sensibility toward the Word: "This is my Bible, this is my God, this is my faith."
The loss of that covenantal idea of mutual belonging -- you belonged to God, and God belonged to you, and the Bible was an ironclad contract between you -- is at the core of the evangelical decline that Julia Duin describes and which Michael Spencer sees turning into a "collapse" of American evangelicism.
We could talk about many other factors -- e.g., the abandonment of the hymnal in favor of pop-rock "praise music" -- but the shift away from old-fashioned Bible preaching seems to me the key factor in the waning of vital faith in many churches.
Andrew Sullivan, in particular, has a number of posts up cheering all of this, for example, "The Young and the Godless," and "A Coming Evangelical Collapse?" Sullivan blames these trends on ... wait for it! ... "Christianism," of course.
I'm just waiting for Ace of Spades to take notice of this. Ace has never struck me as a particularly religious man, but if Sully is smiling, Ace is the man to wipe that smile off his face.
UPDATE III: Let me say a word or two in response to the anonymous commenter -- the good ones are always anonymous, eh? -- who said:
Good idea, get rid of contemporary music and bring in madrassa-style Bible drilling. That will bring in the young folk.
The anonymous idiot is not a parent, and has never studied developmental psychology. Four words: Children flourish under discipline.
If you know nothing else about dealing with children, you should try to understand this. My good teachers, my effective Boy Scout leaders, my winning football coaches, the choir, band and drama directors who knew best how to elicit superior performance -- all of these worked with the understanding that discipline has positive value with children.
The failure of "seek-friendly" mega-churches is not an inability to "bring in the young folk," but their unwillingness to apply discipline. After all, "discipline" and "disciple" are words of more than etymological affinity. You cannot build disciples without discipline. "Seeker-friendly" churches indeed attract youth, but they cannot retain them. They're dealing Wonder Bread and Velveeta, when what the kids really need is whole wheat and red meat.
(Note: Anyone accusing me of going "crunchy" will be at risk of a punk-smacking.)
"Grad students in the humanities, who ought to be studying [history and literature], instead spend a lot of time reading 20th-century theorists whose long-term relevance is doubtful at best. The amount of reading time spent on theory rather than primary source texts is just way out of proportion to any possible use or importance that the theorists might have. Trotsky? Important. Foucault? Important to the academy. There's a difference. Isn't there a whiff of self-esteem-ism in declaring — to academics — the enduring importance of academics?"
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"When R.S. McCain talks about gonzo journalism, he knows what he’s talking about." -- Chapomatic
"You are reading Robert every day, aren’t you? If you aren’t, you’re missing out, folks. The guy brings the good stuff every day." -- Jimmie, The Sundries Shack
". . . the one-of-a-kind Robert Stacy McCain, whose blog should be on your must-read list, if it isn't already." -- Dyspeptic Mutterings
"The most enthusiastic blogger I have yet to meet." -- Pam Geller, Atlas Shrugs
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While those around him scrupulously obey the superficial social conventions of the age, Rhett scoffs at his own disrepute and brashly invites scandal, as when he shocks Atlanta society by bidding $150 for the honor of dancing with the recently widowed Scarlett. And while Ashley is torn by doubt, Rhett is the embodiment of decisive certainty.
I knew that there was fear out there, but I didn't comprehend the breadth of it.
Read the whole thing, as the bloggers say. And then please read the rest of my American Spectator column about Rhett Butler, who knew how to make the most of a bad reputation.
