The End of An Era
With the passing of William F. Buckley I now feel officially old. Like thousands of modern conservatives, I grew up on Buckley. Each Sunday, I would make sure to be at home for Firing Line, to watch him genially make mincemeat of the likes of Harriet Pilpel--one of the generation of nice old babuschkas who somehow (unaccountably to me) became architects of a culture of death. Or to watch Buckley pick the brain of the aged, elfin Malcolm Muggeridge--an ex-Communist who became (something of a Jansenist) Catholic, whose books I promptly ran out to buy, and essays to read in the Human Life Review--which was published out of the old offices of National Review. I remember my first visit to those offices--which seemed to me hallowed--to meet with the grand, pipe-smoking Jim McFadden, patriarch of the pro-life movement. I’ll never forget the giant painting of Kaiser Franz Josef that hung on his wall. It was McFadden who put me in touch with a saint: Fr. John Hardon--whose graduate classes in theology I’d hitchhike to sit in on, to make up for what I wasn’t learning in high school religion class. I’d haunt the public library every two weeks to see when NR would come out, to read the brilliant essays of Thomas Molnar, Erik von Kuenhelt-Leddihn, and Joseph Sobran. Around the old offices of NR--situated, I remember, just down the block from a haunted-looking Swedenborgian church--an entire intellectual sub-culture of (mostly Catholic) activists and authors centered, much of it supported by the lasting heritage of Cardinals Spellman and Cooke. Indeed, one the best things about NYC is that it has never had a really evil archbishop--and consequently, much more than Chicago or Los Angeles, still retains an infrastructure of old-style ethnic Catholicism.
The authors I found in NR I promptly followed up on, and their longer works helped to form me, and thousands of others, as thinkers and writers. Indeed, as many liberals used to observe, it was Buckley’s very public eloquence and slightly showy vocabulary that helped dispel in the popular mind the idea that conservatives were the “stupid” party. (In reality, it was Russell Kirk’s The Conservative Mind that established the existence of a serious tradition of thinking on the Right on this side of the ocean. But perceptions matter too, and Buckley helped to change them.) I remember the lesson I drew for my own writing from Buckley’s example. As a freshman journalist at Yale, I reflected that Buckley never actually seemed to persuade any of the liberals who read him. But he demanded and got their respect, and inspired young people like me with the knowledge that we were not alone, or out of our minds. So I resolved that my writing on politics would have to be done at a higher level, displaying (perhaps a bit ostentatiously) a level of learning and thought that would at least intimidate the liberals into taking me seriously. As to winning them over--perhaps by inching ever closer in their direction, showing that we shared common premises, but different means--that seemed a waste of time. Perhaps even dangerous.
Overall, I think this lesson was the right one--as the subsequent career of National Review has helped to prove. As the old lions of its staff died, retired, withdrew, or were driven off, the magazine seemed to slide imperceptibly away from Buckley’s old approach of responding to leftist contempt by brazening it out, and proving itself smarter and more principled, regardless of consequence. It became, in a term that I know would pain Buckley to read, populist. Also much less discernibly Catholic. Its sales inched up. It advertised on talk radio, and began to read every more like Rush Limbaugh’s books than Russell Kirk’s. Perhaps this was inevitable. But I can’t help finding it sad.
I wish that Buckley’s legacy better represented his own work at his best. (But few magazines hold up such a high level of quality for so long. Compare the Time magazine of 1955 with what is published under that name today. It seems like the special-ed edition.) I am glad to know that he died in the Church we he so often defended so eloquently, his mater if not always his magistra. I gratefully acknowledge his central significance to me and a generation of my fellow conservatives. And so it is with regret that must point out that without his magazine’s relentless support, the Bush administration would not have found it politically possible to invade Iraq. Which means that there is another large group of Americans whose lives were deeply affected by William F. Buckley, Jr. You can read their names here. Let us pray for his soul along with theirs:
Lacrimosa dies illa,
Qua resurget ex favilla
Iudicandus homo reus;
Huic ergo parce, Deus.
Pie Iesu Domine,
Dona eis requiem.
Comments
When I’m serving my 10,000 year term in Purgatory
I hope to invite Buckley and Stalin to some of
my parties, partly for good conversation and partly
for the fun of watching Stalin taking Buckley to
task for having hosted Trotskyites at his own mag.
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Well, after the Christian Rakovsky interrogation, Stalin capitulated to being a de facto Trotskyist. By the way, there are hardly parties in Purgatory, and one should probably not presume that Stalin is there.
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Forrest,
Buckley vigorously supported fighting the war in such
a way that it would not be futile. So he is not to
blame. The war was for a good cause, but was fought
badly and then formally rejected by cowards and traitors.
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On Vietnam:
Does it occur to anyone else how ODD it was that TWO Catholic heads-of-states of allied countries fighting the “Godless communists” were assassinated within 20 days of one another?
Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietman on 11/2/63 then John F Kennedy on 11/22/63.
For whatever reason, I’m full of “conspiracy theories” lately. Maybe this horrible influenza virus has driven me mad.
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Mr. Capp,
America’s ambassador to South Viet Nam was named
Lodge. Earlier he had run against Kennedy. Does
the name Lodge bring anything to mind?
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I’m sorry, posting that last post does a disservice
to the departed. May he rest in peace.
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Ho-hum.... Are we to be treated to these “BILL BUCKLEY IS STILL DEAD!!!” headlines for weeks after his unremarkable passing?
Buckley’s aid in the destruction of the American right’s influence on political discourse and his transparent pretense at opposition to the left’s policies served to anger thinking people on the right for decades. Buckley was a liberal socialist who relentlessly pretended to be the unchallenged spokesman of the right; railing against communism while promoting big government solutions to anything presented to us as a problem by our ruling class.
Enough, already. Allow those of us who have sensibly remained unimpressed with Buckley’s detrimental influence on conservatism to begin enjoying his absence in peace.
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I was under the impression that Kennedy was assassinated by the CIA because of pressure from the Fed and the Department of the Treasury after his executive order to go on a silver standard and suspend the Fed’s privilege to print dollar notes. It was documented in the 1968 book Farewell America by somebody from French intelligence, pseudonym James Hepburn.
Now, bringing up the Fed also brings up the twelve private banks that run the Fed, which naturally brings up the name Rothschild and the question of Illuminism, &c;. So, Mr Caper, I do not think you are being unreasonable or doing a disservice to the departed in bringing up the name ‘Lodge’ for what the word implies.
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Perhaps discussing the assassination of Kennedy is inappropriate for this thread though, when we should be offering our prayers for the repose of the soul of this man, a faithful Catholic.
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Charles wrote:
“By the way, there are hardly parties in Purgatory”
...if you think so, then you haven’t experienced
enough parties. Ask the expert Taki how parties can
be purgatorial.
But yes, more seriously, I’ll say a Hail Mary for
Mr Buckley’s soul, for what little my prayers might
be worth. But not worthless.
Oh and I’m reminded of what the legendary Philadelphia
Mayor Frank Rizzo suggested for his own epitaph:
“I’m really dead!” ;-)
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“Buckley never actually seemed to persuade any of the liberals who read him. But he demanded and got their respect...”
So what? Ed Roberts is right. What did this patrician really do besides provide some entertainment? On the foundational issues that make conservatism even possible—cultural stability, limited government, local control, immigration—Buckley was unengaged (or worse). Look where we are today? It’s telling that fellow Yalie Zmirak decries the “populism” of NR (by which he actually means non-Catholicism, ie Jewishness). Conservatism requires populism. Elitists like Buckley and his progeny, the nurturers of neoconservatism even when in paleo-exile, are conservatism’s enemy.
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No, by populism I don’t mean “Jewishness” as opposed to Catholicism. I mean goofy, unreflective rhetoric that defends positions always 20 degrees to the right of the mainstream… and keeps that same distance, however far the mainstream goes toward a cliff. The diminishing Catholicism of NR has been replaced by secular jingoism, which is non-denominational.
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Dear John::: whether Kennedy or Diem or Buckley were Catholic.... and all the millions of like kind since Constantine....they are nominally so....Christ was hijacked a long time ago & He is to stay hijacked...Nietzsche was correct...the Nazarene was the only Christian....maybe you should turn your young “sights” on nominalism....and see if that yields any productive insights...that would be considered helpful to both yee & thee....
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Christ was hijacked a long time ago & He is to stay hijacked
Tsk Tsk. The poor little man. I read he established his church to teach in his name and he promised to be with it until the end of time and he also sent the Holy Spirit upon it to teach it all truth and now I read you writing he was hijacked?
Apparently My Creator, Redeemer, and Saviour is a liar.
Talk about sad news.
Jim. Do you ever try and think about what it is you are about to post?
Do you REALLY think Jesus can be highjacked?
Good Lord, man. You do not have the foggiest idea of who Jesus is.
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Mr. Z. Another excellent post. I never met Mr. Buckley but I too was a subscriber to Nat Rev..
When it came to his practice of using long words - an expert sesquepedalic, he - I always just assumed he did it out of sheer joy.
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To I Am Not Spartacus:::Please kind sir...enlighten me...as to the Nazarene...dispel & discharge my fog...if you would....
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Jim,
Try composing without so many ellipses, please.
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No kidding. The ellipses make me read Jim’s posts as trying to express a contrived crypticness… or evincing awful grammar…
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To Caper, Charles & all the other attending girlie-boys out there in fauxville....put a little meat on the bone...or go home...you’ve had your chest on every back you could find...since you were nine...if anything is elliptical...it is the recurring stasis of your stenograpic minds...you are not western....you are as comfortably oriental...as a pigtail...menancing mandarins all...see you in the schoolyard...don’t forget to bring your lawyer or tutor....mi casa su casa…
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Jim,
Look, just write in standard sentences with standard punctuation, okay.
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If anyone can tell me what a “recurring stasis” is, I would be glad to know. Thanks.
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Mr. Zmirak, I have not seen any thing published by Thomas Molnar in some years. Do you know how that true sage is fairing?
Best regards,
Harry Wisniewski
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As Heaven resounds with the laughter of the Saints - within earshot of and shared by those in Purgatory (because as comedy, especially Divine comedy, is inseparable from faith and hope) - I believe Buckley is laughing, including perhaps laughing at (and with) some of these comments, in whatever circle he resides - because Charity and comedy are the rules of his present landlord.
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John, damnit, I want to know what you think, not what WFB,Thomas Molnar,Joseph Sobran or intimidatiom tactics say.
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Sapre Aude John
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Dear Mr. Wisniewski,
Prof. Molnar is elderly and quite unwell, living in Richmond, Va., with Ildiko, his wife. He is working with ISI Books, on a project I’m helping to coordinate, a very large and substantive “Thomas Molnar Reader.” Please pray for his good health and spirits.
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Mr. Zmirak,
Is there any address or email address where he may be reached? I’ve always wanted to write Mr. Molnar to express gratitude for his work.
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Dear Caper,
If you send me an email at , I’ll be happy to send you his address.
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