The Intellectuals TO THE EDITOR: Now let me see if I have got this right: according to David Gelernter [“How the Intellectuals Took Over (And What to Do About It),” March], up until the end of World War II, the most important criterion for admission to America’s most prestigious universities was money and good breeding, and, as a direct conse- quence, our country enjoyed national civility even in times of conflict because our leaders were born and bred gentlemen.

Then, inexplicably, the (largely Protestant) estab- lishment heading these col- leges committed class sui- cide by needlessly throwing open the gates to barbarian hordes of Jews and other in- your-face types, who were admitted primarily on the basis of (shudder!) intellect and who brought with them an attitude. No gentlemen these, and behold, we are now reaping the whirlwind of that mistake: David Let- terman won’t say “French- man” and the Virginia Mil- itary Institute (VMI) has been forced to accept women. Both of these ex- amples stand as tragic sym- bols of a political correct- ness that flows directly from the raging hostility that in- tellectual Jews and their fel- low running dogs of the Left have toward the mid- dle class.

All this is not only offen- sive, but is based on an igno- rance that does its author and COMMENTARY no credit.

First of all, the civility of discourse that Mr. Gelern- ter remembers somehow es- caped my attention during those prewar years.

Second, the changes in university- and college- admission policies that took place in the late 1940’s and thereafter were the result of complex forces, stemming in part from a sense of obligation to returning vet- erans, and in part from a be- lief that restrictive quotas against Jews were indefen- sible. Meanwhile, the econ- omy was booming and in- dustry’s appetite for college- educated employees was for a time nearly insatiable.

There was no way that any major American univer- sity, prestigious or not, could have or should have failed to respond to these forces. The resultant growth in the size of the educational establish- ment forced the universities to try to rationalize and ob- jectify their admission process, hence the birth of the SAT’s and other criteria based on academic achieve- ment and promise.

The old elite did not do something unnecessary and foolish: what the old elite did was inevitable, neces- sary, reasonable, rational, and equitable. It ended quotas and expanded its in- stitutions in response to so- cietal changes and needs.

RICHARD LANDAU Waltham, Massachusetts To THE EDITOR: The intellectuals David Gelernter refers to in the ti- tle of his article came from the elite universities, which, he tells us, changed dra- matically after World War II, the most dramatic change being the admission of Jews on the basis of their qualifications rather than under the minuscule quota system that was then in place forJewish applicants.

This quota system oper- ated not only for student ad- missions but with even greater rigor in the selec- tion of faculty. It may or may not be true that when Lionel Trilling and Clifton Fadiman were being con- sidered for positions in the Columbia University Eng- lish department, they were told that there was room for only one Jew. It may or may not be true that when Har- ry Levin was being consid- ered for a position in the Harvard English depart- ment, the eminent Shake- spearean scholar, George Lyman Kittredge, said, “Over my dead body will a Jew be admitted to the de- partment.” (Levin was [5]COMMENTARY JUNE I997 hired; Kittredge survived.) But what is true, and this I can say with assurance, is that at the now-nonexistent Bronx division of New York University, where more than half the students were Jewish (including many who, like me, had been de- nied admission to elite uni- versities), there was one Jew- ish professor, Louis Max. It is a pretty safe bet that Mr.

Gelernter himself would not have found ready employ- ment at Yale in the 30’s, whatever his specialty and qualifications.

I can speak of these mat- ters with the authority of my age, seventy-eight, but I cannot believe that Mr.

Gelernter is unaware of the rampant anti-Semitism in the golden age he wishes to recover. As he makes clear in his article, he is certain- ly aware that the changes he deplores are in important measure attributable to the large-scale admission of Jews. In fact, the subtext of the article almost becomes text when he refers to how this process worked itself out at Yale: “One dramatic sign was the big influx of Jews.” Mr. Gelernter then re- coils from the implication of this statement, saying, “The intellectualizing trend went a lot farther than bringing in Jews, of course.” But he quickly lunges for- ward again: “Jews,” he says, are a dye-marker that al- lows us to trace a new class of people as it moves into the system-a new class distinguished by intellect and not social standing.

It is surprising to find an anti-Semitic article in COM- MENTARY, yet for the rea- sons given above, I cannot view “How the Intellectu- als Took Over (And What to Do About It)” in any oth- er light.

DAVID GOLDKNOPF Gardiner, New York To THE EDITOR: David Gelernter argues that the New Class prized intellect over breeding, took over during the 1960’s, and is responsible for things be- ing a mess. But it gets worse: he further claims that a clearly identifiable group, legendary for its lack of breeding, whose members lived and died by their in- tellect, predated the New Class. That group was com- posed of the brilliant but poor and lower-middle-class Jews who for approximate- ly 50 years made City Col- lege the greatest under- graduate college that Amer- ica-perhaps any modern nation-has ever seen. This type was embodied by Al- cove One’s debating society, some of whose members went on to found the neo- conservative movement.

Is Mr. Gelernter embar- rassed by the likes of Irving Kristol? Does he wish that there had been no City Col- lege to admit brilliantJews lacking breeding and mon- ey, who could then use their education to attain influ- ence? If David Gelernter is any indication, neoconservatism has betrayed the principles on which it was built: mer- it and intellect.

MARK RUST Far Rockaway, New York To THE EDITOR: Having evolved politi- cally along the same road COMMENTARY has taken in the last 30 or 40 years, and having been a reader of the magazine since 1948, I yield to no one in my detestation of what the current crop of “intellectuals”-the decon- structionists, post-struc- turalists, feminists, and tenured leftists-have wrought in the colleges and universities of this country, especially in the humanities departments. But David Gelernter uses the term “in- tellectual” to indict an en- tire class in such a sweeping fashion that one wonders whether he can actually be serious about the charge he is making. After all, even Julien Benda, in his land- mark 1927 work La Trahi- son des Clercs (published in English as The Treason of the Intellectuals), carefully de- fined the term-and took an entire book to do it! Thus, when Mr. Gelern- ter talks of a “takeover” by the intellectuals, he does not provide any specific exam- ples other than a dismissive reference to “Trotskyists around Partisan Review in 1930’s New York” (another example of sloppy thinking), but employs instead the broad, slashing strokes of an anti-intellectual bull in an intellectual china-shop. In- deed, in looking back to a mythological time of the kind depicted in a Norman Rockwell painting, Mr. Gel- ernter is taking a stance be- fitting a knee-jerk paleo- conservative rather than a neoconservative. Even paleoconservatives of early George-Wallace, pointy- headed-professors fame would heartily agree with his thesis.

Mr. Gelernter speaks of the universities being turned “upside down” after World War II. I am a veteran of that war and a recipient of the benefits of the GI Bill which permitted me, as well as millions of other vets, to enroll in a university. My professors in the mid-40’s, early 50’s, and well into the early 60’s, when I was work- ing on my own doctorate at the University of New Mex- ico, were scholars of na- tional repute. Few of them had Left political agendas.

And if they did, they did not bring them into their class- rooms or lectures.

Perhaps Mr. Gelernter should have set the line of change in his “takeover” at the mid-60’s. After all, the Sidney Hooks, Lionel Tril- lings, and Hannah Arendts were products of the pre- World War II intellectual community, whose (anti-to- talitarian) influence was at its high tide in the immedi- ate postwar years.

As a retired college in- structor myself, I gain the distinct impression from conversations I have had with young people who are attending college that the current crop of “intellectu- als” has not taken over.

These students are be- mused–often amused-by feminist professors and oth- er professorial leftists on campuses who do not have nearly as much of an impact on their minds and hearts and goals as Mr. Gelernter supposes.

My problem with “How the Intellectuals Took Over,” then, is not so much “how” as the extent of that “takeover.” SAM BLUEFARB Diamond Bar, California To THE EDITOR: I sympathize with and am persuaded by David Gelernter’s cultural analy- sis, but I am puzzled by his proposal that we need “new institutions” such as col- leges, media organizations, and museums. To begin with, I am not exactly sure what a conservative muse- um would be like, or why we need one. Secondly we already have quite a lot of [6]LETTERS FROM READERS conservative schools and colleges, and, I would have thought, we surely have enough conservative peri- odicals.

I suppose what Mr. Gel- ernter means is that these institutions, especially the colleges, do not exercise the cultural influence of their left-wing or mainstream counterparts. But how do you acquire cultural influ- ence? Undoubtedly in the slow, gradual, cumulative way the prestige colleges ac- quired it, as Mr. Gelernter has so lucidly described.

Leaving aside the ques- tion of whether it would even be feasible these days to found a major new pri- vate university, the real problem is that if we did es- tablish a conservative new Yale, people would still pre- fer the old Yale, simply be- cause there are many ad- vantages that accrue to membership in a centuries- old institution (as Mr. Gel- ernter himself has pointed out), and these are by no means entirely vitiated if one happens to dislike many of the opinions of the cur- rent faculty. Moreover, if these new institutions were somehow endowed with in- stant prestige and influence, what would save them from being coopted by the new elite? Mr. Gelernter’s acute analysis of the pervasive in- fluence of the new elite seems to contradict his as- sumption that institutions can be insulated from it. His proposal for the setting up of new institutions is in fact utopian, in the worst sense of that word. The essence of utopianism is the belief that we can start the world over with a brand-new set of cities or institutions cre- ated out of thin air, and the corollary is that existing in- stitutions are hopelessly ir- redeemable. Philosophical conservatism ought to be anti-utopian by definition.

Reforming existing uni- versities will be fully as dif- ficult a task as Mr. Gelern- ter says. But that is the only place to start. And the fact that Yale supports David Gelernter does make one wonder if the place could be as totally hopeless as he seems to think.

DOYNE DAWSON Greensboro, North Carolina To THE EDITOR: For what seems almost forever now, though it is maybe only ten years, I have alternated between tearing my hair and venting my spleen over America’s inex- orable leftward cultural creep and the seeming lack of any explanation for it, or any course of action that would put a stop to it. Thus I am extremely grateful for David Gelernter’s insights.

As I fairly flew through his article, I could hear a lit- tle voice within me crying out: “Yes. Just so. I think he’s right!” But also, every time I came to the phrase “intellectual elite,” I heard another voice in me scream- ing in frustration: “No! No! Not ‘intellectual’-leftist, leftist!” It is leftist intellec- tuals who have wreaked the havoc Mr. Gelernter de- scribes. I can only wonder why he never mentions the Left except in a quotation from Seymour Martin Lipset and once in his penultimate paragraph.

As for what to do, I be- lieve there is one workable approach. The subversion can be undone the same way it was done: from the top, politically, in the bright light of day. The majority of America is working-class, anti-intellectual, and does not for a second like what is happening. If such Ameri- cans could gain even a ca- sual understanding of the truth of this elite takeover, I believe they would give electoral support to a con- servative leadership which could start putting pressure in the right place-the ju- diciary.

BILL D. MILLER Barton, Vermont To THE EDITOR: David Gelernter is right on the mark in tracing the current political crisis to the universities. What he does I Your Private Oasis Just South of Midtown Manhattan Imagine…You’re just minutes away from a trip to Europe! Whether you’re dining on one of Chef Robert’s 20 freshly prepared pastas ($12.50 – $19.50) or planning a wedding, (packages begin at just $57 per person), you’ll find our hotel to be an oasis of Olde World charm. With Soho, the Village, Madison Square Garden and Off-Broadway theaters in the neighborhood, make it your business to pleasure yourself in style.

Our weekend Brunch ($14.95) is also a longtime favorite.

Singles $135-$140 Doubles $145 Suites $180 & Up 21 st Street & Lexington Ave.

New York, NY 10010 212-475-4320 Fax (212) 505-0535 Out of state call toll-free: ,L 1-800-221-4083 I [7] Gramercy Park Hotel , ,_ l__ _ CbscqCOMMENTARY JUNE I997 not make sufficiently clear, however, is the difference in world view intellectuals bring with them when they usurp power. Thus the read- er cannot clearly understand why it is that, as he says, “today’s elite loathes the na- tion it rules.” And without understanding this, he can have no clear idea of what to do about the situation.

Mr. Gelernter touches on this question when he says, in connection with the Supreme Court’s attack on the Virginia Military Insti- tute, that the Court’s pur- pose is to make “men and women… in practice in- terchangeable.” Further dis- cussion in this vein might have suggested that critics have been correct in point- ing to social engineering as the real aim of the new elite.

In the world of the new elite, society and even na- ture itself are to be trans- formed.

Clearly this social engi- neering stands in funda- mental opposition to every concern held by the citi- zenry. What today’s elite cannot endure is that the average citizen lives as if nature were a given. At the heart of the new elite’s world view is its desire for permanent revolution. The new elite would deny that “the laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” are based in any unchangeable reality.

They rebel against Amer- ica’s very being, its deter- mination to live or die by the standard established in nature.

DAVID BROYLES Wake Forest University Winston-Salem, North Carolina To THE EDITOR: I admire David Gelern- ter’s article, but I would like to suggest that the words “loathe” and “hate,” which he uses in describing the at- titudes of elite intellectuals, though correct, are too broad. I think a better word would be “contempt.” Contempt always under- lies a posture of superiori- ty. Under the guise of “im- proving society” and “know- ing what is best for the masses,” such an attitude al- lows its bearer to get away with almost anything. The current elite intelligentsia (exemplified by Bill Clin- ton, among others) has a profound, albeit hidden, contempt for this country and its people.

PATRICIA MEYEROWITZ Easton, Pennsylvania To THE EDITOR: David Gelernter hits the nail on the head and his ar- tide helps to explain two cu- rious phenomena in con- temporary intellectual life.

First is the hysterical ha- tred of the religious Right expressed by so many pun- dits. The very term is a giveaway, since by no clas- sical definition of the term are religious conservatives right-wing. The fact is that the churches so termed are the churches of the lower middle class, the only cul- tural institutions with any appreciable influence which are not controlled by the in- tellectual class. It is impor- tant to note that nearly all the issues in contention- abortion, pornography, church and state, gender equality, same-sex mar- riage-are issues that the Right wants settled demo- cratically by the people or their representatives and the intellectual class wants set- tled by the higher courts, which they control.

The other phenomenon is white racism. Why is it that we are constantly be- ing told by our intellectuals that racism is rampant and getting worse, when all our practical experience tells us the opposite? The article on the O.J. Simpson trial by Christopher Caldwell in the same issue [“Johnnie Coch- ran’s Secret”] is a perfect il- lustration of the phenome- non.

RICHARD A. DAVIS Columbus, Ohio To THE EDITOR: I greatly enjoyed David Gelernter’s insights into the intellectual elite. But perhaps he did not go far enough.

He recounts the telling vi- gnette of David Letterman’s discomfort in saying “Frenchman.” Why have the letters m-a-n become so poi- sonous on the tongue? I think the answer lies in a de- pressing aspect of the intel- lectual class that Mr. Gel- ermter missed: its intolerance.

In the absence of religion, politically-correct speech and action have become, for in- tellectuals, a substitute for a sense of community. (Cheer- ing for sports teams serves the same function for non- intellectuals.) The user of “he or she,” “French person,” etc. is a member in good standing of the club, one of the right- eous. Similar totems are the AIDS ribbon and the recy- cling bin.

Then there are the ex- pressions that identify the bad guys: “I like listening to Rush Limbaugh”; “I voted for Ronald Reagan.” Such remarks are greeted not with argument but with de- rision, raised eyebrows, or dismissive sneers. You are one of them, not one of us.

My own favorite exam- ple of this general phenom- enon occurred in a movie theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1971.

There was a moment in the movie (I think it was Woody Allen’s Take the Money and Run) showing the briefest documentary clip of President Eisenhower and his Vice President engaged in conversation. It may have lasted three seconds. But the theater erupted in a chorus of indignant hissing at the sight of the despised Rich- ard Nixon. The purpose of this outburst, which at first I found incomprehensible, was dearly to affirm the au- dience’s membership in good standing in the com- munity of Nixon-haters. In the absence of other forms of social bonding, it must have been comforting to sit in the dark surrounded by like-minded people.

This intolerance is fun- damentally anti-intellectu- al and inimical to the prac- tice of intellectual discourse, the alleged purpose of a modern university.

RUSSELL ROBERTS Olin School of Business Washington University St. Louis, Missouri To THE EDITOR: The situation described in David Gelernter’s mas- terful and insightful article on the trahison des clercs is deeper and more pandemic than even he imagines.

When I speak to fellow con- servatives I am always amused at how triumphant they seem over the bones we have been thrown in re- cent years. But, as the Clin- ton administration proves, we have merely stood still politically, in spite of recent gains.

Within the academy, the gains are nonexistent. I am not talking about the pre- miere institutions. I am speaking, rather, of the sec- ond- and third-level sectar- ian universities and colleges.

[8] I vLETTERS FROM READERS To understand this fully take, for example, the uni- versity at which I work: a medium-sized Midwestern parochial school, a denom- inational university that is generally thought to be among the most conserva- tive, if not the most conser- vative. And yet the fallout Mr. Gelernter writes of is everywhere apparent here.

We recently revised both our curriculum and printed documents to reflect “gen- der-neutral” language, mul- ticulturalism, globalism, and the like. Not too long ago we restructured our main offerings to reflect greater relevancy. We are a smoke- free campus, and the vast majority of our faculty re- joice in the education “re- forms” suggested by the Clinton administration.

Don’t get me wrong. We offer an excellent education.

When one compares us with a secular setting, we are vastly superior. But my point is this: the madness of the 60’s is so pervasive that even at “archly” conserva- tive institutions, the infec- tion is readily apparent.

Many of my colleagues would say we are now “more mainstream.” A quick look at what has tak- en place in the last five years tells a different story.

I agree wholly with David Gelernter. Where we might disagree is over the clean-up. I think we are looking at intellectual Su- perfund sites.

NAME WITHHELD DAVID GELERNTER writes: Now let me see if I have got this right, as Richard Landau says: that David Letterman cannot say “Frenchman” and that VMI has been forced to admit women do not matter, and in any case Jewish intellec- tuals had nothing to do with it. I don’t doubt that neither fact matters to Mr. Landau.

The soundness of the lan- guage, the integrity of cer- tain small Southern military academies do not agitate the New York Times much, ei- ther, or the leaders of acad- emia or Hollywood or TV or the legal community. At the same time, we face to- day an American culture that we have to protect our children from instead of launching them into, and I suspect that all this shrug- ging-off has something to do with it.

To move on: you might legitimately say, as Mr. Lan- dau also does, that you are proud of the prominent role Jewish intellectuals played in creating modern femi- nism, but to deny that they played it is absurd. Mr. Lan- dau writes that “restrictive quotas against Jews were in- defensible,” and of course I agree.

David Goldknopf is right about the anti-Jewish hir- ing policies of prestige uni- versities before World War II; but as I wrote, “starting in the late 1940’s, admission and hiring policies were transformed.” When he states that I myself “would not have found ready em- ployment at Yale in the 30’s,” he is again right. The suggestion that this may possibly not have occurred to me is bizarre.

Mr. Goldknopf’s asser- tion that my article is “anti- Semitic” belongs in a spe- cial category. I will not low- er myself to answer it, but in a broader sense the issue deserves discussion. We have become accustomed nowadays to terms like “racist,” “anti-Semitic,” “ho- mophobic” (whatever that means-anyway, something bad) being used in the same general way as “filthy pig.” No thoughtful person takes such accusations seriously; they are understood to be terms of abuse and admis- sions of rhetorical failure.

The tragedy is that there really are anti-Semites in the world. What will Mr. Gold- knopf call them? Mark Rust is in favor of “merit and intellect.” Why not? So am I. He asks whether I am “embarrassed by the likes of Irving Kris- tol.” That’s a tough one: no, I am not. I am a big admir- er of conservative intellec- tuals, and by referring to them only in passing I did not mean to suggest that they do not exist or do not matter. On the other hand, while there have always been black sheep and con- [9] .COMMENTARY JUNE I997 servative intellectuals, the average sheep is white and the average intellectual is Left. Irving Kristol is an enormously influential in- tellectual, but it would be silly to claim that he is a typical one.

In answer to Sam Blue- farb: I have indeed indicted an entire class in a sweep- ing fashion. I did it because the class deserves to be in- dicted. I understand that such indictments are un- popular nowadays, but I don’t care. The way to ar- gue the case is in terms of facts and inferences, not by claiming that sweeping in- dictments are wrong ipsofac- to. That said, of course I do not mean to imply, by con- demning “intellectuals,” that I mean every last blessed one; but I assume that is ob- vious.

In case it matters, I think the GI Bill was a great idea, and I share Mr. Bluefarb’s impression of modern col- lege students. Many of them do seem to reject the hard- core leftist positions their professors peddle in class; many call themselves “cen- trists.” But the Center itself has moved. Many of today’s Left positions (for example, on feminism or homosexu- ality or “multiculturalism” or affirmative action or “an- imal rights”) would have been rejected by 1935 Marxists as sheer nut- ballism. The Left has moved Left, and the Cen- ter has too.

There is a common theme (or sub-theme) to all the letters I have discussed so far; it has to do with Jews.

The fact that something is true does not necessarily mean that you serve any purpose by talking about it.

Jews have played a central role in the cultural triumph of the Left since the mid- 1960’s. Everyone knows it; no one denies it. (Jews have played a leading part in modern conservatism also, but that is another story.) So Jews are prominent on the Left; should we talk about it? “This topic is bad for the Jews, so shut up” is an ar- gument for which I myself have a lot of respect.

But to raise this objection in this context at this time strikes me as sheer self-in- dulgence. In a society where Jews or part-Jews or “eth- nicJews” serve as presidents at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, as Secretaries of Defense, Treasury, and (ad- mittedly by accident) State, hold so many powerful po- sitions in the legal world, and the newspaper world, and the entertainment world, and the art world, and the literary world, I have news for you: we can take it. Jews are ready to take stock of their accom- plishments, as a communi- ty, for good and bad, and they have a positive obliga- tion to do so. And now is the moment, because-as all those part-Jews and eth- nic Jews and sort-of Jews can attest-this communi- ty is not fated to survive many more generations, not in anything like its current form. Jews ought to level with themselves while they still can.

Doyne Dawson asks an important question: is it not “utopian,” possibly even “in the worst sense of that word,” to suggest that con- servatives ought to create new institutions? I strong- ly agree with Mr. Dawson that creating new universi- ties is a losing proposition.

But institutions like maga- zines or private grade schools or movie and TV production companies are born on a regular basis. And it happens that conservatives love to create institutions, and do it all the time. It’s just that, for my money, they love creating the wrong kind.

You can (and ought to) criticize Hollywood’s fruit- cake leftism, but the Holly- wood powers not only rant, they also make movies, and the movies are entertaining and people pay money to see them. You can criticize the owners and editors of the New York Times or the Washington Post or the New Yorker, but they print mate- rial that the public (at least a piece of it) wants to read.

It is hard to start a popular newspaper or magazine, or take one over-but it is not impossible, and the idea is not “utopian,” and conser- vatives ought to try, or try harder. They might fail, but they ought to try anyway.

Bill D. Miller points out that my piece attacks intel- lectuals and not leftists, and I understand his point, but it seems to me that substi- tuting “leftists” for “intel- lectuals” would have con- fused things. Intellectuals were handed the reins of power not as leftists but as intellectuals; it made sense for them to run universities, reach prominence in law and public policy, and so forth. The average intellec- tual is in fact better educat- ed than the average Amer- ican and is also, chances are, modestly more intelligent.

There was nothing irra- tional (at least in principle) about putting such people in charge.

The interesting question is, once we put them in charge, how were they like- ly to act? In other contexts, such a question would be absurd; if we put redheads in charge, asking how they would act would make no sense, because redheads as such do not act any partic- ular way. But intellectuals do. There are certain pat- terns that virtually everyone acknowledges.

It seems to me that those patterns have shaped mod- ern life far more than the Left per se has. Of course most intellectuals are left- ists, but they are leftists of a particular sort. Compare the leadership of the Na- tional Education Associa- tion (NEA) with its rank and file; Sol Stern has a fas- cinating article on this top- ic in the current City Jour- nal. Evidently, the mem- bership is mainly “leftist,” as you’d suspect, but in the traditional sense: pro-union, anti-management, pro-gov- ernment. But the leader- ship, under the auspices of the intellectualized elite, is leftist in a very different sense. Stern writes that “a 1995 NEA convention res- olution calling for programs to give ‘accurate portrayals of the roles of gay, lesbian, and bisexual people throughout history,’ for ex- ample, produced a ferocious backlash within the NEA’s own membership….” To call today’s mainstream in- tellectuals mere “leftists” is like calling Dom Perignon mere “sparkling wine.” I am basically in agree- ment with the other letters (it seems to me that Rich- ard A. Davis’s comment on the intensity of hatred di- rected at the “churches of the lower middle class” is particularly revealing and germane). To those who troubled to compliment the piece or suggest refinements or additions to the thesis: I appreciate it very much.

[10] -EXCITING, ESSENTIAL READING “The American Enterprise has a sure sense of where the conversation of the capital is going, and gets there first. As a result, its readers are the best-prepared.” -George F. Will “Intellectually aggressive…

lots of smart writing…

extremely thoughtful.” -The Washington Post “It’s a wonderful conservative voice. It’s not cranky-it’s open to all points of view…” -Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan “I actually read nearly all the pages, which I only do with a handful of magazines.” -Gregg Easterbrook, Newsweek “… one of America’s finest magazines … intellectually interesting, well written, lively, wide-ranging, topical, and above all, useful…. There is no magazine that captures your interest, and keeps it, better than The American Enterprise. ” -William J. Bennett “…combines analytical precision with a from-the-street directness, and the results are powerful…” -Mona Charen, syndicated columnist “Cognoscenti need to keep up with The American Enterprise. ” -David Brooks, The Weekly StandardCOMMENTARY JUNE I997 Affirmative Action To THE EDITOR: I salute Richard E. Mor- gan for his insightful arti- cle, “Republicans for Quo- tas” [February]. Mr. Mor- gan has it exactly right. Sel- dom has the GOP been met with a more agreeable op- portunity. Supporting Prop- osition 209, the California Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI), which prohibits state government from en- gaging in preferential treat- ment based on race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin, was the right and principled thing to do. Hap- pily, it was also extremely popular among voters, and, in last November’s elections, they approved it.

By backing CCRI, Re- publican leaders could have had it both ways. Yet most of them ran for the hills.

There were, of course, a handful of exceptions. Cal- ifornia Republicans like Governor Pete Wilson, At- torney General Dan Lun- gren, and Congressman Tom Campbell endorsed early and never wavered in their support. Honorable mentions must also go to statehouse Republicans like Jan Goldsmith and Bernie Richter and independent Quentin Kopp. Most of the heavy lifting, however, had to be done by relative po- litical novices.

Yet by comparison, the Democratic party’s record was worse than abysmal.

Not a single Democratic of- ficeholder endorsed CCRI.

Some privately confessed their support, but their par- ty leaders made it clear that this was an issue upon which they would brook no dissent.

I am not a big fan of Cal- ifornia’s policy of popular initiatives. Many are ill- conceived; most are poorly drafted. When in doubt (which is almost always), I vote “no,” and fortunately most of my fellow Califor- nians do likewise. Proposi- tion 209, however, proves the worth of the initiative system. Most members of the California legislature well understood the evils of racial and gender prefer- ences. Nevertheless, they did nothing. They simply did not have the backbone to stand up to the affirma- tive-action industry. It took the voters of California to lead the way.

GAIL HERIOT San Diego, California To THE EDITOR: To listen to right-wing Pollyannas, the demise of affirmative action is in- eluctable. Some day, some- how, it will magically dis- appear, with almost no one doing or saying anything.

Many believe that Califor- nia’s passage of Proposi- tion 209 by a slim margin of 54 percent to 46 per- cent signaled the coming end of preference laws and quotas. Others, like Rich- ard E. Morgan, are more realistic.

Not surprisingly, howev- er, Mr. Morgan fails to mention the role of femi- nism (the primary benefi- ciaries of quotas and pref- erences are white females) and immigration in advanc- ing the pestilence of group rights and identity politics.

Take CCRI, for example: if white males had been de- nied the vote in California, CCRI would have lost by a huge margin. In twenty, perhaps even ten, years, the scant 54-percent majority will be gone forever.

In addition to feminism and the expansion of quo- tas and preferences to in- clude women of all races and socioeconomic classes, massive third-world immi- gration increases the num- ber of people who benefit from affirmative action and, consequently, enhances the “racial spoils system.” As long as our ruling elites (including white males) are obsessed with sta- tistical “equality”-i.e., pro- portional representation not only for all races but also for women of all races-quotas will prevail.

Should present trends continue, a tyrannical ma- jority of blacks, Hispanics, other nonwhite minorities, and feminists of all races will control the upper ranks of government, academia, the media, business, etc. Does anyone seriously believe that these groups, once they gain ascendancy, will repeal the laws and policies that have benefited them so greatly? MICHAEL KUEHL Kewaunee, Wsconsin RICHARD E. MORGAN writes: Gail Heriot is right to call attention to the honor- able fight put up for CCRI by Pete Wilson and a hand- ful of other California Re- publican leaders; the con- trast with the national Re- publican leadership is stark And Michael Kuehl is cer- tainly right to emphasize the naivete of those who thought that after the pas- sage of CCRI it would be smooth sailing to the end of affirmative action in Amer- ica. Nothing could be fur- ther from the truth. Indeed, the votes were hardly count- ed last November 5 when lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union and a coalition of groups opposed to Proposition 209 showed up at the federal courthouse in San Francisco asking that the newly adopted measure be declared void on the grounds it violated the Con- stitution, and within a month they had a favorable ruling. While this initial rul- ing has since been over- turned by a panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Ap- peals, the case is likely to go all the way to the Supreme Court. Until that Court rules, the argument of un- constitutionality will dog opponents of preferences across the country.

Furthermore, it is now clear that the Clinton ad- ministration has committed itself to a determined de- fense of affirmative action.

TheJustice Department has entered the California case in support of the constitu- tional arguments against CCRI, and in the works is a White House conference on race relations that will showcase the pressure groups most committed to preferences and allow the President to expand on his theme of “mend it, don’t end it.” The opponents of color- blindness lost at the polls in California, but they suc- ceeded in driving support for CCRI down from around 70 percent to 54 percent. More importantly, these groups showed that they could raise substantial amounts of money to de- fend preferences and recruit prestigious allies from the corporate and academic worlds. They emerged en- ergized, and a lot of hard political work will be nec- essary to defeat them on a national level.

In this longer-haul fight, feminists are the key; Mr.

Kuehl is right about that as well. It is simply the case that if the regime of prefer- ences survives into the next century it will do so because [12] IeTRY THE NEW CRITERION TODAY! It’s One of the Most Influential Periodicals in America* Here’s a Chance to Read It — FREE! Are you interested in a broad range of creative endeavor, from literature, painting, music, and architecture to theater, dance, and performance art? Would you welcome spirited argument that engages cultural trendiness with uncompromis- ing intellectual honesty and independence? Will you accept a free copy of a journal that is literate, thought-provoking, and immensely fun to read? expression of opinions and ideas, in its refusal to give ground to today’s arbiters of artistic and literary tastes. Others have taken notice: “Not since H.L. Mencken and The American Mercury has literary America seen so much fur fly,” says The Boston Review “…the best art magazine and a provocative force in other cultural areas,” says The Wall Street Journal “…stimulates, elucidates, and infuriates,” says The New Art Examiner If “YES” is your answer, we are pleased to introduce you to The New Criterion. For 16 years The New Criterion’s commitment to the highest critical standards has been an eloquent antidote to the political orthodoxy dominating our cultural life. Month after month, it serves up honest commentary and criticism on the- ater, the visual arts, literature, music, poetry, dance, and other points of cultural interest.

Bold, Articulate, Outspoken It all began when Hilton Kramer dared to “disturb the universe” of contemporary arts and letters. After leaving his long-held position as New York Times chief art critic, Kramer started a literary-intellectual journal for the rest of us — people who love literature and the arts but refuse to follow the lead of a single-minded critical “elite.” Today’s New Criterion is no less committed to independence: in its critical judgments, in its *A survey of academics, writers, and editors published by Princeton University Press cited THE NEW CRITERION as one of the Top 10 most influential periodicals among American intellectuals.

__COMMENTARY JUNE 1997 of the support of American women in thrall to radical feminism. This fact must be faced squarely; it does no good to argue as if affirma- tive action were only about race.

Where I disagree with Mr. Kuehl (and am there- fore somewhat more opti- mistic) is in respect to im- migrants. Of course, it is appalling to see new arrivals immediately qualifying as “protected” minorities. But while some immigrant groups (notably Hispanics) are playing the affirmative- action game with gusto, others (notably Asians) are not. Opposition to prefer- ences is not just a white male thing. White males have wives and mothers and sisters who are less than thrilled at seeing the prospects of their menfolk arbitrarily reduced, and Asians are unlikely to re- main politically passive as reverse discrimination bears more and more heavily on them (as it has been doing, for instance, in admission to elite units of the California university system).

Preferences remain ex- tremely unpopular with the American people as a whole.

The political task now is to encourage ordinary citizens to trust their better instincts on the question of affirma- tive action and resist the bullying of entrenched left- wing elites.

Intermarriage To THE EDITOR: Wendy Shalit [“Inter- marriage, Inc.,” March] is immensely informative about the cultural stresses in intermarriage. May I rec- ommend that the partners in such a marriage read, together, the fundamen- tal texts of both Judaism and Christianity? That is, they should sit down seri- ously-make time for doing so-and begin with the Torah. Robert Alter’s new translation of Genesis would be a good place to start; they will need the annotations throughout that Alter pro- vides. Having completed Genesis, they can go on with the other four books, slow- ly and in an informed way.

Then they can read the four Gospels, Acts, some Paul, also with scholarly annota- tion.

Among many other things, it would become clear that the narrative be- tween the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament is in many ways a continuity, and that the latter cannot be understood without refer- ence to the former.

This recommendation is not going to appeal to all such couples, obviously. But the question ought to be moved beyond Santas and Hanukkah bushes.

JEFFREY HART Dartmouth, New Hampshire TO THE EDITOR: Congratulations to Wen- dy Shalit for her perceptive observations on intermar- riage. As she points out, at- tempts to blend Jewish and non-Jewish elements into an intermarriage often cre- ate a result which brings grief to the Jewish commu- nity as a whole.

One example is the prac- tice of the “breaking of the glass.” This Jewish custom symbolizes the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.

When observed at an inter- faith wedding ceremony, however, a sad irony emerges from the broken glass, at least from the perspective of the Jewish community.

At a rite marking the de- parture of one of the Chil- dren of Israel from the fold, the intermarrying couple observes the one Jewish wedding custom designed to subtract from our joy.

ROBERT P. LINDEMAN Brookline, Massachusetts To THE EDITOR: The points raised by Wendy Shalit in “Intermar- riage, Inc.” are well taken.

As the author of one of the books she discusses, There’ No Such Thing as a Hanuk- kah Bush, Sandy Goldstein, I would like, first, to thank her for her comments on my book. The response I receive always depends on where the speaker is stand- ing. The parents with both feet planted firmly in a Jew- ish neighborhood, whose children attend religious school or a public school that is predominantly Jew- ish, are happy to tell me that their children have no desire to celebrate Christ- mas: for them it is a non- issue. But for others, grow- ing up Jewish in America has quite a different look: it is, for example, the look on the faces of the two little girls in a far western Chica- go suburb who whispered to me after I had made a guest appearance at their school that they, too, were Jewish. For them it is im- possible not to define Ju- daism primarily by what it is not. This is especially true at Hanukkah time, when the entire world around them glitters with tree lights and tinsel.

My book was written for them, for my daughter whose young heart longed for a Christmas tree, for my mother who first explained to the eight-year-old me that there was no such thing as a Hanukkah bush.

SUSAN SUSSMAN Chicago, Illinois To THE EDITOR: In “Intermarriage, Inc.” Wendy Shalit provides evi- dence for the insight of the late philosopher Emmanuel Levinas that the national spirit is strongly marked by reli- gious history which, throughout the centuries, has impregnated daily so- cial customs. Jews’ entry into the national life of Eu- ropean states has led them to breathe an atmosphere impregnated with Christ- ian essence, which prepares them for the religious life of these states and heralds their conversion.

It warms the cockles of an aging heart to know that Wendy Shalit is out there in the ranks of today’s young.

MORRIS GOLDSTEIN New York City WENDY SHALIT writes: I am very grateful for the kind words and insight of Jeffrey Hart, Robert P. Lin- deman, Susan Sussman, and Morris Goldstein. I was par- ticularly interested in Mr.

Hart’s suggestion because I could not make up my mind about it. On the one hand, if every interfaith couple took his advice, clearly in- termarriage would be less an occasion for anguish than an opportunity for renewed religious commitment. And yet, if such individuals were that curious about the pri- mary texts of their religion, I cannot help wondering whether they would be like- ly to intermarry in the first place.

[14]LETTERS FROM READERS The Simpson Trial To THE EDITOR: Christopher Caldwell [“Johnnie Cochran’s Se- cret,” March] is partially right. O.J. Simpson is al- most certainly guilty, and race was a central consider- ation in his criminal trial.

However, Mr. Caldwell is wrong in asserting that it was the defense which raised the race issue.

In a normal homicide prosecution, the case would have been filed and prose- cuted in the predominantly white West District in San- ta Monica, the same district where the Simpson civil case was heard. It was the prosecution which first made race an issue when it decided, at the very outset of the case and for reasons entirely unrelated to win- ning the trial, to prosecute Simpson in the predomi- nantly black Central Dis- trict. This decision was made with racial politics in mind: in the post-Rodney King era, the prosecution did not want a white jury.

Thus, it was not the defense but the prosecution which guaranteed that the jury would, as Mr. Caldwell says, “wind up virtually all-poor and all-black.” To bring up another point: I am a bit tired of hearing how the prosecu- tion has fewer rights than the defense in jury selection.

Both sides get the same num- ber of peremptory chal- lenges. The rule established in People v. Wheeler applies to both the defense and the pros- ecution (see Georgia v. Mc- Collum [1992] and People v.

Pagel [1986]).

The remedy for a Wheel- er violation (purging a racial group from the jury) is to call a new panel and pick a new jury. If the prosecution could have shown such a vi- olation by the defense, it could also have made the ap- propriate motion and asked for a new panel. If the pros- ecution was racially handi- capped in jury selection, it was as a direct consequence of its own decision to pros- ecute in a heavily black dis- trict.

Finally, Mr. Caldwell does Barry Scheck a disservice. He claims that Scheck and Peter Neufeld, the other so-called “DNA lawyer” on the Simp- son defense team, constructed a frame-up they knew did not occur, implied racism where they knew it did not exist, and … undermined confidence in a branch of forensic sci- ence whose trustworthi- ness they had spent their careers establishing.

And he then quotes Barry Scheck’s closing words to the jury: You must distrust [DNA] evidence…. You cannot render a verdict in this case beyond a reasonable doubt on this kind of evi- dence. Because if you do, no one is safe, no one.

In fact, Scheck exhaus- tively and effectively at- tacked the deficiencies in the physical evidence and ar- gued honorably. I myself have used, to good effect, words almost identical to the ones Mr. Caldwell quotes, and I have done so repre- senting white defendants in front of white juries.

MICHAEL LUKEHART Kern County Public Defender Bakersfield, California To THE EDITOR: When the verdict in the O.J. Simpson criminal trial was returned, it hit the American public (white America, anyway) like a brick on the head. And in that moment of jaw-drop- ping disbelief it was crystal clear what had happened: an overwhelmingly black jury, sold on fanciful theories of racial conspiracy and ig- noring incontrovertible ev- idence of guilt, acquitted a murderer.

As horrified and angered as I was by the verdict, I felt that at least this event would finally put into stark relief the undeniably different worlds in which much of black and white society live and that those differences could finally be openly and seriously discussed. But no sooner had the verdict been returned than the popular media began to put a sani- tized, politically-correct spin on why Simpson got away [15]COMMENTARY JUNE I997 with murder. In the media’s self-proclaimed mission to “heal the racial divide,” a new culprit for the acquit- tal had to be found. With the help of legal vulgarians like Leslie Abramson and other “experts,” we soon learned that it was the fail- ure of the prosecution team that was to blame.

But all this is so much Monday-morning quarter- backing. The prosecution team made mistakes, no doubt (not least of which was caving in to pressure and not taking the case to Simi Valley). But prosecut- ing a case, as I know from a career as both a prosecutor and defense attorney, is a lot like what psychologists say about parenting: you don’t have to be perfect, just good enough. And the prosecu- tion team was good enough; it got mountains of damn- ing evidence before the jury, including DNA evidence which, standing alone, es- tablished guilt beyond any doubt.

But as Christopher Cald- well so aptly points out in his article, once the issue of race entered the courtroom and was accepted as legiti- mate by all, the verdict was sealed. And no amount of prosecutorial wizardry could have changed that.

EvAN J. WINER Chicago, Illinois CHRISTOPHER CALDWELL writes: Except for his assertion that the prosecution could have, or should have, ob- tained a change of venue to Simi Valley, EvanJ. Winer’s letter strikes me as right in every particular. Michael Lukehart, on the other hand, asserts that I was wrong in saying that it was the defense which brought race into the Simpson trial.

I agree with both Messrs.

Winer and Lukehart that Simpson should have been tried in Santa Monica (where the crime was com- mitted) rather than in downtown Los Angeles (where he was in fact tried).

And there is little doubt that Los Angeles district attor- ney Gil Garcetti benefited from the perception that he was willing-even keen-to have the case tried in front of a black jury. Garcetti in fact won reelection last fall by a razor-thin margin, thanks to an overwhelming majority of the black vote.

But in The Run of His Life, Jeffrey Toobin holds that there were insurmountable logistical obstacles to hold- ing the trial in Santa Mon- ica. Since Toobin examined the specific matter of venue selection more closely than any other journalist at the Simpson trial, I consider him authoritative on the matter.

I did not hold that People v.

Wheeler gives more rights to the defense than to the prosecution, as Mr. Luke- hart claims. It is indis- putable, however, that Wheeler has in practice been more useful to those who would stack a jury with blacks than to those who would stack a jury with whites.

As for Barry Scheck’s closing statement, it is not the words themselves that are objectionable, but the fact that they bear no rela- tion to the evidence.

Franz Schubert To THE EDITOR: Bravo to Terry Teachout for “Schubert Lives” [March], in which, on the occasion of Franz Schubert’s 200th birthday, he elegant- ly and accurately explores the composer’s great art.

Mr. Teachout is a worthy successor in COMMEN- TARY’s pages to Samuel Lip- man, whose death was such a great loss.

I find it inexplicable, however, that in Mr. Tea- chout’s otherwise excellent discography at the end of the piece, he does not men- tion any of Schubert’s mag- nificent choral works. Let me suggest, among the most worthy, Mass No. 2 and Mass No. 6 by Robert Shaw and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Choruses, with Dawn Upshaw and Benita Valente (Telarc CD- 80212) and Songs for Male Chorus, Shaw again, with the Robert Shaw Chamber Singers (Telarc CD-80340).

CLAYTON H. FARNHAM Atlanta, Georgia TERRY TEACHOUT writes: Apologies-both the CD’s that Clayton H. Farn- ham mentions were actual- ly on my list, but got dropped at the last minute, purely for reasons of space.

And many thanks to Mr.

Farnham for his kind words.

The West To THE EDITOR: In his review of Samuel Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations and the Remak- ing of World Order [Books in Review, March], Richard Pipes criticizes Huntington for failing to list private property, with its corollar- ies of political freedom and economic growth, as the sine qua non of Western civiliza- tion. This is an economic [16] Business with Israel? Investing in Israel? Visit the Israeli Investor Network T M World Wide Web Site http://www.iinl8.com Write to us for free information and a free issue of: THE GIZA INVESTMENT LETTER- ISRAEL’S BEST SOURCE OF NEWS AND ANALYSIS OF ISRAELI SECURITIES ISRAELI INVESTOR NETWORKINC.

165 W. PUTNAM AVENUE GREENWICH, CT. 06830, USA OR FAX YOUR REQUEST TO: 914-937-7153 vedited by Richard John Neuhaus “The flagship monthly of religious neoconservatism” -The New York Times – Discover a journal that gives you a fresh and refreshing look at today’s most important religious and moral questions.

From abortion to post- modernism FIRST THINGS engages you in a lively and profound conversation about the ordering of public life.

You are invited to join that ‘Everyone talks about the proper role of religion in public affairs, conversation by trying FIRST but FIRST THINGS is the only place THINGS on a money-saving, in which a serious and illuminating exploration of that question can be trial basis. To order, simply pursued …

return the coupon below. – Norman Podhoretz Try 12 Issues of FIRST THINGS RISK FREE I [1 YES! I’d like to try this sprightly, outspoken source of ideas and insight on religion and society.

Please enter my 12-issue subscription (one year, plus two bonus issues) for only S19.95 – more I than $25 off the newsstand price.

m NO RISK, FULLY GUARANTEED If I am not absolutely delighted with my Fhr THINGS subscription, I’ll I receive a full, prompt refund on all unmailed copies. I 0 PAYMENT ENCLOSED m_ _ _ _ _ _ O BILL ME m oSTM Charge my: 0 VISA 0 MasterCard CM67 Cord # Expiration Dote FIRST THINGS * P.O. BOX 3000 * Denlle, NJ 0734 – -_-_-_-_-_-_-_–m — — -m ——– I–m — … – – – – – – – – – – – – m ml COMMENTARY JUNE I997 determinism that is as un- palatable as the Marxism against which Mr. Pipes has so ably argued in COM- MENTARY and elsewhere.

Huntington clearly sees these attributes as derivative rather than essential to Western culture. But he goes wrong when he tries to define Western civilization by listing its characteristics rather than by explaining its cultural base. His list is in- evitably incomplete, and thus he opens himself up to Mr. Pipes’s charge. Actual- ly, Huntington is on to something quite important: religion, morality, and ethics are at the foundation of civ- ilization.

For the West, what is es- sential is the Judeo-Christ- ian tradition. As long as it is vital, the West will grow. To the extent that the West pulls away from its reli- gious-moral base, to the ex- tent that it secularizes, it opens itself up to disorder, to the growth of ideologies like Nazism and Commu- nism.

Mr. Pipes is probably right in believing that the West will spread, but he is wrong in seeing this growth as virtually unstoppable and in believing that non-West- ern elites are resisting it simply because their power is being put in jeopardy.

Huntington is right in pre- dicting future clashes where the major civilizations rub up against the West. These are the result in part of what Mr. Pipes describes as the elite’s fear of losing power but in greater part of a reaction to Western secu- larization. Both Messrs.

Pipes and Huntington fail to see that secularization it- self will bring confusion and disorder within West- ern civilization and sow the same seeds of destruction that brought on two world wars in this century.

Variations of Commu- nism and Nazism are again appearing as various soci- eties, torn from their tradi- tional cultural values and adrift in a world which prizes power and money, seek an escape from pover- ty and insecurity and de- mand equal access to the privileged life of the devel- oped nations. A secular in- ternational order, one de- void of common values that truly unite people, has no staying power.

DENNIS J. DUNN Southwest Texas State University San Marcos, Texas RICHARD PIPES writes: Dennis J. Dunn consid- ers my stress on private property and its corollaries to be “economic determin- ism.” I hardly think so. The term “property” as defined in the West since the Mid- dle Ages, but especially since the 17th century, has meant not merely ownership of physical objects but the preservation of life and re- spect for liberties and civil rights. It is what distin- guishes Western civilization from all other civilizations.

In any event, this view is not incompatible with stress on the importance to the West ofJewish and Christ- ian traditions. Both religions teach respect for property: the Eighth Commandment against stealing is certainly an emphatic assertion of this principle.

Finally, I doubt that sec- ularism causes wars, as Mr. Dunn maintains: his- tory is filled with inci- dents of bloody conflict over religion.

Conservatives To THE EDITOR: The COMMENTARY sym- posium “On the Future of Conservatism” [February] proved to be excellent read- ing, but, unlike the other contributors, Irwin M.

Stelzer was not content with setting forth the intellectu- al merits of his case. In re- sponding to the remarks of Father Richard John Neuhaus, the editor of First Things, in that magazine’s symposium, Mr. Stelzer had to engage in making anti- Catholic remarks to sustain his position. His statement that Jewish neoconservatives should have known better than to “pitch an intellec- tual tent broad enough” to include “many Catholics brought up in a tradition that does not welcome dis- sent from its revealed truths” smacks of an animus against Catholics that Arthur Schlesinger, Sr. once said was America’s “deepest bias.” Mr. Stelzer is right, of course, to suggest that cer- tain teachings of the Cath- olic Church are not depen- dent on a referendum for validation, but he is wrong to phrase his words in a manner that is downright disparaging of Catholicism.

Even worse is his com- ment thatJewish intellec- tuals “should not expect to be partners in a governing theocracy” with Catholics.

Precisely whom is he speak- ing about? Can he name even one Catholic who has proposed a governing theocracy? This is pure, unadulter- ated bigotry.

WILLIAM A. DONOHUE President, Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights New York City To THE EDITOR: Irwin M. Stelzer’s assev- eration that Catholicism is a “tradition that does not welcome dissent from its re- vealed truths” needs to be addressed. Roman Catholics share a profound tradition of faith and reason, a shared understanding of natural in- quiry, and a shared concep- tion of first principles, but this tradition is revealed through active engagement and critical debate. After all, St. Thomas Aquinas be- gan his philosophical pro- ject to reconcile Aristotelian thought with Catholic tra- dition as a dissenter. More recently, the late John Courtney Murray, S.J., the theologian who did the most to articulate an ac- commodation between the Church and modern dem- ocracy, initially began his work as a dissenter. Anyway, before accusations are hurled as to which tradition has the better record on ac- cepting dissent, let us not forget the troubles that Spinoza incurred in the Jewish community of 17th- century Amsterdam.

Mr. Stelzer also raises a larger issue concerning the market’s ability to address the major social problems confronting American dem- ocracy today. Is it grounds for excommunication from the ranks of conservatism to suggest that the market con- tributes significantly to the cultural decay evident in the breakdown of traditional family, communities, and moral values? Clearly, the entertain- ment industry has served to undermine those values nec- essary for a healthy society to function properly. Of course, consumers who are outraged by movies that de- pict priests as womanizers or records that espouse vi- [18]COMMENTARY JUNE I997 olence against white police officers and women can boycott these products. But without a shared sense of community based on an agreed-upon morality, how effective can any boycott be under the onslaught of what is being spewed forth today as entertainment? Will downsizing government and giving tax breaks to the mid- dle class restore a moral or- der in America? These kinds of questions need to be asked by liber- tarian conservatives and tra- ditionalists alike.

DONALD T. CRITCHLOW Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars Washington, D.C.

IRWIN M. STELZER writes: I regret that William A.

Donohue found my remarks in COMMENTARY’S sympo- sium “anti-Catholic” and “bigoted.” What I said was that many Catholics do not welcome dissent from what they deem to be “revealed truths”; Mr. Donohue says that “certain teachings of the Catholic Church are not dependent on a referendum for validation.” I am happy to accept his formulation.

But if-and I emphasize the if-his is meant to be a po- litical statement as well as a theological one, it confirms me in my uneasiness.

Recall: my quarrel was not with Catholics in gen- eral, but with the editorial statement that introduced the symposium in First Things and that cited papal encyclicals as if they were the final authority for all Americans, or as if the prin- ciples enunciated in those encyclicals should deter- mine the legitimacy or ille- gitimacy of the American “regime.” To me at least, this seems to suggest a theo- cratic view of the polity.

It is precisely this attitude that makes me fear an al- liance between neoconser- vatives and First Things-or any group that would place its views beyond the reach of democratic debate. The notion that a “regime” be- comes illegitimate if it adopts a position that, al- though supported by a ma- jority of voters, is offensive to the teachings of one or another religious group is one I find scary.

I share the nervousness of Robert H. Bork and others about the dangers inherent in a hyperactive judiciary. But the solution to this problem surely lies either in democratically approved constitutional changes to reduce the pow- er of the judiciary or, as William Kristol has sug- gested, in persuading a ma- jority of duly elected legis- lators to be more vigorous in their opposition to the confirmation of judges who hold views of which they disapprove.

Donald T. Critchlow also brings up the question of dissent. In citing the case of Spinoza, he means, I as- sume, to point out that Jews have also had difficul- ty accepting dissent within their community. But as I know of no source of data that would permit me to compare the number of Catholic excommunicants with their Jewish equiva- lents, I leave it to the read- er to decide which tradition [19] -&—- — ______ 1LETTERS FROM READERS has the better record in this regard.

The more interesting is- sue raised by Mr. Critch- low relates to what he terms “the market’s abili- ty to address the major so- cial problems confronting American democracy to- day.” He concedes that consumers who find certain television programs, re- cords, and films offensive are free to boycott them.

But that, he says, may not be enough. Well, what then? Should others, who have different preferences, be denied access to these products? Should they be made to march to the beat of someone else’s drum- mer? For Mr. Critchlow, a market-determined result- one that is produced by the accumulated preferences of consumers exercising free choice-that does not com- port with an “agreed-upon morality” is problematic.

Will we be asked next to deny seats to duly elected representatives who refuse to swear to support that “agreed-upon morality”? No. Tax cuts cannot re- store the old morality. But neither can central control of what goes out over the airwaves. Only personal re- sponsibility, revived in ways suggested by Charles Mur- ray, among others, can do that.

To THE EDITOR: In your symposium, Wal- ter Berns’s comments on conservatism include so many questionable state- ments that it may be useful to call attention to at least some of them. He begins by characterizing Russell Kirk as the “doyen of the paleo- conservatives” and thereby creates the impression that whatever view he attributes to Kirk is typical of all paleoconservatives. As the inventor of this term, I find that Mr. Berns does not know to whom or what it refers. Most paleos–e.g., Sam Francis, Tom Fleming, Lew Rockwell, and Allan Carlson-have studied the social sciences and other modern disciplines. They are not Anglo-Catholic tra- ditionalists at war with the post-medieval world. Their complaint with the current American regime is not its failure to instantiate a “Christian commonwealth,” but its lack of constitution- ality.

Mr. Berns gratuitously compares Father Richard John Neuhaus to those “self-righteous zealots” who impose their social policies through the courts. This comparison is misleading for two reasons.

One, there is nothing that Mr. Berns cites-or can cite-from Neuhaus’s edi- torial remarks in First Things to prove that he is a “self- righteous zealot.” Neuhaus never denies-and indeed affirms-that the American federal union was intended to be religiously pluralistic.

But Neuhaus and his co- symposiasts also maintain (as Mr. Berns too admits at the end of his polemic) that the Founders assumed that a moral consensus would prevail in the new republic.

They did not suspect that American courts would one day declare war on what had been the common moral ground of Americans what- ever their denominational differences.

Two, the comparison be- tween Neuhaus and the usurping judges overlooks a disproportion in power.

While Neuhaus and com- pany simply express their opinions, the judges, by contrast, are free to legis- late and to overrule legisla- tures and referenda.

Mr. Berns fears that by making too much of these annoyances, we may be set- ting ourselves up for “some type of fascism.” As he warned during an interview with Insight magazine (Feb- ruary 3, 1997), a rightist dic- tatorship may be “the only alternative” unless we see ourselves as the “best regime.” Putting aside this alarmist speculation and the naive belief that today’s “best regime” would be rec- ognizable as such to the Founders, the problem still remains of his misrepresen- tation of the protest ex- pressed in First Things.

The First Things sym- posiasts, as far as I can tell, deplore not religious plu- ralism or natural rights or (unlike myself) the consti- tutional revolution carried out by the New Deal. They are complaining about the judicial assaults in recent decades on traditional fam- ily and communal life. Some who are especially outraged discuss the possibility of pri- vate disobedience in re- sponse to this development.

By no means a call to vio- lent upheaval, such musings seem far more modest than the organized disobedience that both Richard John Neuhaus and Walter Berns himself condoned during the civil-rights agitation of the 50’s and 60’s.

PAUL GOTTFRIED Lancaster, Pennsylvania To THE EDITOR: In his contribution to the “On the Future of Conser- vatism” symposium, Walter Berns insults the late Rus- sell Kirk and then attribut- es positions to him that Kirk never professed. As one of Kirk’s former research as- sistants who spent many hours with him and who is now completing a book on his political thought, I must respond to Mr. Berns’s un- fair allegations.

Mr. Berns implies that Kirk was an anti-Semite be- cause of a single incident.

According to Mr. Berns, while Kirk was outlining his “plan for a Christian com- monwealth” during a panel discussion, Mr. Berns abruptly interrupted his co- panelist to ask, “What are you going to do with us Jews?” Allegedly, the ques- tion took him aback, first be- cause he knew I was not Jewish, but most of all, I suspect, because it never occurred to him to ask it, or to have to answer it. Af- ter a short pause, he mum- bled something to the ef- fect that, of course, he did not mean to exclude Jews or anyone else.

I doubt that Mr. Berns has accurately described this incident. Kirk would not have responded so defen- sively and awkwardly, since he had frequently written about the Hebraic influ- ences on the Western and American political tradition.

Read, for example, his Roots ofAmerican Order (1974), in which he devotes an entire chapter to an examination of the Jewish impact on the American political order.

“In both its Christian and Jewish forms,” Kirk wrote, “the order of Sinai still gives vitality to America.” Nothing in my personal relationship with Kirk would lend any credence to Mr. Berns’s charge and nothing I have read in his writings would indicate that he disliked Jews.

Mr. Berns further alleges that Kirk claimed that “Tohn [20] . . . . .COMMENTARY JUNE 997 Locke had nothing to do with the Constitution.” This is untrue. Kirk maintained that the Lockean influences on the Constitution had been exaggerated by the scholars Louis Hartz and Richard Hofstadter. Such historians, according to Kirk, ignored the King James Bible, the Book of Common Prayer, the British constitutional tradition, and the common-law tradition and its interpreters.

W. WESLEY MCDONALD Elizabethtown College Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania WALTER BERNS writes: Paul Gottfried claims to have coined the term “paleo- conservative.” Well, good for him, but so far as I know, he hasn’t patented it.

He also artfully garbles my statement (made in a telephone interview) about the danger posed by talk of revolution. Let me quote it in full: “I’m not angry that they [the First Things symposi- asts] raised ‘regime ques- tions,”‘ Berns explained to Insight. “I’m angry that they raised the possibility of civil disobedience and revolution. If ours is not the best regime, you have to consider the real alter- natives. And since Com- munism has bitten the dust, the only alternative is some type of fascism.

You always have to be on the alert about that.” I should like to have edited that statement before it was printed, but I think its meaning is clear enough, and rather at variance with Paul Gotfried’s dissembling version of it.

In reply to W. Wesley McDonald, who says I am unfair to Russell Kirk: I did not imply that Kirk was an anti-Semite; I implied that he did not understand what he was saying when he sug- gested that the United States was, or was intended to be, a Christian common- wealth.

As to the Roots ofAmeri- can Order which, for my sins, I once read, I shall sim- ply say that Kirk did not un- derstand the provenance of the Declaration of Inde- pendence and the Consti- tution, with its separation of church and state.

Gay Rights To THE EDITOR: I write in response to Norman Podhoretz’s “How the Gay-Rights Movement Won” [November 1996] and the correspondence on the article in the March issue.

My youngest son died of AIDS one year ago at the age of twenty-six. No child was more loved or better cared for, by parents and siblings, until the terrible end.

I recall, as a boy, walking with my Communist party (CP, now PC) father in Greenwich Village and passing a group of flaming homosexuals (rare in those days). “When we have so- cialism, those vermin will be exterminated!,” he in- [21] Can’t find Commentary at your favorite newsstand? Help is just one phone call away.

Dial 31 1-800-221-3148 3t to ask where Commentary is on sale nearyour home or office.

L COMMENTARY JUNE 997 toned, a sentiment he usu- ally reserved for Trot- skyites. Now he displays a red ribbon on his front door with the pride of someone who lost his grandson in the battle of Stalingrad. The party line has indeed changed. And ironically, the terrible deed is being done by the same party with its line reversed.

The dead, dying, and doomed already outnum- ber the combined fatalities from all the wars the U.S.

has fought. And that num- ber is understated as well as growing rapidly.

HIV is an affirmative-ac- tion virus. No other conta- gion has a right to privacy.

Without mandatory testing there is no way to track the virus, much less stop it.

Clusters go undetected for years. Many of my son’s friends still are in an untest- ed state of denial, although some have already had lovers who died of AIDS.

The gays’ political clout in San Francisco is matched only by their immaturity, to which the Left has cynical- ly catered.

The accusation “homo- phobe” has lost its cutting edge from overuse. Is there anyone who would rather attend his son’s funeral than his son’s wedding? And how much longer must we listen to the hype that education and tolerance will defeat AIDS? Is any community more knowledgeable about AIDS, hipper about sex, and more tolerant of everything imaginable than the homo- sexual community at the epicenter of the plague? The gay establishment pretends that no territory exists between persecution and celebration; that criti- cism of the gay “life-style” is an effort to drive gays back to the closet. For the sake of argument let us imagine a worst-case (and almost unimaginable) sce- nario: that the U.S. revert- ed to the homophobia of the 50’s. How many homo- sexuals were actually killed because of their homosexu- ality? Probably not more than were killed because they were Communists, which was perhaps a few more than were eaten by mountain lions. How does that compare with the ca- sualties of our own era? I can imagine a backlash from the growing awareness that AIDS is slowly en- trenching itself within the sexual mainstream of the straight world. Gays should be at the forefront of a cam- paign for mandatory test- ing, closing bathhouses, and abolishing propaganda ad- vocating promiscuity. I do not expect this to happen.

The self-destructive, by de- finition, are not moved by self-interest.

ROBERT TRUPIN Comptche, California To THE EDITOR: Norman Podhoretz was most gracious in his re- sponse to my letter on ho- mosexual pedophilia. He agreed with me that homo- sexual pedophilia “. . . re- mains the beneficiary of a [liberal] tolerance that is not (at least not yet!) extended as widely or as readily to the molestation of girls by men.” Things now appear to be worse than we both thought.

On March 17, Ben Brantley, the chief theater critic of the New York Times, wrote a rave review of Paula Vogel’s play, How I Learned to Drive. The piece was headlined “A Pedophile Even a Mother Could Love,” an accurate summa- ry of the tone and content of the review of a play which revolves around a man in his thirties, a bisexual molester of an eleven-year-old girl and an even younger boy.

This man, the girl’s uncle by marriage, is described by Brantley as particularly sen- sitive and empathic in re- gard to the emotional needs, frustrations, and family de- ficiencies of these children.

Brantley sees the uncle’s sex- ual seductions of the girl, which start at age eleven and continue through her late adolescence, as ” … in some appalling way, a real love story.” New York magazine re- ports that the play, which it calls “the season’s funniest portrait of a child molester,” received “rapturous” reviews and that Paula Vogel has “broken out of cult status into broader popular and lit- erary acceptance.” Indeed, just last month How I Learned to Drive won the New York Drama Critics Circle award as the best new play of the 1996-1997 the- ater season.

There are other indica- tions of growing tolerance and rationalizations for ho- mosexual and heterosexual child abuse, often encased in the armor of ideological abstractions, e.g., “It’s part of life.” This attitude is to be found particularly among certain academic, artistic, intellectual, and media types. It is related to what Daniel P. Moynihan has called “defining deviancy down” in the prevailing lib- eral culture. Mr. Podhoretz has analyzed this phenom- enon again in his masterful essay, “‘Lolita,’ My Moth- er-in-Law, the Marquis de Sade, and Larry Flynt,” in the April COMMENTARY.

PAUL WALLER New York City