Correspondence
CORRESPONDENCE Socialism or Standard Oil? Repeatedly I receive advertisements from you, either because I once subscribed or because you have acquired my name from various mailing lists. You...
...Wills' book that being a conservative means more than accepting the idea of social order...
...For those who have not mastered Governor Jerry Brown's art of "living with contradiction," two problems with the book can be identified...
...Second, one realizes from reading Mr...
...They are: 1. Your worship of big business...
...It is interesting that, although the pedantic portions of the book refer to a large number of political philosophers, Burke's work is never mentioned...
...Wills seems to be unable to come to any reasoned judgments about the "Prophets" of the past 20 years...
...Although he says that he respects the desire for social order, Mr...
...This is conservatism...
...Wills freely admits that his "political childhood was retarded...
...With regard to Mr...
...Did Mr...
...Wills' confusion might have been cleared up if he had had a strong dose of Burke while he was growing up...
...Wills has revealed himself to be a mere moralist, disingenuously applauding the social order he would like to replace...
...Wills' "conservatism" and an inquiry into what divides liberals and conservatives, the book fails on both counts...
...My reasons ought to interest you...
...Yet it is difficult to decide which is more bothersome: a bad book or a bad review of a bad book...
...during another, sentence structure is understood...
...Certainly O'Connor the storyteller and Teilhard the "theologian" are poles apart in their vision of the world and human nature...
...We should hold out little hope of his maturing...
...Wills has earned it...
...It is true that this country has responded to the moral and political claims of certain groups, and that many of these changes have slowly become part of our conservative heritage...
...These people do us all a bit of good, now and then...
...Piaget further suggests that if a child fails to gain an insight during a particular stage, it is very difficult, if not impossible, for him to gain it later on...
...It was not until he started writing regularly for National Review that he was able to peruse the works of the great political theorists and philosophers...
...If our only choice is between socialism and Standard Oil, then we have no choice...
...If there be any one religious doctrine constant, though implicit, in Miss O'Connor's writings, it is a belief in original sin...
...Perhaps this is why Mr...
...The readers in Terre Haute must be scratching their heads by now...
...Wills...
...a moral sense) bugs these people, modern Manichaeans, pantheists, and grim "humanists...
...He is, of course, a loser...
...Confessions of a Conservative should surely be considered a candidate for your Harold Robbins Award as the worst book of the year...
...Strojie Lebanon, Oregon...
...Mark T. Lilla Cambridge, Massachusetts Grim Humanists An occasional reader of Flannery O'Connor, I enjoyed Stephen Miller's article on Miss O'Connor and her writing (August 1979...
...Garry Wills' Confessions of a Conservative is not one of those books...
...But he is a loser because of very un-Southern traits...
...But Catholics who have lived through the late sixties and early seventies know that the Catholic idea of justice mixes quite easily with such things as "liberation theology" and nuns with chubby legs playing guitar while singing anti-war songs during High Mass...
...Beichman has ignored Wills' main thrust: that the support of radical "social change" is somehow consistent with conservatism...
...One might assume that it would be difficult for someone so steeped in the past to turn out so unconservative...
...If people are usually quite a bit better than no damned good, it is nevertheless selfevident that man is not perfectible...
...Irony or satire (humor with intellectual content...
...Reverence for the family and tradition can make Catholicism conservative when it is translated into political thought, but its concept of justice can also make it quite radical...
...Although Mr...
...You people need to learn to think more objectively and stop whining through your nostrils when you talk...
...Hence the irritation with the Spectator, which, somewhat like Miss O'Connor, reveals the seamy side of human nature...
...During one stage a child learns that matter is conserved when its shape is transformed...
...If stages of development also exist in the formation of political thought, then Mr...
...Common hooligans are prophets...
...But Mr...
...Wills, the real difference between liberalism and conservatism is that liberals want a state based on justice while conservatives prefer a state based on convenience and compromise...
...Politicians depend on us...
...Perhaps this is merely convenient...
...This kind of prophecy we can do without...
...A Harriette Behringer White finds it intensely irritating, attributing to you an attitude of "people are no damned good," which might seem to be the theme of many or most of the O'Connor stories...
...This is a club in which Gandhi and King would be uncomfortable since it also includes the Black Panthers, the Berrigans, the Chicago 7, and other unsavory types...
...Reasonable men like Alexander Bickel have been able to make persuasive arguments for some forms of civil disobedience within the framework of law, but Mr...
...According to Mr...
...Unable to receive newspapers or magazines in the seminary, the author spent most of his early years reading the Greek classics and Catholic theology...
...Friedrich Hayek understands this and has expressed his position well in an essay entitled "Why I Am Not a Conservative...
...the first, particularly, is common among academics...
...And is it not clear since the refugees have fled Southeast Asia that, while most of the "Prophets" of the sixties were merely stupid (e.g., Joan Baez), those represented by Jane Fonda were dedicated Marxists, supporters of the North Vietnamese, and scoundrels intent on ripping apart the American social fabric...
...Although the Catholic idea of justice has had its impact on the American political tradition, Protestant individualism has been a much more potent force, and an American conservative must be willing to accept and work within that tradition...
...Arnold Beichman's review in your August 1979 issue missed the point of the book and did a disservice to your magazine and its readers...
...In the autobiographical portions of his book, Mr...
...Wills is neither liberal nor conservative...
...I have nothing against voices in the wilderness, as long as they do not block the sidewalks and are tucked into bed when the streetlights come on...
...Walter Pittman Mississippi University for Women Columbus, Mississippi Garry Wills, Deprived Child Every once in a while, a book comes along which cuts through the political jargon and bombast of the day and cogently expresses, not only the author's philosophy, but the fundamental differences between competing schools of contemporary political thought...
...And when the smoke clears, we find that Mr...
...Wills to profit from Burke...
...But I sense that it is too late for Mr...
...Burke's disdain for those who would use the rubric of "human rights" to sock their neighbor and his concern with the pace of social and political change would not be popular among the "Prophets...
...In fact, the role of law in maintaining continuity in a society, while still allowing for change, is never mentioned by Mr...
...But Mr...
...Wills is rooting for any person (prophet or vagrant) who attempts to shake that order...
...Wills' confession of philosophical retardation should be taken seriously as an explanation of his confused politics...
...We depend on the saints...
...Then I read under "Correspondence" a complaint (' 'Is Injustice Funny?'') against the Spectator...
...Wills have his nose in a theology book when a bomb went off at the University of Wisconsin and when the Weathermen stormed Washington...
...Although he has learned from St...
...Augustine that a state can never be based on justice, he applauds those *'Prophets" who work for "social change" and refuse compromise ("Change is initiated by the principled few, not the compromising many...
...Wills applauds those who, in his estimation, make us more just by fighting that order...
...This irritates modern reformists...
...Wills is certainly correct in reminding overly ardent free-market fans that the blind pursuit of individual liberty is more consistent with liberalism (or libertarianism) than conservatism...
...2. Your anti-Southern prejudices, which became so apparent in your attacks upon President Carter...
...Affirmative action, monetary recompense for blacks, and massive civil disobedience are all part of social order...
...Wills' "Prophets" need not concern themselves with such niceties...
...Peddled as an explanation of Mr...
...he is atypical of our people and their innate populist conservatism...
...Conservatism is far more than repeatedly extolling the virtues of GM and its monopolistic inefficiencies...
...While he respects the idea of social order, Mr...
...I will not subscribe...
...First, Mr...
...By concentrating on Wills' anti-anti-Commu-nism (not greatly emphasized in the book), Mr...
...only the con-genitally confused can claim him as one of their own...
...Miller's comment on O'Connor's reading of Teilhard de Chardin, I had always thought that her title of a book or story (I don't remember which), "All That Rises Must Converge" (a Teilhard expression), was intended as a satirical comment on Teilhard theology-fantasy...
...Jean Piaget, the developmental psychol-ogist, has found that there are stages of cognitive development during which a child begins to understand certain things about the way the world works...
...It takes a large dose of self-delusion to conclude that the leaders (not the followers) of the anti-war movement were satisfied with the American social order and were paragons of non-violence...
...You needn't waste the postage...
...But Mr...
...But it was enough excuse for your bias and venom to pour out...
...one must also be able to articulate ways in which that order is to be maintained...
...Wills is not an American conservative...
...Wills has clearly lost all sense of proportion when he starts passing out membership cards to the Prophets' Club...
...Odd how persistent those prejudices are...
...Wills recognizes the role of elections in maintaining peace, he does not explain how a society is to cope with massive civil disobedience and policies which seek to redistribute economic wealth...
...W.F...
...But the fact that many so-called conservatives do not deserve the label does not mean that Mr...
Vol. 12 • October 1979 • No. 10
