Correspondence

...in college my respect for your nation, etc., is only increased by the irrational, illogical, and feverish desire for the Canadian "identity," which my academic companions strive for, through the belief that for our national purpose we must cast out the American imperialists...

...A saucy put-down or an abstract defense of market principles cannot do proper justice to Galbraith's hypotheses...

...But before the lance of Demsetz's empirical evidence, or in this case, absence of evidence, Galbraith's "New Industrial State" tumbles like a house of cards...

...If guilty of anti-social conduct requiring malice, such as robbery, arson, rape or kidnapping, the actor was not responsible...

...American tourists are held captive by their instinct that all customs, traditions, and weather stop and suddenly change at the forty-ninth parallel...

...Yours sincerely, from a northerner with plenty of gas and oil, Norman F. Stowe Vancouver, British Columbia To the Editor: I have found that in the two years I have read The Alternative, your "Continuing Crisis" is both vicious and humorous...

...Hill hits you with the biggest con of all...

...Demsetz's evaluation of Galbraith shows what it is like to be reasonable and how effective that approach can be...

...By standards of this nature, the liquidation of the Jews by Hitler and the Kulaks by Stalin could be described as just...

...Perhaps he feels he has too much to lose in being fooled at his own game...

...Bruce E. Meyer St...

...It has been pointed out that Canada and the United States could, possibly, be compared to sleeping with an elephant...

...Put otherwise, the humble recognition of our creatureliness, and the concomitant recognition of our complete inability to construct that heaven, must be the first step on the road back to a decent political order...

...Nor are they a "kind of poetry" such as Plato takes to task in the Republic and the Symposium...

...I particularly liked the contrast he drew between visions of heavenly and visions of earthly paradise...

...One need not even speculate about how seriously our contemporary oracles would have been taken in, for example, Calvin's Geneva...

...However, what you have heard of the Canadian temperament towards our southern neighbors is not reflected in all northern circles...

...The difference between Agathon and Moses, Isaiah, Luke, John, etc...

...It was Henry Ford, after all, who said that "history is bunk," and the architects of the moon landing could easily have said the same thing...

...You roll and we squirm away, trying to survive amidst your vastness...

...It is quite difficult to be an American supporter at a Canadian university, and my pro-American stance is disliked by many—including radical American youths who come north to take part in our academics...

...That issue contained a first-rate essay by Irving Kristol on utopianism, a book review qualifying some similarities drawn between Marx and Burke, and an assessment of John Kenneth Galbraith by Harold Demsetz...

...The rich became rich only by stealing from the poor...

...It remained for the New Deal in this country under President Roosevelt and Harry Hopkins to accept it and attempt to put it in practice...

...Thus, the Marxist motto: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs...

...Yes, there is true ignorance on both sides of those customs officials, and there are many occasions for joint criticisms bent toward each other, but a little understanding and a lot of learning could help both our peoples toward better relations...

...The unfortunate part of all these national ravings is that the paranoia which is the basis for these movements is spreading...

...And Peter Bauer's oft-employed maxim, "When a proposition is taken as an article of faith, the evidence becomes irrelevant...

...Burke was reasonable, because he glorified reason but at the same time feared the tendency of reasoners to retreat into the metaphysical cobwebs of their minds, and to disregard the facts and circumstances of political society (though Burke occasionally spun some webs of his own...

...Gilbert Harrison Editor-in-Chief The New Republic Washington, D.C...

...After sucking the viewer along throughout the film inflating his feeling of depth and intelligence, Mr...

...Thornton commented: "Neither Soviet Russia nor Communist China has ever accepted or made any effort to practice this slogan...

...I find intelligent discourse betwixt conservatives and liberals...

...That article and the rest of the issue as well proved again that there is yet sense, and indeed, wisdom enlivening the "public conversation...

...these were merely manifestations of social imbalance...

...Nevertheless, onward...

...Although the apocalyptic environmentalists may contend that our proclaimed progress is not really progress at all, in some ways we have made progress, and many of the men who have led us there have been guided by notions that the world is not inevitably fallen, that human capacities are not finite, that man can escape his historical limitations and remake his world...

...Kristol mentioned progress in technology and in economic growth, and he just as easily could have added health care...

...My point is that when your magazine enters the realm of reason (which is not always), it often tends to be more rational than reasonable...

...Furthermore, personal responsibility became attenuated...

...Marx, on the other hand, was rational...

...Andrews, Scotland To the Editor: Irving Kristol's "Utopianism, Ancient and Modem" (June–September, 1974) was one of the finest articles I have read in your magazine recently...

...To the Editor: I thank Mr...

...From Michael Oakeshott's Rationalism in Politics, "The conjunction of dreaming and ruling generates tyranny...

...The proper antidote, however, does not consist merely in a rehashing of premodem, classical political theory into "new versions of old ideas...

...The Continuing Crisis...

...Finally, modern utopianism is indeed an attempt to realize in deeds the ideals of dreams...

...I would suggest that Professor Strauss's hermeneutics are fine for explicating Plato, but leave a bit to be desired for understanding His Revelation...

...Second, Professor Kristol's implication that there exists a fundamental connection between Reformational interpretation of Biblical prophecy and dime store sociological augury is, at best, questionable...

...and his merry band of quill bedecked hooligans...

...I have supported the United States for several years and now that I am...

...Indeed, Mr...

...Ignorance, my American confreres, is the base for their (our) fears...

...S.M...

...Most people were able to laugh at this, but apparently Mr...

...Kristol drew a distinction between being reasonable and being rational, which was essentially the same distinction your reviewer drew between Marx and Burke...

...Mercuriously yours, Greg Du Loope Reading, Pennsylvania To the Editor: I have noticed that arguments in your magazine tend to be saucy and unsupported, or supported by abstract appeals to fundamental principles, but rarely supported by empirical evidence...

...is summarized precisely in the familiar "Thus Saith the Lord...

...though he possessed a great mastery of facts, he was not attentive to them, and he composed great intellectual systems but was trapped in the murky metaphysics of the dialectic and the labor theory of value...

...Thornton noted the significant coincidence between the advent of Marxism and the broad scale erosion of the ancient doctrine, as Communism certainly cannot tolerate self-reliance and personal responsibility and achievement as a standard or a course of conduct...

...Hawkins Boston, Massachusetts To the Editor: While reading Irving Kristol's article, two quotations came to mind...

...It reminded me of the treatise of J. Edward Thornton, writing in The Alabama Lawyer, October, 1973...

...he reaped what others sowed...

...Hats off to R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr...

...Kelsey Hutchinson Tulsa, Oklahoma To the Editor: As a student of journalism I take heart in seeing that through The Alternative, the English tongue (and cheek) has somehow managed to thread its way through the vast wasteland of current low browAmerican verbiage and survive in a God-forsaken farmhouse in the far reaches of Indiana...

...Dennis B. Roddy Johnstown, Pennsylvania To the Editor: You will be pleased to hear that I sent your April Fools gift subscription to one of the local idiot radicals, and the fellow hasn't spoken to me since...

...And for those of you who have never been to Canada, that great northern giant, please feel free to visit and see that we too have color TV, campers, TV dinners, late movies, and pizza places...

...Plattner for a most excellent review of John Rawls' "A Theory of Justice...

...Sonia Sanford Woodbridge, Connecticut To the Editor: Concerning Kristol's analysis of utopianism: First, the Old and New Testaments are not, and certainly do not claim to be, simple myths...

...This section of your magazine has indeed scathed today's liberals, especially the "Spock-marked" radicals of the sixties and seventies...

...Stein cannot handle being stung...

...Consequences became divorced from purposeful effort...

...I see pins stuck in the pompous...

...if needy (and who isn't...

...Man no longer reaped what he sowed...

...Mark Tapscott Irving, Texas...

...Yes, the life of a pro-American in a Canadian university is not a bed of roses, but as long as I have a breath within me I will continue to aid in securing more rational relations between the two most prosperous nations in history...

...The poor were poor only because they were stolen from or abused by corporate irresponsibility...

...Tisc tisc...

...I have been exposed to American teaching aides who convert discussion groups into personal retaliation time against their former home...

...With this brief rejoinder, I congratulate Mr...

...George Bogart Ann Arbor, Michigan To the Editor The review of "The Sting" in the June–September issue seemed to me to miss the point of the film...

...In more mundane terms, I am pleased beyond ecstasy to see that somewhere in the midst of our sober fourth estate, a group of successful gazetteers also possess my penchant for the amusing (i.e...

...Some reflections on your June–September issue will serve as my point of departure...

...I'm wondering, however, whether the modern utopian frame of mind might not in some ways be responsible for those examples of real progress which man has made in the last few centuries—Mr...

...Roger Copeland Athens, Ohio To the Editor: It is, probably, unusual for a Canadian to be writing to, let alone reading, a magazine which is so, obviously, American...

...Tyrrell, you must write your fine "Crisis" column under the influence of a cigar, a pretzel, a beer (or more), and in the style of the great H. L. Mencken...

...If I can infer correctly from this contrast, those thinkers from the eighteenth century onward who tried to construct the heavenly city on earthly foundations, fundamentally distorted the traditional notion of paradise, which precludes not just construction on earth but any construction by man at all...

...On the most basic level, utopianism is the creature's attempt to build a heaven of his own making here on earth against the will of the Creator...

...Kristol on his article and look forward to reading more such essays in your magazine...

...In pointing this out, I mean in noway to criticize your sauce or your principles, but only to offer some suggestions for improvements...

...And please, if you are ignorant of our ways and places please do not offend the natives by asking, what to us are stupid questions, if the Queen is in residence at the British Columbia legislature, or don't we have igloos and seals on our front doors, etc...