Correspondence
Correspondence Rocking the Conservative Boat According to Diana West (“Against Conservative Cool,” Aug. 5), when rock ’n’ roll came along, “rhythm obliterated melody, . . . sexuality...
...With Bob Dole at the microphone, we need all the conservative cool we can get...
...Berry Bethesda, MDGreen Acres Matt Labash (“RC, Booty, and Me,” Aug...
...It’s thinly covered with a fictive wash, of course, but he can easily see through that...
...Actually, if rock ’n’ roll can be said to have any political ideology, it is a conservative one: Musical excellence is the result of talent and hard work without special preferences for race or gender...
...The book is the answer to that question...
...The National Review of today would be horrified by the stands taken by the National Review of the 50s on everything from civil rights to Joseph McCarthy...
...Human influence on climate is a possibility...
...J.H...
...Perhaps because popular culture is as pervasive as air, we rarely take it seriously enough...
...Media hype and political pressure on scientific panels are a certainty...
...This is why today’s conservatives celebrate the causes and leaders whom previous conservatives denounced...
...Buddy Holly didn’t know the meaning of romance...
...Labash...
...Rabbi Mayer Schiller Monsey, NY Spend Wisely on Defense As for your editorial “Spend More on Defense” (July 29), a reckless throwing of money to achieve a strong defense is not the answer...
...West concludes by correctly noting that the restoration of culture would require that the “defenders and promoters of ordinary American life . . . seek understand what it is that has died...
...It is a difficult job...
...If Bill Bennett and Bill Clinton listen to the same music, should we wonder that the former has not prevailed against the latter...
...Bob Waters Hartford, VT Olympian Advertising Yes, it was one wretched ad after another in the Olympics (“DeOlympicizing the Games,” Aug...
...She’s right to point out that it doesn’t matter how many Republicans are elected to office if the Republic’s standards are still set by the Jerry Garcia Fan Club...
...Another Atlanta company, BellSouth, deserves the honors for its spot with the introduction, “Southerners have always had a love affair with communication . . .” Is there some kind of purgatory for bad copywriters...
...5), when rock ’n’ roll came along, “rhythm obliterated melody, . . . sexuality overwhelmed romance, . . . emotions were gutted, . . . popular taste was infantilized, [and] a cultural condition was created that now has its expression in gangsta rap and other pop excrescences...
...Bruce Springsteen is more immoral than Frank Sinatra...
...M.K...
...The resulting excellence, the excellence of sound, helped jazz, swing, and by extension rock ’n’ roll play a small part in bringing the races together...
...And in the midst of this, in a burst of creative insight, Klein asks himself: What would happen, what would these people do, if I turned the improbability factor up a notch or two...
...The Right does not merely accept contemporary popular culture...
...But I question Hadley Arkes’s motivation for writing his piece much more than I do Klein’s for his (“Primary Fictions,” Aug...
...A similar debate surrounds climate...
...Peter Connolly Washington, D.C...
...Some form of global climate change is a probability...
...So Ray Charles had no sense of melody, yet Bing Crosby was a musical genius...
...There’s Klein, covering the Clinton campaign, watching vivid personalities engaged in an intense effort...
...In a way, it’s not so much a novel as it is a through-the-looking-glass fantasy...
...Given the track record of social engineering and bioengineering, do we really want to volunteer as lab rats in the latest attempt to “engineer a better world...
...She did not, however, go far enough...
...West buys into the argument that rock ’n’ roll belongs to the Left...
...Really...
...In light of the furor that has erupted, perhaps Klein has accomplished something of the same...
...Our first task is to accurately model this complexity and then determine the true problems caused by human industrial activity...
...I hope he enjoyed it as much as he seems to have...
...I haven’t read his book...
...Thank God people like Bill Bennett and Rush Limbaugh love rock ’n’ roll...
...Arkes, on the contrary, seems to bring to his reading of Primary Colors a fierce will to believe that it’s all true...
...When we read fiction we must allow for a suspension of our disbelief...
...5) may feel that living in Calvert County, Maryland, is a definite plus compared with Washington, DC, but perhaps he should do a bit more research...
...Welcome to the country, Mr...
...Sadly I’m afraid they do and rejoice at its passing...
...With the exception of a small remnant that anchors itself in orthodox faith, and a smaller circle that is loyal to the identity of this civilization and its peoples, the American Right’s ongoing retreat is its only distinguishable characteristic...
...While the National Academy of Sciences panel did speculate on such “geoengineering” to save us from our potential self-immolation, few would sanction inflicting deliberate environmental damage...
...Larry Thornberry Tampa, FL Diana West’s piece is reminiscent of the reaction to Allan Bloom’s comments on music in The Closing of the American Mind...
...Mitchell Muncy Dallas, TX Diana West hit the nail on the head in her analysis of American conservatism’s bizarre embrace of the counterculture and its music...
...But at the risk of ruining that enjoyment, here’s an alternative explanation of how the book got its start...
...Chickens definitely do not leave chocolate boluses in a dog’s dish...
...We appear to have enough problems confronting us without calling for, quite literally, more smoke and mirrors...
...She is mistaken to liken the rock music of the 50s and most of the 60s to what gets listened to now...
...West’s beliefs, Republicans can listen to rock ’n’ roll, hang out with rock ’n’ roll musicians, even visit the Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland without being transformed into liberal foot soldiers...
...It’s a wild environment, abounding with improbable stories and even more improbable events...
...The Beatles and Charlie Parker weren’t master musicians because they were poor or black, but because they spent twelve-hour days practicing...
...Yet it also offers honest, talented, remarkable bands that are more interested in making great music than toppling the government or getting girls...
...Contrary to Ms...
...While rock ’n’ roll musicians tend to be outlandishly liberal, rock ’n’ roll music and lyrics are for the most part harmless and apolitical...
...Conservatives who insist that standards of judgment apply in all other matters found themselves insisting with equal vigor that in this one area, music, it is more or less a matter of taste...
...Bruce Wilson Temecula, CA...
...Diana West was right on target...
...We should place procurement on a more business-like basis and force individual services to complement, not compete with, one another...
...They just spread melted vanilla chocolate chip (with a hint of lime) ice cream everywhere they go most indiscriminately...
...5), but the Home Depot spot that Christopher Caldwell cited was not the worst of the batch...
...A century of rivalries and unbridled spending has brought us to today’s pass...
...The source of the problem is that the ‘‘respectable’’ Right has no root principles and is therefore incapable of standing firm against leftist assaults...
...Remember, Lewis Carroll’s stories reflected darkly and absurdly on the foibles of his time...
...Songs like “Up On the Roof ” or “Wonderful World” or “I’ve Just Seen the Face” or “Be My Baby” may not be the equal of those by Gershwin or Kern...
...James M. McCowan New York, NY Up In Smoke While we appreciate Eric Felten’s wryness in skewering globalwarming alarmists (“With A Bang, Not A Whimper,” Aug...
...The Beach Boys gutted emotions...
...Our very complex, and poorly understood, interaction of atmosphere and ocean composes a system capable of dramatic, non-linear changes...
...5), it is hard to abide by his prescription—pump more (temporarily) cooling sulfates into the atmosphere to counteract the greenhouse gas warming...
...Today, rock ’n’ roll is rife with the kinds of excesses West documented...
...Doubtless the Doles and Gingriches of a few decades hence will call for tolerance of whatever evil the Left will spew forth, perhaps incest or bestiality...
...In their hearts, conservatives have accepted the Left’s dogmas of egalitarianism, pluralism, “rights,” and the whole gamut of terror words such as “sexism,” “racism,” and “homophobia...
...Prudent spending of the 20 percent of the budget already allocated will achieve the result...
...In the same way, 50s conservatives were frightened by those who still maintained the old conservative opposition to women’s suffrage, the income tax, and the direct election of senators...
...It eventually accepts and endorses every political and social initiative of its adversaries...
...A strong, versatile military is what the country needs, but without forcing military leaders to do more with what they have, we will only breed more waste, not strength...
...Mark Gauvreau Judge Potomac, MD I am puzzled by Diana West’s damning of “rock ’n’ roll culture” in her recent essay...
...The songs of The Who were juvenile compared with Pat Boone...
...David Murray Washington, DC Eric Felten missed the point about the uneasiness surrounding “geoengineering...
...But they are wonderful to listen to and created an infectious sense of joy, at least for some of us...
...Rigby Liverpool, PA Joe Klein & Lewis Carroll I don’t know Joe Klein...
...Peter McCallum New York, NY I thought Diana West’s article was mean-spirited and essentially wrong...
...At present, with the Left having sunk to the unspeakable level of supporting abortion, “assisted suicide,” and sexual perversion, the Right continues to compromise and retreat...
...While I cannot speak for the people in his piece, I for one am not worried that it will work, but that it won’t work as planned...
...Cool conservatives need to consider the possibility that their lack of discrimination reveals deep weaknesses in their understanding of politics and culture...
Vol. 1 • August 1996 • No. 47
