Capitol Ideas/A Question of Faith
Bethell, Tom
C A P I T 0 L I D E A S A QUESTION OF FAITH I n a recent article I said that America was in a state of sad decline-probably irreversible. Just recently a, U.S. Air Force colonel suggested...
...It is quite true--and I should think by now obvious--that socialism does not bring these things about, and this is perhaps the point Gilder was making...
...The only thing that will-really destroy the faith in socialism is the restoration of the traditional allegiance or faith the loss of which provoked the socialist dream in the first place...
...One would have been unlikely to predict that Waterloo would usher in the comparatively tranquil, prosperous nineteenth century...
...Adapted from RET's weekly Washington Post column syndicated by King Features...
...The stories are riveting, beginning on a note of pathos: "Yes, I took those hormones to enlarge my bust, and woke up the next day, prom day, with a mustache...
...Anyone who watches the morning and evening news shows, the documentaries, and the public affairs broadcasts now knows that the models for television news have been the pulps: he-man stuff for the guys, true confessions for the gals...
...I may be a pessimist but I'm not that gloomy about the future...
...Then today I read quite a nice interview in the Sunday Times with Michael Foot, the 69-year-old leader of the British Labour Party...
...I t ' s the whole framework of thought...
...Would you describe yourself as a Marxist...
...They run articles with such titles as "I Was Held Captive By 30 Amazons And Survived...
...Kennedy would have "rejected" the Marxist label...
...It is very hard at the moment to see what can possibly restore this sense of purpose or mission...
...The important point to realize about all this is that the material failure of socialism wherever it is implemented does not undermine the vision in the slightest...
...Some people--and a university degree is almost a prerequisite, Fen afraid--find at a particular moment in their lives that they no longer believe some very important and traditional truth that was instilled into them when they were growing up., Maybethey no longer believe in their own country, or they no longer believe in God, or in religion...
...This was one of the decisive discoveries of the 1970s, incidentally, one 'that has not been discussed as much as it might...
...I realize that neither is likely to be elected...
...fession magazines: " I Took Hormones To Enlarge My Bust And Cried On Prom Night...
...he was asked...
...America is clearly going to have to regain some sense of mission, or purpose...
...In his recent book on socialism, Igor Shafarevich makes the point that this "vision" has been experienced time and again since Plato, and it has frequently been embodied in literary form (utopian accounts, with unvarying, repetitive features characterizing the socialist dream) and sometimes in political form...
...Admittedly, Kennedy is most unlikely ever to be elected President...
...Yet one of television news' recent targets is not laughing...
...I don't have to tell you about Kennedy...
...In this wider (and more dangerous) sense, the idea of socialism is still very much alive...
...Television news has mixed all this into one appalling bouillabaisse, and General Westmoreland is irate...
...Imagine how bad things must have appeared in Europe during the time of the Napoleonic Wars...
...People will not lay down their lives for a bigger GNP, and they will not pledge allegiance to capitalism, nor should they...
...Feminism in its more virulent forms is a manifestation of it...
...Most of us would expect television news to follow news standards comparable to those of high quality newspapers, focusing on the same news stories and according them the same dignified coverage...
...But it does seem highly unlikely that the country will ever recapture the tremendous spirit and dynamism of the World War II period, to take but one example...
...But the hideous form that socialism has taken in Russia has been a great trauma to my generation...
...Reagan, as good a man as we have seen in the White House, was elected...
...The idea of the class war is fundamental, I think...
...Maybe this will give me a bit more perspective...
...shops and that sort of thing...
...Thanks to the pill and suchlike developments, many women were tricked by men into saying " y e s " when they formerly would have said " n o , " and they ended up hating men, hating America, hating the West...
...The he-man magazines run stories of dastardly deeds, bizarre and somewhat humiliating adventures, men tested at the limits...
...I'm thinking of something much more general than the "nationalization of the means of production...
...something more inspiring than consumerism, the consumer movement, getting a better house, a bigger car, and so on...
...or in patriotism, or the flag, or in pledging allegiance to it...
...The situation in America seems bad today because the number of apostates and (internal) defectors seems to be growing, not declining...
...Why should it...
...by Tom Bethell rearrange that framework...
...When the Socialist International met in Washington after Reagan's election--people like Tony Benn, Olaf Palme, and Francois Mitterrand were present--it was reported at the time that Kennedy declined to appear on the podium with these statesmen but "met privately" with them later...
...You can see he's a bit worried about socialism but hasn't given up on it: There's no way he could defeat Margaret Thatcher...
...Of course, it isn't normally called socialism in the U.S...
...Remember, an integral part of the vision is the destruction of the old society as a preliminary to building a new one...
...It is an amusing irony...
...The Vietnam war was another experience which seems to have destroyed some Americans' allegiance to their own country, and to the West generally...
...Has he been able to I t occurs to me that Kennedy and Foot are, as it were, the "leaders of the opposition" in the West...
...Still, it's not really people like Foot and Kennedy we have to worry about...
...A sudden calamity would do the trick, however, and maybe nothing else will...
...The confession magazines run stories of broken hearts, trauma, and macabre illnesses...
...The principal item on the agenda then becomes: building a new society...
...One of the worst things about the present, I would like to emphasize, is that the ideas that Usually go by the name of socialism have a much more powerful grip on educated opinion than is generally recognized...
...Dear Shook Up: I opened the (London) Times yesterday and one of the few bits of American news I could find went as follows, under the headline "Kennedy Boost" (Washington, Reuters): "A majority of Americans believe President Reagan should not seek reelection in 1984, according to a nationwide opinion pollo If a vote were taken now, the poll said, Senator Edward Kennedy would be favored to defeat the President...
...Offsetting the Vietnam and the sexual liberation disasters there has been the restoration of Israel, which has greatly diminished the "alienation" of the Jews, who were important "carriers" of socialism as long as there was no Jewish state...
...Not at all, as far as I can see...
...His reply to such a question would have been slightly less potty and a good deal less candid than Foot's...
...So I confess I don't really have the slightest idea what the future holds in store for America...
...Only in the twentieth century, however, has full socialism been achieved...
...I think it's foolish to deride Marx's contribution," Foot replied, "He was a great lover of literature, of the Bible and Shakespeare and Heine...
...Foot is quite an amiable old sort who bumbles about in second-hand bookTom Bethell is The American Spectator's Washington correspondent...
...Evidently, the conditions that give rise to this apostasy are abundantly present...
...Maybe things will pick up...
...Its real goals are not economic at all...
...Progressive income tax, for example...
...Well, television news chose a different model...
...So the material failure is always seen as the end of the old dispensation rather than the beginning of a new one...
...Mexico, which has been partially socialist for most of this century, could be the next to go the whole way...
...The label is rejected...
...Here I must disagree with George Gilder who says at the beginning of Wealth andPoverty that the "dream" of socialism died once it was put into practice...
...Of course, there are still some Jews for whom the "vision of a new society" is more compelling than the actual one at the Eastern end of the Mediterranean, but they remain a distinct minority, even if vocal in the news media...
...Quite unexpected things somehow always turn up...
...Air Force colonel suggested in a postcard that I might like to elaborate on the comment which, he wrote, "really shook me up...
...And indeed it inadequately conveys what I have in mind...
...They are much more splritual--although dark and vengefully so...
...Remember the he-man magazines...
...These are some of the entries in the balance sheet as I see it...
...As I. think t may have said before, socialism is a kind of " v i s i o n " or conversion experienced by apostates, deserters, and defectors of every description...
...This is incorrect because socialism is not a program meant to issue in material prosperity, economic success, and so on...
...A new flock of build,a-new-society visionaries was thereby created...
...Some traditional allegiance is lost...
...Still, don't expect the true believers to give up on socialism because it doesn't bring about abundance, equality, and cooperation...
...It is simply the system tha[ permits exchange and agreement, and as such is the only moral economic system...
...Look at it this way...
...On the other hand, the Falklands war had the opposite result in England, enhancing the sense of national allegiance and thereby undermining socialism--at least for a season...
...But something more is needed: It is not an end in itself...
...I do not mean that capitalism is "immoral" or anything of the kind...
...Well, I feel a bit more detached about the whole subject now, as I'm 3,000 miles away from Washington, in Surrey, England...
...He feels that he was libeled by CBS's documentary, "The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception," wherein the thesis was that the General presided over "a conspiracy, at th~ highest levels of American THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR NOVEMBER 1982 5...
...When Gloria Steinem said that feminism is an integral part of socialism, she was exactly right...
...My boyfriend hates Hitler...
...He is General William C. Westmoreland, and last month he fried a libel suit against CBS for $120 million...
...First and foremost, this entails tearing down the old one...
...I realize it's dangerous to project present trends in a straight line out into the future because that always makes-disaster seem inevitable...
...As a result, they believe that the whole lot should be swept away and replaced b y . . . A New Society...
...Remember the conby R. Ernmett Tyrrell, Jr...
...Whether he would reject the ideas that Marx argued for is another matter...
...Heine is a great hero of mine...
...As a method of material improvement, socialism was put to the test against such countries as South Korea andTaiwan in the 1970s and failed embarrassingly...
...When that happens, there's a good chance that the 4 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR NOVEMBER 1982 vacuum will be filled by a vision--the vision of socialism...
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...It still seems to be spreading...
...And not a big bushy one like Bill Buckner's which might at least cover my moles, but an eentsy-teentsy one very similar to Hitler's...
Vol. 15 • November 1982 • No. 11
