The Children of Darkness

...It is an exquisitely fashioned handful of essays, delightsome, as a Puritan said of some Indians, to behold, provocative, and learned, the mature ideas of un homme ser/eu~ Which reminds me, a minor cavil: must the punchlines always be in Latin...

...And then: 4) "The Fifth Amendment (as currently interpreted) should be repealed...

...But the children of darkness, he notes, have been remarkably barren: they have built no hospitals or charities, succored no poor, attained no surpluses for charity (on the contrary, they are parasites), added nothing to the sum of learning, and con- _9 tributed nothing permanent to spiritual _9 life...

...He ranges widely--sometimes without much organization--into the whole relationship of the counterculture to the established order: to liberals, to the economy, to religion...

...This is a less simple case than the preceding three, less simple, that is, to endorse without qualification, and it requires and brings out the most ingenious argumentation at his disposal to buttress it...

...Procedures should adapt to the goal of speedier justice...

...Not only does the money slosh down to Washington, get diluted, and then drip back up to the states whence it came...

...If he was never actually part of the counterculture, it seems clear enough that he has shared its temptations and learned to beware its follies...

...Wheeler does not simply justify religion for its social or personal utility--his passion for a mild and free community, informed by religious authority, runs deeper than that...

...once more: right now that's the way it is, and everybody hates busing but the social engineers, and nonpublic schools are dropping like stock prices...

...This is the sort of book that sets off fireworks in the heads of its readers, and starts trains of thought that end up in unexplored places...

...I revere Bill Buckley as mentor and love him as a friend...

...But they opt instead not m to work...

...The failure of secular men to revere anything beyond themselves is the root nihilism of the Left--and can lead only to the strife of all against all...

...Chapter one is economic instruction in the brilliant manner of Hazlitt...

...the problems caused by permissiveness on the one hand and parental overprotectiveness on the other...

...All of these divers threads are woven into a grander theme., the apocalyptic struggle between secular, agnostic (and usually leftist) people, and the religious (and usually more conservative) people...

...and the relationships of strong character to yeoman liberties...

...it is practical...

...Blessed are they who do not see yet believe," he writes...

...The youth culture of the sixties was the vanguard of a secularist trend dating back to the Renaissance, Wheeler believes, and he regards it as the first clear-cut emergence of purely secular men unrestrained b y conscience, guilt, or the desire to improve themselves and be productive...

...It is in effect a hymn of Christian belief, a defiant song of faith cast out into the twilight of the life of the Church, a song celebrating the teachings of Jesus as the moral basis for liberty and compassior+ in the world...

...Yet proposal four herein is inspired by a desire for more justice not less, and within our fold it should (though it won't) provoke the most debate...

...We sense in the author a conscious struggle back from the brink of secular and modernist thought, and into the higher life of the spirit...

...As stated Because he does not propose to do away with the Fifth Amendment, only with the provision against self-incrimination (and some will say to that, only.O and such interpretations as the court has inflicted upon this nation, resulting in criminals guilty as sin walking the streets to strike again because of details of procedure...

...Youths acted out in reality what their secular-humanist parents and mentors only dreamed of doing in the distant future...

...Did Mr...

...if they ignore this one they will have shown themselves impervious to a conservative approach to anything...

...The Children of Darkness does not readily fit any of these pigeonholes because it uniquely examines public institutions in the light of private character, and explores personal dreams in the context of public ideologies...

...That's how amendments sound, ladies and gentlemen...

...He was too busy scaling Everests to _9 worry about the distance between his views _9 and those of the run of Englishmen...

...Japanese would do as well, and of Bill Buckley's little failing in this splendidly successful book I must sadly declare (and youlook this one up, Bill, as I must look up "Castigo _9 . ."): shikata ga nai...

...They are _9 vain...

...The ultralibertarian is not going to cotton to the idea of preserving the income tax at all, and his opposite number among the traditionalists may not enjoy the hard facts of today's inequitable taxation system...

...it is, as The I.~ader in Washington would say, perfectly clear...

...It has gained national attention because of its highly professional approach and its fearlessness in tackling such media giants as The New York Times, The Washington Post and CBS, NBC and ARC...

...One senses, all in all, that he himself was once a child of darkness who then fought clear of so many of its tribulations that he writes about them with an uncanny intimacy...

...the hypocrisies of the squares who talk free enterprise while begging government favors...

...Capitalism terrifies the kids _9 because it offers them endless opportunity _9 and the chance to evolve themselves into _9 something great...

...It is, moreover, stunning in its simplicity, and we should push for it...

...Churchill, he notes, is commonly re- _9 garded as the most individualistic person _9 of the century, yet in no major way was _9 he alienated from his society...

...9 _9 _9 City _9 _9 _9 _9 _9 _9 State Zip _9 _9 _9 mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm The Alternative April 1974 21...

...A chapter, for example, explores the craze to be "individualistic'--i.e., not one of the masses--and enlarges the theme into the phenomenon of widespread alienation, and ultimately into social radicalism...

...And a bit more, but that's the crux of it...

...2) Congress should eliminate the "progressive" feature of the income tax, elimirmte all deductions except those that relate directly to the cost of acquiring money, eliminate all exemptions and the corporate tax, reimburse taxpayers below the poverty line any federal taxes regressive in impact, and levy a uniform tax of 15 percent on all income...

...He's batted 1,000, discounting the two mini-propesals at the start...

...Procedures should adapt to the criterion: Did he do it...

...too many years, maybe, under the wing of the Constitutional scholar Leonard I~vy, and a sobering brush with the law once, have made me suspicious of doing away with any procedural guarantees...

...m _9 Washington, D.C...

...I must at this point stand agnostic about the wisdom of the disputed parts of the Fifth Amendment...

...the demolition of form in art and music...

...For it is along this "fault in the bedroek" of the Republic, as Wheeler puts it, that the ultimate values confront each other...

...Who pays the highest proportion of income in taxes under the current system...

...But facts they are, and the income tax will be with us, like death and transfiguration, always...

...Christianity is the acting out of God's will, the sole source of valid authority...

...On the con- _9 trary, throughout his long life he celebrat- _9 ed the genius of his island race, his mon- _9 archs, his nation's manners and common _9 law...

...With a minimum of statistical charts, in language even an economic simpleton can comprehend, Buckley shows how ridiculous our current governmental policy on welfare is...

...As always, he moves to and fro from the outer world of social structures to the inner world of the soul, discussing the Dirty Speech Movement at Berkeley, the flower children, the pharmaceuticals, the radical libertarians, and the puritans...

...AIM) was founded to combat inaccuracies and distorted reporting by the major media...

...It is not a lust for free- _9 dora, he argues, but rather the dread of it, _9 that impells the children of darkness into _9 the retreat of drugs, .communes, and an _9 alienated life...

...this idea I abhore...

...It was this amazing religion, Wheeler observes, that internalized law and charity in the breasts of believers, and established a mechanism of guilt and forgiveness, all of which enabled the growth of mild and benevolent governments and free economies...

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...over on that shelf is psychology or poetry or self-help...

...m _9 _9 _9 425 13th Street, N.W...

...David Brudnov P, ev: r The Children of Darkness ~4 A SENSE, we are all victims of the Dewey decimal system: over here is a book on sociology or economics...

...He grasps the nettle of authoritarianism boldly, noting that reverence for higher things is essential to a good commonweal...

...One places this newest addition to the growing five-foot shelf of Buckleyana in a spot of honor...

...it sits no more comfortably coming from our friend Bucldey than from the other side...

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...20 The Alternative April 1974 Charles Reich, for instance, wrote enviously of a greening generation that enjoyed free sexuality, the abandonment of manners and morals, escape from work, and an ultimate individuality that spat in the face of the traditional and the sacred...

...The battle rages on multiple fronts: abort-ion, pornography, egalitarianism, pacifism, socialism---all, along with innumerable other issues, take root in the deeper theological schism...

...The body of the book, however, is tremendously wise, modest but bold, daringly simple, yet close to revolutionary...

...I cannot buy it and hope others will resist it actively...

...But for all of Wheeler's grapplings with things sacred and profane, the book is an adventure in English...

...He has been a newsman: the language is casual and brisk, with an occasional goodhumored mot such as his sly observation that nothing very radical has ever emerged from Norman Mailer's belly...

...In English: no forced busing (which has been shown not to work to achieve the good things busing's sponsors hope for), and help to private and parochial schools as to public ones: Once more, Mr...

...As with the first reform, the statistics he provides are revealing, and compelling...

...it also comes from the poorer states and goes to the richer...

...9 Nowhere is Wheeler's discernment of the _9 youth culture more telling than in his dis- _9 cussion of liberty...

...They have denied themselves the _9 bread and wine, and in their arrogance _9 they condemn themselves to a half-life of _9 pawing through trash heaps...

...f 4 3) An amendment to the Constitution, courtesy of WFB: "No child shall be denied admission to a public s c h o o l . . , on accourtt of race, creed, color, or national origin . . . . Nor shall any relief authorized by any legislature for children attending nonpublic schools be denied by virtue of any provision in the Constitution of the United States or of any State...

...Wheeler have someone in mind...

...Surprise...

...the role of guilt in social and personal order...

...It regulated family and neighborhood life, thus lessening the burdens and scope of government...

...He writes: "Now and then a man or woman emerges from the subculture a scarred, humble, and altogether beautiful person who has seen and rejected hell and has something urgent to say about it...

...I mean, "Castigo te non quod odio habeam, sed quod amem," and all that, rather reduces the audience, not so...

...So the _9 children of darkness flee individuality, _9 even while celebrating a fake version of it by growing beards, wearing dreary clothing, or rejecting the social ethos...

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...So best to make-it work better...

...They prefer the stodgy certitudes _9 of socialism, where life is assured, to the _9 uncertainties of capitalism, where sheer _9 freedom opens up the terrifying prospects _9 of success and failure, advance and retreat, _9 and the evolution of character that reaches _9 toward dominion over one's life...

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...Ergh...

...Elsewhere, Richard Wheeler explores the youth culture not in terms of the usual by Richard S. Wheeler Arlington House $7.95 contexts, but rather as a weakening of character and a decaying of values...

...The Buckley proposal would greatly help...

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...Upon this rubble of Western civilization and the Christian ethic, the children of darkness have intended to build their freedoms and lives...

...All else--partisan politics, liberal and conservative ideologies, the struggles of interest groups---he subsumes to the titanic clash between those who worship God and adhere to the Christian ethic and the New Men who do not...

...Buckley's libertarian friends will yelp: why any government involvement in schooling at all...

...The reforms are these: 1) Congress shall appropriate funds for social welfare only for the benefit of those states whose per capita income is below the national average...

...Buckley's book is not utopian...

...9 Wheeler summons the ghost of Winston _9 Churchill to demonstrate that individu- _9 ality does not necessarily rest upon alien- _9 ation...

...The poorest taxpayers, and the richest...

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...it will take time to instruct people in economic truths, but it's time well spent...

...It is, in short, a version of the statist altruism game: you owe it to your country...

...They have sought individuality in dif- _9 ferentness, these strange children of the _9 dark: '~rhey call it alienation or nonconfor- _9 mity or individualism and all it actually _9 is is a flight into the darkness and all it _9 accomplishes is a terrifying loneliness out- _9 side the perimeter of community and corn- _9 munion...

...The bulk of the book deals with the ludicrous failure of this secular vision...

...Christianity assumed the burdens of charity and order: it built hospitals, orpha~ges, and schools...

...This is an entirely sensible, completely workable proposal, and, I'd wager, it would be very popular...

...The question tantaliz~es...