Et cetera Louis who? The old hubris and the new Thanks but no
ET CETERA LOUIS WHO? The Million Man March gave Minister Louis Farrakhan media attention previously denied him. Anti-Semitic statements-and bigoted statements about almost everyone else-have left...
...Of four other staffers, all accomplished proofreaders, only one understood why their colleague said, "No way...
...Alas, calls to national panic, such as we are hearing from the Right today, and as we have heard from the Left perpetually, do not encourage humility...
...We are left with the bothersome question: can the opponents of the overclass, in their triumph, produce a ruling class that effectively proposes the commanding truths by which alone a culture can flourish...
...The vanguard of the conservative resurgence...
...Loury writes: "The call of the tribe is seductive, but ultimately it is a siren call...
...Liberalism perished of pride...
...But can we keep Alsace-Lorraine...
...Perhaps the question is premature...
...Yet humility is what we require most of all when we set about to improve the lot of vast numbers of people or even whole countries...
...Anti-Semitic statements-and bigoted statements about almost everyone else-have left most whites troubled and mystified by Farrahkan's appeal and staying power...
...As comforting as the prospect may seem, the truth, for all of us, is that we can't go home again...
...Now you try...
...If nothing else, the Million Man March jump-started a national and very public conversation on race that is too often white-dominated and as a consequence perhaps over-celebratory of the achievements of the 1960s...
...Later we can discuss the terms of surrender, which should be generous...
...Can it be done without the participation of the members of the overclass who have these thirty years devoted their lives to cultural treason...
...On page eight of this issue, Don Wycliff gets to the heart of the matter: What is Farrakhan's appeal...
...Thirty-eight pages later in the same issue Richard John Neuhaus, editor-in-chief of First Things, struts just a bit over the rout of the "overclass" in the liberal churches, prestige media, and universities...
...THANKS BUT NO A staffer well up in years got a letter that began: "The coming year for the Society of Professional Journalists plans to be one of the most exiting and you need to be a part of it...
...But the sheer size of the march-450,000-850,000 (big, no matter whose crowd estimate you accept)-and the heart-felt outpouring of the marchers has given everyone pause...
...Orlando Patterson explores the paradox of success: integration having brought whites and blacks together "makes it almost impossible for black Americans to recognize what they have achieved...
...Debbi Wilgoren analyzes the sources and meaning of this language in the Washington Post Weekly, October 30-November 5.) The appeal of Farrakhan is explored in two essays in the New Republic (November 6), very much worth looking up...
...THE OLD HUBRIS AND THE NEW In a symposium on "The National Project" in the fiftieth anniversary issue of Commentary (November 1995), Andrew Ferguson, senior editor of the Weekly Standard, issues a word of caution to his fellow conservatives...
...Glenn C. Loury, who criticized the march beforehand and attended anyway, emphasizes the religious appeal, but worries about the "grievance politics" that lie behind it and the identity politics that follow from it...
...would do well to consider the fate, and consequences, of a political philosophy that proves overweening when it gets its chance to strut the stage...
...He calls his fellow African-Americans to account in religious language-or better, religious languages-from Christian to Islamic to Judaic-and mystical ones-numerological, Masonic, and Islamic...
...Farrahkan can criticize blacks in a way no one else can or dares to do...
...The retreat is still under way...
Vol. 122 • November 1995 • No. 20
