Dear Editor
Dear Editor Neoconservatives I've enjoyed Steven Kelman's writings, particularly in The New Leader, over a number of years. But his review of Peter Steinfels' The Neoconservatives ("Abandoning the...
...What the individual really meant in the earlier decade was, "You got, i want, gimmee...
...Thus today Marxists are on the defensive as Christianity confronts them with a critical question: Who more genuinely represents peace, justice and the spirit of communality, who is offering to substitute moral, spiritual and intellectual vitality for dehumanization and moral, spiritual and intellectual bankruptcy...
...to believe that it is women, rather than they, who are being filed away, etc...
...What Hardwick meant to write was this: "Some men define themselves by women although these men appear to believe quite the opposite...
...Time and again Simon rises to the chase, mercilessly hunting down Hardwick solecisms: "If 'women' is the antecedent, 'she' has to read 'they...
...when older and weaker, one is more afraid of the mugger and less afraid of arbitrary authority...
...After all, Melville and Faulkner wrote fairly hideous prose...
...To be sure, it is always a danger to categorically identify such positive qualities with any single movement...
...Bohdan Wvtwycky Simon Cataloguing is as cataloguing does...
...How this was accomplished relatively effortlessly in the face of a hostile quasi-totalitarian regime—without a single one of Stalin's proverbial divisions in support—has been explained by Jan T. Gross ("John Paul and the Parallel Poland," NL, June 18...
...A lot of this flaccid pedantry goes a short way...
...He wounds the fox but never bags it...
...What he really means in a later decade is, "Those guys might well trip the tenuous balance that gives me inordinate advantages!' That isn't the only reason for the shift, but it is one of the reasons...
...His comments have just the right touch...
...she" was meant to stand for women in general...
...Not always, but frequently...
...Often this turning comes with an accession to status, power or money...
...It is important not to get committed to programs that should be scrapped once shown to be relatively ineffective or to have too many undesirable "unanticipated consequences...
...In the sentence he quotes, "men" was meant to be the antecedent...
...Now, with an uncanny intellectual adroitness matched only by his highly charismatic personality, the Pope has managed to effect a stunning reversal...
...June 4) were In far the most nun ing ;ind thoughtful of an\ I read...
...Incidentally, Simon's aim is off...
...Marx's resounding condemnation of all categories of enslavement and dehu mani/ation, and his clarion call to what he con strued as the cause of justice, liberation and brotherhood, have enthralled many of Lurope's brightest minds and most idealistic hearts lor many decades...
...Christianity There were many remarkable aspects to the Pope's recent journey to Poland, but most immediately impressive of all was his seemingly miraculous consolidation of the immense power that appeared to flow to him from every nook and cranny of (he country within a matter of days...
...But the pieces b\ A. H. Raskin and Thomas R. Brooks (NL...
...Congratulations...
...Ihtnui \miriw Ki ri \\p...
...When young and strong, one is less afraid of the mugger and more afraid of arbitrary authority...
...2. i have observed over many years that those who in one decade defend humane values, as Kel-man put it, turn quiet or even sour on these values in a later decade...
...they're great writers anyway...
...They are "right," in more ways than one, more often than not...
...In his review of Sleepless Nights ("Cataloguing as Literature," NL, June 18), John Simon accuses Elizabeth Hard-wick of a number of crimes: Her feeble imaginations leans on Rilke for support, her observations aren't true to reality and—above all—she can't write prose...
...The greater need and the greater challenge is innovation...
...Thus, the neo-problem solvers...
...Another is simply a decline of physical strength...
...Most of what we try to do doesn't work...
...Nor are ideological conquests ever decisive...
...I would like to make two further observations...
...Whatever Marxism's strengths and weaknesses, its single most alluring feature (as theory, not practice) for a great number of its most sincere and informed adherents has been its successful projection of a humanist vision...
...And, despite Marx's explicit disdain toThe New Leader welcomes comment and criticism on an> of its features, but letters should not exceed 300 words...
...But his review of Peter Steinfels' The Neoconservatives ("Abandoning the Good Fight," NL, May 21) is the best yet...
...New York City Lloyd McAulay Marxism vs...
...Blootnfield, N.J...
...At any rate, a critical essay that rests on catching grammar mistakes makes for unconvincing, not to mention tedious, reading...
...Obviously we have to keep trying...
...but 'themselves,' to be correct, would have to read 'they,' making the sentence inscrutable...
...ward introducing considerations of morality, it is precisely his masterful evocation of our moral indignation at the horror stories of worker and child-labor exploitation in 19th-century industrial Britain that makes the first volume of Das Kapital so compelling a work...
...He has done this by bringing to the fore Christianity's strongest, most attractive feature, a radical commitment to dynamic humanism—the very element that first mobilized the followers of Christ and has been the chief strength of Marxism as well...
...1. Those who explain why an innovative proposal is not likely to work or, in retrospect, point out why an innovative proposal has not worked, are bound to be "correct" more often than those who propose innovative solutions to problems...
...1 would like to focus on another, more subtle aspect of the nine-day pilgrimage that could have profound long-term implications: the sudden and dramatic reversal of advantageous ideological position...
...They are necessary and they do serve the public interest, but only in a secondary fashion...
...Nevertheless, in Poland, and perhaps elsewhere, Christianity has just put its best foot forward and scored a most impressive victory...
...Montreal Hum Marijis Kudos Main people wrote, and many places published, tributes to A. Philip Randolph...
...What has been going on, then, for about a century is that Marxism has been on the ideological offensive and the various non-Marxist ideologies in the West, principally liberalism and Christianity, have been largely on the defensive—at times holding their own and at other times in retreat...
Vol. 62 • July 1979 • No. 14
