The New Criterion – February 2021
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February 2021 A monthly review edited by Roger Kimball Notes & Comments, 1 Saint Ted of the Senate by James Piereson, 4 Sybille Bedford at the feast by D. J. Taylor, 10 Calhoun: American heretic by Allen C. Guelzo, 15 Solzhenitsyn & history by Robert D. Kaplan, 21 New poems by Anton Yakovlev, Rachel Hadas & Jessica Hornik, 26 Reflections by James Zug & Edward Greenwood, 29; Reconsiderations by David Platzer, 35; Theater by Kyle Smith, 38; Art by Karen Wilkin & James Panero, 42; Music by Jay Nordlinger, 49; The media by James Bowman, 53 Books: Richard Bradford Devils, lusts & strange desires reviewed by Brooke Allen, 57; Alexander Rose Empires of the sky reviewed by John Steele Gordon, 60; Robert Tombs This sovereign isle reviewed by Simon Heffer, 63; Iris Jamahl Dunkle Charmian Kittredge London reviewed by Carl Rollyson, 66; Jan 02 Swafford Mozart reviewed by John Check, 67; Judith Flanders A place for 74820 64692 February everything reviewed by Anthony Daniels, 69; Paul Betts Ruin & renewal reviewed by Daniel Johnson, 71; Notebook by Charles Cronin & Eric Gibson, 75 Volume 39, Number 6, $7.75 / £7.50 / c$9.75 02 > The New Criterion February 2021 Editor & Publisher Roger Kimball Executive Editor James Panero Managing Editor Benjamin Riley Associate Editor Andrew L. Shea Poetry Editor Adam Kirsch Visiting Critic Myron Magnet Hilton Kramer Fellow Isaac Sligh Office Manager Caetlynn Booth Assistant to the Editors Jayne Allison Editorial Interns Ariana Gravinese & Yulia Pyankova Founding Editor Hilton Kramer Founding Publisher Samuel Lipman Contributors to this issue Brooke Allen writes frequently for The New Simon Heffer’s The Age of Decadence will be Criterion and other publications. A former Pro- published in America by Pegasus in April 2021. fessor of Literature at Bennington College, she Jessica Hornik is the author of the poetry collection now teaches in its Prison Education Initiative. A Door on the River (Chatwin Books). James Bowman is a Resident Scholar at the Ethics Daniel Johnson is the founding editor of TheArticle. and Public Policy Center and the author of Robert D. Kaplan’s The Good American was Honor: A History (Encounter). published in January by Random House. John Check teaches music theory at the University Jay Nordlinger is a senior editor at National Review. of Central Missouri. James Piereson is a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Charles Cronin is an adjunct professor at Keck Institute. Graduate Institute of the Claremont Colleges. David Platzer is a freelance writer, actor, and Anthony Daniels is a contributing editor of singer. City Journal. Carl Rollyson is the author of The Life of William Eric Gibson is the Arts in Review Editor of Faulkner (University of Virginia Press) and The The Wall Street Journal. Last Days of Sylvia Plath (University Press of John Steele Gordon is the author of An Empire of Mississippi). Wealth: The Epic History of American Economic Kyle Smith is the critic-at-large for National Review. Power (Harper Perennial). D. J. Taylor’s On Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Biography Edward Greenwood taught English Literature (Abrams) is out in paperback in May. at various universities, including the University Karen Wilkin is an independent curator and critic. of Kent, Canterbury, England. Anton Yakovlev’s latest book of translations is The Allen C. Guelzo is Senior Research Scholar, Last Poet of the Village: Selected Poems by Sergei Council of the Humanities, Princeton University. Yesenin (Sensitive Skin Books). Rachel Hadas’s new book of poems, Love and James Zug’s latest book is Run to the Roar: Dread (Measure), will be published this spring. Coaching to Overcome Fear (Penguin). The New Criterion. ISSN 0734-0222. February 2021, Volume 39, Number 6. Published monthly except July and August by The Foundation for Cultural Review, Inc., 900 Broadway, New York, NY 10003, a nonprofit public charity as described in Section 501 (c) (3) of the Internal Revenue code, which solicits and accepts contributions from a wide range of sources, including public and private foundations, corporations, and the general public. Subscriptions: $48 for one year, $88 for two. For Canada, add $14 per year. For all other foreign subscriptions, add $22 per year. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and at additional mailing offices. Postmaster and subscribers: send change of address, all remittances, and subscription inquiries to The New Criterion, P.O. Box 3000, Denville, NJ 07834. Notice of nonreceipt must be sent to this address within three months of the issue date. All other correspondence should be addressed to The New Criterion, 900 Broadway, Suite 602, New York, NY 10003. (212) 247-6980. Copyright © 2021 by The Foundation for Cultural Review, Inc. Newsstand distribution by CMG, 155 Village Blvd., Princeton, NJ 08540. Available in microfilm from University Microfilms, 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Internet: www.newcriterion.com Email: [email protected] Advertising: Telephone: (212) 247-6980 Email: [email protected]. Subscriptions: To subscribe, renew, or report a problem please call (800) 783-4903. Notes & Comments: February 2021 1776 the twin affirmations that “all men are created equal” and that they are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” A nation that neglects its past is in danger of It should go without saying that the equality betraying its future. of which the Declaration spoke is moral equal- That, in a line, is the chief burden of the ity before the law, not an equality of talent or forty-odd-page report issued last month by other natural endowments. (Hence the philoso- the President’s Advisory 1776 Commission. pher Harvey Mansfield’s quip about the “self- This is no ordinary government “white paper,” evident half-truth” that all men are created full of reader-proof verbiage whose chief accom- equal.) Nevertheless, despite the self-evidence plishment is darkening a quantity of wood pulp. of that great truth, the Declaration has accu- On the contrary, the 1776 Commission’s report mulated barnacles of cynicism, not least from is an eloquent, closely argued exposition of the those who eagerly point out that many of the distinctively American principles of liberty. It in- Founders, including the principal author of cludes an anatomy of major challenges to those the Declaration, Thomas Jefferson, were slave- principles, historical and contemporary. And it holders. Does that not render their high-flown concludes with a sketch of ways in which the rhetoric disingenuous, not to say hypocritical? idea of America—currently under siege from a variety of freedom-blighting initiatives—might be renewed through a thoughtful resuscitation No, it doesn’t, and the report patiently ex- of civic education and the liberal arts. plains why. We won’t rehearse those arguments here. They are familiar to anyone who has bothered to look into the question. The real Those responsible for this remarkable docu- issue was articulated by Lincoln: ment include Larry Arnn, the Churchill scholar and president of Hillsdale College; Victor Da- All honor to Jefferson—to the man who . had vis Hanson, the historian and classicist; and the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce Charles Kesler, the author and editor of the into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract Claremont Review of Books. No one familiar with truth, applicable to all men and all times . that their work will be surprised by the depth, au- to-day, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke thority, and rhetorical power of this report. and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of In part, it is a restatement of the founding re-appearing tyranny and oppression. principles of the American Creed. At the center of those principles are the truths articulated Lincoln’s point is this: There have been plenty by the Declaration of Independence, above all of revolutionary manifestos throughout his- The New Criterion February 2021 1 Notes & Comments tory. What makes the Declaration of Inde- other Founders was education. A sentinel must pendence special is that it is not simply an recognize and appreciate what he is guarding affidavit of separation but also an affirmation of if his watch is to be successful. Fostering this a central moral truth, a truth that is universal— “auxiliary precaution”—educating citizens for “applicable to all men and all times”—as well liberty, teaching “enlightened patriotism”—is as prophylactic: a people that embraces the at the center of the 1776 Commission’s report. principles of the Declaration has a potent guard Perhaps the most pungent section of the re- against “re-appearing tyranny and oppression.” port is its inventory and analysis of challenges to the American ideal. It is wholly appropriate that slavery comes first and receives the most The prospect of that reappearance is the sad- extended discussion. Other challenges that ness inscribed in the Declaration. It is a sadness the report enumerates are progressivism, the inscribed also in the human heart. “If men were “ideological cousins” of fascism and commu- angels,” Madison observed in Federalist 51, “no nism, and the new racism of identity politics. government would be necessary.” Likewise, he notes, “If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government Some commentators have expressed surprise would be necessary.” Hence the ineradicable that the authors should have included progres- difficulty in “framing a government which is sivism and identity politics in this roster of toxic to be administered by men over men”: “you challenges to the American idea. But they were must first enable the government to control right to do so. At the center of the progressive the governed; and in the next place oblige it to ideology is the idea that truth is relative to his- control itself.” How is that working out for us torical circumstances.