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politics and concrete considerations of securitv', geography, re­ Frivolity has in the 20th century become a plague of Western sources, and aspirations is simply unsuited to the world as it is. societies; and not least of contemporary American societ\'. Of —from William R. Hawkins, "The Surrender of Political course, many of the greatest achievements of our Western soci­ and Militar)' Sovereignty," October J995 eties and of the United States in particular have fostered this frivolit}'. The technological and economic progress that have It was fashionable, for a time, to ask the silly question, "If we can made life easier have obscured our grasp of the fundamental put a man on the moon, why can't we solve our social prob­ difficulties of human existence. The admirable progress of sci­ lems?" The reason we cannot solve our social problems is pre­ entific knowledge and of medical science have made us think cisely the reason we can put a man on the moon. That is to say, that there are no insoluble problems. Nothing is thought to be it was our pragmatism in general and our scientific and techno­ beyond the powers of the ratiocinative mind, provided with suf­ logical mentality in particular that made our great material ficient powers to realize its aspirations. The progress of science, achievements possible. The essence of this mentality is the it is thought, will release us from moral obligation and moral problem-solving approach. The scientific method isolates dilemmas. The reverence for human life has become fainter. problems and solves them: It cannot take the broader \iew, for Frivolity in the face of serious things: That is the charge that I an\ thing beyond the immediately demonstrable, testable, mea­ make against collecti\ist liberalism. surable, and provable is by definihon unscientific. Americans —from Edward Shils. "Liberalism: arc parodies of the scientific mentalit)-: When anything goes Collectivist and Conservative," July 1989 wrong, we fix it, and do not take into account the possibility that our principles may be unsound. We have, for instance, been appalled to learn in recent years that our children are reaching college without having learned to read. Some people respond­ ed to the discovery by seriously proposing that we should reor­ ganize the entire educational system from kindergarten up­ ward—and thev were branded elitists, racists, or reactionary dodos. Far fewer people considered the possibilih' that the commitment to universal education is inherently futile, and that other means of civilizing children should be explored. In­ stead, the nation did what it always does: It tackled the immedi­ ate problem by instituting remedial reading classes in college and b\ dispensing with literacy tests. —from Forrest McDonald, "On the Study of History," Edward Shils (I) chats with Rockford Institute board mem­ February J 99J bers Henry Regnery and Clyde and Marian Sluhan. THE WRITER AND HIS WORLD Art happens, said Wliistler; die Rose ist ohne Wanim, the rose Our images of vice are well defined, dramatic, sharp-edged, and has no wh\', wrote Angelus Silesius. To explain beauts' is to ex­ energetic. And wh\' not? We live in vice, all of us; we are hand\' plain it away. Wien a literar)' experiment is a failure, as in to its smells and tastes, its appetites and brutalities. Our visions the case of Finnegans Wake, we worship it and we take good of virtue, however, are pallid and dropsical, puny and naive. care not to read it; when it succeeds, as in the cases of the Lewis When we paint an urban utopia, it turns out looking like a Carroll books and Leaves of Grass, we think of it as easy and in­ plush hotel lobby; when we draw a rural one, it looks like an ex­ evitable. pensive golf resort. Twenty-four karat boulevards and a mastery —from forge Luis Borges, "On Walt Whitman," of harp technique: These are our common images for heaven. March 1984 Dante was able to depict a paradise made up of infinite grada­ tions of light, of the kinds and degrees of virtue that described As a small boy, entranced by the written word, I never had the God's goodness; these were immediately apprehendable by the slightest desire to drive a locomotive, pilot an aircraft, captain a senses, the mind, and the soul. Yet it is that poet's images of hell ship. The supreme achievement seemed to me to be that of that most people recall. In fact, most readers of Dante never one who had written a book: any kind of book. jAll through my teenage years I struggled with the short story, the novel, the play, the poem. I was like the man in the stor\' who leapt on his horse and tried to ride off in all directions. Another difficulty lay in finding something to write about. I looked at the circumstance of m\ small-town rural life and decided, with supreme snob­ bishness, that it didn't match up to my literar) ambitions. Un­ failingly, I wrote about worlds I had never known. Poetry—and poctr\' was becoming my principal interest—was away and somewhere else. Nobody told me that the raw material of poet- r\-, like the raw, material of all art, resides quite simply under one's nose. From left: John Howard, Forrest McDonald, Charles —from Charles Causley, "What Gift?" February J 99J Causley, Thomas Fleming. JULY 2001/65 LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED venture further than his Inferno. If Dante's paradise has not our lives and surprise our audience. It is the automatisms of our fixed firmly in the minds of most of us—and it has had 600 years spouses that are intolerable; the very thing that makes a novelis- to do so—how shall the contemporary writer successfully por­ tic character believable is what makes a marriage impossible. tray a vision of the ideal, his faith being so much shakier than No wonder that the easiest kind of novel to write is one about di­ Dante's, his intellect so much less powerful, and his talent vorce! In this sense the realist psychological novel can only be dwarfish in comparison? about damaged people. Only a very few artists have been able to offer a convincing Not that complete people act randomly; rather, they are au­ delineation of moral triumph, and I have a doleful feeling that tonomous, they make up tiieir rules through a process of reflec­ none of them is alive at this hour. This then is the first certain tion and artistic synthesis that makes perfect sense after it has failure the experienced writer knows he must face: the inability come into existence and been explained, but which cannot be to outline with any confidence the figure of the ideal. And with­ predicted beforehand by psychological or sociological laws. out this foundation his work, no matter liow experdy fashioned, And the mechanisms of this freedom are to a large extent im­ will fall short of his hopes. plicit in the classical artistic tools: in the literary field, poetic me­ —from Fred Chappell, "Writer and Community," May J994 ter, dramatic role-playing, sacrificial and performative action, mythic archetypes, and narrative struchire, among others. ... The problems of the literary scene are exacerbated by the atti­ Literary forms are necessary: Experience has to be transmit­ tude of many readers who, as in other products and other as­ ted in some agreed or readilv comprehensible way. But certain pects of our society, haunted by brand names and victimized by forms, like fashions in dress, can at times become extreme. And die culture of celebrity, depend on publicity, advertising, and then these forms, far from crystallizing or sharpening experi­ book reviews more than their own good judgment and taste. ence, can falsify or be felt as a burden. Strangely, the book-reading public, relatively small as it may be, —from V.S. Naipaul, "Some Thoughts on Being a Writer," seems to be singularly easy to manipulate. Add to the hustle of May 1987 publishers the unavoidable truth that so much that is published, fiction and nonfiction alike, does not speak to or about the lives Novelists are persons who happen to see life, and the behavior and values of most Americans, and you have a situation that of human beings, in vivid interior images—though in very dif­ looks unlikely to change for the better any time soon. New tech­ ferent ways—so that in a sense Proust has more in common nology may help a little bit—depending on the character of the with Harold Robbins than with persons who do not find images people who contiol it. Small presses, operating with low over­ taking shape in the mind. .. head and modest goals, may keep the idea of literature alive, if If a character in a novel bears no resemblance whatsoever to not well, in the future. Right now some of the university press­ any human being we have ever met —nor could ever meet es are doing some good books and picking up where the big whatever the circumstances, including reincarnation—there is commercial houses have failed. But a glance at the university likely to be something wrong in the writing. press books advertised in PMLA does not inspire hope for the —from Anthony Powell, "Literature and the Real Person," future. Read the catalogue of Stanley Fish's Duke University January J 985 Press . and weep. —from George Garrett, "Reading and Weeping," May J998 Just over the mountain from Dubrovnik, Kupres, black, burnt- out, choked with men and cattle, writhed silent among the The most astounding scholarly discoveries of today cannot help wooded hills.

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