Comments on: Adam Bellow…

By: Yehudit

Yehudit — Sun, 29 Aug 2004 05:04:18 +0000

"I hear all the time about people saying in the mwdia they have met people that voted for Bush who will vote for Kerry, but not any who voted for Gore who will vote for Bush." Samuel, show them this. Follow all the links. Have fun!

By: Charles Waldie

Charles Waldie — Sat, 28 Aug 2004 22:04:08 +0000

Roger:

Thank you for posting the excellent article on the transformation of Adam Bellow. I had a similar transformation a while back, in which I lost the false idealism that had been so insidiously planted by University professors. Although the culture I was raised in (Austin, Texas) is a far cry from the Upper West Side, there are many things which keep us all connected. The things we believe and the things we fight for are bonds that hopefully will never be broken.

By: John Moore ( Useful Fools )

John Moore ( Useful Fools ) — Sat, 28 Aug 2004 21:11:31 +0000

Catherine,

An interesting anecdote, but it doesn’t really show a lack of parochialism.

On the other hand, when I lived in LA, I came to appreciate on greate advantage of a large city – lots of lectures and other intellectual events much more rare here in Phoenix (although if I were more of a go-out-in-the-evening type, I’d still find a bunch).

Occasionally Mensa has an interesting gues for a forum, but not very often.

But the descriptions above gave the impression of a universe in which everyone had the same idea.

I sure don’t find that here (unless I go to the University). ASU fired a drama teacher for teaching Shakespeare instead of something “modern.” So even here in the desert, the insanity is common.

By: Catherine

Catherine — Sat, 28 Aug 2004 19:26:30 +0000

John Moore

It would seem that the elite intellectuals of New York were/are as parochial as someone in small town America.

Yes and no.

Some of the press-bashing we do here amounts to trading in stereotypes, and while I believe that stereotypes & cliches usually become stereotypes & cliches in the first place because they contain a grain of truth, that’s only the case at the “macro” level.

I met a fairly famous, high-level liberal NYC journalist at a dinner party awhile back who had been raised in the south. One of the guests said that John Kerry (who had just become the apparent candidate in the wake of Dean’s meltdown) would win, because “Americans are decent people and no decent person would vote for George Bush.” (I’m still steaming over that one.)

The journalist was completely pessimistic. He said Kerry didn’t have a chance.

He also said, “I was raised in the South, and we were the only liberals in town. So I still think liberals are a tiny minority.”

He explained that Washington D.C. is a much more conservative city than New York, which is why WAPO is a much more conservative newspaper than the NYTIMES. (This was true during the Vietnam War as well, which I’ve learned from THE BIG STORY by Braestrup.)

He was great. He had a built-in instinct for Bad Ideas in J-schools that made me feel much better about the press in general.

By: richard mcenroe

richard mcenroe — Sat, 28 Aug 2004 18:04:24 +0000

Demosophist ó Write a book about the collapse of American Studies. Illiberal Education made Dinesh D’Souza’s rep.

Unamerican Studies, by Demosophist…

By: richard mcenroe

richard mcenroe — Sat, 28 Aug 2004 18:02:06 +0000

AST ó Your Bible only weighs ten pounds? Heretic.

By: Demosophist

Demosophist — Sat, 28 Aug 2004 14:48:58 +0000

Lots of stuff looks familiar. For me the shift started with a mentoring relationship with Marty Lipset, and the shift was completed when I observed the Marxisant/Chomskeyesque reaction to 9/11. But I wonder what one does when the change occurs in your fifties rather than your thirties, and you’re starting a new career in a field dominated by the left? Well, I’m still on the horns of that dilemma.

American Studies is no longer about the US and its deep values, as you know. It’s now about a kind of auto-immune disorder that sees the US as the fundamental problem in the world, rather than the solution. I recall going to an APSA annual meeting around the time I finally got my Ph.D. and with Lipset and David J. Armor on me C.V. I was crushed that I didn’t get a single request for an interview during the entire four days. I think I gave up my hopes of ever going into academe during that convention, and have been surviving on the periphery doing ad hoc consulting work ever since.

Right now I’m out of work, and just about broke. On the up side, I’ve discovered wheat beer, and I think I have a great deal of clarity about what the heck is going on. Just wish it paid something, though.

By: Samuel

Samuel — Sat, 28 Aug 2004 14:31:26 +0000

Roger

Well this story feels familiar, but I would like to emphasize one thing that comes clear from this. I hear all the time about people saying in the mwdia they have met people that voted for Bush who will vote for Kerry, but not any who voted for Gore who will vote for Bush, the reasons are clear. First of all conservatives aren’t as “in your face” and many of us you have changed keep our mouths shut. November will make this fact clear, I assure everyone. -JSF

By: Vexorg

Vexorg — Sat, 28 Aug 2004 08:20:38 +0000

In many ways, modern leftism has become as much a religion to its adherents as anything, although they would refuse to label it as such (it wouldn’t fit in with their profession of militant atheism.) In the religion of leftism, the idols are not of wood and stone, but of transnationalism (a fundamental tenet of which is the infallibility of the UN, and the necessity of the abolition of the soverignty of mations for progress to be made), militant atheism (far fron advocating the separation of church and state, these leftists instead advocate the establishment of atheism as the state religion,) environmentalism (there is no telling how many people in Africa starve needlessly because of the efforts of envoronmentalists to ban genetically modified crops, and suffer malaria because of the outlaw of effective pesticides.) Keep in mind that not all leftists partake of the relgion of leftism, but the fanatical devotion of the radical left to their causes, and intolerance of any sort of disagreement, resemble nothing more than they do a religion in its most extreme form.

By: AST

AST — Sat, 28 Aug 2004 07:23:57 +0000

Thanks for linking that article. I was raised Republican, but have never liked membership politics. I think that in an odd way, I came to conservatism through the ideas, just as Bellow did.

I decided early on that human beings just can’t be trusted to to govern well without being closely watched and on a short leash. The New Deal, with its assumption that the government creates jobs, wealth and well-being, has always struck me as a sophisticated Ponzi scheme.

I was a public defender for 13 years, and saw a lot of injustice from the established order. More grist for ideas about what conservatism really means.

I have a traditional sense of morality, but I believe that it has to be defended on the basis of reason, not just slapped down like a 10 pound Bible.