William F. Buckley, Jr, and American Fascism: 2+2 = 5
- From: "alt.politics.bush" <thomasw540@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 01:56:40 -0800 (PST)
28 February 2008
Terry Gross replayed an interview with William F. Buckley, Jr., from
198-, on Fresh Air this instant. He was a lovely man. I once sat
next to him on the Eastern Shuttle NYC to DCA. I just happen to have
the last seat and he got there as they closed the door and pulled away
from the gate. I introduced myself as a friend of Ray Price and if he
needed a ride somewhere, my car was parked underneath the Eastern wing
of National. Back in the day, I could do that and did it all the
time. He demurred, explaining that arrangements were being perfected
for his needs and we chatted a bit about Ray, who was dealing with
Watergate around the time the White House transcripts were being
digested by Congress, and then we taxied unto the runway and blasted
off and I napped and he read with a portfolio open for notes and then
we landed and the flight crew came to escort him to the door ahead of
the herd and we shook hands and he was as nice a fellow traveler as
one could hope for.
Intellectually, I have never taken Buckley seriously. I mean, he
falls into the same category of sophistry as David Keene and Bob
Tyrell, as a proxy for the popes and priests of the principles of
conservatism, although Buckley was best in show. In terms of
rhetoric, he was the Bobby Fisher of American Fascism. He's like Ayn
Rand in that regard: either one could tie me into dialectical knots
with half their brains tied behind their back in a fair debate. But
I'm not interested in debate.
In his interview with Terry Gross, he responded to her challenge to
summarize "God and Man at Yale" by saying that a liberal education was
supposed to be a process of discovery. He told a little parable to
illustrate and the punch line was something like: if you learn that
2+2 = 4 represents truth, you need to be able to defend that the rest
of your life against those who hold that 2+2 = 5.
I agree with him. And the problem I have always had with William F.
Buckley, Jr., Ayn Rand and conservatism: once you cut through the
passionate rhetorical celebration of the principles of conservatism,
it becomes apparent that the principles of conservatism are based
squarely on the proposition that 2+2 = 5. And when you stretch out
Buckley's narrative, as it reflects cultural norms extolled by George
Gilder in Wealth and Poverty, is pretty well summed up by Antonin
Scalia's "original intent" notion of the US Constitution, which is to
say, a Jeffersonian society modeled on Plato's Republic and dominated
by rich white males whose property rights are superior to the human/
civil rights of Sally Hemming. The most charitable interpretation I
can make of Buckley's vision for America is pretty well summed up by
Mickey Rooney as Andy Hardy. All these neo-cons are more or less
undiagnosed victims of the Peter Pan Syndrome and Buckley is an
example how inherited wealth enables fallacy to be elevated to verity
by sheer persistence and elegant sophistry. Ayn Rand is an example of
how sheer wishful thinking can become the dominant political paradigm
by persistence and rhetorical assault and battery. Buckley wanted the
world to stay exactly the way it was in his mind at the time he became
aware that he was riding around Europe in First Class.
Buckley could have gone to Yale on the GI Bill. He was in the
infantry and must have enlisted, because his 18th birthday was about a
month before the Battle of the Bulge and he was de-mobbed in 1946. He
probably never got out of the states. And then he went to Yale. As a
freshman, he would have been 2 years older and morally tougher than
his classmates. Seniors wouldn't have pushed him around. And he
loved being Big Man on Campus so much, he made a career of it. If it
wasn't for the fact that people who take his 2+2 = 5 seriously weren't
running the Federal government and most of the Fortune 500, he would
be the WASP old money version of Hugh Hefner, without the bunnies. A
sort of bon-bon of the zeit-geist. He never left Yale. Or, more to
the point, Yale was like Daisy's light across the sound and, like
Gatsby's, Buckley's future was a vision that was already forever in
the past.
And that's the truth.
.
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