One day, a student asked Stringfellow – this would have been
in the middle 60’s – “When do you plan to join the 20th century?’ to
which Stringfellow replied, “It would be a very wicked thing to wish to be a
part of the 20th century.”
The 20th century, one of the bloodiest and
confused epochs in U.S. history, left us 19 years ago last January.
The professor, students of history will notice, had a point.
The century opened with World War 1, followed closely by World War II, followed
by the Korean War, followed by the Vietnam War. And somewhere in there, we
heard the Soviet Union crack and crumble, a cause of great rejoicing for nearly
everyone but some few academics and willfully perverse journalists.
Every epoch has its dark side, its bloody mysteries. And it
is by no means certain that succeeding generations will necessarily improve on
their predecessors. In what sense is Atsuro Riley’s poem “The Skillet” an
improvement on Alexander Pope’s “Epilogue to the Satires?”
Riley: “Of orange stove-eye (right front) and hawkhooked
pot-hook, overhung. Of (vaporous) supper-hour and
-hurlstorm…”
pot-hook, overhung. Of (vaporous) supper-hour and
-hurlstorm…”
Pope: “Yes, I am proud; I must be proud to see
Men not afraid of God afraid of me.”
Men not afraid of God afraid of me.”
Good writing will be quotable and memorable. Though new, the
twittering 21st century already is eminently forgettable.
And the same holds true of men and women. When Franklin
Roosevelt, campaigning against his tormentor, Representative Clare Boothe Luce
of Connecticut, accused Luce of being a "a sharp-tongued glamor girl of
forty,” the U.S. Representative from Fairfield County instantly retorted that
Roosevelt was "the only American president who ever lied us into a war
because he did not have the political courage to lead us into it." Luce
died in 1987, but it is a fair bed she would have considered the tweets of most
21st century politicians menacingly dumb and forgettable. True, quotable
Churchills are rare in human history, but most modern politicians do not even
aspire to the quotability of,
say, Adlai Stevenson: “Flattery
is all right so long as you don't inhale.”
Pope: “Averse alike to flatter, or offend;/ Not free from
faults, nor yet too vain to mend.”
Intelligent, “woke” thought, up until the 21st
century, roundly condemned the flatterers; but this was before flatterers found
they could make a dishonorable but highly remunerative living as political
consultants and communication directors for political campaigns. Now the
disease is everywhere, tolerable only to those who do not inhale.
Stevenson: “The idea that you can merchandise candidates for
high office like breakfast cereal - that you can gather votes like box tops -
is, I think, the ultimate indignity to the democratic process.”
Stevenson understood the radical difference between sound
political policies and what he and politicians before him understood to be
disruptive enthusiasms, i.e. campaign slogans parading as realpolitik. “Some people
approach every problem with an open mouth,” said Stevenson, a word-perfect
picture of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s New Green Deal scheme, the latest
enthusiasm among Connecticut’s progressive, all-Democrat U.S. Congressional
delegation.
Most voters in the state are affronted by the notion that if
they like their cars, they can’t keep them; if they like their houses, they
can’t keep them; if they dislike windmills spoiling their scenery, they must
have them; if they prefer their town governments to decide the fate of their
schools and their communities, this option must not be available to them. These
sensible, un-bewitched people prefer more democratic solutions to thorny
problems, such as: if they do not like their politicians, they should be able
to get rid of them pronto!
A restoration of small “r” republican government must entail
a reaffirmation of the doctrine of subsidiarity, which holds that political
units closest to those affected by political decisions should prevail in making
the decisions: fathers and mothers should decide the fate of their families;
owners of businesses should decide the fate of their commercial enterprises;
neighbors should decide the fate of their neighbors, towns should decide the
fate of their municipalities; and both state and nation should busy themselves
with facilitating small “r” republican government.
As to whether Connecticut is progressing or regressing
politically, consider the following quote that, like a geyser of authoritarian
presumption, issued from Connecticut’s progressive Speaker of the State House
of Representatives, his Excellency Joe Aresimowicz. Responding to a non-binding
resolution disapproving of tolls issued by towns and cities, Aresimowicz
condemned such disapproval as “moronic,” an arrogant piece of anti-republican
political sniping that could not even survive long as a tweet. “I used the
harsh word moronic and I meant it," said Aresimowicz, who later unmeant
it.
For the future, here is a useful political rule of thumb: If
what you are saying is not edifying, memorable, honorable or quotable – shut
up.
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