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And I wonder, therefore, how James Atlas can have been so indulgent in his recent essay 'The Changing World of New York Intellectuals.' This rather shallow piece appeared in the magazine, and took us over the usual jumps. Gone are the days of , Delmore Schwartz, Dwight MacDonald etc etc. No longer the tempest of debate over Trotsky, , Orwell, blah, blah. Today the assimilation of the Jewish American, the rise of rents in midtown Manhattan, the erosion of Village life, yawn, yawn. The drift to the right, the rediscovery of patriotism, the gruesome maturity of the once iconoclastic Norman Podhoretz, okay, ! I have one question which Atlas in his much-ballyhooed article did not even discuss. The old gang may have had regrettable flirtations. Their political compromises, endlessly reviewed, may have exhibited naivety or self-regard. But much of that record is still educative, and the argument did take place under real pressure from anti-semitic and authoritarian enemies. Today, the alleged 'neo-conservative' movement around Jeane Kirkpatrick, and the can be found in unforced alliance with openly obscurantist, fundamentalist and above all anti-intellectual forces. In the old days, there would at least have been a debate on the proprieties of such a united front, with many fine distinctions made and brave attitudes struck. As I write, nearness to power seems the only excuse, and the subject is changed as soon it is raised. I wait for the agonised, self-justifying neo-conservative essay about necessary and contingent alliances. Do I linger in vain?
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anti-intellectualism
anti-semitism
authoritarianism
commentary-magazine
debate
delmore-schwartz
dwight-macdonald
james-atlas
jeane-kirkpatrick
leon-trotsky
neoconservativism
new-criterion
new-york-times
norman-podhoretz
obscurantism
partisan-review
ts-eliot
right-wing-politics
george-orwell
manhattan
intellectuals
fundamentalism
patriotism
power
jews
communism
cold-war
new-york
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Christopher Hitchens |