The Washington Post reports status anxiety among Washingtonians attending Ronald Reagan's service:
"A funeral years in the planning -- Nancy Reagan met every six months or so with key advisers to update preparations -- began with the gradual arrival of the guests, who had colored dots discreetly marked on the back of their tickets. Black dots sat way in the back; status-conscious Washingtonians soon figured out that orange was better, red better still and yellow quite exalted. Twenty-five heads of state converged on the cathedral, and 11 former heads of state, and 180 ambassadors or foreign ministers."
Those seeking to understand Washington's obsessions might want to read Alain de Botton's charming new book, Status Anxiety, which lists among the causes of this phenomenon: lovelessness, snobbery, expectation, meritocracy, and dependendence. Among the solutions discussed are: philosophy, art, politics, Christianity, and bohemia.
A philosophical therapist, the British author, who is on a book tour--coming to Politics & Prose bookstore in the national capital on June 18th--presents his thesis that " status anxiety possesses an exceptional capacity to inspire sorrow. That the hunger for status, like all appetites, can have its uses: spurring us to do justice to our talents, encouraging excellence, restraining us from harmful eccentricities and cementing members of a society around a common value system. But, like all appetites, its excesses can also kill. That the most profitable way of addressing the condition may be to attempt to understand and to speak of it."
Sunday, June 13, 2004
Saturday, June 12, 2004
Was Bill Clinton Reagan's Ratifier?
Dick Morris, who is not always right, but usually provocative, makes a compelling case that Bill Clinton was Ronald Reagan's "ratifier," taking the Reagan legacy into the Democratic party agenda, and using it to promote welfare reform and a balanced budget. He points out that Eisenhower did a similar thing to FDR's New Deal. And he might have added that Tony Blair Thatcherized Britain's Labor Party with great success.
It seems to me that in this case, Morris knows what he is talking about. Ronald Reagan's disciple was Bill Clinton, much as the Democratic FDR followed in Republican Teddy Roosevelt's footsteps. This alternating pattern may not be a law of politics, but it is an interesting phenomenon.
What it means for the upcoming election is not clear. Perhaps that Kerry can make a play for the Reagan mantle, too.
It seems to me that in this case, Morris knows what he is talking about. Ronald Reagan's disciple was Bill Clinton, much as the Democratic FDR followed in Republican Teddy Roosevelt's footsteps. This alternating pattern may not be a law of politics, but it is an interesting phenomenon.
What it means for the upcoming election is not clear. Perhaps that Kerry can make a play for the Reagan mantle, too.
Squirrels vs. Dog: The difference between Reagan and Bush 41
"And in leaving the White House, the very last day, he left in the yard outside the Oval Office door a little sign for the squirrels. He loved to feed those squirrels. And he left this sign that said, ``Beware of the dog,'' and to no avail, because our dog Millie came in and beat the heck out of the squirrels..."
Nothing better captures the difference between Reagan and Bush 41 than this comment, which may have sprung directly from Bush's unconscious.
Nothing better captures the difference between Reagan and Bush 41 than this comment, which may have sprung directly from Bush's unconscious.
Patti Davis at the Reagan Library
One aspect of President Reagan's burial service in Simi Valley was the sense of closure to a history of family tensions. During the Reagan administration, Patti Davis (she didn't want to use his name, but her mother's)was rebellious, posing for Playboy, writing tell-all books, sensational novels, and living with LA rockers, etc. Closer to Jane Fonda, in some ways, than her father.
At yesterday's events, she appeared as an ideal daughter, devoted, genuinely loving to her mother, and close to her brother. Patti's eulogy was warm and loving, showing a sense of understanding for her father. The parable of the goldfishes, as it were, contrasted her youthful impatience with her father's more mature understanding of life. By telling that story, at her own expense, Patti was making a gesture of reconciliation between generations.
So, when Patti and Ron came to Nancy's side when she broke down at the casket, not wanting to let go, it was an illustration of love, caring and tenderness, that they would look after Nancy as their father had done.
In a sense, that moment provided a symbol of closure for the "Generation Gap" of the 1960s, which affected many American families, including the Reagans.
At yesterday's events, she appeared as an ideal daughter, devoted, genuinely loving to her mother, and close to her brother. Patti's eulogy was warm and loving, showing a sense of understanding for her father. The parable of the goldfishes, as it were, contrasted her youthful impatience with her father's more mature understanding of life. By telling that story, at her own expense, Patti was making a gesture of reconciliation between generations.
So, when Patti and Ron came to Nancy's side when she broke down at the casket, not wanting to let go, it was an illustration of love, caring and tenderness, that they would look after Nancy as their father had done.
In a sense, that moment provided a symbol of closure for the "Generation Gap" of the 1960s, which affected many American families, including the Reagans.
Ron Reagan v. Bush 43?
Did Ron Reagan take aim at President George W. Bush during his Simi Valley eulogy? It sounded like it, at least to this viewer. Here's what Ron said:
"Dad was also a deeply, unabashedly religious man. But he never made the fatal mistake of so many politicians wearing his faith on his sleeve to gain political advantage. True, after he was shot and nearly killed early in his presidency, he came to believe that God had spared him in order that he might do good. But he accepted that as a responsibility, not a mandate. And there is a profound difference."
And how he said it, with Reaganesque firmness, as a matter of principle rather than personalities, almost as if he were channelling his father. Could Ron, Jr. be picking up the torch?
"Dad was also a deeply, unabashedly religious man. But he never made the fatal mistake of so many politicians wearing his faith on his sleeve to gain political advantage. True, after he was shot and nearly killed early in his presidency, he came to believe that God had spared him in order that he might do good. But he accepted that as a responsibility, not a mandate. And there is a profound difference."
And how he said it, with Reaganesque firmness, as a matter of principle rather than personalities, almost as if he were channelling his father. Could Ron, Jr. be picking up the torch?
Friday, June 11, 2004
Anne Applebaum: The next Melvin Lasky?
Yesterday evening, Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum , author of the recent book Gulag, spoke to the DC chapter of the Fulbright Alumni Association.
Her point was that there is now a struggle going on for the Reagan legacy.
Applebaum made a case for Reagan as an ideological Cold Warrior, who understood the importance of communication, and supported the work of people like Melvin Lasky, whose biography is linked above.
Melvin Lasky was instrumental in the CIA-funded Congress on Cultural Freedom, and editor of the CIA-supported Encounter magazine until 1990. Applebaum joked the journal's closure was a casualty of the end of the cold war.
Applebaum said America needs more international cultural programs, criticized cutbacks in exchange programs, and called for a renewed emphasis on reaching out to intellectuals in Europe and around the world. Her conclusion: America needs a new Melvin Lasky.
This was also the thrust of an oped Applebaum published in the Washington Post not long ago. One might disagree with her prescription--CIA funding eventually blew up in the face of Encounter and the CCF, damaging their credibility; one could argue that the left did win the battle of the intellectuals, that it was popular entertainment programs like "Dallas" that had a greater effect in showing up Communism (reason: freedom is more fun than slavery), yet clearly intellectual elites do play a significant role, one which needs to be understood.
Applebaum's was a provocative talk, and it was good to hear someone in Washington taking culture and intellectual ideas seriously.
Her bottom line: that America is in a war of ideas with Islamist fundamentalism.
How one goes about fighting that war of ideas can be debated, but Applebaum is correct to point out that one of Reagan's legacies is that he was serious about the Cold War being a clash of ideas. Hearing her talk seriously about taking ideas seriously, and tying it to Reagan, may have been controversial in a room full of academics (and Applebaum may not realize how controversial her ideas are), and it was a welcome tonic.
It just may be that Applebaum herself turns out to be the next Melvin Lasky.
Her point was that there is now a struggle going on for the Reagan legacy.
Applebaum made a case for Reagan as an ideological Cold Warrior, who understood the importance of communication, and supported the work of people like Melvin Lasky, whose biography is linked above.
Melvin Lasky was instrumental in the CIA-funded Congress on Cultural Freedom, and editor of the CIA-supported Encounter magazine until 1990. Applebaum joked the journal's closure was a casualty of the end of the cold war.
Applebaum said America needs more international cultural programs, criticized cutbacks in exchange programs, and called for a renewed emphasis on reaching out to intellectuals in Europe and around the world. Her conclusion: America needs a new Melvin Lasky.
This was also the thrust of an oped Applebaum published in the Washington Post not long ago. One might disagree with her prescription--CIA funding eventually blew up in the face of Encounter and the CCF, damaging their credibility; one could argue that the left did win the battle of the intellectuals, that it was popular entertainment programs like "Dallas" that had a greater effect in showing up Communism (reason: freedom is more fun than slavery), yet clearly intellectual elites do play a significant role, one which needs to be understood.
Applebaum's was a provocative talk, and it was good to hear someone in Washington taking culture and intellectual ideas seriously.
Her bottom line: that America is in a war of ideas with Islamist fundamentalism.
How one goes about fighting that war of ideas can be debated, but Applebaum is correct to point out that one of Reagan's legacies is that he was serious about the Cold War being a clash of ideas. Hearing her talk seriously about taking ideas seriously, and tying it to Reagan, may have been controversial in a room full of academics (and Applebaum may not realize how controversial her ideas are), and it was a welcome tonic.
It just may be that Applebaum herself turns out to be the next Melvin Lasky.
Thursday, June 10, 2004
How will history rank Reagan?
James Taranto has an interesting article about ranking American Presidents. Only three Presidents are ranked as great: Washington, Lincoln, and FDR. Each was associated with a victorious war: the American Revolution, the Civil War, and WWII. Clear-cut victory is good for a high ranking, it would seem. He has a new book out about the topic: Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House.
A curious concluding observation: "Those who believe that history runs in cycles will be interested to note that the three great presidents took office at 72-year intervals--Washington in 1789, Lincoln in 1861 and FDR in 1933--and that this November it will have been exactly 72 years since the election of our last great president."
A curious concluding observation: "Those who believe that history runs in cycles will be interested to note that the three great presidents took office at 72-year intervals--Washington in 1789, Lincoln in 1861 and FDR in 1933--and that this November it will have been exactly 72 years since the election of our last great president."
Dinesh D'Souza' s point: Reagan really was a man of ideas...
Reading Dinesh D'Souza, a former Reagan speechwriter who also wrote a very good biography, is a reminder that Reagan was interested in ideas, and aware of the importance of ideology. He cast the anti-communist struggle in clear ideological terms--something Bush still has not done vis-a-vis the threat of Islamist fundamentalist terrorism--and offered a countervailing set of principles. That was why so many "Mensheviks" became Reaganites in the end--anti-communist socialists were part of the Reagan consitutency, hard as that seems to believe for those outside. Many of the "Scoop Jackson Democrats" who became neoconservatives shared these intellectual origins.
One other point, to add to D'Souza's analysis. Reagan realized the significance of the fact that communism was a slave system and the Soviet Union a slave society. He worked with American labor unions to organize in Eastern Europe. He had a very good relationship with the AFL-CIO, which did the groundbreaking work with Solidarity in Poland, the crack that brought down the Iron Curtain. Rationale: workers in the Soviet Union were not paid as well as workers in the west, remember the joke, "they pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work?" There was a mutual interest for labor unions and the USA to organize labor behind the iron curtain. Workers were actually better off in a free society than a communist one, and would respond.
The ideological basis for communism, the welfare of working people, would be shown to be mistaken. The workers in the workers state would become American allies. They would bring down the slave system from within.
It worked.
One other point, to add to D'Souza's analysis. Reagan realized the significance of the fact that communism was a slave system and the Soviet Union a slave society. He worked with American labor unions to organize in Eastern Europe. He had a very good relationship with the AFL-CIO, which did the groundbreaking work with Solidarity in Poland, the crack that brought down the Iron Curtain. Rationale: workers in the Soviet Union were not paid as well as workers in the west, remember the joke, "they pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work?" There was a mutual interest for labor unions and the USA to organize labor behind the iron curtain. Workers were actually better off in a free society than a communist one, and would respond.
The ideological basis for communism, the welfare of working people, would be shown to be mistaken. The workers in the workers state would become American allies. They would bring down the slave system from within.
It worked.
Wednesday, June 09, 2004
Ronald Reagan and Me
After watching the impressive state funeral of Ronald Reagan--getting his casket up all those steps was unbelievable--I had to add my two cents. For, although I never met him, Ronald Reagan brought me to Washington.
I grew up in a typical liberal household back East, and we moved to California while Ronald Reagan was still governor. There was a lot of culture shock. He was indeed popular, but not with the people we knew. My parents both taught at the University of California, and Reagan was the man who fired Clark Kerr over the Free Speech Movement. He instituted tuition. He cut the budget. He was anti-intellectual. Etc.
Actually, he was perhaps even more reviled than Nixon. Because academics gave Nixon credit for being smart, while they thought Reagan was just a dumb actor. Reagan was such a large figure in the iconography of my consciousness that I thought I would produce a documentary film exposing him. I remember this well, it was in the early 1980s. I was going to work with Laurence Leamer, who wrote a popular Reagan biography called "Make Believe" and we were going to have Gore Vidal host the picture. We even met with Gore Vidal for drinks at the bar of the Beverly Hills Hotel. He was very funny, in a waspish way, and did imitations of Reagan and his circle. If he were not an author, Vidal probably could have made a living on the nightclub circuit. He's much better as an entertainer than a political analyst. But I digress...
In any case, what followed were a lot of complications, and the partnership didn't work out. No film was ever made, which was a Good Thing, since I subsequently ended up working at The Heritage Foundation and sitting in rooms with people like Ed Meese, who led Governor Reagan's side in Berkeley battles over "People's Park." I couldn't believe it then, it is hard to believe now.
What I remembered most clearly was that I couldn't get access to the rights to use Reagan's old Warner Brothers movies--by the way, they were good, he was a perfectly good actor, he was not a B actor, and King's Row, his favorite, is a really sophisticated picture; and the Santa Fe Trail is really excellent, too. Trivia tidbit, Ronald Reagan was considered for the role of Rick in Casablanca, but it was given to Bogart at the last minute. Jack Warner liked him, which is why Reagan was always telling Warner stories. In any case, I wanted to use a lot of clips, and it wasn't going to be possible. The other night I saw some outtakes on 60 Minutes, that I had never seen, and they were really funny, and that was Reagan. So, the first thing from my research that affected me was that Reagan was not a bad actor. I had been laboring under a false impression.
The second thing that hit me, somehow, was that he had really truly been a man of the left for many years. For some reason I found myself at Bertolt Brecht's old house in Santa Monica, the one he wrote all those somber poems about, it was a perfectly nice house. And the man who now lived there, who was clearly an old leftist, said oh, yes, Reagan had been at parties with Brecht during the war. Now, maybe that man was making things up. And maybe not, because Hollywood is and was a pretty small community, people run into each other pretty easily.
But in any case Reagan's left credentials were pretty solid. He had organized a student revolt at his college, for example. Well, anyhow, he turned against the Communists, and they never forgave him. He drove them out of the Hollywood unions, because he knew the threat they posed. And he knew because he certainly had been on the same side earlier on. And in the end, I think that is how he knew how to deal with Gorbachev and break the Soviet Union. He knew how Communists think and how they act. This is something that good, grey corporate Republicans simply had no clue about, and still don't. Reagan also had been a union organizer, and he knew the way workers think and feel. Again, something most corporate types find a mystery.
Anyway, I ended up doing graduate work in film school, studying television. I remember that at orientation we were asked why we were there. And I said, because I want to know why Reagan is so successful. I guess I was being glib. Everyone laughed, thinking it was a joke.
But funnily enough, I did learn. And his success did have to to with his being an actor. For actors always have to have a truth that guides them, in every scene, in every role. They play to the truth of the character, to the truth of the scene. And where it intersects with their truth, they connect and can do a great characterization. It is, in a word a symbiosis, or a dialectic to the marxist-trained thinkers. But what became clear was that the people who were saying "let Reagan be Reagan" knew who Reagan was, and Reagan knew who he was. He once said, "I know who I am." That was a great revelation. Because at that age, and at that time, I didn't know who I was.
Well, I thought I was heading away from politics into the arts, but one thing led to another, and I ended up doing a dissertation on Masterpiece Theatre, hosted by Alistair Cooke. And what should I discover? One of the predecessors, along with Omnibus, and Playhouse 90, and all the rest, was GE Theater, hosted by Ronald Reagan. Anthology drama. Reagan was an American Alistair Cooke, as well as a sports announcer.
Well, it just kept getting more and more interesting. And the Reagan Revolution even got to this lifelong liberal, and I ended up writing an application to do a study of the privatization of PBS for the Heritage Foundation. Of course, I had been in England to do dissertation research, and found Thatcher's establishment of Channel Four as a private channel very interesting. It worked, and was paid for by commercial advertising. Anyhow, the Heritage Foundation brought me to Washington, where I learned another interesting thing about the Reagan legacy.
It turned out that the most vicious anti-Reaganites were associated with George Bush the Elder. Immediately upon taking office, he ordered ALL the Reagan appointees to be fired. John Sununu wouldn't do it, so Andrew Card, now White House chief of staff for George Bush the Younger, did the deed. And yes, they were all let go. Incredible. This caused a lot of ill will at the Heritage foundation, where at one event a younger staffer carried a mock head of George Bush the Elder on a platter, and he lost his job for that, but it expressed the general feeling.
Because although Reagan was anti-communist, he was a revolutionary. It was true. And George Bush the Elder was an Establishmentarian.
The Heritage Foundation had brought me to work for them, although I had no personal ties, and no "loyalty." I found myself in a very sympathetic milieu. Because Reagan supporters were really interested in ideas, they were sort of outsiders. And they would try things and if they worked, great. It was like show business, every picture is another chance, nobody bats 1000, and so forth. But for the Bush people, everything seemed wired, rigged, based on accidents of birth, schooling, personal connections. A closed shop, rather than an open shop.
Later I worked for the anti-communist David Horowitz (not the television consumer reporter, one would often have to add), also a Berkeley alumnus (as was David Brock, interestingly). He had set up a press called Second Thoughts Books, based on the title his book about his turn against communism. And he said Reagan had inscribed a picture to him with words to the effect, "I had second thoughts, too..."
And so had I. One seminal event was going to the Berlin Film Festival and crossing into East Berlin, which was a "showcase" city. Brecht's son or grandson or some relation had said, oh you simply must see the East, it has so much culture, etc. And so went over to visit. It was just horrible, looked like WWII hadn't ended, tanks everywhere, nothing in the stores, nothing to eat. Just lots of vodka and piles of coal in the street. Buildings still with holes in them--and this was in 1981. I was taken away and searched at the border, no harm done, but not pleasant going in. We had to change money to worthless currency, open a worthless bank account. All around us were depressed faces of grim people. It was grey and horrible. Especially compared to West Berlin, which was better than New York at that time. So Reagan's phrase, "evil empire" spoke to my own experience.
One other big event. I was still in film school and went to a Berkeley alumni event in Los Angeles in 1984 wearing a Mondale button, in the home of a successful lawyer. He had a picture of himself with John F. Kennedy. He told me he was going to vote for Reagan, and I was shocked. Why? He said he couldn't stand the way the party had changed, that Jerry Brown had appointed terrible judges, and that Reagan had made really first-rate appointments. At that time, young and not very worldly, I simply chalked it up to his being succesful. But now I know where he was coming from. What Alistair Cooke had called "the ghastly 60s" had pushed him out of the Democratic camp. The Democrats had left him.
This was the same terminology Reagan used. And it was this liberal individualism that was so attractive. Understanding this truly liberal side of Reagan's legacy, for after all there is nothing conservative about a revolution, I would suggest, is one key to understanding his success.
I grew up in a typical liberal household back East, and we moved to California while Ronald Reagan was still governor. There was a lot of culture shock. He was indeed popular, but not with the people we knew. My parents both taught at the University of California, and Reagan was the man who fired Clark Kerr over the Free Speech Movement. He instituted tuition. He cut the budget. He was anti-intellectual. Etc.
Actually, he was perhaps even more reviled than Nixon. Because academics gave Nixon credit for being smart, while they thought Reagan was just a dumb actor. Reagan was such a large figure in the iconography of my consciousness that I thought I would produce a documentary film exposing him. I remember this well, it was in the early 1980s. I was going to work with Laurence Leamer, who wrote a popular Reagan biography called "Make Believe" and we were going to have Gore Vidal host the picture. We even met with Gore Vidal for drinks at the bar of the Beverly Hills Hotel. He was very funny, in a waspish way, and did imitations of Reagan and his circle. If he were not an author, Vidal probably could have made a living on the nightclub circuit. He's much better as an entertainer than a political analyst. But I digress...
In any case, what followed were a lot of complications, and the partnership didn't work out. No film was ever made, which was a Good Thing, since I subsequently ended up working at The Heritage Foundation and sitting in rooms with people like Ed Meese, who led Governor Reagan's side in Berkeley battles over "People's Park." I couldn't believe it then, it is hard to believe now.
What I remembered most clearly was that I couldn't get access to the rights to use Reagan's old Warner Brothers movies--by the way, they were good, he was a perfectly good actor, he was not a B actor, and King's Row, his favorite, is a really sophisticated picture; and the Santa Fe Trail is really excellent, too. Trivia tidbit, Ronald Reagan was considered for the role of Rick in Casablanca, but it was given to Bogart at the last minute. Jack Warner liked him, which is why Reagan was always telling Warner stories. In any case, I wanted to use a lot of clips, and it wasn't going to be possible. The other night I saw some outtakes on 60 Minutes, that I had never seen, and they were really funny, and that was Reagan. So, the first thing from my research that affected me was that Reagan was not a bad actor. I had been laboring under a false impression.
The second thing that hit me, somehow, was that he had really truly been a man of the left for many years. For some reason I found myself at Bertolt Brecht's old house in Santa Monica, the one he wrote all those somber poems about, it was a perfectly nice house. And the man who now lived there, who was clearly an old leftist, said oh, yes, Reagan had been at parties with Brecht during the war. Now, maybe that man was making things up. And maybe not, because Hollywood is and was a pretty small community, people run into each other pretty easily.
But in any case Reagan's left credentials were pretty solid. He had organized a student revolt at his college, for example. Well, anyhow, he turned against the Communists, and they never forgave him. He drove them out of the Hollywood unions, because he knew the threat they posed. And he knew because he certainly had been on the same side earlier on. And in the end, I think that is how he knew how to deal with Gorbachev and break the Soviet Union. He knew how Communists think and how they act. This is something that good, grey corporate Republicans simply had no clue about, and still don't. Reagan also had been a union organizer, and he knew the way workers think and feel. Again, something most corporate types find a mystery.
Anyway, I ended up doing graduate work in film school, studying television. I remember that at orientation we were asked why we were there. And I said, because I want to know why Reagan is so successful. I guess I was being glib. Everyone laughed, thinking it was a joke.
But funnily enough, I did learn. And his success did have to to with his being an actor. For actors always have to have a truth that guides them, in every scene, in every role. They play to the truth of the character, to the truth of the scene. And where it intersects with their truth, they connect and can do a great characterization. It is, in a word a symbiosis, or a dialectic to the marxist-trained thinkers. But what became clear was that the people who were saying "let Reagan be Reagan" knew who Reagan was, and Reagan knew who he was. He once said, "I know who I am." That was a great revelation. Because at that age, and at that time, I didn't know who I was.
Well, I thought I was heading away from politics into the arts, but one thing led to another, and I ended up doing a dissertation on Masterpiece Theatre, hosted by Alistair Cooke. And what should I discover? One of the predecessors, along with Omnibus, and Playhouse 90, and all the rest, was GE Theater, hosted by Ronald Reagan. Anthology drama. Reagan was an American Alistair Cooke, as well as a sports announcer.
Well, it just kept getting more and more interesting. And the Reagan Revolution even got to this lifelong liberal, and I ended up writing an application to do a study of the privatization of PBS for the Heritage Foundation. Of course, I had been in England to do dissertation research, and found Thatcher's establishment of Channel Four as a private channel very interesting. It worked, and was paid for by commercial advertising. Anyhow, the Heritage Foundation brought me to Washington, where I learned another interesting thing about the Reagan legacy.
It turned out that the most vicious anti-Reaganites were associated with George Bush the Elder. Immediately upon taking office, he ordered ALL the Reagan appointees to be fired. John Sununu wouldn't do it, so Andrew Card, now White House chief of staff for George Bush the Younger, did the deed. And yes, they were all let go. Incredible. This caused a lot of ill will at the Heritage foundation, where at one event a younger staffer carried a mock head of George Bush the Elder on a platter, and he lost his job for that, but it expressed the general feeling.
Because although Reagan was anti-communist, he was a revolutionary. It was true. And George Bush the Elder was an Establishmentarian.
The Heritage Foundation had brought me to work for them, although I had no personal ties, and no "loyalty." I found myself in a very sympathetic milieu. Because Reagan supporters were really interested in ideas, they were sort of outsiders. And they would try things and if they worked, great. It was like show business, every picture is another chance, nobody bats 1000, and so forth. But for the Bush people, everything seemed wired, rigged, based on accidents of birth, schooling, personal connections. A closed shop, rather than an open shop.
Later I worked for the anti-communist David Horowitz (not the television consumer reporter, one would often have to add), also a Berkeley alumnus (as was David Brock, interestingly). He had set up a press called Second Thoughts Books, based on the title his book about his turn against communism. And he said Reagan had inscribed a picture to him with words to the effect, "I had second thoughts, too..."
And so had I. One seminal event was going to the Berlin Film Festival and crossing into East Berlin, which was a "showcase" city. Brecht's son or grandson or some relation had said, oh you simply must see the East, it has so much culture, etc. And so went over to visit. It was just horrible, looked like WWII hadn't ended, tanks everywhere, nothing in the stores, nothing to eat. Just lots of vodka and piles of coal in the street. Buildings still with holes in them--and this was in 1981. I was taken away and searched at the border, no harm done, but not pleasant going in. We had to change money to worthless currency, open a worthless bank account. All around us were depressed faces of grim people. It was grey and horrible. Especially compared to West Berlin, which was better than New York at that time. So Reagan's phrase, "evil empire" spoke to my own experience.
One other big event. I was still in film school and went to a Berkeley alumni event in Los Angeles in 1984 wearing a Mondale button, in the home of a successful lawyer. He had a picture of himself with John F. Kennedy. He told me he was going to vote for Reagan, and I was shocked. Why? He said he couldn't stand the way the party had changed, that Jerry Brown had appointed terrible judges, and that Reagan had made really first-rate appointments. At that time, young and not very worldly, I simply chalked it up to his being succesful. But now I know where he was coming from. What Alistair Cooke had called "the ghastly 60s" had pushed him out of the Democratic camp. The Democrats had left him.
This was the same terminology Reagan used. And it was this liberal individualism that was so attractive. Understanding this truly liberal side of Reagan's legacy, for after all there is nothing conservative about a revolution, I would suggest, is one key to understanding his success.
Welcome to LaurenceJarvikOnline...
Welcome to LaurenceJarvikOnline. This is where you'll find the usual blog self-indulgence, hobby-horse riding, and instant reactions. So if that turns you off, as it does many people, please feel free to click to from whence you came.
For those who remain...
What I hope will be a little different in this site is the orientation. I spent last year living in Uzbekistan, and on returning to the USA was a little surprised by how shrill everything seemed. Granted that I had been living in an authoritarian state, but the over-politicization of almost everything in the land of the free seemed a little ridiculous. There were such sharp divisions between the "Red" and "Blue" America that almost every topic was seen in partisan terms. Frankly, it was disappointing. There didn't seem to be much but Bush-Bashing or Bush-Cheerleading to choose from.
And everyone seemed to have gone off the deep end. No one appeared to want to be part of what used to be called "the vital center."
Where had all the centrists gone? Long time passing...
So, after stewing in a funk for a while, I said, what the heck, I'll join the pool party and start a blog of my own. The idea, at least for now, is to try and be a little bit thoughtful. I hope the undertow doesn't pull too strongly, that this doesn't degenerate into something shrill or partisan. And to offer some thoughtful bits and pieces from reasonable perspectives on anything that crosses my mind, with the customary links to different other sites, blogs and posts.
So we'll see. This won't be as big a deal as Instapundit.com, or AndrewSullivan.com, or ArtsJournal.com or MobyLives.com, or Lileks.com, or AlaindeBotton.com. But in a small way, I'll try and carve out a little bit of web room for thoughtful, reasonable, and interesting items that others might miss, and bring them to attention when I can.
And put in my two cents, every once in a while, for what it's worth.
For those who remain...
What I hope will be a little different in this site is the orientation. I spent last year living in Uzbekistan, and on returning to the USA was a little surprised by how shrill everything seemed. Granted that I had been living in an authoritarian state, but the over-politicization of almost everything in the land of the free seemed a little ridiculous. There were such sharp divisions between the "Red" and "Blue" America that almost every topic was seen in partisan terms. Frankly, it was disappointing. There didn't seem to be much but Bush-Bashing or Bush-Cheerleading to choose from.
And everyone seemed to have gone off the deep end. No one appeared to want to be part of what used to be called "the vital center."
Where had all the centrists gone? Long time passing...
So, after stewing in a funk for a while, I said, what the heck, I'll join the pool party and start a blog of my own. The idea, at least for now, is to try and be a little bit thoughtful. I hope the undertow doesn't pull too strongly, that this doesn't degenerate into something shrill or partisan. And to offer some thoughtful bits and pieces from reasonable perspectives on anything that crosses my mind, with the customary links to different other sites, blogs and posts.
So we'll see. This won't be as big a deal as Instapundit.com, or AndrewSullivan.com, or ArtsJournal.com or MobyLives.com, or Lileks.com, or AlaindeBotton.com. But in a small way, I'll try and carve out a little bit of web room for thoughtful, reasonable, and interesting items that others might miss, and bring them to attention when I can.
And put in my two cents, every once in a while, for what it's worth.
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