Sam Tanenhaus reflected yesterday, in The New York Times*, on the unexpected similarities between Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley, Jr. The piece caught my eye because I just finished a section in my manuscript on Mortimer J. Adler’s multiple Firing Line appearances and his interactions with Buckley.
In writing about both figures a prominent theme in Tanenhaus’ piece was elitism in U.S. intellectual history—the class solidarity that bound both. He finds other parallels, which I will point out below. But I’m most interested in larger thing Tanenhaus is trying to do in the article: write about emotion in the context of U.S. intellectual history.
Before going there, let me relay the last third of Tanenhaus’ article, particularly these passages on American exceptionalism in the context of the Vietnam War (YouTube link moved here from earlier in the story):
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Buckley and Mr. Vidal both subscribed, though in very different ways, to the ideal of American exceptionalism — …[particularly its] susceptib[ility] to foreign infection. Mr. Vidal feared the evils of empire building…and warned against the decline that had overtaken other civilizations brought low by imperial hubris.
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Again, I love the Vidal-Buckley parallels in relation to iconoclasm, elitism, American exceptionalism, cavils from critics (e.g. effete), and fears of distorted images. For me this says that the so-called conservative-liberal divide of the post-war period is more, among intellectuals anyway, of an intramural contest within liberalism. That contest was about shades of American liberalism, not a rejection of the larger project of liberalism.
As a professional historian (but not as a person with feelings of disgust) I very much appreciated (loved?) the visceral dislike and passion in the YouTube clip. It’s rare to see that kind of open emotion, on air or otherwise. But it’s not surprising given the period. To paraphrase today’s cool kids, “That’s what Vietnam do.”
It’s hard to top the source when one is writing about events like that—hence the link to the clip in the NYT article. How are you, dear reader, capturing emotions in your USIH work? How does one write about emotions effectively, and concisely, in age of multimedia? How can a traditional media article (journal, newspaper), with its two-dimensional limitations, convey the essence of an event best remembered for the passion conveyed in three dimensions? It seems that a YouTube clip is worth a thousand words. – TL
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* Since it’s only August 2, I’m going to assume that you can read the piece because you haven’t used up your ten free online NYT viewings.
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Interesting subject-My take on the this exchange is that you get more emotion than substance and a strong sense these two don’t like each other. I don’t know if you recall or have seen the Norman Mailer vs Gore Vidal exchange on Dick Cavett but the results were similar. All 3 of these folks (Buckley, Mailer, Vidal) had rather prickly personas.
I realize this is a little off topic but the
interviews between Buckley and John Galbraith would certainly highlight a classic liberal vs conservative discussion.
As an aside, did you look at the youtube that featured Woody Allen and Buckley. It was very funny and had a particularly interesting comment by Buckley about Israel and the “benefits of war”. I think he was really speaking to the anticipated benefits of the war in Vietnam but it provides an interesting irony.
Paul,
You’re probably right about the emotion-substance ratio. Still, we can’t underestimate emotion (e.g. repugnance!) in the spectrum of factors driving the New Right. And, having just reviewed an interview of Cavett with Mortimer Adler, I’d love to see a video or transcript of that Vidal-Mailer-Cavett exchange. If I remember right from a Vidal obit I read, Cavett turns against Vidal in that exchange.
I haven’t seen the Allen-Buckley exchange.
– TL
Here’s the Allen-Buckley discussion: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNErWi_lTig&feature=related
and the Vidal-Mailer-Cavett exchange: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8m9vDRe8fw
It’s all on YouTube, my good friends. Alas. (It seems kind of cooler to think the footage was lost or stashed away in some dusty TV archive.)
By Allen, who do you mean? Woody? I saw a Woody Allen interview with WFB (also on YouTube). Pretty wild. As I remember it, Israeli politics was part of the talk. The WFB Crossfire (and other) interviews are good watching. The best (and weirdest) I think was the one with Huey Newton.
JL
Sorry, Paul. I was replied kind of blind from Google. I didn’t see your original reply post.